Today’s blog was supposed to be about everything I learned from my first print-bound foray into becoming a vegetarian. I ordered a ‘starter kit’ online from the Compassion For Animals website and it arrived today. It’s a mini-magazine style publication, which I assumed would be full of interesting facts about vegetables and healthful reasons not to eat meat.
But of course it’s not that at all. Or at least, it’s not what they meant when they said it would be “everything you need to know to become a vegetarian.” Basically, it’s an animal horror chronicle. Well I’m pretty sure that it’s an animal horror chronicle. I saw a few horrific pictures of cute hairy pigs and fuzzy cows being mistreated and something about pulling teeth without anesthetic before my stomach turned, my eyes welled up and I shut the magazine.
I forgot how utterly horrific all the details are about killing animals for meat. I forgot that I care about animals a lot. I mean, I’ve seen it all – books, documentaries, rallies about animal rights where people act out cramped animal living conditions. But somehow I’ve still managed to let them be commodified and wrapped in plastic in my fridge. I don’t know where this disconnect is, but it’s somewhere between my brain and my stomach.
Meanwhile my beef indulgence has been off the charts. Yesterday I ate a steak. It was charred on the outside to perfection and it tasted like pure satisfaction. My mouth waters just thinking of it, but then I picture that image from the magazine (yes, I’m sparing you, dear reader – but you may not be so lucky once I’m an entrenched self-righteous vegetarian), and I want to throw up.
I’m a hypocrite, I’m a carnivore, and I’m giving up beef in two days. How can I have such compassion and empathy for the animals in those pictures and then still be a meat whore? Why doesn’t it make me find the smell of meat disgusting? Why am I made that way? Will it change as time passes without eating meat? Do I have to carry around pictures of tortured animals to get through the next phase of this plan? Will I be able to open that magazine again and actually read it? Stay tuned.