What I’ve Been Eating and Reading

… or more accurately What I’ve Been Eating and Reading and Why I’ve Been Eating What I’ve Been Eating Because of What I’ve Been Reading. That would be too long though.

Four Meals

right, top to bottom: cheese, tomatoes, lettuce & black bean humous sandwich; goat cheese mini-frittatas with salad; Mangled Eggs at the Templeton (eggs, brie and veggie bacon on a croissant) with rosemary potatoes; left: poutine with vegetarian gravy

So all of these meals have something in common: NO MEAT. Why? Because last week I read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer and omggggg I am so grossed out now. I read the part about chicken processing while I was at the salon getting my hair done and I seriously almost barfed in the shampoo sink.

eatinganimals

It also made me feel really sad and guilty. The cruelty and abuse is just… ugh. I can’t even explain it. I know that the food industry in Canada isn’t quite as terrible as it is in the US, but it’s definitely not good. I even feel bad about the eggs in my fridge, and I bought them for $6 a dozen at the farmer’s market from an organic biodynamic free range family farm, but is that good enough? IS IT? I feel like I’m one step away from being these people:

I mentioned reading this book in a general discussion forum and these are the replies I got

if it wasn’t for bacon, i swear…

I feel like once a year I’ll read a book about the ethics and environmental problems caused by eating meat and then 6 months later I’ll crave bacon.

i read that and saw food inc which made me very concious of what i eat. i still eat meat but not lots of it and i try to know where it came from

reading that book convinced me to be a vegetarian.

I definitely ate some bacon from Taylor’s bacon poutine last Thursday, without even thinking because I ALWAYS eat bacon from his poutine. Should I stop doing that? Will I stop doing that? I don’t even know. I’m loathe to say “Oh I’m a vegetarian now!” because I mean WHO KNOWS how this bacon thing is going to play out, but right now I’m too grossed out to even consider eating meat.

a full list of all this year’s books can always be found here, and as always, book links are usually to Amazon, and clicking on them might earn me a nickel.

9 Replies to “What I’ve Been Eating and Reading”

  1. lol “general discussion forum”…… I want to read this book! Although, these books/movies usually only effect me for a short period of time and then I want a juicy burger w/bacon and avo and a shake so idkidk. lol

    1. You should totally read it, it’s so fucking disgusting. It actually has the phrase “fecal soup” in it. FECAL SOUP.

      In case you were wondering, fecal soup is what they chill chicken carcasses in before they sell them! They just float them in a vat of cold shit water! YAY!

  2. I’ve read Fast Food Nation and most of Michael Pollan’s books (and The Jungle, which is from 100 some years ago but sadly seems still current in most respects). I haven’t read any more recent meat/food industry books because I feel like…alright, I get it! Quit being gross! But I’ve definitely greatly reduced my meat consumption. I still indulge if we’re at a fancy restaurant or, yeah, if there’s bacon or fried chicken. But I found that as I was eating healthier and focusing on veggies and whatnot, I just wanted meat way less. I’m also sort of accidentally eating less dairy. I’m not going to declare myself vegetarian because I do like eating GOOD meat now and then. But I’ve been reading a lot of vegetarian/vegan blogs and cookbooks for meal ideas.

  3. I am currently reading Eating Animals! I was laughing at your above comment because I am at the fecal soup part. It’s the worst chapter; so hard to get through. I’m already a vegan though, so no convincing me, Mr. Foer!

    1. Well you probably won’t cry at the part where the cow licks the guy’s hand right before it’s slaughtered like I did T___T

  4. this comment is kind of late, but i just worked on an organic farm for 2 weeks, and i have been trying to eat less meat & wheat in general. i think that, honestly, sometimes eating meat is unavoidable. also it’s tasty. i have also found that organic meats and eggs are so much tastier which makes it easier for me to buy them on top of them being better for the environment.

    the farm i worked on did a meat-share with another farm. so basically, she made a trade with a meat farm – a ton of her veggies for whatever cuts & types of meat they were offering. it’s like a CSA box but of meat. idk if they have that in your area & how expensive it is, but maybe you could look into that if you want to keep enjoying meat sometimes!

    i have a lot of feelings about meat and food in general. but from reading your blog i can honestly say you’re better than most of the people i know! you cook at home SO much, there’s always something green on your plate, and you go to the farmer’s market when you can!

    also! don’t get caught up in labels! it makes it so hard and sometimes awkward. idk i hate when people are vegan just becasue it fits the rest of the shit they’re into. when i was veggie, i felt guilty every time i craved meat even though i didn’t ever think it was wrong to eat meat! the thing that’s wrong about meat is where it comes from, what it’s fed, and how it’s processed! sorry i’m writing you this terribly long food rant. i just wanted to say that i think you feed your family well and have a good attitude about food! and that you shouldn’t feel guilty about eating meat sometimes or even your food choices – we aren’t all billionaires who can control where all our food comes from!

    1. omg the organic eggs are SO MUCH BETTER than store eggs! Like not just the taste but when you crack store eggs the shells just crumple into tiny shards, but the organic one crack cleanly in half, it’s AMAZING.

      I’m not saying I’ll never eat meat again, like people keep asking me if I’m a vegetarian now and I’m not saying I am, but when I was talking to Sym about all this (lol because she’s nine so she has all kinds of opinions) I asked her “Is it fair for a pig to die just because I feel like eating bacon?” and she said “No.” Sometimes she really smart, although I think she’s just happy I’m not making her eat chicken anymore. She only likes it in nugget form 9__6 KIDS.

      I actually just signed up for this AWESOME grocery delivery service, SPUD (Sustainable Produce Urban Delivery). It’s not like a CSA, they have all kinds of stuff but a lot of what they carry is organic and/or local, and the prices are reasonable- the organic milk I’ve been buying is actually CHEAPER and delivery is free if I spend more than $35 per order, and feeding my whole family I DEFINITELY spend more than that a week. Everything on their website states clearly where it’s from, and if you your order’s average travel distance from where the food was grown/processed is less than 1,250km you are entered in a draw to win a prize- a jar of local honey! So goofy but honey is expensive! Anyway my order’s travel average was 124km so I feel pretty good-slash-smug about it.

      I also have a lot of options about organic meat, if I decide to start eating it again- there are a lot of organic farms around here, and I can get their products through SPUD, or the farmer’s market, and this one grocery store down the street from my house actually carries a lot of organic meat. I just don’t know if I want to do it.

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