Three days deep into Vegetarianism and I accidentally ate a sausage roll.
You can’t expect much more from a New Year’s Resolution, after all, 92% of them fail. Why? Drastic reforms are just not sustainable.
PART-TIME VEGAN AF
It’s not the first time I’ve tried something like this – I was a Vegan for a whole 9 hours once.
If there’s one documentary that will significantly impact your thoughts on what you eat, it’s Cowspiracy. The first time I watched it I went to bed adamant I’d wake up Vegan and never look back.
The next day, my alarm clock went off and just like one of Pavlov’s dogs I tottered into the kitchen on autopilot, salivating for my poach-on-toast-skinny-latte morning combo.
I’ve chewed this documentary’s cud so many times now I could regurgitate the entire transcript verbatim. With every screening the thoughts are sinking deeper and deeper into my skin and I can tell it’s taking effect.
Cowspiracy is like one of those films you have to keep rewinding to make sure you don’t miss a single syllable.
I’m a total René Descartes style sceptic – I don’t believe in facts and I think the wisest people on this planet admit they truly know nothing – but although this documentary is laced in edits, angles and opinions, I’m not against believing it’s grown from seeds of truth.
The Steaks are High
In 1912, the world’s population was 1.5 billion, and in the space of my Grandma’s lifetime has increased to over 7 billion people.
This statement feeds a thousand other thoughts I have on our transition from Hunter-Gatherer societies to Alvin Toffler’s Third Wave of Information and its impact on the way we live and prosper, but for now I’ll keep it to cows.
70 BILLION farm animals
Our poor planet.
We’re draining it of everything it has to offer. We’re drying up our rivers, polluting our oceans, demolishing our Fern Gullies, intoxicating our air, poisoning our soils and the most hideously stupid thing about it all is – we’re the end consumers of our own evil.
The average person in ‘developed’ countries eats 80kg of meat every year. This is five giant holiday suitcases filled with naked bloody meat, meat that used to encapsulate a living soul, meat that’s been fed with genetically modified crap, meat that’s been pumped with hormones and antibiotics. Holy Cow, I feel sick just thinking about it.
How do we let this happen?
Well, unless you’re sat in a jumbo-tractor mowing down the rainforests at an acre-per minute, or your hands are covered in blood from slaughtering doe-eyed calves, or your ears are tormented by the squeals of thousands of pigs begging for life – you just choose not to think about it.
I refuse to believe that seven billion people are without a conscience, but I do believe we’re very good at selective thinking.
Like lemmings we just do as we’re told and do as others do, and for whatever our reasons may be, we choose not to question it all.
We march into supermarkets like robots and automatically pick up the meat, the cheese, the eggs, the milk because for years we’ve been conditioned to believe these are staple foods and body parts cased in plastic is totally normal.
If it was human body parts, or our pet dogs and cats, we’d be vomiting all over isle 2. It’s not okay.
You either live for something or die for nothing
So New Year’s Resolutions are not enough. Meat-free Mondays are not enough. Flexitarianism is not enough. As Howard Lyman simply puts it,you can’t be an environmentalist and eat animal products.
This is not going to be easy..’m a Poached Egg Addict and a total Cheese Fiend.. my tastebuds are completely enamoured with Manchego, Emmental, Brie, Edam, Camembert, Honey, Prosciutto, Nduja, Sobrassada and all sorts of other deli delights.
I’m going to try harder this time.
I’ve eliminated milk – my coffees are black or have a tiny splash of Almond milk, I no longer have a serious addiction to Cocopops and I’m slowly reducing my Poached Egg intake from about 10 eggs a week (no wonder I was putting on weight) to 2.
No more accidental sausage rolls – Start small, Think Big and don’t fuck up.
2 Pingbacks