Eleven months ago, I read Jonathan Safran Foer's extraordinary _Eating Animals_, and I never ate meat again.
The moral dissonance was too strong - I just couldn't read this reasonable, well-balanced, calm presentation of the facts and reconcile this knowledge in my mind with the fact that I contributed to the inhumanity of the meat industry - the cruelty to living creatures, the environmental damage (and its effect on the health and lives of the human race, as well as other species that share this planet), the way it was damaging my own health - there were just too many factors showing me how destructive, in so many ways, meat-eating was, and even though I'd "known" about these problems before, it suddenly became clear to me -- I couldn't believe in what I knew and continue to eat meat. It stopped being a choice, one I'd made before and which had lasted for maybe a few weeks at a time, and became an irrevocable necessity.
And yet for almost a year, I've managed to squash the sense of guilt at my own lack of full-fledged veganism, telling myself it was enough, "for now," to be vegetarian, I was doing my part, I was keeping myself, the world, other animals and other humans healthier "enough."
But it's been a year (next month) and once again, I have to admit that my beliefs are incompatible with my actions. I admit to my own hypocrisy, and yet for eleven months haven't done anything about it. And that's not who I want to be.
By continuing to consume eggs and milk, I am still contributing to the same devestating industry of destruction - I am promoting abominably cruel treatment of animals (who are hardly treated any better in a dairy or egg factory than when they are meat, outright), I am still contributing to the environmental damage caused by these industries, I am still doing damage to my own health and well-being, I am still not doing enough to help there be enough food in the world for my fellow human beings. And all of these things I know, and I know, too, that I will not be deprived of good food, or even delicious, self-indulgent, mindless snack-level of good food, if I give up animal products entirely. I have proven that to myself. I have spent eleven months without meat, and in that time I have also drastically reduced my dairy and egg consumption -- in part because I never cared for eggs as eggs (i.e., omelettes, scrambled, fried, poached, etc - in baked goods is a whole different problem), and because a latent lactose intolerance became much more noticeable once I stopped stuffing my body full of crap and started paying attention to my health again.
I have lived these eleven months as a nearly-vegan. I have come to prefer almond milk in my cereal, soy cheese on my sandwiches, tofu in my scrambles, almost as much as I have come to prefer crumbled tempeh in my tacos, or grilled eggplant 'fakon' in my BLTs. But I haven't gone whole hog, if you'll excuse the expression, because while it took only a month or so before the very notion of consuming meat revolted me... it's still a deliberate choice every time I don't eat cheese.
That's the problem -- the cheese! Cow's milk tastes thin and sour to me now, and I really truly prefer almond. I haven't had eggs-as-eggs in a long time and the concept sounds greasy and dense to my palate. And as far as American or cheddar or Provolone on my sandwich, I happily consume my veggie substitutes with no qualms.
It's the mozzarella and the feta that I haven't managed to give up - the Caprese salads and pizzas and flatbreads, the feta pesto dips for my pita chips, the scrumptious feta-or-yogurt with my Persian dishes... I love me some Daiya on my pizza, but it's still accompanied by a wistful sense of longing for "the real thing." It's still a choice, while it's been a long time since I had to "choose" not to eat meat.
I want to get myself to the same point about all animal products - but goodness knows it's difficult. It's not just the desire for gooey melted mozzarella or salty, briney feta, but the little things - the whey in my sandwich bread, the gelatin in my daily vitamins - it's always seemed so difficult to pay attention and make the right choice, even when I've known it's the right choice.
Right for myself and right for the world.
But how can I advocate a vegan lifestyle as the answer to so many of the world's problems, and yet hypocritically go on being merely "veganish", and thinking that my "82-and-a-half-percent humanity" is "enough"? Better, perhaps. Enough? How can it be?
In one month, I will have been vegetarian for a full year. In one month, I will have more than enough time to finish off whatever food I already have in my fridge and pantry that still contains animal products. In one month, I will stop being a hypocrite, re-align my actions, bring my behavior in balance with my beliefs, and be, in fact as well as in opinion, a vegan.
One month left of hypocrisy.
