The past year I've been dabbling in being a vegan.
It's been a really natural progressions - first we wanted to eat less meat (for the planet's sake), then Will discovered he was lactose intolerant. So there went dairy, and most meat.
Then I started reading vegan cookbooks. Delicious! A bit more effort at first, but now I've forgotten what it was like to cook with meat.
I then read a few books on eating animals (like "eating animals" by jonathan saffron foer, "the kind diet" by Alicia Silverstone) which had pretty much convinced me.
And the final blow was the movie 'Earthlings' with Jaoquin Pheonix. The image of a pig being skinned by spinning it around some blades, while alive, made me cry and almost throw up. Ditto with the cow having it's throught incorrectly slit then writhing around while being butchered. I forced myself to keep watching, sobbing, hoping it would stop me from ever eating meat again.
Those images do haunt me whenever I think about ordering something delicious on the menu, or taking a bite out of Will's hot dog, or pepperoni, or pulled pork sandwich. I won't ever order anything, or cook meat, but you know what, sometimes I do take that bite of someone elses food, and it's delicious. I'd just rather not support (with my money) the animal industry anymore. I know it's a bit of a cop-out: "I didn't buy it, but someone else did", but it works for me for now. I am not going to hem myself in by labelling myself vegetarian or vegan, but I can choose to live my life like that most of the time. Will's coworker Tent told me he considers himself a "vegan who eats meat occasionally" which I really liked.
There was a vingette in the book 'eating animals' where he talked about Kafka looking a fish in the eye at the aquarium and saying that he was so happy he could look it in the eye and not feel bad about eating it's brethren. I totally understand, I want to sing from the rooftops when I see a pig or a cow "I don't hurt you anymore!".
