I Don't Eat Meat... or Fish

I wrote a post last year about how I had drastically cut back on my meat consumption. Maybe it doesn't surprise anyone, but I have now entirely cut meat and fish out of my diet. Before I go into my reasons, I want to be clear that I write this post to explain my choice but not to proselytize. I don't think everyone can or should be vegetarian. But based on what I know, I have decided that I have to.

When I last wrote about this, I had said that I have cut back on my meat consumption because the way we consume meat in this country in unsustainable; there is intense pollution, significant contribution to greenhouse gasses, and animal suffering due to our current meat consumption practices. I still feel that cutting back on meat and purchasing from sustainable businesses is a great way to deal with these problems.

To be honest, I ended up becoming effectively vegetarian before I had decided that it was a moral necessity for me. The only place that I was eating meat at the time closed for about six months (fire), and during that time I ate no meat. So I realized I could and therefore should stop eating meat altogether.

But it was during that time and since that I realized I had to continue to avoid eating meat. And the main reason was that if I cared about animal rights, I couldn't feel good about the fact that the animals I was eating lead such short lives - even if they were good lives. For example, pigs raised for meat live 8 months, beef cattle 15-20 months, and chickens two months. I don't feel happy eating a chicken that only lived for such a short time.

Now, I recognize there is a problem with my logic. These animals are entirely domestic. Without our food system, they would not likely live at all. I don't have much of a response to this except that maybe in an even more perfect world we wouldn't eat any animal until 5 years. But then again, I don't know what this might do to the quality of the meat. The bottom line though is that I don't feel good about it.

All of this doesn't address why I don't eat fish. For that, I blame scuba diving. I love diving, I love the colors, the beauty and the peace. It is such an amazing way to see nature. And so I can't abide to eat fish when they are caught in a way that destroys these ecosystems. The deteriorating conditions of our seas are well documented and gaining more widespread recognition. Until there is an international solution to the overfishing, I will not contribute to a practice that destroys one of our most valuable and beautiful resources.

So there you have it. No meat. No fish. But I still eat eggs. Only free range and local, in case you were curious.