Basically I dabble with the idea of being a vegetarian every six months. I always change my mind. However, as this particular freeze-thaw cycle has progressed, I have learned some super interesting things about our bodies, and animals. This is in no way a criticism of any way you choose to feed yourself and your family be it vegan, vegetarian, paleo, low-carb, high-carb, or "....as long as it's followed by dessert." Since I've met a lot of people like me (vegetarian dabblers unite!) I figured I'd pass on what I've learned, considered, found interesting. And whatever you do, more power to you.
1. Animals are smart.
Mother Nature didn't make no fools. You can rest assured that you are smarter than the meat you're eating. However, intelligence between animals has nothing to do with whether we eat them or not. Pigs are more intelligent than horses. Octopodes* are smarter than dolphins. And while lobsters are taxonomically on par with beetles--they are smart enough that the vast majority of them can out-maneuver lobster traps.
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| Your dog can fetch, but I can play hide and seek |
Just embrace that particular meat taboos are strictly cultural, not moral. There's nothing innately wrong about eating cat more than there is anything innately right about eating tuna.
Personally, animal intelligence was never motivation enough to become vegetarian for me. A multitude of papers have been written about cellular intelligence, and judging from the fact that plants are often more genetically complex than animals (sweet potatoes have twice as many chromosomes as you), you could probably prove plant intelligence if they moved fast enough. See first sentence about Mother Nature.
2. Whoa B12
It's a little bit of a miracle that we're alive. We rely heavily on our food to keep us functioning and being a vegetarian is difficult. Not because you have to give up tasty bacon, but because you have to be smart about it. I admit it. I'm too lazy.
Did you know that all naturally-occurring sources of B12 that you can reliably absorb come from animal products? If you're not taking supplements, the generally highly nutritious vegetarian diet could mask B12 depletion until you have symptoms with your nervous system. Crap. But like I said, it's the difference of remembering to pop a Flinstones every couple of days or have a few bowls of Cap'n Crunch, so not a huge deal. Just an example of our physiological reliance on our food. If you do decide to eat meat you might consider giving thanks to your next meal for all the amazing things your meat is doing for your body that you don't have to think about.
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| Spirulina, does have B12 in it but in a form that's very difficult for your intestines to extract |
3. Free-Range, Grain-fed, Grain-finished, All Natural---these labels are worthless
Feedlots and factory farms can apply all of the above to their packaging with zero modification from the norm. If you're worried about how ethically your meat has been raised (which you should probably consider), grass-fed and/or pasture-raised are good starting points. However these labels aren't regulated, so caveat emptor. You could also buy your meat from local farms, a co-op, or Whole Foods (which has an animal ethics rating system). But if you lack the funds for those options, here's "The Frugal Guide to Ethical Meat."
Chicken and cows have been bred to withstand the horrid conditions they are too frequently raised in, so buying more fragile kinds of meat ensures that they have been treated somewhat well. For instance, sheep have a really poor resistance to worms so they can't be overcrowded without dying--this equals a loss of profit for the rancher. Thus sheep ranchers are incentivised to not overcrowd their flocks. If you've never seen lamb or mutton at your local grocery store, fear not, Mexican meat markets or carnecerias are pretty universal, usually sell sheep (and sometimes goat, score!) and are economically priced. You might want to be forearmed with the pertinent Spanish translations for the particular type of meat your are looking for.
In addition to sheep and goats, waterfowl also can't survive factory farms, so if you can find them, duck and goose are good options. However, they tend to be pricey.
4. Organic Dairy...is iffy.
Not like harmful iffy. Just yucky. If you stop by the hippie partition of the refrigerated section (which, kind of awesomely, exist in all of the stores in my town), you'll notice that all (or almost all) of the milk labelled organic is also labelled "UHT" or "Ultra-High Temperature Pasteurized" or simply "Ultra-pasteurized." I'm not getting into the raw vs. pasteurized milk debate. I'm just saying that regular milk is pasteurized and has a refrigerated shelf life of a 1-2 weeks. UHT milk on the other hand has an unrefrigerated shelf life of 6-9 months.
Plus, sometimes antibiotics are good. If you've ever known a woman that had mastitis, you know that infections are painful and it might be more humane to treat the cow. I'm lucky and there's a local farm that delivers milk to the normal grocery store. Good luck with meeting your dairy ethics, it can be a little tricky.
5. You can use more of the animal than you think
If you want to be respectful of the concept that something died so that you could live, it gets a little harder to throw away the neck and giblets from that whole bird you just defrosted. You could be really zen about this and get into eating feet and offal, and I applaud you if you are one of those people. However, if you have a normal aversion to that kind of thing: broth and rendered fat are your best friends.
Every time I get cook chicken I throw the bones, skin, and gristle-y, fatty pieces into a collection bag in my freezer along with carrot, onion, bell pepper, and celery trimmings. When the bags full I make stock. Beef, lamb, and pork bones are great for simmering with bean dishes as is, or you could make mixed stock if you don't have enough of each to make separate batches. Homemade stock/broth is the bomb, and more tasty than any can or box you can buy.
And save the fat. All the white fat that rises to the top of your leftovers is rendered and has a pretty good shelf life if you keep it covered. Schmaltz (chicken fat) is particularly good for eggs. And why use butter to lube your cornbread pan if you've got bacon grease. Saturated fat is delicious and may not even be bad for you. I keep mine in different ramekins for each type.
ramekin: n. the little ceramic bowls they serve creme brulee or au jus in. Owning one is a sure sign that you have watched too much Food Network at one point in your life.
Have fun storming the castle,
Stephanie
P.S. I'll get to aviation next week ;)
*Yep, octopodes, the plural of octopus.
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