Valuing Animals
My journey as a vegetarian
This letter might be controversial to some devout meat-eaters. If you don’t want to read my opinion on the topic, skip this week’s edition, no harm done.
About three years ago, I went to my favorite sandwich shop, excited to get my regular. It was a classic Italian sub. It had great bread, sweet peppers, and tons of cured meat. I sat down with my wife, bit into it, and didn’t love it. Very anti-climactic, I know! I finished it, but it felt wrong the whole time. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was my turning point in being a meat-eater.
Over the coming weeks, I started to feel this way about the most basic of meats. Even the ubiquitous fried chicken wasn’t satisfying. I made, what I thought was, a rash decision. I told my wife that I didn’t want to eat meat anymore. She was shocked, as I have fought the idea of being a vegetarian for years. She was on board though, as she was a vegetarian earlier in life, and was recently thinking about going back. So, we took this journey together.
First, I had to think about why I was feeling this way. I needed to rationalize the change before making it 100%. Did my taste just change? Did meat not taste right to me due to aging tastebuds? Hell, was I sick? This was way before COVID, so that was definitely not it. I realized that it was a moral dilemma, one that I didn’t realize I was fighting internally.
I have always been an animal lover and environmental advocate, but I always felt like I needed meat. It was distilled into me by society. Meat was a key piece of every meal. I knew that it was inhumane and destructive to our planet, but it was a part of who I was as a human. After much deliberation, the dilemma boiled down to the fact that I respected animals too much to eat them.
We as humans claim that we are the superior race. Is it because we can communicate or build things? Or maybe because we have deep relationships with each other that can last a lifetime. If these are the factors, we are not. There are plenty of creatures on this planet that do that just as well as us. If you really want to nitpick, is it because we can do math and science? If that is the case, then why is our innovation in those departments killing our planet? The other creatures on this planet aren’t killing it, only we are.
I am not trying to be combative or make myself feel better for my choices. This is something that I have thought long and hard about. I thought about it for years before making the change and I still think about it. My family and friends that are not vegetarians challenge me all the time. They ask me if I miss it or if I feel as strong physically, etc. No, I don’t miss eating tortured and innocent creatures. There are some flavor notes that I remember loving and crave that flavor, but I have found many ways to replicate them with plants. I am a logical person and logically it's wrong and unnecessary.
The rational ah-ha moment for me was the idea that eating meat, of any kind, is simply eating processed plants. Think about it. What do all the animals you eat consume? The answer is plants - oh, and a lot of shitty filler and byproduct if they are bred in captivity. If you distill down the animals’ part in the process, they are a factory that processes the plants that you consume by eating them. Why not cut out the middle person? Why not just eat the plant?
Eating plants provides just as many nutrients as meat, just in a different way. When I stopped eating meat I was CrossFitting 5 days a week. I was not an extreme athlete, but I was an athlete. I was very worried that my performance was going to take a hit. It was a large part of my life at the time and I really didn’t want that to happen. I was doing cross-training, gymnastics, and olympic lifting in every training session. As soon as I learned how to eat as a vegetarian, my performance kinda skyrocketed. I saw about a 25 percent increase in weight PR’s (personal record) and a 20-ish percent decrease in timed workouts within a few months. Most importantly, I felt healthier.
Beyond performance in the gym, I just felt good. I didn’t feel weighed down by my food hours after consuming it. My stomach felt more stable and settled than ever. Strangely enough, my insomnia, which I have struggled with my entire life, also started to get much better around this time.
So, how do I eat as a vegetarian? It’s really simple, I just cut all animal meat. I still eat eggs occasionally and if there is no dairy substitute I’ll consume dairy, but mostly it’s all plants. I keep it simple but try to think as differently as I can. I still eat protein, carbs, and veggies in most meals. I also try to stay away from meat alternatives when possible, especially the heavily processed ones. Tofu, tempeh, beans, and protein-rich greens are my best friends. I have found some amazing vegan and vegetarian baking recipes too.
Resources are finite, why speed along their depletion?
I mentioned it earlier, but this change was also due to my environmentalism. The making of meat at a mass scale produces a lot of waste and consumes a lot of resources. The waste is mainly produced by the animal itself due to the way they are bred and grouped together. They produce a lot of carbon and methane, which destroys our atmosphere. The feed they eat and how their meat is processed consume a lot of the planet’s minerals and water. Resources are finite, why speed along their depletion?
The inhumanity of it is uncalled for. Imagine being raised in an animal stall, barely moving your whole life, just to be killed by the person that feeds you. I know that statement is hard to hear and sounds extreme, but that is because it is. These animals are treated so cruelly – they are overbred and murdered en masse. We as humans have committed terrible acts of murder to each other, such as war and genocide, but it pales in comparison to what we have done to animals.
Again, I am not here to preach in your digital inbox. I am here to share my learnings, foster conversation, and provoke meaningful thought. Eating animals is wrong, especially for a race of creatures that claim to be superior. The “more intelligent” race should know better. They should be able to come up with innovative solutions. These solutions should not require mass murder. We talk about peace with other countries and cultures during dinner conversation, while we eat a side of beef. Doesn’t that feel hypocritical?
For me, becoming a vegetarian consisted of a lot of unlearning. I unlearned what a meal looked like, what health felt like, and what humanity was. It started with my favorite sandwich but quickly spread into every facet of my consumption of food. For me, being a vegetarian is about valuing animals and being a good human.