Matt in a Tux

Today is my one year vegetarian anniversary. Well, technically the 29th of February is the date, but I’ll forgo worrying about whether the anniversary was yesterday or today (probably, it should have been celebrated yesterday). But in any case, it’s been a good year.

What have I eaten?
Overall, my eating habits have been much healthier than when I ate meat. How so? For one, those nights after the bars are no longer consisting of three double cheeseburgers and a McChicken. So, to fill this void, I’ve migrated 75% of my fast food business to Taco Bell. It’s the cheapest form of Mexican food (though its a shame to call TB Mexican food) and it has great hours. The other 25% of my business: Burger King. Veggie burgers at a fast food joint are amazing.

Another way it has positively impacted my health is in an unintended side effect. Over the year, I lost about 35 pounds. My typical habits, which I did not change, are as follows (first summer, then winter): biking, eating chocolate, walking, disc golf, frisbee, a little tennis, relaxing outside, sitting inside in the warmth, shivering outside, lifting a little bit, wishing it was summer, eating chocolate. The only variable: eating meat. I guess my metabolism was finally able to keep up now that I got rid of the fats in the meat and grease and the byproducts (read: gravy), the serving sizes of steaks and large burgers, and just the general unnecessary negative effects it has on our bodies.

So, briefly, I eat noodles, beans, peppers, potatoes, greens, etc. And it is delicious. (More variety than meat dishes, if you ask me.)

Do I miss meat?
Nah. I miss convenience, but I don’t miss meat.

What have I learned?
People like to give hell to vegetarians sometimes. I don’t like to sound preachy, nor high and mighty, but in these cases I usually just say I don’t have an excuse for my morals. Then again, there are cool people out there that are just curious about why or how long, etc. A couple of my friends from back home actually moved from the former category to the latter; that was pretty awesome.

I’ve also learned that other people around you can also benefit from vegetarians; if

I’ve also learned that talking about the morals aspect is important, but only under certain circumstances. In some cases, its not a good idea.

Will I keep going?
You know it. Deli sliced meats look disgusting, and the responsibility is necessary under all ethical standards.

Nothing to celebrate after this year; its just normal now.

If it seems like I’m talking myself up on this, its not intended to be that way; I’m just giving my account of this past year.

Let's keep this as abbreviated as possible.

I went to Nashville and Memphis for spring break and in that order. The drive was about 8 hours. It was a blast. Pictures can be seen on my facebook (1 & 2) and a couple videos on my youtube site.

• Night 1 -- Nashville: Drove around for a bit. Found a free wi-fi hotspot. Booked a hotel room from there. Went to hotel room. Checked in. Got a taxi to some billiards bar. Payed too much to play pool. Left. Went to a karaoke bar. Found out people in Nashville sing way too good. Had a few beers. Pretended I could sing well. Got a taxi to the hotel. Hangover ensues.
• Night 2 -- Nashville: Called up Sandy our newly-dedicated taxi driver. She was a bit overweight. Cab smelled like Arbys. Went to a blues joint and listened to Watermelon Slim. Met a guy from Chicago-area there. He was full of shit about playing music. Talked to another dude about NPR. Wished I could play the harmonica. Cab ride home from Sandy. Hangover ensues.
• Night 3 -- Nashville: Went to Dave and Busters during the day. Played games. Fun. Went to Broadway and 2nd via Sandy at night. Ate a grilled cheese. Mediocre. Went to a bar with 6 dollar pitchers of highlife and natty ice. Sub-mediocre. Hung out with some people from somewhere else. One was gay. Listened to a local country band while the locals tried to dance like they were from Chicago and the Chicagoans tried to dance like they were local. Left bar. Went to another bar. Danced with a woman-Albert-King-look-a-like. She spoke like a witch doctor. Left, went to another bar. They had a stand up bass. Called Sandy. Hangover ensues.
• Night 4 -- Memphis: Graceland. Cool. Beale Street. Awesome. Open containers permitted outside. Friend wanted to go home. Boo. (wtf.) Drove home. Got in at 3 am. Cried a little.

Overall, it was an awesome trip. I wish we could have stayed longer and that everyone would have had an awesome time. But, apparently, that was not in the cards. I spent too much money, but I am content with that.

Being a vegetarian down south was not fun. Pulled pork looked so good. I've been conditioned to love the meat. Instead I had a chef's salad. I smelled the meat with every bite, so it was kind of like a pulled pork salad. Weird. I did get a liking for veggie burgers though -- MorningStar foods are good.

Brief? Not really. But I'm done.

I felt the urge to post this. It is regarding vegetarianism and a friend's discussion with another friend.

My friend's friend made the claim that there are no direct effects on the environment coming from an individual's decision to not eat meat. The claim is that all efforts are only for selfish reasons. The simple argument is that the cessation to eat meat by one person will not impact the industry. When one person stops eating meat, the store which they do not buy from will still be ordering the same amount from the supplier. The supplier will continue to fulfill this quota. Therefore, there is no direct effect, but merely hypothetical promises for bettering the environment. He also made the claim that direct effects can be seen in other situations, such as taking shorter showers, changing out light bulbs, etc.

I partly agree with the selfish reasons. Many probably start out for health reasons or to feel better for not eating Mr. Moo-moo. However, I see greater effects coming from this. As my friend pointed out, when a store does inventory they will notice that less meat is being purchased and will therefore order less from the supplier. If his friend were to disagree with this, then he surely would not be able to agree with his own argument that his taking shorter showers directly helps, for somewhere else someone may be taking longer showers, thus making his efforts moot.

Furthermore, we can see historically that more people eating meat contributes directly to more animals being slaughtered for consumption. If one person stops eating meat, it will not save an entire slaughterhouse, but if that one, plus another, plus another and so on cease eating meat then there is a higher chance that animals will not face these deaths. Granted, it will not be instant due to the fact that animals are raised directly for consumption and therefore there would be a period between the efforts and the actions. Breeding for food would have to decline first.

Let me offer a last analogy to support the individual efforts. Say your friend murders another person. You have no direct relation to this act, until he asks you to help him hide the body. Here you have two choices: (i) help him hide the body, or (ii) refuse to help him hide the body. (This obviously forgoes other responsibilities to report him to the police.) (i) seems perfectly viable since you still do not have direct affiliation with the murder – the person is already dead so you would not be harming them. However, this does not seem right. It does seem like you have some kind of connection to this murder if you help hide the body. If you help hide it well, your friend may go without punishment. Furthermore, what if he decides to murder again and again you aid him in disposing the body? Your lack of individual efforts directly contributes to further harm being committed.

Much more could be said on this, especially based on animal rights alone. I've also left out all of the environmental and economical positives of being vegetarian as that is not the main topic at hand here in my opinion. It is simple logic that is being argued, and I fail to see the sense in the other side.

So, I am trying the vegetarian lifestyle after all. I ate one of these yesterday:

It was ok. I won't lie and sound excited -- it was actually quite different than the succulent taste of cow between bread. But it wasn't necessarily bad. Just as I have learned to love meat, beer and older women needing money working at a strip club, I will give this an honest chance. Note: that was not my actual meal, I got the fries instead of the salad and, since I'm not vegan, swiss cheese and mayo were on my "burger".

For lunch today I went out with my mother and grandmother. We ordered the Greek Pizza with avocado instead of chicken. It was damn good.

Overall, I think this should be a good thing. Except right now I am craving everything I see on TV with meat. This isn't just since I decided to do this, but mostly because I'm in love with food. Seriously. I could eat and eat and eat and, well, eat.

In other news, the Spaghetti-Sauce-Idealistic-Silence is still going on. It's quite the ordeal, but don't be envious.

I think one of my favorite The Who songs is The Ox from the album "The Who sings My Generation". It's a magnificent cacophony which I find awesome to listen to in dim light.

I realized that when I think of titles for posts, they usually make no sense to the post. Which means I might just roll with it. And use sentence fragments. Twice in a row. Wait, three times. You get the picture.

Lately I have been tinkering with becoming vegetarian. Well, actually I have been thinking about it for a long time now, but just lately have been pushed to the edge where I might actually try it and see if I can adopt the lifestyle faithfully. My only concerns are as follows:

• I won't be manly anymore.
  
• Cows might realize they have power over me, attack me, and end even my vegetarian life out of spite.
  
• I'll have to buy an Apple product because I'll feel more pretentious than most.
  

The final concern is the most troublesome. At least I can be cool though and do this in my spare time:

Overall, however, I believe that it will be a promising endeavor. Some things really shocked me about eating meat compared to not eating meat.

For one, why inflict pain on a creature when it's not necessary? For the religious, God gave us dominion over animals might be a response. However, the line most cite comes from Genesis, and roughly quoted by me is 'and Man shall have dominion over animals'. Shall is the key word there. Many scholars have the belief that shall was said in more of a predictive sense than a privileged authoritative sense.

Another reason, and the last I will submit at fear of boring, is the inefficiency of eating animal meat. For instance, it takes 8 pounds of human-edible protein put into feed for a pig in order for the pig to produce enough meat for humans to reap the benefit detriment of only 1 pound of human-edible protein. With that kind of a turnover, what logically makes more sense?

Now, how long this lasts for me is tough to say. For one, I am on a budget, and it's cheaper to eat meat than fruits and veggies for the reason that government subsidizes 75% of industrial farming for meat, whilst only subsidizing >1% of fruit and veggie farms. Ridiculous, eh? I think so.