pass the veggies, please

I've decided I want to become a vegetarian. I told Shane, and he told me he'd leave me. How sad is that? Well, specifically, he said he would not leave me if I still agreed to cook meat for him. And I really wouldn't want to do that, so I guess our marriage would be over. Hmm.

It all started when I heard from two different sources about a local farm taking orders for its cows. What? Yes. You can order like a quarter of a cow or a half of a cow, and then they slaughter the cow and you get the meat fresh from the farm. It cuts out the middle man (a grocery store), and you know where your meat came from and that it was organic or grain-fed or whatever. Plus, you're supporting the local guy. It all sounds so nice, right?

Well, not to me. I just can't come to terms with the fact that there's a nice little cow frolicking through the meadows right now, enjoying the sunshine, mooing with glee, who in a couple weeks could be on my dinner table.

It reminds me of an experience I had as a teenager. I went on a Pioneer Trek where for five days or something I wore bloomers and long sleeves in the unbearable heat of summer and pushed a handcart and ate gruel, all in the spirit of appreciating the pioneers and living how they lived. Well, one evening, as a "special treat," we had a bunch of chickens brought in and the kids (yes, us) could chop off their heads and help our chaperones prepare them for dinner.

Yeah, right. I did not have any of that chicken. But lots of my friends did. I couldn't deal with it.

Also as of late, I'm working my way through an old stack of Reader's Digest magazines I've never read, circa 2005. There is a personal narrative by this woman who set a goal to cook all 500 recipes from some Julia Child cookbook in one year. Her story was mainly about preparing the lobster recipes, specifically how you have to buy the lobsters alive and cook them at home. She elaborated on how she became a "mass murderer," as she put it, and how it got easier the more she did it. She commented on how each victim was different, like how one lobster was quiet in the back seat of her car, while another clapped away and roamed around in its paper bag. It pained me to read it. Plus, she went on about preparing some type of delicacy where you start slicing and dicing the lobster while it is still alive.

Do you see why I want to be a vegetarian?

I have a friend who is a vegetarian because she doesn't like the taste and texture of meat. My neice became a vegetarian when her brother brought home his first hunting kill, a buck, in a big bloody mess. I'd be doing it for the same reasons as her: so I'm not eating something that used to be cute and cuddly. I mean, even the "how's it going, Bob?" lobsters on Finding Nemo are cute and somewhat cuddly.

The odds are stacked against me: I like cheeseburgers and pork-kabobs and barbeque chicken. I can think of maybe two dishes currently in my dinner rotation which are meat-free. Any nutritionist will say you need "lean protein" as part of a healthy diet. Plus, it's just plain hard to say "no" every time someone prepares a meaty dinner for you.

sigh

In all honestly, I doubt it will happen. Although I really wish I had the willpower to do it. I really really do.

I guess for now, I'll be grateful that the grocery store acts as the middle man and I can disassociate where my meat actually came from. I'm just one of those people that can't think about it.

And I'll never cook lobster. Ever.