The summer after I graduated high school, I gave a moment to a thought that had been simmering in the back of my mind since I was a preteen—could I kill and process an animal in order to eat it? I grew up in a small town surrounded by forests and lakes brimming with creatures to be killed as well as farms full of cattle to be slaughtered. Eating meat in a place like this was even more ingrained than in others, given that hunting and fishing were the most popular sports and supporting the local economy meant supporting farmers.
I was one of the few people I knew who took issue with hunting—I enjoyed the fawns that wandered into our yard to eat crab apples too much to think of killing their mothers. I had long since given up eating fish (when your dad brings home six of them every night, you get tired of them), and as ugly as the average walleye is, something about it struggling to get back in the water was getting to me. My family for several years had been raising chickens, and as much as I despised their smell and incessant crowing, I couldn’t eat them when they were served to me.
In liberal college educated fashion, I got my first Compassionate Action for Animals packet when I came to the U for orientation. I paged through it when I got home, and the carefully-placed pictures of chickens in factory farms and piles of dead pigs combined with statistics about farming’s impact on the environment and what we could be doing with the food we feed to farm animals (fighting human poverty, for example) finally broke me. No more meat.
So far, I was influenced by personal ethics and a few facts about environmental and economical impact of factory farming.
I met a lot of other vegetarians when I started college—some who had been at it since they were children; some who, like me, were just beginning. Middlebrook UDS was pretty short on good food with meat in it (though I hear things have improved), and even shorter on tasty vegetarian options. I was dimly aware that my protein intake was pitiful and that I’d put on the Freshman 15 without drinking any alcohol, but without a car (the combined forces of the parking lottery and the pricing eliminated that option), the easiest place to grocery shop was downtown at Target (no bus changes, little waiting), and then I could only buy what was easy to carry for blocks and blocks and that could be cooked in a microwave.
When I was at home, I suddenly carried another stigma (being one of the only political liberals was already crime enough—being a vegetarian was just mind-blowing). In addition to having almost no vegetarian options in restaurants, my family didn’t have a clue how to cook a meatless meal, so I was fending for myself there, too.
About a year and a half after I started my personal crusade, I stopped getting my period. Then I would get it for six weeks straight. Then it would go away. Then I would have it so badly I couldn’t go to class—I had to be lying down and in close proximity to a bathroom at all times. I went to the doctor and explained. My stress levels hadn’t really changed; moving back and forth from my hometown and college hadn’t bothered me before; my sexual activity wasn’t meant to be a factor…the thing that was different was my diet.
She advised me to try to balance out my eating habits, and instead of trying protein pills or asking for extra tofu in the UDS line, I just started eating meat again. I got better, but looking back, it seems a lot like a placebo effect. I was sick of having so little to eat at UDS, I was sick of being judged at home, and to be honest—I missed eating meat. I started eating it again, some of the pressure on me lifted, and suddenly I was menstruating like a normal person.
The pressures that partially caused my personal ethics to fail: the U’s economic decisions (limited parking for a high price, bad food) and sociopolitical anxiety about my position as a vegetarian in my backwoods hometown.
Now I carry a new stigma: failed vegetarian (it’s an internal struggle—no one has ever mocked my inability to resist hamburgers). I care less and less what my hometown thinks of me and meet more and more dedicated vegetarians and vegans. Now what?
Currently, as reflected by my food log, I am living on all discount, store-brand foods, and what little meat I have is processed and put on sandwiches. My diet is definitely better than it was at UDS, but it’s a short jump to vegetarianism from here. Maybe I should make it.
Holly! I actually loved reading this post! I have had similar problems with changing my diet and having period problems. Its no fun. I think your post was particularly interesting because looking at it from an ethical standpoint, eating meet is just a really bad thing. It comes from killing animals, something that is not morally correct. Our society goes against the ethics of killing animals as we still consume meat!
ReplyDeleteOh, period problems. GIRL POWER!
ReplyDeleteWow, that would be really hard. Trying to do what you think is right and your body rebels against you like that. And it sucks about the period thing.
ReplyDeleteIf you do try to go back to vegetarianism, you should probably consult a nutritionist first. But I applaud you for standing up for your beliefs, and I know the animals thank you for that.
Oh, vegetarians; I know they're right, and the more philosophy I read, the fewer ethical escape-hatches I'm able to exploit on the way (back) to the hamburger stand. Someday, I know I'll make the leap, but alas, not today; I just stashed a kingly feast of leftover wings in my newly pizza-bereft refrigerator.
ReplyDeleteI did finally challenge myself to put my morality where my mouth was and go hunting this past year, though (which, in hindsight, would have made for a much better post than my McDonald's bit), and did in fact manage to shoot and kill a quail. I ate it the next night, and must say the whole thing was a complexly instructive experience. Now I can no longer pretend, as an omnivore, that there's no blood at all on my hands, regardless of how much is on my plate.
That said, picking steel pellets out of your food is even less appealing than it sounds.
Also, I was about to go off about how easy us guys have it and how I feel like even more of a wuss now that I know about the whole menstrual angle, but on second thought, I'm sure there are all kinds of humiliating sexual malfunctions waiting to befall the careless dietary daredevil. Although, to be fair, yours still sounds worse.