You are a veg?

Lately, I have met more people who are vegetarian. And interestingly enough, they are vegetarian/vegan for three different reasons - none of which have to do with animal welfare.

First there is my friend, the Economics major, who is vegetarian because it does not make sense economically to eat meat. The resources used to consume a certain amount of calories is trivial.

Then there is the rather random student who overheard my friend and I's conversation about C.A.R.E. He recently told me that he went vegan because he wanted to "try something new." And that's it. Now he loves the way he feels, inside and out. Especially how awake he is all the time.

Finally, there is my dear friend who is vegan solely based on health reasons. And she loves it.

Knowing that there are these many reasons to take meat out of one's diet is great! But it makes me so frusturated that faced with all these reasons, there is still so much resistance to a veg diet.

I'm not naive.

I find it somewhat disturbingly comical that because I am vegan, people believe that I am overly sensitive to death or blood. There have been numerous examples, often small, where someone will end a conversation or not tell me something about an animal being hurt because they think that I do not want to hear about it. That I don't know what bad things happen to animals. That I want to be naive almost. Yet, I do want to hear about ways that are animals are exploited. That is why I am vegan, I am quite aware of animals because I have gone through the effort to face the disturbing aspects of animal exploitation in the United States.

But friends, when I walk into a room please do stop your conversation about that cat your heard in the news somewhere far away who was starved by their owner, because there is no possible way that I could bear to know a fact like that after watching Earthlings, reading Animal to Edible or Eating Animals.

I know that animals get hurt. And I know far more than the average consumer of how humans hurt animals. It disturbs me and I despise this violence towards animals, but I become more numb to it. And to think that others might find me to be unwilling to discuss animal death frusturates me.

Silence at the Table

Tonight is my grandmother's 74th birthday. A total of 10 family members will come to my parent's house to celebrate. If all goes according to plan, we will eat, drink, be merry and my grandma will begin this new year with joy. My mom is currently cooking up a storm of vegan topping for tacos, which will be delicious. But, other family members are bringing taco meat. A part of me is somewhat fine with this; the omnivores of the O'Connor and Nesbit clan are expecting it. But after reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, I'm not sure how joyous I will be observing most of my family consuming this taco meat. What animals are killed for taco meat anyway? I will probably be silent, not sharing my disgust at eating animals. And what will that accomplish? Will it be wrong of me to stay silent and allow reasonable people who I adore eat unreasonable food? How does that give justice to the eaten animal? Or is it wrong of me to voice what I know, make others feel uncomfortable, and put an obvious damper on the party spirit? I don't want to do either. I want to do both. I want to do what is right, but I'm not sure what that is.

It is difficult to know what is the better thing to do in the scheme of things. Hopefully I'll have a better handle of situations like this over the course of my lifetime.