I have been counting down the days until my birthday (February 6th), when I would make my nigh-annual attempt at vegetarianism. Past attempts have lasted from 1 month to 6 years, but I have consistently given in to the craving. Simply put, I like eating meat. These attempts have been made only because I realize that, in our society, it simply isn’t necessary. Thus, these attempts have consistently ended when I justify my actions: that the pleasure I get from eating meat is > the pleasure I receive from not (let’s face it, needlessly) taking part in the killing of animal life.
I understand that the last part of that sentence will start some quibbles. There are many other reasons I’d rather not eat meat (e.g. the amount of resources necessary to produce a pound of hamburger) - and I know some people will say that one individual (myself, in this case) choosing to not eat meat will have no impact whatsoever on said industries.
For this experiment, I’m not concerned with any of those things.
I want to focus on why I keep failing: I don’t need meat - I want meat. The justification usually goes something like this: “If the naysayers are correct, and my not eating meat isn’t actually saving a single animal life, then I may as well keep myself as pleased as possible, and go make a bacon explosion.”
The rest of this story gets complicated quickly, and owes itself almost entirely to the work of Daniel Quinn (my new favorite author - if you’re tagged in this note, you’ll be hearing more from me about him in the near future, I’m sure) and some recent discussions his work has spawned. Ultimately, here’s the deal:
I (really, we. . .) eat whatever the hell we want. Budget it out, and monthly, we spend a gross amount of our incomes to please the wants of our diets. I’M NOT SAYING THAT THIS IS A “BAD” THING. I’m saying as a short experiment, I want to see what life is like, and how difficult it is, to break that cycle - to try to eat like I’m doing so to survive (fuel biological necessities), rather than as a commercial activity. This is the important part, though: its obviously possible to accomplish this - I want to see if I can reach the point where I don’t MISS my favorite foods. I’d like to try to attempt to remove that crutch.
FINALLY, the experiment:
THE GOAL, SIMPLY: EAT TO LIVE, RATHER THAN LIVE TO EAT
From February 7 to March 1, I’m going to attempt a sort of hybrid, commercialized, foraging-esque diet. I want to simulate a grocery-store-foraging expedition of sorts (N.B. this is the beginning of what may or may not be a series of such experiments, so bear with me, trying to start small and figure this out). I’m going to make a list of 50 inexpensive food items that are at least fairly nutritious, mostly vegetables, with fruits and other foods less well represented (including fake-meat, and fish). I have a random number generator on my ipod (ranging from 1-100, anything above 50 will be a re-roll). I will eat only whatever food corresponds to whatever number comes up, no cheating, for 3 weeks.
1) if you’ve read this far, and you at least understand what I’m attempting to do, any suggestions on how I might do this better?
2) anyone interested in giving this a try with me? C’mon, you’ll learn something about yourself!
3) if ya wanna grab a meal with me at a restaurant, please do it before my birthday!
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I'm a little confused about what/how often you'll be eating. So you get your random number and you only eat that one food for a whole meal? Like say you roll a #17 and it corresponds to oranges will you just eat oranges until you're full? And how many times a day do you plan to do this? Maybe you could make your list of 50 or so food and roll a number between 5 & 10 and only select that many items from the list for that meal. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteGood luck Mike! I didn't eat fish or meat of any sort for almost 6 years and the reason I finally caved and started eating poultry and fish was basically b/c I missed going out to eat with friends and being able to order something other than a salad and french fries (this was 15 years ago, before it was trendy to be vegetarian and restaurants started adding vegetarian options). Although, now I don't typically order meat options when we do go out to eat, I prefer to know where my animals come from and how they're prepared. I try to obtain it from local farms which IMO is better for the animal, me, and the environment. Anyways, the point is, what you're attempting is possible, not easy, but possible. I can't wait to see how it goes!