Greg is a Vegetarian

But this blog is about me, right?

Why I'm not a vegetarian:

• It's hard.  During times when I'm not in control of the situation, when I'm stuck in an airport or it's late and I want to drive through somewhere fast, or I'm with a big group of people who all want to go to a specific restaurant, it can be difficult to find something without meat.  If the only place open is McDonald's, the vegetarian is forced to choose between a very few options and if they aren't in the mood for those specific things then then they are out of luck.  If I'm with a group who all want to share pepperoni pizzas, I can try to talk a couple of people into getting cheese pizza with me, or go without, or leave.  (This is why most non-vegetarians think vegetarians are annoying.)
• Food is culture. I don't want to go to New Orleans and not get jambalaya with sausage, I don't want to go to London and not get fish and chips. Almost universally, local cuisines are meaty.
• I can do without many kinds of meat, but I really, really love beef and seafood.  I've been a vegetarian before, and I missed it badly, and I never stopped missing it.

I admire Greg for being a vegetarian, and I'm thrilled about eating less meat myself and having basically no meat in our house (we've stopped buying meat but still have a few miscellaneous cans of tuna and chicken noodle soup hiding in the cabinet). 

I remember being 10 years old in the kitchen with Mom, my feet swinging a good distance above the floor as I sat on the barstool watching Mom at the sink cutting apart a whole chicken.  The bones cracking, the skin pulling, the blood dripping.  I remember being appalled and horrified and really sad that being an adult meant having to do that.

Luckily when I grew up I discovered skinless, boneless chicken breasts packaged neatly for me at the grocery store.

It's been about three weeks and so far I am really liking eating meat only once or twice a week.  Greg's primary reason for being a vegetarian is to avoid eating a murdered animal, and I completely agree with that.  Our culture is not only meat-based, but thoughtless about it: What's the difference between eating chunks of dead chicken and chunks of dead kitten? And there is no doubt that the animals are treated cruelly.

Maybe eventually I'll go completely vegetarian, again, but for now I'm going to settle for just eating significantly less murdered animal meat.