Day 5 Vegetarian

Thought I'd give you the update, those of you who are interested, on my progress into the meatless world. After the "Why??!" comment, I got a couple others:

"Where will you get your protein?"
um, nuts, beans, eggs, yogurt, leafy green vegetables, peanut butter, soy, the list is quite long actually.

"You don't eat that much meat anyway." and "People having been killing animals for food forever."

Well, yes, and yes. But still. It's not like I go down to the farm 5 miles away and put an order on a cow- a free-ranging, grass-fed cow that will feed a family through the winter. It's so easy to pick up a package of meat at the grocery store, I don't even give it a second thought anymore. That the animal was penned, given antibiotics to stay healthy under unhealthy conditions, hormones to grow bigger than nature intended, and hauled to the slaughterhouse with many, many, many, many, many others. Because I like meat.

I read two articles in the paper in the last two days. One talked about the FDA considering lifting the ban of sales of meat from genetically modified animals. The other was that the dairy industry in China has come under scrutiny for adding a chemical to their milk to artificially increase the protein content. Yea, it's China, but they export. (And the Chinese don't even normally have milk as part of their diet. That is, until they became more westernized.) This is a little scary.

I like a big 'ole whopping cheeseburger off the grill as much as the next guy. But where does it end? It's also a whole lot easier to throw away all my paper, plastic, aluminum, and cardboard in my open garbage can at home than to haul it 10 miles away downtown. But then, at what point do I start caring that our landfills are filling and start doing something about it?

It's the same thing. If I can't even bring myself to read about what happens at a slaughterhouse, when do I start caring about it? And if I care, when do I do something?

So, in short, that's my reason "why." And so far, at least, I don't miss meat.