Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About (But Were Afraid To Ask): Vegetarianism

[impersona]

sporky_rat  is holding a Q&A about Southern Culture at her journal.  I thought it was a pretty awesome idea, and since I brought up vegetarianism up a few posts back, I thought it'd be awesome to field questions.  Anything you can think of, even the smallest questions you might have.  Diet, morals, cost of food, sadness while watching Food Network because you will never eat anything featured there, the crush of social criticism against vegetarians, Cillian Murphy, anything!  

Note: I forgot to mention that I am a lacto-diet vegetarian, so I still eat milk products.  I eat eggs technically too, but only if they are whipped into other things cause I think eggs are mostly gross.


I've been a vegetarian since I was 3 years old, by choice.  At some point I realized that moo-cows, piggies, and chickies were killed to make my food, and Little Sage was really, really upset by this.  For my first month of vegetarianism I literately only ate cream cheese and bagels, because my paranoid little toddler mind could not bring myself to trust anything else my parents put in front of me.  I would probably not be a vegetarian today if it weren't for the support for my doctor, who was also a vegetarian and encouraged my parents to facilitate my wild whim which would surely disappear in a few months :D   

Because I've been a vegetarian for 22 years now, the lifestyle is really not something I think about unless someone else asks about it, or if I'm put in a situation where my food choices are limited.  I can't say that I remain a vegetarian for ethical or moral reasons - I still think it is uncool to kill animals, but most of all the sight, touch, and squelch of meat just grosses me out massively.  Making chicken noodle soup for Kol last week was enough to turn my stomach. 

I do believe that Americans overdo their consumption of meat as a whole, but I think there are other banners that are more important to wave, like same-sex rights and rehabilitating the educational system.   This 'do what you will' attitude is common among the other vegetarians I've met.  But I've had a good number of people get angry and defensive at me for simply being a vegetarian, as if my dietary choice threatened their entire way of life.  Somehow 'vegetarian' equates to 'a PETA member and insane and will burn down your meat-loving family's home' in the mind of the general public, I suppose. 

Comments

[prodigy]

Wow, I'm glad my question was interesting! I love asking questions, people should never give me things like 'ask me about' memes, I will never go away.

It's hard to eat vegetarian in Korean cuisine -- not because it's all or predominantly Korean BBQ, though that's the popular conception (which would be like the Japanese eating hibachi steak every day), but because so much of it is based on a fish broth or some other meat-based stock. Even if it's not directly meat, it's often cooked with or in meat. Also vegetarianism is a very perceived-as-airy-fairy idea for a rather machismo-infused culture. But don't take my oversimplified word for it; that's just my experience.

If you are already excluded from the mainstream in one way, then why would you want to risk excluding yourself from your smaller cultural community as well, and risk having nobody who supports your lifestyle choice?

This is so true of people of ethnic minorities regarding so many subcultural things. Some of it is stuff as simple and painful as "belonging to another subculture, or being perceived to, can be seen as 'acting white' by your friends/family, and you may face racism and well-meaning condescension hanging out with white people in the same subculture." Other times it's not even voluntary -- AFAIK it sucks even harder to be an LGBT ethnic minority of any kind because then it's like, the dominant culture hates you just as much, and cares about you a little less because you're black or an immigrant or whatever, AND your family/culture may be conservative and rejecting. In other terms, it sucks.

Anyway, for the record, I do keep meaning to go veg again -- I know that sounds weaksauce, but between being on medications that impact my nutritional needs and being clueless about cooking, it's been difficult to get back on it. My personal reason for thinking vegetarianism > other diets is that I'm a pacifist by philosophy who considers the taking of life to be inherently morally wrong and acceptable only in true necessity, i.e. to protect other life, and a few years ago I realized that there's no actual magical dividing line between the sentience of humans and the sentience of other creatures.

In any case, thank you for your thoughtful reply!

[impersona]

I didn't include it in my first post, but I was going to talk about a Korean friend of mine who would not get off my case about me being a vegetarian. He seemed to treat it like some joke that eventually I'd wise up to. So it is something I've encountered too <3

This is so true of people of ethnic minorities regarding so many subcultural things. Some of it is stuff as simple and painful as "belonging to another subculture, or being perceived to, can be seen as 'acting white' by your friends/family, and you may face racism and well-meaning condescension hanging out with white people in the same subculture." Other times it's not even voluntary -- AFAIK it sucks even harder to be an LGBT ethnic minority of any kind because then it's like, the dominant culture hates you just as much, and cares about you a little less because you're black or an immigrant or whatever, AND your family/culture may be conservative and rejecting. In other terms, it sucks.

Absolutely - it was while I was doing research on cross-cultural sexuality norms in college that I realized that this was the case for many other issues as well, even for something as slight as the books you want to read and the music you want to listen to. I wish that magically subcultures could be color-blind and accepting of all who wish to indulge in them, but not even the Internet can provide an environment so perfect.

Good luck on going vegetarian again, whenever you do so! I totally agree that sorting out your medical needs are important, because I have seen people get incredibly sick by going vegetarian at the wrong time or in the wrong way. When you do though, I would try to emphasize words like 'lifestyle' and 'philosophy' when you think about it to yourself or talk to other people, to make it feel more like it is becoming a part of your identity. 'Diet' sounds detached and temporary and rather sacrificing, and I think people hearing 'vegetarian diet' get hung up on the word diet, and are more likely to think of a fleeting attempt that isn't worth their prolonged support.

If you are doing it out of philosophy, then that should end up being deeply satisfying. I would imagine a no-meat meal will never feel like a sacrifice - hopefully it'll always feel like a good deed, and a moral relief.

[prodigy]

When I wasn't eating meat, the only sacrifice was in convenience and, occasionally, variety -- I'm not huge on meat anyway and its main appeal is that it's everywhere. Otherwise I felt much better about myself. My favorite foods tend to be non-meat, anyway.

I have a huge aversion to killing -- it's not something a lot of people guess about me, I think, given my often darker interests in writing and media, but I think the same philosophical bent that drives me to interest in stories about the bad things people do is what causes me to come to such strong moral conclusions about death and violence. (Fun fact: when I was first considering going veg, I was dating an abusive guy at the time who insisted that if I said I wanted to stop eating meat for 'ethical reasons' then I was implying he was unethical and dealing him a personal insult thereby. To which I now must say: yes, Mike, I am dealing you a personal insult, you are unethical. And not hardly because of the meat.)