I have something of a weird relationship with eating meat.
Growing up, I've aways found it the most normal thing in the world.
Everyone around me ate meat, my family never really made a fuss about it either and seeing as I was really insecure about my masculinity for a really long time and tried to
compensate that by spending all my time in the gym and trying to become as big as I possibly could be, I always saw meat consumption as an irreplacable necessity.
In high school, I was always quite bothered by those hippie goodie-two-shoes trying to get everyone to to stop eating meat like they don't.
I found the whole ordeal miserable. Like they were adressing me as some kind of heartless animal hating freak for doing something perfectly normal; that is, just eat a ham sandwich.
I /knew/ that they were _technically_ correct in that it would be better if everyone stopped eating meat - that is to say, I never really held the perspective
that I was doing something better on any moral ground by eating meat - but the whole pushing it in my face thing was what got to me. I didn't go around putting those pigs in cages!
What difference would it make whether or not specifically this one extra person joined them in their moral war? Bessie the cow is going to be packaged in supermarkets tomorrow
morning whether I have meat-based dinner tonight or plant-based dinner. I'm powerless in the system and I'd just be shooting myself in the foo{t,d} by denying myself the meat I so
enjoy eating.
As much as I genuinely did believe this all to be true, it didn't really comfort me in my core. I knew that I'd find it much easier to be proud of being able to tell people that I
didn't eat meat than if I'd have to go around explicitly telling people that I do eat meat.
From that point on, something, somwhere deep inside of me, I knew that I'd be a vegetarian eventually... just not now. But the future, optimal "now" that I was comparing my current
"now" against, never came. I'd have to force a "now" that maybe wasn't the right moment, but was right enough to get away with.
I had some hiccups in the beginning for sure. At birthday parties, I'd catch myself grabbing a slice of pepperoni pizza, or other meat-based food. I'd always finish the slice or
bite, but make the agreement with myself not to take another one. My friends would also sometimes catch me grabbing something without thinking.
It became easier and easier, even to maintain my protein levels through lentils and chickpeas (which is also way better for your health and wallet, by the way).
If I was served meat without me asking - due to a mixup or mishearing or something like that - I would always eat it though, knowing that it would be worse to let it get thrown out
than to eat it.
These days, I find it difficult to engage in the discussion around meat. I've come to see how indefensible the meat industry is, but I don't really know how to talk to people who do
eat meat in a healthy way that can actually let the other person feel like I'm listening to them and respect them, but also want to make it clear to them that they're having a moral
blind spot in favor of food that they just happen to find tastier than the vegetarian food they're used to.
I still have a ways to go. I know that the dairy industry isn't much better than the meat industry, and it's not that much of an extra step for me to go full-on vegan, but perhaps
I'm just still looking for the right "now" to make that jump as well.
-----
Thanks for listening to my rambling. This is my first post here, I hope I'll find motivation to keep posting, and with a bit of luck, manage to do so while maintaining more structure
in my writing :)
