It's no secret that Americans are an unhealthy lot. We're obese and diseased, and we're not getting any better. There's much to say about the sorry state of our food supply - it's ridden in pesticides, it's genetically modified, it's chemically treated and processed within an inch of it's life. Our food isn't food anymore. It's a science experiment gone wrong.
Problem is, very few people think about any of that. People eat blindly. They drive up to the fast food joint, order their burger and fries, and start eating before even pulling away. They go to the grocery store, pick out a plastic-wrapped styrofoam tray of wavy ground turkey, plop it in their cart, and roll away to look for the chocolate milk.
Do YOU eat blindly?? I challenge you, today, to start thinking about what you are eating. More specifically, I challenge you to think about that meat you are eating. That burger in your Mickey Dees bag - that package of wavy ground turkey you picked up at the grocery store. It is the muscle - the fat - the corpse - of a dead animal. That animal could think ("hey look! - there's food in that trough!") It could feel ("I feel hungry!") It could make decisions (I will put my head in that trough and eat). It was just like you, and just like me. But with fur, or feathers. And maybe a few extra stomachs.
That living, feeling, conscious being likely lived a miserable life. That cow you're eating likely spent its whole life standing in his own shit with a thousand other cows, being shot up with chemicals. That chicken you're eating likely spent its short life in a cage that didn't allow him to turn around. That lamb you're eating at that Indian restaurant? It was someone's baby, and that baby was ripped away from her, never to be seen again. The lamb - and nearly every other animal produced for human consumption - gets trucked away to a slaughterhouse - scared and bewildered. And before it gets shot or hung or has its throat slit, it sees the animals around it - hears the sounds of torture - before it, too, meets the same fate.
That is the reality that you're being blind to when you eat meat. Eating grass fed, organic, free range meat - I'm just going to say right here - NOT much better. Yes, their lives might be more pleasant. But their deaths - the same kind of torture.
Stop being blind, and put yourself in the place of that animal. Would you want to trade places??
No?? Then stop doing what you've always done. Stop making excuses that you don't know what you'd eat if you gave up meat. Stop saying your blood type says you need protein. Bullshit. There are a bazillion vegetarians in the world that live perfectly happy, healthy lives. They're not rocket scientists. They just learn a better way.
Ask around. (I'm always here to help!) Do some internet research. Buy a cookbook. You can do it too.
Here's some resources to get you started:
Book: Mad Cowboy - Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher That Won't Eat Meat
http://www.madcowboy.com/
My favorite cookbook (so far!) - Vegan with a Vengeance
http://www.theppk.com/veganwithavengeance.html
Food blogs - (these are both vegan, but there are veg ones out there too)
http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/
http://vegandad.blogspot.com/
Veg magazines -
Vegetarian Times - has lots of great recipes
VegNews - vegan centered publication that has natural living type info, veg advocacy and recipes
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