Lifting the end of a green-gray “breakfast link” off the frying pan, I prayed for a pleasing brown on the cooked surface. The garlic-soy scent filling the kitchen smelled only slightly different from the chik’n strips I’d served for lunch a few days ago. Sighing, I thought to myself, “Now I know what it’s like to be a Cullen.” (For the one or two of you that do not know, the Cullens are the vampire family from the Twilight series penned by Stephenie Meyer. They think it is immoral to drink human blood and partake in animal blood only. Their chosen lifestyle leaves them always a little bit hungry.) Unlike the lofty Cullen family, I gave in to my craving and ate animal flesh for the first time in five months. Blame it on the first flames of the summer grill. Blame it on a gathering of good friends feasting around my kitchen table. I caved. I regret it. I’m back on the vegetarian boat. Blame it on Jonathan Safran Foer.
Frequently my quest for enlightenment coincides with my obsession to prevent heart disease and cancer (the genetic table set for me in this regard is a tough one at which to sit). Such is the case for my choice to become a vegetarian this past January 1st. Prior to the New Year, the tomes of Michael Pollan certainly convinced me industrial meat is a carcinogen by virtue of how it is produced. Stops at fast food windows came to an abrupt end. Meatless Mondays and Thursdays became part of the regular dinner routine. Intellectually, I bought into vegetarianism, but not emotionally. I wasn’t ready to go whole hog, rather, whole squash. Then I randomly picked up Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer in an airport bookstore last October.
He baited me with his opening proclaiming he never considered himself an animal lover and never really cared for pets. He reeled me in with the anecdote about his grandmother, running from the Nazis, going without food for weeks and turning down the first meal offered to her after her ordeal because it was pork. He netted and threw me in the boat with, “What kind of world would we create if three times a day we activated our compassion and reason as we sat down to eat, if we had the moral imagination and the pragmatic will to change our most fundamental acts of consumption?….But compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use, and the regular exercise of choosing kindness over cruelty would change us.” Challenge accepted. I’m in. JSF, fellow idealist, set the bar and set it high.
Suffering cannot be avoided but it can be diminished. Whole-heartedly accepting this facet of Buddhism, I’ve developed my own practices to diminish suffering. By creating a little discomfort every day, I am preparing myself for the larger battles that life will undoubtedly throw my way. To be a compassionate person, I must practice it every day. To be a healthy person, I must eat healthy every day. Vegetarianism offers me a path to such enlightenment on all of these measures. The scents of grilled steak and sizzling bacon still make my mouth water. Partaking in the grilled chicken last week might’ve made me feel physically satiated. Temporarily. Psychically, I felt defeated and weak. Balancing those two reactions to my latest consumption of meat, I’ve re-affirmed my commitment to vegetarianism, to compassion, to idealism. Blame it on my soul.
Paths to Enligthenment:
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan
The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved by Sandor Ellix Katz
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
enlightenmentawaits 
Great post!! I have come to despise eating chicken. I have flashbacks to the field hockey games we would travel to in the mountains of Virginia where we’d be behind a chicken truck and a few birds would fall out and hit the grill of our bus. It was gruesome. Of course, I had a cognitive dissonance, or something, about it until a few months ago. Why? I don’t know. BUT now I cannot face agribusiness-raised meat again. And I’m glad for it. Yes, it’s hard and I’ve mindlessly slipped a few times, but my conscience is now on board. I’m a vegetarian in training : )
Vegetarian in training – love it, Jackie! All of my reading suggests that chickens and turkeys have it the worst. My dietary reading also suggests that bird meat causes more inflammation in the body than a lean cut of beef. If you ever need encouragement, drop me a line!