songs of experience

My eldest daughter just sent me this essay and I am wondering what you would do if you got an e-mail like this from your kid (?). Please note that we are not big carnivores over here; we do eat chicken a few nights a week and red meat when its on sale. When I claim I’m going to get a bumper sticker that reads: animals are food, it really is a joke. I just like to be ANTI every now and then. Mostly, every now.

Meatless Madness:

An essay by SJ Kerwin on why vegetarianism is right for Sarah Jane and why her parents should allow it.

Meals in most homes around the country generally contain a great deal of meat, and our home is no exception. Maybe we have a bit less than in some homes, but there still is a great deal of dead animal in our diet. Chicken. Turkey. Salami. Chicken. Burgers. Ham. And did I mention chicken? Yeah, we eat our fair share, and I, Sarah Jane Kerwin, feel like I no longer want to continue this practice by becoming a vegetarian.

Probably your first question is why. Why would she want to give up that succulent meat? Well, there’s always the standard: I like animals, and I don’t think the way they are treated is fair, especially on factory farms. I mean, how different are dogs from cows, budgies from chickens, cats from pigs? Or, if you prefer, whales to cows, monkeys to chickens, sloths to pigs? They’re all animals! And the animals we eat are not treated well at all.

In the United States alone, over 6 billion animals are slaughtered for food, and 90% of those are raised in confinement. The factory chickens eaten alone could stretch to the moon and back twice if you laid them out beak to toe. They are crowded together on the floors of factories, while egg-laying hens are stuck together in tiny cages where they get about 1/2 a square foot each. And you know what else? Free range just means they weren’t caged, it doesn’t state that they ever lived outside. Perhaps they only saw daylight on the way to the slaughterhouse. Pigs live in tiny pens and are referred to as “crops”, “downer” cattle (the ones with problems) are still sold to humans, and dairy cows produce up to 10 times the milk they would naturally. Not to mention that even though the animals are supposed to be unconscious before they are killed, the law doesn’t apply to poultry and is rarely enforced.

Maybe you’re thinking, “So? Just get “happy” meat!” But really, why should humans be able to dominate like that? Along with that, I don’t think it’s right to eat something you couldn’t kill yourself. No WAY could I ever kill any of the animals we eat unless the situation was dire, so I don’t feel right eating them.

http://www.peta.org/
and for a specific video
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=meet_your_meat

Not convinced yet? Fine. There are other reasons. Did you know that being a vegetarian could help globally? Meat wastes land, grain (7 pounds of grain is required to get just 1 pound of pork, 5/1 beef, 3/1 chicken), water (on average, it takes 2,500 gallons for a single pound of beef). It also pollutes, loses topsoil crucial for plants (for every pound of beef, 35 pounds of topsoil erode yet it takes 200-1000 years for the earth to produce just an inch.), increases desertification, and clears forests! Some people think that if everyone in the world gave up meat, world hunger would end. Now I don’t know about that, but I do know that it would help get a good start on the problem!

Of course there’s always the selfish reason, too. Not the one I’m going for, but it’s a perk: health! Vegetarians are (overall) healthy. It reduces the chances of heart disease and some kinds of cancer, and is just all around less fatty (even though I don’t really care about that).

Most parents who are against vegetarianism are because they are afraid of the loss of Protein and Iron. But there are many other sources, even WITH the small amounts of dairy I get, to get these important dietary elements. Protein is present in legumes, soy foods, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and eggs. Iron is found in beans, figs, apricots, spinach, seeds, raisins, and tofu. Also, you can increase the Vitamin C increase to help absorb the non-heme iron (iron from plants, versus heme iron from meat). Cranberry juice actually has MORE Vitamin C than orange juice, and some other good sources include red peppers, strawberries, kiwi, broccoli, raspberries, and sweet potatoes. By eating a balanced diet and adding some soy products, I can make it fine.

Yes, I have a habit of being picky. But my palate is developing and maturing, and I would be willing to try a lot more international and interesting cuisine. I’ll make sure my diet is full of all the colors of the rainbow, and eat plenty of vitamins. Other cultures have more vegetarian lifestyles and I could pick up a few things, and I think I could find a great deal of good veggie recipes in basic cookbooks ranging from The Joy of Cooking to Vegetables Every Day.

Recipes…that brings me to the cooking and shopping bit. My diet shouldn’t make more work for YOU, and it won’t. I’ll cook every bit of my dinner if I have to, and go shopping after Weaver Street every Sunday for my weekly ingredients. Maybe I’ll even cook for you sometimes! Don’t worry about that. You’ll barely notice the difference, except for the fact that when I ask what’s for dinner, it’ll be to find out whether I have the night off because you’re cooking, say, pasta. I just hope you don’t mind sharing the kitchen!

I have a couple good friends who can help give me tips on this kind of thing: Galen who used to be vegan (as you know), and Josh, who’s been vegetarian for 9 months. They can give me recipes, brand names, and moral support. That way, I’ll be able to get underway with assistance from someone who knows what they’re doing.

By the way, I hope all this time you weren’t thinking that I’m trying to convince you to change anything in your lifestyle or say eating meat is bad. I just don’t have the desire to eat it anymore. I don’t care what you eat, and I hope you don’t care what I eat. You know I have a healthy, balanced diet already. I’m just replacing meat with soy and other substitutes and I’ll eat a vitamin every day!

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I checked a book out of the library for you to look at if you desire called Help! My Child Has Stopped Eating Meat by Carol J. Adams

Also, here are some more resources:

A Teen’s Guide to Going Vegetarian by Judy Krizmanic (This is where I got a lot of my information)

http://www.peta.org/ (as listed above)

http://www.goveg.com/

There is a vegetarian starter ‘kit’ downloadable or orderable from goveg.com or outside the Chapel Hill public library.