Why I continue to be a Vegetarian

Over the last few months I've been getting a lot of questions to why I became and stayed a vegetarian. This year is my 10^th year of being a vegetarian. These questions, while I often answer and small soundbites, are actually very complex in nature. So I decided to write a post about my personal experience to why I became and why continue to be a vegetarian.

I originally became a vegetarian for health reasons. I was sitting in my lunchroom with my friends when we were eating some chicken nuggets. We joked about how the chicken nuggets were not “real meat”. It was then that I told my friends I was going to stop eating meat. I took up the challenge to stop eating meat. Little did I know how hard it would be.

Growing up in the rural South, all I knew was meat. Meat is a very intimate part of Southern living. Growing up and working on a farm provided me ample opportunities to know the meat that we eat. Deer hunting is a seasonal thing. Growing a chicken from a small egg to a chicken, and naming a piglet “Floppy” to watch it become full-grown was a part of my life from birth until my mid-teen years. The act of killing these animals and eating them after raising them was my way of life.

Everything was enhanced by meat. Salads to vegetable soup ---- nothing was complete until I had meat in it. And in a way, becoming a vegetarian was surrendering part of my Southern identity. In a way, I was also becoming less complete by taking on the challenge. But it was just a challenge. I could stop in a month or two. Growing up in this world and seeing the meat that I ate and the difference between the meat at the school cafeteria and the meat we started buying in the grocery store (as small farms started to close) also created a cognitive dissonance. It was not the same meat I grew up with. Continuing that life --- and that way of consumption, would be disingenuous as well.

So I originally started vegetarianism from a bet. I continued vegetarianism for the first few years due to the health benefits. There is a lot of evidence promoting the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. From longer-lasting wellness, to improved moods, and from the increase in overall vegetable intake, vegetarianism has its pros. It also has its cons. There is growing evidence that omega-3 fatty acids, bone broth, organ meats, and seafood play a vital role in overall well-being. Vegetarianism like any "ism", is not an absolute. Rather it is like a sign pointing you in a direction that you can walk.

Why I stayed a vegetarian developed over time. There were (and are) many times I challenge my vegetarianism. I reevaluate my behaviors and my own biases to why I stopped eating meat. And if it was strictly personal, in the sense of pure health benefits, I would have abandoned vegetarianism a long time ago. Although vegetarianism has positive health benefits, there are many other ways to obtain the same effects by just reducing meat in your diet. Limiting the intake to once a day, or a few times every few days, gets you pretty far.

The reason(s) I have stayed vegetarian has become a moral one. While we have learned to produce mass quantities of meat products for our consumption, we have not learned how to do this in a way which is sustainable to the environments that we inhabit. Every day we do a ton of damage to our environments when we consume and produce factory farmed meat. It is by far one of the largest contributors to continued ecological detriments. And this cost is hidden. We do not see this damage often in our daily lives. It is not on the menu, nor is it on the plate when you eat. It is done miles, states, and continents away. It is done on massive scales --- but one that the consumer cannot easily measure when ordering a 6 pack of McNuggets from your car. 

By staying a vegetarian, I try to hold true to what I learned growing up on a farm. It’s how I try to personally lessen the damage on the environment that we as human cause by our over-consumption of meat. It’s how I renegotiate the relationship between my body and the environment. It is a choice I make every day, at every meal, and with every bite.

There is also the ethical treatment of animals. My own personal view on this matter is still developing. While it is obvious that animals are neurological-based beings and have degrees of feelings, emotions, cognition, and levels of consciousness similar to humans, rather not is ethical to kill these animals for our own consumption is a matter of debate based on a large number of other factors. While the ethical treatment of animals is a strong argument, it is not the only reason to be a vegetarian. Nor does it exist in a vacuum. Over time, I have personally found that the methods to which we use to grow, kill, and distribute large quantities of meat are far more damaging, practically speaking, then the ethical treatment of animals. This is not to underscore the ethical treatment of animals, but to broaden the debate and to challenge the assumptions of why an individual may choose a vegetarian or largely vegetarian diet.

Growing up on a farm taught me a lot of things. It mostly taught me my relationship to the environment to properly treat the methods by which we interact with our environment ---not passively but actively because we are also part of the environment. The argument that “I like meat, it tastes good, so I eat it” is only a part of the process. How that meat comes to your plate, how you cook it, how you eat it, and your relationship you develop in that process is much more intimate than the taste of the meat when you consume it. In a very real way no two slabs of steak are the same.  Floppy tasted different then all the other pigs.

This is not to say that will stay vegetarian forever. There may come a time where I decide to eat limited amounts of meat if I can determine that they are raised in a similar way that I grew accustomed to and if they do not interfere with the health benefits I have acquired from strictly a vegetarian diet. By remaining largely vegetarian I have simply made the decision a lot easier for me when I consume. Instead of questioning the source of every meat product, I can just enjoy my food. It's easier to opt out completely.

The relationships we develop in life are complex. Our relationship with food is no different. It is one informed by our experiences before we were even born. How we are challenged by this relationship and grow within it is a day by day, month by month, year by year, endeavor. It is not an easy one to negotiate with. But it is one of the most ---- if not the most important relationship. It is how we intimately consume and interact with the very world we are a part of. 

And this is why I have remained a vegetarian.