I have just finished the book ‘the ethics of what we eat’ by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. This is my second Peter Singer book on the topic of animals as food (after his classic ‘Animal Liberation’) and it has been the paddle that has finally whacked me over the edge.
My partner and I have made the leap to vegetarianism.
He has always been very close to being a vegetarian but he would eat meat if I cooked it. Honestly, we only eat meat about once a week now anyway so it won’t make a huge difference. What will be noticeable is that we are also cutting out fish and skipping the pescatarianism. There is some heavy evidence that fish farming is one of the worst with relation to pollution but even just catching wild fish is not something I want to be involved in any more.
We won’t be going vegan just yet. I have been having some fairly serious health issues that mean no matter what I eat my body isn’t dealing with the nutrients properly, so we are keeping the cheese and the eggs. I will start looking into ethical cheese though, and will probably attempt to use soy milk form now on (I drink all of my coffee with soy, but the partner will be harder to convince).
I have been getting some amazing recipes from the gluttonous vegan (seriously, she is a genius) an it is amazingly easy tor replace any meat with tofu or my absolute favourites, kidney and cannellini beans. We use a LOT of beans.
I am happy about this decision. It feels good to be making a little bit of a difference just in our household. Don’t get me wrong – I will miss the odd steak or chicken in my favourite Balinese dishes. However I just don’t think it is worth the cruelty they went through to get to my plate.
