The Art of Zen Living

“The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.”
Leonardo da Vinci, artist and scientist

I love meat.  I really do - as in “What?  If I can eat the entire 5 pound Porterhouse it’s free?  Bring me TWO of ‘em, medium rare!”  So no one is more surprized than I am that I’m even thinking about this, let alone dipping my toe into the waters.  Here lately, it seems like I’m eating less and less meat, partly because I’m enjoying trying out new bean recipes and lentils and other healthy alternatives, but also partly because my beliefs have started to shift.  It doesn’t take much research to find out that the animals we rely on for meat are treated really badly, and go through a tremendous amount of suffering.  I’d heard about it before - we all have, really.  Hearing about it and seeing the pictures, or the video, are very different things.  When the video of workers using a forklift to torment and torture the “downer” cows came to light earlier this year, it became very difficult for me to continue to ignore what goes on in our nation’s meat factories (let’s face it, these animals aren’t raised on farms anymore).  Between eating less meat and not wanting to support big agri-business, I’ve decided to try and live as a vegetarian for 2 weeks, and see how it effects my health, happiness and lifestyle. This isn’t the only option out there. You can have your meat and support sustainable non-industrial farming, too. If I don’t like the vegetarian life, that’s my fallback plan.

This all sort of started out as an experiment in frugal living.  How cheap could I actually live?  Could I feed myself on $20 a week?  What about $10?  Less than that, even?  So I bought a couple bags of brown rice, and a variety of dry beans - Great Northern Beans, Black Turttle Beans, Kidney Beans, Small Red Beans, Lima Beans, Pinto Beans and Navy Beans.  I had no idea that there were that many kinds of beans.  I’ve learned that with beans, some fresh vegetables to mix in, a crock pot and whole grain rice, I can eat quite happily on any given day.

Since I’ve been doing that, I’ve started to question why I’m not doing it more often.  Eating vegetarian certainly has health benefits for humans.  This is especially true for me - if I’m going to take the time to eat a vegetarian diet, I’m going to eat healthy items.  I’m very aware that “vegetarian” doesn’t equal “healthy”.  I’ve know a lot of vegetarians that eat a diet of straight crap.  If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it for reasons I consider to be skillful ones.  I’m looking to make a healthy decision for myself, to eat in as frugal a manner as possible, to limit the amount of suffering created in keeping me fed and alive, and finally to contribute as little as possible (and not at all if I can help it) to non-sustainable practices.

So from June 9th to June 23rd, I will eat a vegetarian diet.  At the end of those 2 weeks, I’ll decide if I think I can eliminate meat from my diet entirely, or if that just isn’t something I’m ready to do yet.  Something else I had to consider is what do *I* feel is “vegetarian”, anyway?  After doing a bit of research, I found that there are a variety of vegetarian diets.  I knew I wasn’t going to be a vegan.  I knew I couldn’t cut eggs out - I like to bake, and lots of recipes call for eggs.  I’ll do some research and find out which companies treat their chickens kindly, or try to source local eggs.  I was surprised that I could consider cutting milk out of my diet.  I’ve been using soy milk for the past month or so - it’s more expensive than regular milk, but a whole lot less expensive than half and half.  Half and half was the only dairy product I’d buy, for my coffee.  Then I’d water it down if I needed milk for cooking.  Soy, as it turned out, works great in everything I use it in.  Then I remembered cheese.  I enjoy cheese.  On everything.  And as a snack, straight up.  String cheese, cheddar cheese, American cheese, feta cheese - you name it.  In the end, I decided that for this experiment to be worth while, I’d need to make some effort at it, so I settled on being an ovo vegetarian (also known as eggetarian - how funny is that?).  I’ll eat eggs, but no dairy.  Also allowed will be seafood.  If you take vegetarianism and add seafood, what you get is pescetarianism.  Can you understand why I started to feel more confused, rather than more knowledgeable, as I researched vegetarianism?

So that’s the challenge.  2 weeks, no meat or dairy, minimal fish and eggs.  Over the course of the experiment, I’ll be sharing some of the recipes I’m trying, and how the diet is working out.  I’ll be tracking things closely in fitday so I can keep an eye on my nutrition, and make sure I’m getting everything I need in my diet. I suspect I’ll find it interesting, I hope to find it useful, and while I know I’ll learn something, I have a feeling it’s going to be a bit of a challenge for me.