I’ve discovered TED talks on Netflix. This is important because it gives me something short to watch while I’m on my rebounder, so I’m not forced to choose between stopping in the middle of a story or staying on the trampoline (or off it) to watch the rest. And it doesn’t pull me into other worlds as watching a TV show would, which is important because I’m editing. The world I live in and the world I’m editing are enough to keep track of, thanks.
Also it’s extremely interesting. Check out authentichappiness.org or go have a look at SuperBetter, to name a few of the things I’ve been learning about.
The main thing I’m thinking about today, though, came from Graham Hill who talked about becoming a weekday vegetarian.
Like Mr. Hill, I know many reasons to be a vegetarian. I know that Americans eat way more meat than we should. I know that raising meat is not only horrific for the animals, it’s deadly to life as we know it. Along with those facts, as someone who grew up on a farm, I know that most meat I can afford doesn’t really taste good–not when I compare it to what it could be, anyway. I knew about grass-fed beef long before it became trendy, of free-range chickens who ate a variety of wholesome foods before becoming food themselves. I can tell you that’s not a bunch of New Age or whatever†BS–there is a difference, you can taste it, and it’s amazing.
I worry, too, about all the things I’m eating when I eat meat. About the antibiotics fed to animals to keep them healthy in their horrific conditions. Of the feeding of animals to animals. The preservatives, the salt, the unsanitary conditions of both their lives and their deaths.
But, as bad as it is for me, as poor as it is compared to what I’ve known, I really like meat. The number of vegetarians I know is hardly an adequate sample, but I’ll tell you something–I don’t know a single vegetarian who really likes meat. A person who doesn’t like meat claiming the moral high ground for being a vegetarian is like the person boasting how easy it was to quit smoking when they never inhaled.
So there’s always been that block too. I know how to cook with meat. I know how to make a meal around it, and I love eating it. I also love the convenience of it–it’s really hard to get decent vegetarian food in a hurry. Order a salad from a fast food place if you don’t believe me.
But–all the reasons for giving up meat! So slowly, as I learn how, I think I will adopt this weekday vegetarianism. Because it is a false binary, that if I’m going to be a vegetarian I must only, always, be a vegetarian.
It is. It’s a false choice. There’s plenty of room between carnivore and herbivore. Most of us live there, in fact–we’re omnivores. There’s nothing that says I can’t just move a little further along the spectrum than I’m accustomed to eating.
People will judge, of course. They always do. It’s that good old all-or-nothing mentality again. From the people who told me that I couldn’t get healthier by changing my diet from anything and everything to salads with ranch dressing. (I had to go with fat-free Italian, or it wouldn’t make a difference!) Through the guy who told me that changing from bologna sandwiches on white bread for every meal to stir-fries wouldn’t help if I used oil to make the stir-fries. (Oil has fat in it!) To the people who think if I eat an ice cream cone or a piece of pizza I’m a weight-loss failure (you must SUFFER to lose weight!) And on to the people on Facebook who, every time another mass shooting happens, start yelling that we shouldn’t bother with background checks because we’ll never take the guns from everyone!
Maybe it’s different where these people live, but the world I know is not binary. Gradations exist. Compromises can happen. In the world I know, if I’m dying for a Whopper with Cheese, I can have it with a Diet Coke, because dammit there’s 272 calories in a 32oz regular Coke, and maybe I budgeted my calories for only the 700 of the Whopper.
I can eat a Whopper without betraying my weight-loss efforts. We can ban some people from buying guns without saying no one should have guns. I can be a vegetarian five days a week.
And it will make a difference. The world is not black and white. The choices are not solely red and blue.
There is no spoon.
†I’m not passing judgment, just acknowledging that a lot of people, me included sometimes, lump all this “new” stuff together and call it hooey. We’ll learn. Probably.