Mostly Vegetarian

I'm an impressionable guy with strong convictions. It may be hard to win me over, but once you do, I can be pretty committed to whatever it is you were arguing for in the first place. More often than not, it isn't conversation or movies that win me over - it's books.

Two of the most important books, at least in my life so far, have been the Communist Manifesto and the Tao Te Ching. Both are hardly long enough to be called books, more like "manifestoes," and are brilliant because of their vagueness. By not getting too specific about anything, they are very relatable to life in every era. Neither are perfect, but both have changed my view of the world and had a deep impact on who I am as a person.

But these aren't the only books that have had an impact on me. From time to time, I come across one that really gets me to thinking; whether it's opening my eyes to the life of a boy in the Sudan (What Is the What) or making me question religious dogma or war (Cat's Cradle), completing a good book makes me (in my own mind at least) a better person.

This time, a book has really had an affect on me enough to change my daily habits, and because of it, I'm mostly vegetarian. I know that by using the qualifier "mostly" I'm leaving some space to slip up, but I don't think it's like being a "mostly" non-smoker or anything. I'm just cutting out all meat that has possibly been produced in a factory farm.

So this book that got me thinking is called "Eating Animals," and is something that I would never have picked up had it not been for the author, whose two previous novels "Everything Is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" are everything I want in a book and then some. Jonathan Safran-Foer, wherever he is, has had more of an impact on my life than my college education (and cheaper, too!). Back to this book, it's basically an investigative piece into the practice of factory farming, which is so bad for everything I can't even bring myself to finish off the bacon in my freezer. Foer also goes into the reasons behind his own diet and argues for and against both sides.

But this isn't a book review. That's just what got me started on my new and exciting lifestyle. No, I'm not even being sarcastic about the "new" and "exciting" parts. Every time I eat, I think about every ingredient and get excited about finding new foods. I even tried to cook the other night! (Of course, it took me about twenty minutes to mince garlic and thankfully, Marissa came to my rescue and worked the food processor for me. Thanks, Marissa.)

I just want to say this right now. I'm not a vegetarian. I'm still a sucker for a good piece of cheese, a hard-boiled egg and even a burger. I just need to make sure all those things come from a local farm where the chickens and cows aren't treated like commodities and the bottom line has nothing to do with saving (and making) money and more on what's healthy. I have never been an animal activist, and this lifestyle doesn't even require me to be one. There are so many reasons to care about where my meat comes from that caring about animals being slaughtered (humanely) is only the tip of the iceberg. Consider the cost of a dozen eggs at Wal-Mart. They're a dollar. And those eggs are already more healthy than those used in fast-food restaurants, which are even healthier than those used in elementary school cafeterias. But even Hannaford eggs are made from chickens who are forced to be pregnant throughout their entire (extremely short and disease-ridden) lives, and who are given no more than the size of your computer monitor's space to live their (painful, antibiotic-filled) lives. The ones that "live," anyway. The unlucky (see also: lucky) ones that don't make it to the cages are simply discarded in an incinerator or buried in mass graves. Ever drive past Tyson Chicken or Purdue? I have. It smells terrible. That's the smell of recently deceased chickens being set on fire mixed with tons (literally) of chicken shit with no long-term plan to take care of it other than to pile it into one place then start a new pile. Of course, Tyson and Purdue don't use their chickens for eggs. These chickens are pumped full of grain and antibiotics to make the chickens grow extremely large and fast, the growth of which is too fast for their tiny bones to catch up and causes what looks like an adult on a two-month-old body. Just think about a three-year-old kid being the size of a teenager. Do you think that kid would require medical attention, especially for all of his broken bones caused from his enormous, Mark McGwire-sized biceps? That's what those antibiotics are for! Just pump a bunch of those into his system and hope for the best. If he dies, well, then he's only in that unlucky (see also: lucky) 25% category that die before they're ready for slaughter. This is how 99(.9)% of the chickens we eat in America are raised, and that's how it saves you money making eggs a dollar a dozen and chicken nuggets on the dollar menu!

Trying to finish the meat in my freezer, Marissa cooked me a cornish game hen, a term which has no meaning when a Purdue wrapper is on the animal before cooking it. I tried to eat it but could not.

Trying to finish the bacon for the same reason, I thought of a pregnant sow, who like the egg-laying chicken is forced to be pregnant her entire life and confined to a cage that she can't even stand up in. Did you know that pigs have been proven to be as smart as dogs? Probably, but you forget about that when bacon is around. Do you think piglets are cute? And I know they're not as big as their brothers and sisters, but don't you think the runts are cute too? I'm not going to tell you what factory "farmers" do to the runts, who are obviously not given the same treatment as another pig who will undoubtedly grow larger than a runt. I don't know what's worse in this situation - ending the life of a suffering animal when it begins or after it has lived out its life (not a natural span, just a few months - enough for the animal to get fat enough) in pain and suffering in a cage with no sunlight.

So you know how on traditional "family" farms, cows and pigs and chickens shit and that in turn grows crops that they eat and so on... Well, on a factory "farm," where there is no grass for the animals to eat, and the animals are all crowded into fields, this shit ends up in big piles. These piles do more for global warming than cars. And yet, we're "trying" to change our habits on cars. Why? Because it costs us less to get more mileage.

But eating meat more consciously will not cost us less, so why should we change our habits? Well, eating meat more consciously will cost you more if you get sick from it. Remember the Avian "Bird" Flu? Guess where that came from? And the swine flu? And e-coli and '24-hour stomach bugs?'

You guessed it. Factory Farms. This is the price we're paying. Not at the store, but in hospitals and in our futures.

But you probably knew this already.

I know I knew most of this already, yet I never let myself think about it because it tasted so good. As a vegetarian band-mate of mine said as I attempted to tease him while cutting into a steak, "There's more to life than taste." I still thought he was crazy at the time, knowing that animals were harmed for the food to be in front of me, but blissfully, purposely ignorant of how it got to the table.

Do I want you to be a vegetarian too? No. Do whatever you want. I just thought I should share all this with you because I wish someone had shared it all with me. And if you find that any of the information I shared with you today isn't factual, please correct me. I didn't look any of the numbers up - I just finished that book and watching "Food, Inc." and it's pretty fresh in my mind.

So yeah, for everyone who questions my newest lifestyle choice, this is why.