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trans-veggie and proud
Jul. 13th, 2008 10:36 pmI'm not a vegetarian. I can't pretend that I am: you've all seen me eat hamburger and bacon at parties (generally the only setting in which I eat hamburger and bacon). I attempted to go veggie when I was in college, but it didn't work for me. One reason: there's nothing like telling me that a particular food is totally forbidden, forever, for making me crave that particular food. I kept sneaking "one last hamburger" until I got the reputation for being a hypocrite. (If, on the other hand, I am willing to allow myself to eat hamburgers-- in fact, I do have firm plans to eat either a hamburger or a piece of chicken sausage in early September-- I can do without for a good long time. It's kind of the "jam yesterday, jam tomorrow" plan.) Another reason: sometimes, just once in a while, I find myself in situations without real vegetarian options, where the only non-meat foods are white bread, icky salad, beer, and desert. For example, ball games and charity dinners in the South. I feel crummy and turn into a grump if I eat just low-protein simple-carb food like that.
Even though there's nothing keeping me from eating meat, I eat like a vegetarian much of the time. My typical workday lunch from the cafeteria is two vegetable sides, plus some beans and stuff from the salad bar or vegetable soup, and soymilk or oj. I keep bean burgers on hand in the freezer to eat when Sophia is having fish sticks. I was quite happy with the food when I lived in India, where vegetarian food is the usual. And, I always at least consider the vegetarian food option at any event.
There's a lot of reasons to avoid meat whenever there's a good alternative, even if I totally discount the idea of animals having moral standing. It's healthier: meat is very calorie-dense, contains saturated fat and cholesterol, more protein and activated vitamin A than I need, and no fiber, flavonoids, or most vitamins other than B12. My digestive system hates me more than usual if I eat too much meat. (I'll spare you a discussion of why it's a happy thing to stay on one's own digestive system's good side. You're welcome.) It's environmentally conscious to minimize eating meat. Furthermore, I generally like vegetarian food. Vegetables are interesting, slabs of meat are boring. I do crave meat, but just in pretty small quantities. About 3 oz. of meat a day makes me a happy camper. That's less than one standard serving of meat per day. You just can't get a serving of meat that small at most restaurants.
This stance on food-- not vegetarian, but eating the vegetarian stuff-- confuses people. Boy, they are really confused at me at Chili's when I order the bacon burger with a bean patty. Most people seem to think that there are two kinds of eaters: vegetarians, who won't let a molecule of dead animal pass their lips for moral reasons, and non-vegetarians, who love meat and want to eat as much as possible. Within this schema, it's really hard for me to explain what I am. The weird chick who does want the bean patty, yes, that's right, I did ask for the bean patty, with the bacon, uh-huh, I actually do want the bacon, thanks, go ahead and put it on my bean burger, that's fine. I'm in the DMZ in the middle of a silly dichotomy. It's as silly a dichotomy as the idea that people come in two genders, strictly male and strictly female, with either XY chromosomes that always encode a love of team sports or XX chromosomes that always encode a love of pointy high-heel shoes.
So, there I was, at two separate social events within the past month at which the organizers had to feed large numbers of people. (Both very nicely done, well organized, generally a good job feeding everyone at both, bravos to the organizers of both.) At each one, a breakfast featured breakfast sausages, plus a heap of soy-based vegetarian faux-meat sausage-like things. In each case, the heap of soy-based vegetarian faux-meat sausage-like things carried a sign that said something like "Vegetarians Only!" Hrmph. I wasn't really offended, because I don't know if I would have liked the soy-based things. I do really like some soy-based meat product imitations, but others are horrible. It's only remarkable because it's such a coincidence that I encountered a "vegetarians only" sign under such similar circumstances twice in the past month. If it had been, say, chili with Boca crumbles, I would have really been envious. Do I need to swear off all meat to earn the right to any hypothetical future instances of chili with Boca crumbles?
How might this situation be better handled? I do sympathize with the point of view of someone who might be really strict with themselves about never eating meat, who would be really be bummed to get to breakfast and find that all the non-meat "sausages" were gone. But how likely is that? I imagine that faux breakfast sausages are probably one of those really horrible soy-based phony meats. I imagine that if you put a really descriptive sign on the soy thingies-- say, "Non-meat soy-based so-called 'sausages' / Vegan-friendly but funny-tasting / Warning: if you are looking for meat, this is not what you are looking for!!!" then the potential consumption of soy thingies by meat eaters would stay fairly close to zero. On the other hand, maybe the soy-based thingies are actually really yummy? Do we see these "vegetarian only" signs now because at some Baitcon long ago everyone loved the soy-based sausage-equivalents and gobbled them up eagerly? In that case, perhaps the organizers of these events in this crowd should buy more soy-based sausage-equivalents. If, by providing enough non-meat alternatives, you could decrease the amount of meat you need to serve at your big event, you would be doing both the environment and your guests' arteries a favor. But, do the organizers of these events want to limit the amount of soy-based sausage-equivalents served because of cost? I tend to think of non-meat food as less expensive, as it should be, usually, because meat takes a lot more resources to produce. But in the case of sausages, maybe the soy alternative is more expensive. I imagine that the soy-based faux breakfast sausages that don't suck might be all organic non-GMO Whole Foods Market products, whereas the typical real meat breakfast sausage are probably whatever fell on the floor of the world's nastiest slaughter house while processing animals that were fattened on expired chewing gum in shit-caked feed lots.
Ew.
Good thing I don't like breakfast sausage anyway.
Even though there's nothing keeping me from eating meat, I eat like a vegetarian much of the time. My typical workday lunch from the cafeteria is two vegetable sides, plus some beans and stuff from the salad bar or vegetable soup, and soymilk or oj. I keep bean burgers on hand in the freezer to eat when Sophia is having fish sticks. I was quite happy with the food when I lived in India, where vegetarian food is the usual. And, I always at least consider the vegetarian food option at any event.
There's a lot of reasons to avoid meat whenever there's a good alternative, even if I totally discount the idea of animals having moral standing. It's healthier: meat is very calorie-dense, contains saturated fat and cholesterol, more protein and activated vitamin A than I need, and no fiber, flavonoids, or most vitamins other than B12. My digestive system hates me more than usual if I eat too much meat. (I'll spare you a discussion of why it's a happy thing to stay on one's own digestive system's good side. You're welcome.) It's environmentally conscious to minimize eating meat. Furthermore, I generally like vegetarian food. Vegetables are interesting, slabs of meat are boring. I do crave meat, but just in pretty small quantities. About 3 oz. of meat a day makes me a happy camper. That's less than one standard serving of meat per day. You just can't get a serving of meat that small at most restaurants.
This stance on food-- not vegetarian, but eating the vegetarian stuff-- confuses people. Boy, they are really confused at me at Chili's when I order the bacon burger with a bean patty. Most people seem to think that there are two kinds of eaters: vegetarians, who won't let a molecule of dead animal pass their lips for moral reasons, and non-vegetarians, who love meat and want to eat as much as possible. Within this schema, it's really hard for me to explain what I am. The weird chick who does want the bean patty, yes, that's right, I did ask for the bean patty, with the bacon, uh-huh, I actually do want the bacon, thanks, go ahead and put it on my bean burger, that's fine. I'm in the DMZ in the middle of a silly dichotomy. It's as silly a dichotomy as the idea that people come in two genders, strictly male and strictly female, with either XY chromosomes that always encode a love of team sports or XX chromosomes that always encode a love of pointy high-heel shoes.
So, there I was, at two separate social events within the past month at which the organizers had to feed large numbers of people. (Both very nicely done, well organized, generally a good job feeding everyone at both, bravos to the organizers of both.) At each one, a breakfast featured breakfast sausages, plus a heap of soy-based vegetarian faux-meat sausage-like things. In each case, the heap of soy-based vegetarian faux-meat sausage-like things carried a sign that said something like "Vegetarians Only!" Hrmph. I wasn't really offended, because I don't know if I would have liked the soy-based things. I do really like some soy-based meat product imitations, but others are horrible. It's only remarkable because it's such a coincidence that I encountered a "vegetarians only" sign under such similar circumstances twice in the past month. If it had been, say, chili with Boca crumbles, I would have really been envious. Do I need to swear off all meat to earn the right to any hypothetical future instances of chili with Boca crumbles?
How might this situation be better handled? I do sympathize with the point of view of someone who might be really strict with themselves about never eating meat, who would be really be bummed to get to breakfast and find that all the non-meat "sausages" were gone. But how likely is that? I imagine that faux breakfast sausages are probably one of those really horrible soy-based phony meats. I imagine that if you put a really descriptive sign on the soy thingies-- say, "Non-meat soy-based so-called 'sausages' / Vegan-friendly but funny-tasting / Warning: if you are looking for meat, this is not what you are looking for!!!" then the potential consumption of soy thingies by meat eaters would stay fairly close to zero. On the other hand, maybe the soy-based thingies are actually really yummy? Do we see these "vegetarian only" signs now because at some Baitcon long ago everyone loved the soy-based sausage-equivalents and gobbled them up eagerly? In that case, perhaps the organizers of these events in this crowd should buy more soy-based sausage-equivalents. If, by providing enough non-meat alternatives, you could decrease the amount of meat you need to serve at your big event, you would be doing both the environment and your guests' arteries a favor. But, do the organizers of these events want to limit the amount of soy-based sausage-equivalents served because of cost? I tend to think of non-meat food as less expensive, as it should be, usually, because meat takes a lot more resources to produce. But in the case of sausages, maybe the soy alternative is more expensive. I imagine that the soy-based faux breakfast sausages that don't suck might be all organic non-GMO Whole Foods Market products, whereas the typical real meat breakfast sausage are probably whatever fell on the floor of the world's nastiest slaughter house while processing animals that were fattened on expired chewing gum in shit-caked feed lots.
Ew.
Good thing I don't like breakfast sausage anyway.
