Vegetarianism, Veganism, and the "All-American" Hamburger, part 2

So, I told you all about how the chicken made me queasy the other night. Yeah, it might have been that fast-food fried chicken isn't exactly at the top of the healthy-eating list. Also, like LisaT suggested, had I taken the time to actually sit down and thoughtfully eat, perhaps I would have either a) gotten queasy earlier or b) STOPPED EATING THE DAMNED THING. But I think that really, in that moment, it was because i couldn't stop imagining the live chicken. Not that I have some emotional connection to chickens. Mostly, I hate them, thanks to an evil rooster my cousins had when we were kids that would fly maniacally at you whenever you went to collect the eggs from the coop. But still, something about that live chicken image in my head...

Now, like Mr. Franklin explained, since I am a rational creature, I can surely come up with a way to convince myself that eating meat is ethically okay in regards to my relation to the animal (animals eat other animals; people have been doing it forever; our bodies need the protein; the animal was killed humanely; this is my chance to take revenge on the poultry population; etc etc etc).

But what about the staggering economic & health impact of eating animal products?

Here's where, for me, it gets pretty clear.
- It takes 990 gallons of water to get you one gallon of milk (Thanks, AnimalBlawg! Click here for a citation... fact is on page 167)
- Livestock is responsible for 18% of the greenhouse gas emissions worldwide (Thanks, NoImpactMan)
- Hog Farms don't have to treat the hog waste; plus, they're helping to grow antibiotic-resistant bacteria (check out this article from Rolling Stone)

There are lots of ways to rationalize these problems - sure, water is a renewable resource; sure, humans are causing a lot of greenhouse gas emissions just by breathing...

But the more that I read, the more I want to just opt out. Thinking about the vastness of these problems and how they affect just me, just this one body, really freaks me out.

So maybe going vegetarian and/or vegan is something that I should do out of respect for myself; putting aside my respect for the environment, or animals, or my fellow man, shouldn't I try to take care of my own body first? If I am going to start eating thoughtfully (O, were there more than 24 hours in a day - an additional 4 hours for yoga and thoughtful eating would be a true blessing), why don't I use that brain-power to hunt down green foods? Eating those free sandwiches from the BEC was definitely not a thoughtful act - it was "easy" and "free". We come back to the idea of scope versus scale here - sure it was, on the "scale" scale, easy and free, but on the "scope" scale, I actually paid for that food with my own body. I sold out. I spent myself instead of money... and we are spending our planet, instead of our time and money, on all of that meat.

I am feeling quite trapped by this problem, because I have always had a hard enough time respecting my own body without bringing green into it. The last time I did hot yoga was two weeks ago (Hey, I rationalize, sleep is more important and I don't have the money to go). Last night I ate three packaged, mass-produced, white bread dinner rolls (they were free). This morning I ate a Little Debbie snack (no excuse there other than i could find 75 cents in the floorboard of my car).

This is all, for me, like a drug addiction! But unlike heroin, the price of this addiction is "cheaper" than the alternative. Additionally, there seems to be little societal support for someone who wants to break the oil/sugar/processed-food/animal-products/waste/mass-production addiction. My job, the media, my financial life, and people around me all make it difficult to do what, if I weren't so implicated in this bizzare system, I would choose to do.

So, economics play a HUGE part in this for me. All of the immediate things, like the balance in my bank account and the time i have in a day, completely occlude the big picture cost of what I'm doing to myself by persisting in these very un-green habits.

Well, I certainly didn't intend this post to be quite such a whine-fest as it turned out to be, but I do want to ask for help in this sense - do you all have any ideas how to quantify your choices? It is easy for me to quantify the price of a lunch (free sandwich from BEC = $5 at least still in the bank). It has not been so easy for me to quantify the cost of that sandwich (that roast beef and the styrofoam packaging - how much is that costing my body and my world?).

That's why I'm super excited about a new curriculum at my parents' Alma Mater, Warren Wilson College, which I'll talk about in my next post. Maybe it will help us quantify scope in a way that our over-stressed brains can actually understand.

The problem of hipocrisy in my little world

Thinking about coming to work today - after a wonderful weekend in the vibrantly green world of AblePonder and then two days in a miasma of being ill - reminded me of a post on AnimalBlawg.com about hypocrisy.

"Today it is impossible to avoid hypocrisy in any struggle against the status quo. The political and economic structures are constructed so that it is practically impossible to avoid being implicated in their workings." - quoted in the blog from Crimethinc’s Days of War, Nights of Love.

I feel as though I am often struggling against the status quo - the assumptions and habits of Corporate America, the habits and attitudes of consumerism, the attitudes and behavior of selfishness.

I guess what it all comes down to for me lately is that people buy into these structures without thought. I happen to be a big proponent of Ayn Rand's brand of selfishness - I think that people SHOULD take care of themselves! I think that capitalism and the service economy is great - people SHOULD be rewarded for their excellence, hard work and creativity!

It just all seems to fall apart out there (out here?) in the "real world."

At least I get the sense that I'm not alone in my (rather wimpy) rage at/against the system. Still and all, I find myself struggling with myself as I struggle against the system... You shouldn't have put that totally recyclable item in the trash - why did you stop at Sonic when you know full well you're buying a styrofoam cup and subsidizing the system that makes those cups - why, oh, why, can't you stop going into Wal-Mart just because it's cheaper? ... and the list of questions goes on.

I find it very similar to my constant (well... constant isn't the right word - more like recurring) efforts to eat healthfully and lose weight. The very real limits of time and money seem to beat me every time, and turn me into a hypocrite to boot. It's so much cheaper and easier to eat Kraft Macaroni and Cheese or stop at Sonic than it is to cook a healthy meal of grilled salmon and spinach salad. It's so much cheaper and easier to just throw the trash "away" than it is to haul it over to the recycling center.

It's as though I don't subconsciously really believe things that, consciously, I am convinced of and will bend your ear to breaking about.

High Fructose Corn Syrup? Bovine growth hormones? Poision!

NES's Green Power Switch? Public/Hybrid transportation? Important to invest in!

And yet, I just had a (definitely not grass-fed beef) burger last week... I drive my car to work every day... I stop at Sonic like I'm addicted...

This struggle with my weight and struggle with my carbon footprint are becoming eerily similar - I have good intentions, but in the end, I fail and eat a big, sugary doughnut -slash- throw away a trashcan full of recyclables.

It's a problem with consumption.

And I can't help but feeling that I, one who is gifted with (to reference NoImpactMan) a middle birth and a stellar education, am the worst kind of sinner/addict. Because I know the consequences of what I do, but I still do it.

Maybe if I can figure out how to be green, I can figure out how to be healthy, as well.