As I was going through my blog archives, trying to figure out what I was doing exactly one year ago hoping it would inspire me for a new post, I discovered that today’s a special day.
Exactly one year ago (to the hour), I was watching a film called Earthlings, somewhat horrified I should mention. I’ve always said I thought being a vegetarian was noble, but I simply loved meat too much to become one. I ate meat 2-3 times per day. I loved meat. All of that changed over the course of one documentary. One of the greatest documentaries I’ve ever seen, I should add, with a great soundtrack provided by Moby. I decided I could no longer be a hypocrite.
Earthlings
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After watching the film, I simply could not eat meat anymore, so I quit. For a while, I thought, not expecting myself to even last 2 months. I’ve exceeded my expectations by far… It has now been a year since I last ate meat (minus the grasshoppers).
It was never my intention, but it turns out that becoming a vegetarian is actually easier than stopping to be a vegetarian. Who would have thought.
Please take a moment to watch this documentary. I’ve heard many people say that they don’t really want to know where their meat comes from, or what happens to the animals before they eat them. This is a bs excuse. You are consuming them, so you are responsible. At least look at what you are doing. I’m not asking you to stop eating meat, but at least make yourself aware of what you’re doing.
Saying that you don’t want to know what you are partly responsible for is like the 1930’s/40’s Germans ignoring what was being done onto the Jewish population during the second World War. Yes. Suffering is done upon animals in a massive scale, an inconceivable scale. Just imagine the number of turkeys killed for thanksgiving.
I’m fine with people’s choice to eat meat. As long as it is a choice. Think about what you consume. You are responsible.
If you wish the world was different, if you wish things were not this way… then change what you can. Start with yourself. The rest will follow. You cannot expect the world to change first. You take the first step.
It all starts with informing yourself. Watch Earthlings.
Comments
8 responses to “Vegetarian Anniversary!”
Congrats!
Great lifestyle choice, been a vegetarian myself for the biggest part of the last decade.
An eye re-opener for me was the documentary Our Daily Bread, although it is fairly neutral.
woohoo! here’s to a couple years more!
thanks for the clip. i’ve seen another one which is equally disturbing ~ pushing live pigs into hot boiling water, cutting their throats to drain their blood while they were still alive etc. GOSH. I can’t imagine anyone still has the appetite to *eat* meat after watching these clips. 😯
Given the descriptions given by your commenters, I don’t think I can bring myself to watch the film. But, I’m vegetarian and have been for 24 years (wow… am I as old as that makes me???) so I won’t feel guilty about not watching.
Congratulations on your anniversary! As a fellow expat vegetarian in Turkland, do you have any good eating out tips for a vegetarian in the middle of a meat culture? I have such a hard time going to a restaurant in Turkey because almost every entree is meat, meat, meat. How do you handle this?
I respect your choice on choosing to be a vegetarian, but having justed watched the video I still choose to eat meat.
But what I respect more is the fact that you respect the choice those who choose not to abstain from meat.
Mind you many don’t know that there is a choice being blinded by commerial brainwashing.
I agree with Martin and Bas.
People should make their own decisions, and make them consciously.
The thing is, with eating meat you sort of know what the consequences of your actions are (animals being hurt badly). The consequences of other actions are less transparent. If I buy a carton of orange juice, how can I know that the people producing that OJ are being treated and paid reasonably? How do I know my new laptop isn’t made in a highly contaminating factory? Some products have parts that were produced in a multitude of countries and factories, it’s near impossible to make an informed decision on what the consequences of buying such a product are.
I can see why the merchants of those products don’t want us to know, and why even we turn a blind eye, we just want the cheap OJ, not the sad story. We want the new and hip laptop and we don’t want to know about the pollution, lest we become OJ-arians and laptop-arians 😉
These are the challenges I see before us in this globalized world we live in.
Thank you for this film. My husband has been a vegetarian for 31 years. I sat and watched the entire video and I must say that I have been changed. I can no longer eat my occasional fish with enjoyment.
The pictures of those poor slaughtered animals are too graphic to get out of my head. I just hope that one day ALL of them don’t retaliate for what we’ve done to them.
Congrats on your anniversary!
@martin: hey, even the Dalai Lama doesn’t live a vegetarian lifestyle. Who am I to say what’s wrong or right… For me, given what I know and how I see the world… eating meat would simply feel extremely bad. What also caused much sorrow is all the messages I saw all over the blogosphere and on Twitter about people eating turkeys… It was the quantity of them, and the ignorance of the turkeys’ lives that touched me. I didn’t react to any one of them specifically though. Instead I just posted messages encouraging not eating meat, or eating a bit less, or at least organic/ecological.
Anyway, what a person chooses to do in their life is their choice. I cannot judge them. (wow this makes me sounds Christian)
@Kim: thanks for chipping in! How I handle being a vegetarian in Turkey… Well, to be honest I don’t eat out so much, but when I do I generally just order some side-dishes and try to combine some stuff to make my own menu. Kinda used to it now.
I haven’t eaten fear during my whole live (53 years now).
Would meat-eating readers eat meat if they have to slaughter the animals by themselves?