I'm a vegetarian.

I'm a vegetarian.  Did that sound like some sort of confession? It's funny, a lot of vegetarians feel like we are somehow imposing on society or that we are treated as some sort of un-American, shame ridden subgroup of society. Sound outlandish and exaggerated? Maybe. I would say that I've been made to feel that way but since I know that I have the ultimate control over how I feel; i.e. I can't blame it on someone else; I will just say that when I first publicly stated that I was a vegetarian I felt like a child at her/his first confession.  

The movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" very aptly describes most people's understanding of the vegetarian when the bride told her parents that the groom and his family were vegetarians and they replied, "that's okay, we'll have lamb."

Pamela started becoming vegetarian when we first started going together. Over the past two years she has become predominantly vegetarian. That could be because I love to cook and she doesn't.   She thought that the Ted Talk by Dr Carl Safina on what animals feel and think had settled the matter and she was a confirmed vegetarian, but her desire for meat has come out from time to time.  (Usually she eats a few bites and decides that she didn't really want meat, but . . . .)

She had both of her knees replaced less than two weeks ago, so she's not out running around. She asked me a big favor this morning . . . . buy a chuck roast for my daughter, daughter's husband, husband's brother and her for Christmas Eve dinner. It's supposed to be a surprise for my daughter, so I'm going to have to wait to post this blog to avoid spoiling the surprise.

Over the years I have very successfully avoided meat counters in super-markets. Hunters' trophy pictures really, really upset me.  I understand that animals kill other animals for food. That doesn't mean that I have to like it or participate. Other animals don't take out their neighbor with a high powered rifle, pose for a picture and then discard the carcass. I bet humans would eat less meat if they had to take an animal down like a Mountain Lion; viz. chase it down or jump it from hiding and then kill it with their bare hands.(1) Like brother bear we are omnivores and can live without meat, and as humans we have choices that other animals don't have - viz. I can select my food and avoid eating other animals.

I didn't think that a trip to the meat counter would be all that difficult.  After all, I had spent almost 50 years in health care where I witnessed autopsies, surgeries, an unfortunately significant amount of death, worked in an ER and witnessed more than my fair share of grotesque traumatic injuries from six years on a rescue squad.  I had no idea what a chuck roast looked like, so Pamela showed me a picture on the internet. I should have known then that this wasn't going to be easy. I found that even just the picture made me very uncomfortable.

I did psychotherapy for 47 years so I recognized the signs and symptoms of anxiety as I parked outside the supermarket. I don't think I had a half dozen items on my shopping list but I took at least ten minutes or more in the produce department. Another man and I picked over the brussel sprouts and shared recipes. Those were the most scrutinized brussel sprouts you've ever seen. From there I moved through the bread aisle. Generally I can pick up a loaf of bread without even slowing down. Today I stood and compared breads. Yeah, sure!  I went through my list and successfully avoided the meat counter until there was nothing else on my list.

I felt a gripping in my stomach as I emerged from the bakery aisle into the area with the long rows of meat coolers.  I can't remember the last time that I actually walked up to the open coolers and looked at the contents nevertheless actually picking something up.  I walked past rows of pork, wishing that I didn't have to read all the labels. This is one time that I wish that they had big overhead signs - "Beef", "Pork", etc.  I finally found the chuck roast. Thankfully I had the choice of two packages both about the same weight and price. I picked one up and put it in my basket and promptly covered it so that it was out of my sight.

I know that there are Buddhist as well as others who focus on the term "sentient" and argue that fish are not sentient. Octupi, known on the menu as calamari, actually work together with eels to catch food. But I'm not going to get involved in such hair-splitting. I don't want to kill and eat sentient creatures - creatures that think - so I just don't eat any of them regardless of the extent of their cognition.  The Buddhist monk will never turn down food offered to him  even if it is meat. I'm not a monk, but I'm not only very conscious of waste but of the feelings of others who might have fixed meat for me without knowing. Thankfully I've only been in that position a couple of times in all these years.

Very honestly, I don't think anyone wants to hear the story of how I came to take the last step to being vegetarian. I do believe that there are three issues that keep around 75% of North Americans carnivorous: (1) the erroneous belief that one must have meat in the diet to have the proper nutrients. We are omnivores and therefore we can get sufficient nutrition without meat. Actually our intestines are specially designed for this task. Before the recent studies that showed red meat less than a desirable part of the diet, we have known that the vegetarian has a much lower rate of colon and related cancers because we do not have animal carcass rotting in our guts. We have very clean digestive systems. I also did my own long-term study, keeping track of every gram of protein, carbs, potassium, sodium, etc., I consumed. In the two plus years I kept this running log I found that I actually have a superior protein intake to almost any carnivore. In fact, my diet proves to be nutritionally far superior to my carnivorous family members.  (2) The Abrahemic religious teaching that other animals were purposely made for our pleasure and consumption removes any guilt that we are destroying another living creature that has an equal right to life.  Such an idea, to me, is absolutely absurd and only further exposes the homo spapien's extreme egocentricity. There are predators and carrion animals that are naturally designed to eat flesh. But you don't find them using some deity as an excuse for what they are. They serve a purpose. Humans are omnivores. We don't need to eat flesh. If we do, we need to own up to the fact that we are killing another sentient being that has just as much "right" to life as we do and not be wasteful. I know there are some extreme vegetarians who think meat-eaters are somehow "bad" but I'm not one of them. Just don't make an excuse for it. Many North American indigenous people, whose religion teaches that all animals have an equal right live, put a gift on the spot where they kill an animal as a thank-offering to the animal's spirit and make sure they use absolutely all of the carcass. (3) The third thing is the absolute fallacy that we are at the top of the food chain. We're only at the top of the food chain when we are in large numbers with weapons or staying in a town or city. In the wild, as we were for most of our history, there are a number of animals who are quite capable of killing and eating us. The ironic part of this is not only our unjustifiable arrogance but that those animals capable of killing and eating us really don't seem to like the taste of human flesh. That can, at times, be comforting.  I have found only two predatory animals who will kill a human and actually fed on and/or store the carcass and they are the alligator and crocodile.

I'm a vegetarian because I elect not to kill other sentient beings.  Some are vegetarians because it is a healthier diet. The end result is the same.  As a post script let me let you in on a little secret . . . we don't just eat mashed potatoes, green beans and salad.  We really like to have an entree with our meal. There are actually many more vegetarian entrees than carnivorous. The Indians are the undisputed world masters of vegetarian entrees and other cuisine. I went to an Indian restaurant when Pamela was in the hospital. They had two pages, small print on an 18x24" menu with nothing but vegetarian entrees. Surprisingly, Montana is the only state in the United States where I feel confident of finding a choice of vegetarian entrees on the menu. The Northern Lights Saloon is a 5 table restaurant in a 102 year old log cabin in Polebridge, Montana. Polebridge is a village of 15 people miles from the nearest paved road and totally off the grid - literally.  There are no telephone or power lines. It gets electricity from solar panels and has gas lamps for backup. The nearest town of any size, which is a small town of 3,000 is almost 50 miles away. Nevertheless, the Northern Lights Saloon always has at least two outstanding vegetarian offerings.  Knowing this you must admit it being a bit enigmatic that so many restaurants have no idea what to do with vegetarian guests.

The number of vegetarians in the US is rapidly pushing 30% of the population.  Almost none of us want our food to look or taste like meat.  And if you want to experience some of the most delectable medley of spices and flavors with a tantalizing  mixture of textures, join a vegetarian for dinner. But please don't ask "don't you eat chicken?"

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FOOTNOTES:
(1)  Actually there are very, very few homo sapiens alive who can run an animal to ground and kill it with their bare hands. That is probably why Dr. Yusal Noah Harari; professor of history at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. TED Talk 7/24/2015; hypothesizes that the homo sapiens would have gone extinct quickly had we not learned to work together in large groups.  There are few other animals we could kill bare handed.