I thought for today’s post it would be interesting to take a look at what I was doing 10 years ago. It seems crazy that I can do this on my blog. It is more than 10 years old at this point!

10 years ago I was contemplating becoming vegetarian. Again. Crazy, because here I am, exactly 10 y ears later, contemplating the same thing. I have been having Buddhist guilt (I don’t think there really is such a thing but there kind of is, if you know what I mean) about eating meat. I know that it is probably wrong for me to eat meat but I struggled with it because for a long time I really, truly didn’t think it was wrong. I think that for this to stick it needs to feel like the right thing to do in my heart, not just my head. And in my heart I didn’t think it was wrong.

However, I have had a change of heart in the past few months. The big turnaround was a few weekends ago when we first visited some cows on a free-range beef farm, and then the next day when we went to the fair. I forced myself at the fair to wander through the farm animal sections to see if it would have an affect on my feeling about eating meat.

It did. When we got to the area where there were pigs we were greeted, first, with this sign.

I have to say that I was not offended by the sign but it really made me think! It made me think about whether I really want to meet and make friends with my food. Or do I want to just go to the store and buy nicely packaged products and pretend that this wasn’t a living being at one time. As I thought more about it, I realized that it is wrong for me to do that, to buy the packages and go about my business pretending that this creature died for my nutritional benefit – and probably suffered greatly at the hand of a factory farm! The next question for me becomes, “if it is wrong to buy packaged meat at the store, am I willing to kill my own food?” The answer to that question, for me, is no. I couldn’t do it. I don’t do death very well as it is, I know myself. I know I wouldn’t be able to kill my food. I know people who do it and I have the greatest respect for them.

So here I am, a vegetarian again. With a new-found resolve. I have been vegetarian for all of 3 weeks now. Give or take a dinner or two.