Easy Decision, Tough Follow Through

You would not even believe how many posts I have sitting in my queue right now -- posts that I have started and then discarded. It's sad, really, and a perfect Freudian reflection of my life right now. :)

Enough of that. Time to get down to brass tacks about today's topic.

Over the last few weeks, I've been toying with the decision to stop eating commercially-grown meat. When it came time to plan meals for this month, I made a conscious decision to not have meat at every meal and to even purchase products for several dishes using alternative proteins. So far, I've been slowly weaning meat out of my diet. I figure that I'll eat what I have in the larder and then not replenish my stock.

It's going to be tough, I know, but I can do it.

My decision is based on several reasons.
1. More of the grains and corns grown in this country go to feeding livestock than to feeding people, so we are essentially using twice the amount of land for food than is necessary.
2. Of the amount of energy contained inside a food (say, corn), 90% of that energy goes toward the primary consumer (say, cows) and 10% goes toward a secondary consumer (say, humans). So, we could get more of the corn's energy by eating the corn directly instead of eating the cow. (That would cut down on the need to have more cornfields to feed cattle in the livestock yards; see item 1.)
3. Animal cruelty. I don't like it. Chickens need space to roam around and peck things and they need to live longer than 90 days. They need their beaks. They do not need to be crammed into filing-drawer-size cages and expected to just eat and eat and eat.
4. I'll be cutting down on my cholesterol intake -- veggies are LDL and HDL free! :)
5. Raising animals commercially is costing us environmentally. (Check out this link for more information.)

I'm not saying that I will completely eliminate all meat from my diet for the rest of my life. If I have a chicken coop one day, or if a family friend has a farm and they are willing / able to sell me some meat, I'll do it. I'll know where the meat comes from that way. I'll know that the animals were taken care of. I do not want to support companies that engage in commercially-raised animals.
I'm not sure about going completely vegan, although I'm sure I'll get there at some point.
Right now, the biggest obstacle is going to be eliminating meat. (I love me some chicken wings, but I hear that buffalo cauliflower wings is an amazing replacement.)

I know that there are some out there who will want to argue about certain points that I've raised, but really -- what part of my decision does anyone have to play a role in? It's my body and I will feed it how I want to. I will say that it never ceases to amaze me how much we humans like to criticize others when they make a decision that we either don't like or wouldn't have made in their shoes.

So basically, don't bring your drama about food choices here. :)