I have always felt a litttle guilty about being a meat-eater, and this feeling has only increased since I came to college. There are “Meat isn’t Green!” posters and PETA pamphlets everywhere.  I’m definitely not a fan of PETA - replacing animal cruelty with objectification of women and violent scares tactics is not really an upgrade, imho - but they do call attention to a worthy cause.  Recently, I’ve really been debating over whether or not eating animals is an ethical issue (we’re all animals, and a lot of animals eat other animals - it’s not warm and fuzzy, but is it evil?), but I do know that I don’t want any animal, even one I might eat, to be tortured.  And when I say that the animals can be tortured, that is not an overstatement. McDonald’s, for instance.  Apparently their chicken suppliers hang the birds upside down in metal shackles, slit their throats while they are still conscious, and sometimes boil them alive. Yeah, that’s awful… and it’s just the beginning. So back I go to the vegetarian should-I-or-shouldn’t-I? struggle.  The truth is that going Full Veg is intimidating, and seems nearly impossible when you go to school in the South (even though I do have vegetarian friends who are blatant evidence to the contrary.  Still.)  A couple days ago I checked a book out of the library called The Flexitarian Diet: The Mostly Vegetarian Way to Lose Weight, Be Healthier, Prevent Disease, and Add Years to Your Life by Dawn Jackson Blatner.  It’s just about how to be as vegetarian as is possible, how to make satisfying non-meat meals, and how to get proper nutrition in other ways than through animals.  The recipes are appetizing and simple - this coming from someone whose cooking talents mostly include heating up take-out.  “Flexitarianism” isn’t enough (after all, you still consume eggs and dairy, AND meat occasionally), but it’s definitely a good direction. Click on the picture of Lisa to go to The Flexitarian Diet’s Amazon page.

I have always felt a litttle guilty about being a meat-eater, and this feeling has only increased since I came to college.

There are “Meat isn’t Green!” posters and PETA pamphlets everywhere.  I’m definitely not a fan of PETA - replacing animal cruelty with objectification of women and violent scares tactics is not really an upgrade, imho - but they do call attention to a worthy cause.  Recently, I’ve really been debating over whether or not eating animals is an ethical issue (we’re all animals, and a lot of animals eat other animals - it’s not warm and fuzzy, but is it evil?), but I do know that I don’t want any animal, even one I might eat, to be tortured.  And when I say that the animals can be tortured, that is not an overstatement.

McDonald’s, for instance.  Apparently their chicken suppliers hang the birds upside down in metal shackles, slit their throats while they are still conscious, and sometimes boil them alive.

Yeah, that’s awful… and it’s just the beginning.

So back I go to the vegetarian should-I-or-shouldn’t-I? struggle.  The truth is that going Full Veg is intimidating, and seems nearly impossible when you go to school in the South (even though I do have vegetarian friends who are blatant evidence to the contrary.  Still.)  A couple days ago I checked a book out of the library called The Flexitarian Diet: The Mostly Vegetarian Way to Lose Weight, Be Healthier, Prevent Disease, and Add Years to Your Life by Dawn Jackson Blatner.  It’s just about how to be as vegetarian as is possible, how to make satisfying non-meat meals, and how to get proper nutrition in other ways than through animals.  The recipes are appetizing and simple - this coming from someone whose cooking talents mostly include heating up take-out.  “Flexitarianism” isn’t enough (after all, you still consume eggs and dairy, AND meat occasionally), but it’s definitely a good direction.

Click on the picture of Lisa to go to The Flexitarian Diet’s Amazon page.