I recently watched an interesting documentary on becoming a vegan.
I’ve a few family members and friends who are vegan. In fairness, they are all generally tolerant and respectful to those who aren’t because they’ve previously been meat-eaters too and appreciate and understand the difficult steps it takes to adopt the new mindset and lifestyle.
Their reasons for becoming vegan are hard to argue against. From humans not being natural carnivores but conditioned into eating meat by modern society, to feeling healthier and more energised and the more obvious reasons of finding animal cruelty unnecessary and abhorrent, plus the associated environmental benefits.
In return, they’ve probably heard most of people’s excuses to eat meat. From meat tasting good and that taste never being adequately replicated by any plant or artificial means, to the animals are going to get slaughtered anyway, they may as well eat them as their singular abstention won’t make an impact or that they could never spend their remaining lives eating obligatory chickpeas and lentils.
My own common reason/excuse is that I cannot mentally relate the animal in a field to how it’s presented to me on a plate.
And it is problematic that whenever I lift the top of a burger bun, I see a tasty burger and not a cow’s head.
And the fact it looks like a burger and not a cow in a tiny, tiny bread hat means that I always eat the burger.
However, having watched the documentary, my mindset has slightly changed and from November, I vow to have one meat free day a week. “Vegan Monday.”
I appreciate the logical argument that you can’t just pick one “meat free” weekday and condone animal cruelty by eating meat on the other six.
But this will be a small but significant step for me and who knows how this journey will end? That I’ve listened to the argument and am trying to embrace it is, in itself, a small positive change.
Categories:Food
Russ Writes 
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