I love vegetables, especially winter veg. Big plates of roasted roots drizzled in olive oil and herbs... for me, there is very little more comforting than that. Probably 80 or 90 per cent of my meals are vegetarian, and a good portion of those are vegan.
I am so fully supportive of Vegetarians and Vegans, for so many reasons, that a few people have recently said to me that they find it odd, when I otherwise try to live a very environmentally conscious life, that I am not Veggie/Vegan. Which is correct; I am not - as I said above, I do not eat 100% plant based foods. I do eat meat, just not huge amounts of it. I consider myself a flexitarian. Wikipedia defines flexitarianism as follows:
"Flexitarianism is a semi-vegetarian diet focusing on vegetarian food with occasional meat consumption. A self-described flexitarian seeks to decrease meat consumption without eliminating it entirely from his or her diet."
Sitting on the fence much? Yeah,
that's me. I understand the
pros and con's of both meat eating and non-meat eating diets. I have spoken to
nutritionists, doctors, vegetarians and die-hard carnivores about this. In the end, I settled where was right for me.... because of which I fit neither into the vegetarian camp, or quite into the meat-eater camp either. This often leads to some ridicule from both sides. (I know, ridicule! Shocking! Pay attention to your own digestive tract and leave mine alone, or at least be polite!)
So why did I come to this decision? Well, it was a slowly evolving process. I didn't wake up one day and say 'I am going to reduce my meat consumption to what I consider to be a healthy, sustainable and conscious level'. Wow, it would have been so much easier if I had done that. As it was, my journey was quite long and winding.
First of all, I took a look at the ethical impact of my meat consumption, from a purely animal welfare point of view. I was disgusted with my country based on what I found. It started with poultry, but my research soon spread to pigs, cows and other commonly consumed meats. Yes, battery chickens are an awful, awful
phenomenon, but you just wait to see what they do to suckling pig or
Chinese dog meat. Go on, Google it - I dare ya.
Don't fancy it? Well neither did I. I switched my entire families meat production to Soil Association certified meats and dairy. 100% organic and with much higher requirements for animal welfare than any
wishy-washy 'free range' statement. So far so good. The taste was much better, our health seemed to be improving, and I felt much more comfortable living with myself after visiting organic farms and seeing how the animals are treated with respect and dignity, and not a part wasted.
Unfortunately, I don't earn a lot. Neither does my future husband. I struggled for a while with what to do - I couldn't afford to keep feeding us the high-welfare standard meat, even locally produced, but I didn't even want to think about going back to the intensive versions. Slowly, over time, J and I found ourselves eating less and less meat.
Now, lets be clear here. I love meat. The taste, the texture. I believe firmly in the health benefits of eating meat. (More on that later though.) There is nothing nicer to me than a rack of ribs, smothered in sauce, or a chicken curry, a beef
chilli, the simple joy of a cold chicken sandwich. But I found that as time went on, I began to enjoy eating less meat. It was much cheaper, I could upgrade more of our food to organic because what I was buying cost me much less. Meat felt like a luxury when I ate it; a wonderful treat which we sat down as a little family and enjoyed. I'd say we eat meat once a week or so, usually. Occasionally a little more, sometimes not even that often - it depends on the season, how much time I have and what the farmers market yielded that week. Every time we eat it - it tastes great. I enjoy every mouthful - I eat it
consciously.Back to the health benefits. I firmly believe that the proliferation of cheap, nutritionally poor meat has played a huge part in the boom of obesity in this and several other countries. Meat is a high calorie food. However, it does have health benefits for humans, we have 'meat eating teeth' for a reason. But. We also have 'plant grinding teeth' for a reason. I think that the human diet has become grossly imbalanced within the past 50 years or so. There is nothing wrong with eating meat, nutritionally - in fact it is good for us - in
moderation. It does however seem that some people's idea of moderation has become a little.... well..... warped? I know people that eat meat every meal of the day, most days. Sausages for breakfast. Chicken sandwiches for lunch. Beef for dinner. Meaty snacks. (Shall I blame the Atkins diet? No, don't even start me on that one.... this post is long enough as it is!)
As it happens, I have a dodgy liver. I won't go into details because frankly, I don't think it is anyones business but mine and my family. Suffice it to say however, that my doctor was stunned by the huge improvement in my health since my diet changed. I asked him for his views on whether a mostly vegan, with some other food groups on a flexitarian basis, could be responsible. He replied that, although he wasn't aware of any in-depth research on the subject, he felt that it was a logical conclusion to draw that by removing the high amounts of low-nutritional, calorie laden meats from my diet and replacing them with fresh, organic foods which have far fewer toxins for my poor ol' liver to sift through, I had done the best thing to make myself healthier.
So, let me know. What do you eat, and why? Oh and remember - choose natural, choose local, choose
less - and choose
not to judge others for their choices.
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