If you’ve ever considered going vegetarian or vegan, now is the perfect time to toss that salmon and pick up some seitan.
Yes, anytime is a great time to be meat-free, but if you join the millions who have already converted you’re doing it just in time for World Vegetarian Awareness Month.
How cool is that? An entire month dedicated to a not only healthy but animal and environmentally friendly lifestyle.
The month kicks off Oct. 1 with World Vegetarian Day. I know I’ll be celebrating with some tasty tofu and a slew of other yummy animal-free products. I also plan to ask my nearest and dearest (and of course that includes all of you) to do the same. Even if you aren’t vegetarian, even if you don’t see what the big fuss is about, give it a try.
What’s one day of your life to not eat meat? Twenty-four hours, 1,440 minutes, 86,400 seconds. Is that really so long that you can’t live without a burger or piece of chicken? I promise you can handle it. If Chris could abide by a vegetarian diet during his initial Army training (you know those long days with instructors screaming and lots of push-ups) then you can do it for one little Saturday. Think of it as a dare, a quest, a mission.
So, to continue with WVAM, the very next day is World Farm Animals Day. It also happens to coincide with Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, but that wasn’t really a coincidence at all.
For all the Catholics out there, Oct. 4, is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, Patron Saint of Animals. Throw him a party and seve a bunch of veggies. And hug your animal companion an extra dozen times for him.
And for those of you out there for whom being meatless is just not enough I submit to you, Nov. 1. World Vegan Day. So for those of you, who manage to survive Oct. 1 without meat, give vegan a whirl for a day (or longer if you can take it). No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no animal products or byproducts – period.
It sounds tough, and I won’t say it’s easy, but it’s not hard. There are so many options for meals and clothes that don’t involve animals that there really isn’t an excuse to not try it. I mean, you’re not cavemen, you don’t need meat.
And before any of you jump on the computer to write me a nasty letter about that last sentence – get over it. It’s a simple fact that Homo sapiens (sapiens) do not need meat in their diets. There are supplements for vitamins, though honestly you can get everything from vegetables or other non-animal sources.
We do not have sharp tearing teeth like the natural carnivore of the world such as big cats. What excuses for sharp teeth we do have are more suited for biting tough fruits than ripping out jugulars. How many humans can run down a deer or zebra and tear it to pieces? Um … zero. We rely on guns or slaughterhouses to provide our meat, and neither is natural. Millions of innocent animals are bred purely to become dinner, and that’s not natural either.
In addition, we possess grinding teeth like those of herbivores – something natural carnivores lack.
I mean, how many of you salivate at the sight of road kill or raw meat? I hope none of you, but those who do, feel free to eat some. I bet everyone reading this has looked at a piece of fruit and felt tempted (
Biblical allusions unintended), but how many have seen a squished raccoon and thought the same?
Your dog would dig into a raw decapitated squirrel, you would not. So please don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. If you want to eat meat, fine, but accept that it’s not a natural action for a human to partake in.
I know some of you are thinking, “But we’re omnivores, we can eat both.” Yes, we can eat both, but we shouldn’t.
Babies aren’t supposed to eat meat early on not because they can’t physically handle the texture (that’s what blenders are for) but because the human body is not made to digest animal flesh. We not only have to cook it to keep it down, our bodies have to adjust to it slowly.
I’ve also heard from parents who say doctors have told them to mix meat in with other foods to mask the taste, because “babies don’t like meat, it tastes dead to them.” Uh, yeah, there’s a reason for that, Doc.
Long-time vegetarians are the same way. If you slipped a piece of meat into a vegetarian’s meal (something I highly discourage) they would be sick for hours, if not days.
I accidentally ingested a tiny piece of bacon in a bowl of restaurant pasta a while back and I was sick for three days. Three long days, let me tell you – I think I slept on the bathroom floor just to avoid accidentally puking in bed.
My parents also ate some of my pasta, and they were fine. They still eat meat. It obviously wasn’t spoiled food. What does that say to you?
There are. of course. other reasons to not eat meat, even if humans were designed with a meat-handling interior. One of which is a biggie, for even those who care little about animal welfare.
This little bit of information I dedicate to the East Tennessean reader who wrote a while back to tell me “vegetarians don’t save lives by not eating meat”.
“Most non-vegetarians are unaware,” says Paul Turner, Global director of Food for Life, “that more than 70 percent of the world’s grain production is fed to livestock destined for slaughterhouses.
That same grain could feed humans. Every year, millions of children in the developing world die from hunger, alongside fields of fodder destined for the West’s livestock. The fact is if Americans reduced their meat consumption by 10 percent, enough grains would be saved to feed 60 million people!”
While this may not exactly say much for how many cows and chickens vegetarians save, it says something about how we affect our fellow humans.
I know the letter to the editor contested my statement by pointing out that vegetarians eat grains and vegetables grown in fields where mice and insects dwell, inevitably causing their deaths during harvest.
While this sad statement is true, it’s also true that meat-eaters also eat grains and vegetables, thus also causing those lives to be shed. In addition meat-eaters eat the flesh of animals fed those grains (and the grains that are grown for them rather than human consumption).
So, while a vegetarian may inadvertently cause the death of, say, 100 field mice a year (pure guess on my part) a meat-eater will cause the death of 20 times that. That’s not a guess, that’s based on the fact that 20 vegetarians can be fed with the amount of land that feeds one meat-eater.
And that’s in addition to the hundreds of thousands of cows, chickens, pigs, fish and other animals killed to become dinner for the American population yearly. Those dead farm animals and fish are also absent from a vegetarian diet.
So how again does being a vegetarian not save lives?
I suggest everyone check out www.aapn.org/vegstats.html and get a good idea of how much damage a meat-based diet causes the world and the human body. It’s a reprint from a Pulitzer nominated book, not some crazy, whack-job fanatic with a web page. I found it enlightening, I hope you do too.
Let me know what you think; of the vegetarian statistics, of my challenge to you, of anything relevant (or not). Write me at mohawktown@hotmail.com or etnews@etsu.edu.
Be sure to be on the lookout for posters for a new animal rights campus group as well. And of course, try to go meatless this weekend.
I double-tofu-dog-dare you.

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