Making the Shift

I finally sat the H down and told him that we are going to make the shift from a primarily meat eating diet to a primarily vegetation based diet.

Not to say we are going to be vegetarians. We will still eat meat and enjoy it very much. But I only want to pay for ethically raised and processed meat and that is expensive, hence, we are moving away from meat at every meal and making it more of a treat. A meat treat, as it were.

This finality of mind came after I viewed a video of a pork plant owned by a contractor of Tyson that showed the animal "handlers" (read: evildoers) kicking piglets around like soccer balls, beating and swearing at female sows, locking them in gestation crates, ignoring and/or exacerbating injuries (one very portly lady, who looked much like a human sow herself, bouncing up and down on a female pig with a known broken leg, trying to get her to move. Bitch.) and doing other such awful things that something just clicked in my brain. Listening to the screams of the pigs, who are genetically almost identical to humans and are very smart, broke something in me. And as I sat in the Goodwill parking lot, viewing this thing on my phone with my daughter saying "it's okay Mommy" from the backseat (because I was starting to cry hysterically) I knew I wouldn't be able to eat any sort of mass produced meat again. And I sure as shit couldn't feed it to my daughter.

*Warning - if you view this video, which you certainly don't have to, be aware there is a lot of graphic content of animal abuse. This was recently shot by an undercover humane society worker and just released by them and given to Sum of Us to use as a marketing tool to get signatures on a petition to end animal cruelty and abuse at Tyson. You may click this link and sign the petition without viewing the video as well.*

 http://sumofus.org/campaigns/tyson-foods/?sub=fb

Uh oh. Here comes the "dig".  

What's off the menu at Chez Backyard Veggies?
* fake bacon (turkey bacon)
* real bacon
* grocery store ground beef
* mainline poultry
* prosciutto (good bye, lover.)
* frozen chicken tenderloins (sianara easy Wednesday night dinner)

But - what's on the menu?
* Learning how to cook vegetarian
* Listening to the H grumble over his dinner
* Hearing the never ending string of verbally vomitous remarks from friends and family who don't care about this stuff. (I've just decided never to bring it up...)
* Baking with coconut flour (just because I've always wanted to!)
* Becoming super good friends with beans. And listening to the inevitable aftermath from the other side of the bed. (Don't fluff the covers!!)
* Paying out the nose for organic free range grass fed anything.
And perhaps most importantly:
* Peace of Mind. Ahhhh.

Monday was a dark day. Not only was it pouring down rain and COLD, but I watched the video and allowed it to shade the rest of my day with badness.

The good part is that it lights a fire under my ass that hasn't been lit previously. A fire to get my own land, and until I do, to support my local farmer's, try new things, and attempt to cook yummy food using mostly plant matter.

Michael Pollan say's: Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants. I think that's a splendid motto.

Also, I've always wanted to learn how to cook with Tofu. And now I get to. Win - Win.