Some thoughts on where I am with vegetarianism....
I have been a "vegetarian" for the last several years and it has been great. Many of our eating habits changed, we have adopted a much healthier lifestyle in general but in the last 6 months this has begun to feel restrictive. I always feel bad when I am at someones house and they are struggling or scrambling to find something the vegetarians can eat. I appreciate this for sure but I don't mind eating meat and occasion and do when I choose to. So it doesn't seem that the term vegetarian fully fits our family.
Some of the irony of our life is that my husband works for a deli meat company! He is more and more frequently bringing meat home as a part of his job. New flavors or styles they just got in and need to sample etc. I cannot in good conscious turn down free food. It certainly helps out the grocery budget.
We never became vegetarians because we were "against meat eating", we wanted to be healthier and in all the reading and research we did eating more vegetarian made sense to us. On a smaller scale there was consideration of the treatment of animals and the practices of big companies providing our meat to us. These are good things to be aware of. We have a God given mandate to care for the earth and this includes animals. We need to be aware of where our food comes from and how it was grown whether meat or vegetable.
All that to say I don't want to call myself vegetarian anymore. It's not accurate and I find myself feeling guilty when I eat a bite of turkey that Mark brought home and feel like it is something I need to hid because I am supposed to be a vegetarian. I want to feel free in all areas of my life and this includes how I choose to eat.
It sounds a bit like I am justifying myself and maybe I am to an extent. Mostly, I want my friends and family around us to know that we are okay eating meat. If you serve us some chicken or BBQ (yum) we will eat it and gladly. We don't eat it very often and are not becoming raging carnivores. :) We will never be big meat eaters and are very satisfied without it. I love the challenge of cooking vegetarian and even vegan. It's fun!
So what are we? I don't know, your guess is as good as mine. Vegetarian, Flexitarian, Nutritarian, or just meat snobs as my husband would say. Ha!
Who knows... all I can say is that we want to be healthy, conscious eaters whatever the choice. (just don't judge me when I eat the occasional hot dog!)
Well, there you have it. My pride hurts a little just writing this if I'm completely honest. That is part of why I decided to put it all down here. I needed to. I don't want to be a closet meat eater when everyone thinks I am a strict vegetarian. Pride puffs you up and tries to make you appear to be something you are not. I don't want to be prideful about my eating choices and I definitely don't want to appear to be someone I am not. Know me and see me for who I really am. Isn't that the cry of everyone's heart when it's all said and done.
For whatever reason vegetarianism has been linked to a certain amount of pride in my life and I was to be completely rid of that! I may choose to eat meat or I may not but I feel free to make that choice, and choose differently on any given day.
Let me know your thoughts and thanks for listening! :)
I had forgotten about your food preferences, and it never crossed my mind when you came down on the 4th. I think it's great that you are so gracious and not condescending in what you choose to eat (which is why I had forgotten).
ReplyDeleteI like the term "meat snob" - that's kind of what we are after getting used to meat and eggs from my parents' farm. :)
It does seem like there should be some sort of term for "I only eat meat occasionally" or "I only eat ethically raised meat." At home, the meat we eat is about 95% from a local farm. However, we don't stick to vegetarian outside of home, so I think we're sort of in a similar place... not exactly vegetarian, but not a regular meat-eating family either. Really, I think you do what you believe is best for your family and your situation and let others' opinions fall wherever they may.
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