Max Fisher decided to become a vegetarian. His family thinks he's lost his mind. Excerpt:
I'm a vegetarian, you see, and learning to accept that many people will never accept my lifestyle is just part of living without meat. In fact, it's the hardest part, as I explain in this first installment of a series on reconciling love of food with the choice to live as a vegetarian.The story of how I came to be, as Anthony Bourdain put it, "enemy of everything that's good and decent in the human spirit," is similar to most. I'd long thought that eating a (once) living thing seemed fundamentally immoral, and I knew factory farming was as bad for the environment as its products were for my health. But I adored the taste of it--smoked salmon in the morning, a good burger for dinner, bacon at any time or place--and I doubted my ability to execute such a major transformation. So it went for years, with vegetarianism making sense to me in the abstract but seeming impossible in the actual.
The catalyst, the push that finally got me to overcome the fears that it wouldn't be worth it and the doubts that I could even do it, was that same impetus of so many changed lives: heartbreak. I needed something to take my mind off the hurt, and I was barely eating anyway. So I emptied the fridge, read a few articles on vegetarian nutrition--"take B vitamins, get enough protein"--and started my new life.
The first few weeks were tricky. I craved meat constantly, even in sleep--I dreamt about fried chicken every night. Restaurants were the worst: menus were like propaganda pamphlets, covered with warnings about the challenges ahead ("you mean you don't serve a single thing I can eat?") and succulently persuasive arguments to rejoin the carnivores surrounding me.
Eventually, I learned how to scan a menu for the edible-to-me dishes. Cheeseburgers, once a terrible temptation, don't even look like food anymore--they look like little discs of dead muscle tissue, which, it's easy for us to forget, is what they are.
That's when the real challenge started: coming out of the closet. I'd kept it a secret at first, in case I faltered or changed my mind. But soon I knew I was a veggie to stay, and that meant sharing it. I had no idea what I was getting into.
Read the whole thing. I can relate to some of this, as an Orthodox Christian. Learning to fast from meat and dairy on Wednesdays and Fridays, as well (especially!) during the lengthy fasting seasons, was hard at first. It took my first Great Lent, and learning to get along without meat and dairy for weeks, to make me realize how little meat I really needed. Going vegetarian -- vegan, actually -- within my main community (my parish) made it easier, and more normal.
I'd like to hear on this thread from people who have chosen to become vegetarians of one sort or another. How difficult was it for you at first? Did it get any better? What kind of support -- or lack thereof -- did you get from friends and family?
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One day in a business meeting, the food & beverage contractor at my facility (convention center) spoke to representatives from a large Pharmaceutical company about "free-range" this, "sustainable" that, and "humane" blah blah blah. I knew the guy spouting all this nonsense was a conservative like me, so after the meeting I asked him what was going on with all the hippie talk. He proceeded to tell me things I never knew about the meat industry and factory farms. I was really naive before that, so I was shocked. If it had come from a liberal I might have taken it with a conventional grain of salt. I did some research, ended up reading "Diet for a New America" and "Dominion" and have been vegetarian ever since. I first read Crunchy Cons around the same time, having discovered it during my many searches on the factory farming topic. I still eat eggs, free-range only, and cheese. I can't give up mozzarrella--too many fond memories of my Italian Grandma's cooking. I felt much better at first, but now I'm probably just used to it because I don't notice anymore. I've been able to keep my weight at a healthy level without effort. I'm not morally opposed to eating meat--just morally opposed to factory farming and modern slaughter methods. I even cook meat for family and friends when they're over for occassions. My original plan was to try not eating meat on a pilot basis, with the intent that if it didn't work out, I would eat only humanely raised and slaughtered meat. It's been three years and I've had no desire to eat meat again. It wasn't a difficult transition at all.
I've been a lacto ovo porko chickeno beefo vegetarian for nearly all my life, except for a very brief period early on where I subsisted entirely on milk.
What is the benefit of fasting from meat and dairy on Wednesdays and Fridays? Sincere question. Thanks.
I haven't eaten meat since I was 5. One of the cows got run over on the highway and my grandfather said he was turning her into steaks. I refused to eat her or any other meat after that. It was a trauma that was probably tied up in the trauma of my grandfather's dying of cancer and a general fear of death. My family tried to bribe me to eat meat -- "I'll give you $20 if you eat this hamburger" -- and tricked me -- "This hot dog isn't really meat. It's a vegetarian hot dog." My second-grade teacher forced me to eat turkey at school lunch and I threw up all over the table. My classmates and my family members thought I was weird and my diet was pretty much meat and potatoes without the meat. It wasn't very healthy. It's only in the last few years that I've learned more about vegetarian nutrition and there have been enough options available for me to eat tofu and rennetless cheese and soy milk and different types of vegetables. I have always had to accommodate everyone else when going out to dinner or attending a banquet and learned to eat beforehand or leave the plate untouched. When people try to cook for me they too often assume that they can merely pick off the meat and OK for me to eat. It isn't. They usually use ingredients I can't eat as well. I don't comment on it, but I won't eat something that isn't part of my diet either. I usually try to make sure that I can at least order a baked potato in the steakhouse I've been dragged to if we're going out to eat.
I became a vegetarian last October, I have two friends who already made the switch, and they thought I couldn't do it (or so I thought, it was a little ploy they tried to get me to see the light.) I said I will do it for a month, and the last meat I ate was 2 chicken mcnuggets. After a month I realized I felt so much more healthy.
My family is still pretty against it, although they support my wishes. My mother at Christmas time used to always use her mothers old recipe for noodles, which included chicken broth but were so delicious. I didn't even want to ask her but she stopped me and said hey kiddo, I changed the recipe a bit, instead of broth I used water and butter. This struck me as odd but she accepted the fact that I was not going to eat any of the pig flesh they were eating for dinner. I work at a McDonalds and on two different occasions I have taken Morningstar burgers to work to make a Big Mac, and people at work give me a hard time as well. All in all I feel so much better about myself though so good riddance animal flesh, hello vegetable protein!
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