why vegetarian?

In reading a blog post of Simple Savvy, I was prompted to answer the question of whether I care about animals' feelings. This was my response:

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Yes, I care about animals' feelings!!

Although, for about 25 years I did not, very much. Never pulled the wings off a butterfly or anything, but I ate every bit of meat my mother put in front of me, without a second thought about 'who' it really was... Even when that meat came from lobsters boiled alive.

Then I went with an older friend to a grad school summer picnic. Into the Connecticut countryside, through the gates of a long driveway, past a sweet baa-ing sheep (tied there to welcome us), to the farmhouse where I mingled with his ivy-league friends awaiting some yummy shishkebab-to-come. When it arrived I was horrified to learn that the lamb on the skewer was the very one who'd said 'hello' to me earlier.

I could not eat it, though my sensitivity did not persist beyond that afternoon.

Until a few years later, when I met another man -- one who'd been raised on a ranch in New Mexico, where they slaughtered their own chickens, pigs, and cattle for meat -- but one who grew up to be a vegetarian! Since I anticipated a lengthy association with him, I instantly became a vegetarian myself.

This was not a difficult transition at all. As simple as closing one door and opening another.

I envisioned looking into a cow's gaze and realized I did not want to take its life for food.

Now, he did eat fish, and because I was accommodating, I ate fish, too. But only for a few decades. I remember one winter we cleverly pried a salmon out of a stream in the Sierras, and clubbed it to death with tree branches. Blood everywhere. Cooked it over a campfire... but I couldn't eat that either.

Funny thing was he didn't actually like vegetables (no squash, no onions, no cooked tomatoes) so my kitchen repertoire was limited, and though I now live without him, I'm not the most informed or creative vegetarian cook. (Complicated by the fact that I now 'share' my parents' kitchen, and they've remained staunch carnivores.)

But I'm grateful for his initial influence and I cannot see myself ever losing sight of my aversion to eating animals.

We also kept a few chickens once we moved to a country house that had a coop. I learned how the egg industry is villainous to its chickens and we adopted several rescue birds whose beaks were cut off, and who had lived their lives in a space the size of a breadbox. Now I buy eggs only from small family flocks who are allowed to roam outdoors at will, and I only eat unfertilized eggs.

So I would say that my caring about animals --which includes even escorting most ants out of the house alive-- is the foundation of my vegetarianism. I do not see humans as supreme beings in the animal kingdom, and though I have no compunction against killing animals that try to eat me -- swatting mosquitos and such, I try to follow a live-and-let-live attitude regarding my food choices.

I am saddened, appalled, and enraged by modern methods of ranching and the 'mass murder' of sentient beings for food, especially when eating meat is unnecessary for human health.

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Perhaps one day I will find the gumption/time/resourcefulness to practice some great vegetarian cooking in Hunk and Bitchy's kitchen. Until then, I'll just be sure to close the door to my little room BEFORE they starting frying up the T-bone steaks.