Sorry, but this is a little preachy!

Sorry - this post gets a bit religious. (Quelle horreur!)

I have often debated to go vegetarian - I've given up red meat, then back, I've only ate french fries and shakes (not the healthiest way to go) and I've enjoyed my share of steaks. I really don't like most fruits or vegetables. (For those of you about to blame my parents - I ate only fruit and veggies until I was about 4 yrs old and then one day came home to dinner and announced that I didn't want 'ucky vegetables'...)

I found this article by a Dominican sister that articulates the inner dialogue that I have been having... with... umm, er, well myself.

I will warn you, that parts of this article were a bit stressful for me to read.
My comments are interspersed throughout the article and are in green italics...






A Personal Journey
by Sharon Zayac, OP

For one of my classes in my Earth Literacy masters program I had to identify an environmental issue about which I have changed my position. I would like to share it with you. It is my choice to become a vegetarian.

My initial position on vegetarianism was like most Americans. I had heard of people who chose to eat no meat, but I never considered it as an option for myself. I liked meat, and I liked vegetables. I wish I liked veggies, it would make this transition much easier. If I didn’t have meat at a meal, I was quite satisfied. Me too, generally. If I had it, I was satisfied. But I never considered not ever having it.
I grew up eating meat. It was almost always a part of every meal, except
when my mother cooked Italian (her heritage). My mom is NOT Italian, and I also believe that I inherited her talent of 'heating up' diner and/or 'ordering out.' Then, there would be little or no meat in the main dish. I was fine either way. When I entered our midwestern religious community I did not join a religious community - whew! where meat and potatoes were the essential part of every main meal, I continued the pattern as well. A few years ago, all of that changed for me. What led me to vegetarianism? A growing knowledge. I can no longer willingly eat meat. Though I do not necessarily wish everyone to become vegetarians, I do wish that the American people would eat far less meat than they do. I wish Americans did a lot less of most everything (except being Awesome!) I choose not to eat meat because of health reasons. The antibiotics, insecticides, and hormones that are injected into animals to ensure “healthy” meat enter our own bodies when we consume them. Eating the disproportionate amount of meat we do in this country means our bodies are accumulating these substances in dangerous amounts. Why should we willing consume known toxins; why should we add fuel to the fire of emerging drug-resistant bacteria? Another health concern is the growing number of out- breaks of e coli. The conditions to which animals are subjected to before they are slaughtered and the inability of meat inspectors to adequately do their jobs, both contribute to these outbreaks. How frequently in the last few years have millions of pounds of beef been recalled? I take issue with the treatment of animals themselves, This I DID inherit from my mom, we couldn't catch lightening bugs - fireflies - because "how would we feel if someone caught us and put us in a jar?" Hard to argue with that! each of which has the desire for life and family in its own way as we do in ours. “Livestock” is a telling term. They are literally factory animals, removed from their mothers shortly after birth; raised in crowded, untenable conditions; fed un-healthy (for them) diets to fatten them up; often injured and subjected to extreme heat or cold during transportation; left in mountains of their own excrement; and die in terror as they are electrocuted or brained with steel rods.

The fact we as Americans consume far more meat than our own bodies can
healthily assimilate also places a tremendous burden on the land. More than 80% of the
grain we grow is to feed animals waiting for slaughter. Can't we do ANYTHING small? The land that supports that grain is fertilized and herbicized with tons of chemicals that seep into the groundwater and run-off into the river and oceans, poisoning us and other plant and animal life. Billions of gallons of water are siphoned off rivers (often onto the naturally dry, desert lands in the West) to grow the grain and to wash, feed, and slaughter the animals. The amount of methane produced by our huge stockyards contributes to the greenhouse effect. Because we want cheap beef, raising cattle has become a cash crop for many cash-strapped Third World countries. They burn off thousands of acres of their rain forests, displace their own indigenous people, and end up importing food since land they once used to grow their own food now. Seriously - Quit eating Rain Forest Meat! McDonald's do you hear me? Other fast food chains - stop it. People - stop giving them your money!
As I learned these things, I could no longer in conscience continue eating meat. I chose first to eliminate beef from my diet. I struggled in the beginning, but after a while I found I no longer craved it. I decided it was time to give up pork, followed by chicken at an even later date. I knew that I was fooling myself. I made the decision to just do it, except for fish and seafood! After all, they’re not meat, right? The Church taught me that. It took several more months to cross that barrier. What is the difference between sea-based meat and land-based? None, really, and for all the same reasons! The world’s oceans are drastically over-fished and species on the brink of extinction. Many of the fish and seafood we eat do not even come from the ocean! No happily swimming salmon or shrimp waiting to jump onto my plate. They are also produced in factory fashion on aquaculture farms and fed meal that comes from ground-up animal products, bearing all those toxins and drugs. The salmon are even given pink dye in their food to have the nice color we like to see on our plates. There is no difference! I gave them up, too.
Why did I ever eat meat? A whole host of assumptions led me to believe it was the right thing to do: Eating meat is “normal.” Only “weird” people are vegetarians. Only "weird" people study theology, only "weird" people try to revitalize their urban neighborhoods, seriously, weird people have done the most good in the world! I am proud to count myself amongst them! Everyone I knew ate meat. Animal products are essential for protein and calcium. Vegetables don’t have enough of either to keep us healthy. Whole holiday traditions center around the turkey and ham. Memories of the table and all the aromas are part of the warm feelings I have about the day. In the beginning stages of my learning, I continued to eat meat. As I began to associate with others who had opted to refrain, I became self-conscious about my inability to join them. I was absorbing all the information they already knew, but I couldn’t totally let go. Yes, there were toxins in the meat. But, there are toxins in water, air, and other food we eat. Yes, my meat consumption adds to Third World debt, but so does just about every other choice I make in this very consumer-oriented culture. I could “yes, but” to every reason to give it up. Slowly, however, it all began to come together. I can’t really say in what sequence. As all things in our universe, everything is interrelated and flows in and out of each other. I was becoming more attentive to the issues that meat-eating raises. My growing awareness of creation spirituality and quantum theology was changing all my metaphors about God, my understanding of the universe and who I am within it. I was literally seeing the world differently, and I knew my actions would have to coincide with what I was coming to believe, or I would be in total contradiction of myself. Damn conscience! You have been ruining most of my fun for years!
All life on this planet is sacred. All life deserves respect and reverence. The animals we choose to consume have an interior life of their own, and we do violence to them in the manner in which we “handle” them for our consumption. And though ours is a universe where one eats another to survive, the kinds of choices about what I was eating were not based upon survival but habit and cultivated taste. I’ve always loved vegetables. Eating them is far less harmful to the soil and water and air than eating meat. The right thing for me to do, the ethical thing, would be to give up eating meat. It had become a moral issue. And although it is a moral issue, my decision is tempered by the context in which I find myself. I do not willingly eat meat. I graciously accept a small amount of it when it is offered in a setting in which I can’t refuse it. I will not dishonor my aunt who on her limited income fixes me my favorite childhood Italian dishes. Certainly the dynamics present in my on-going process of change include a growing awareness of the real issues: letting in all the data, even that which is painful for me to hear; seeing my change not as a denial of pleasurable tastes but an opportunity to experience a whole new world of tastes. Most significantly, it is allowing my assumptions to change and being gentle with myself in the ‘strenuous waiting” as I learn what the right actions are for me, now. My shift to vegetarianism is, in reality, a metaphor for all that has been happening in my life.
Whether or not you believe in the moral imperative or spiritual/religious dimensions of this argument, I think it is hard to argue that some many of these problems are interconnected! Poverty, the destruction of our environment, the lack of dignity of the human person, rampant war and consumerism... they are hard to isolate and solve without looking at all of these problems (and many more!) as a whole.

Sharon lives and ministers at Jubilee Farm, a 111-acre center for ecology and spirituality in Central Illinois. She offers programs, retreats, workshops on a variety of ecological topics.


Thanks to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate for creating the Oblate Ecological Initiative and their community garden... One of the charisms of the Oblates is Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - I love those guys!

http://www.omiusajpic.org/oei.htm
http://www.lavistacsa.org/ - website for the community garden in Godfrey, Il