Like many forty-something men, I have a love-hate relationship with food. There was a time in my life when I delighted in having a 16 oz. rib eye steak, a plate of buffalo wings or a tray of In N Out Burgers.
Then one day three months ago I came home and told Carla, “I want to become a vegetarian.”
I understand the decision to become vegetarian isn’t for everyone, however for me it made perfect sense.
To be sure it wasn’t an overnight decision. This is something that Carla probably saw coming. I’d been watching a number of documentaries on food, including Food Inc, Vegucated and Forks Over Knives. Besides the movies, I also listened to some speakers like David Freudberg of NPR’s Humankind talking about the sustainability of the meat industry.
I realize talking about one’s decision to become a vegetarian (or even worse veganism) is akin to talking about politics or religion. You’re pretty much guaranteed to offend some people by even raising the subject.
“You’re a fanatic or lunatic.”
“God created animals for us to eat.”
“I have a right to eat meat!”
Okay, I’m not here to tell you that you’re wrong, necessarily. I very well might be a lunatic, or at least slightly unhinged. Goodness knows, when I told Carla about my decision to become a vegetarian, I got the look. Husbands you know the look. It’s the look that says, “You’re kidding me.”
Of course, it might have also had something to do with the fact during the week before becoming vegetarian I bought a bunch of meat, sausages, chicken nuggets and a giant 50 count box of chicken taquitos at Costco. From Carla’s perspective, if I was going to become a vegetarian, the least I could do is not stock our refrigerator full of meat.
To be sure my decision to become vegetarian has carried some negatives.
I’d consider our family to be a typical busy American suburban family. Carla and I both have full time jobs and life is often pretty busy. It’s not unusual for us to be delayed at work or delayed by traffic and get home tired, with cranky kids and nothing to eat. At those times, our typical response was to pull out the frozen food. We pull out the chicken nuggets, wings, a rotisserie chicken, hamburger patties, fish sticks or some frozen salmon patties. Vegetarianism meant planning our meals in much greater detail.
In the first few weeks of being vegetarian I probably ate way too much pasta and cheese pizzas. Becoming vegetarian meant actually thinking about what I was going to eat. Too often, I really didn’t think about eating, and that was part of my problem. I didn’t think about eating, or what I was eating, and the result was an ever expanding waistline and a general feeling of malaise.
In America, we generally don’t think about the consequences of our diet. Too often eating fills an emotional need, or it’s just something we do. Where does our food come from? Where does our meat come from? Are these the best choices for me? These are questions I never thought about until a few years ago.
Usually, when I tell people about my decision to become a vegetarian, they ask me, “Is it for dietary reasons?”
My answer, “It’s really for all of the reasons.”
For me giving up meat represented a win, win, win. It was a win with respect to eating healthier. It was a win, with respect to supporting more sustainable practices, and contributing less to global warming. It was a win, with respect to not supporting animal cruelty.
I don’t want to make this post about numbers, but a few numbers would be helpful, since these are some of the things which convinced me to take the plunge.
It’s estimated that over a billion people go hungry each day and yet almost 70% of Americans are overweight.
It take about 1800 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef.
Approximately 47% of Soy and 60% of Corn in the United States is used to feed livestock.
The largest producer of greenhouse gases in the United States is not cars, but cows, pigs, chickens and sheep. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the meat industry generates nearly one-fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that are accelerating climate change worldwide. Other studies have argued that the UN number greatly underestimates the amount of greenhouse gases caused by livestock. According to Worldwatch, an environmental think tank 51% of greenhouse gases are the result of livestock.
Moreover, while we take for granted the eating of meat as something that man has always done, we’ve seen a unsustainable increase in the amount of meat consumed in the United States over the past 100 years. Americans eat over fifty percent more meat in 2012, then they did in 1920 and consumes significantly more meat than countries in the developing world.
When I think of our world hunger problem, and I see all of the resources we’ve allocated to meat production, I realize that lack of food is not our problem, instead it’s the way we allocate those resources.
So, what does all of this have to do with faith?
I’m not here to guilt anyone out of eating meat or stake out some self-righteous position. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that faith and following Jesus is about making choices in my life, sometimes even small choices. Too often, my faith and these innumerable choices seem abstract.
It also seemed to me that Jesus was the kind of guy, who cared intimately for the sick, the poor and marginalized. In not ignoring the prisoner or the hungry, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ (Matthew 25:40)
In other words, Jesus identifies with the least of these. He identifies with the hungry and the prisoner, not people who were exactly high on my priority list.
In the book of Isaiah 58 we read:
If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
Yes, God cares for the hungry and the oppressed and hey, who wouldn’t want to be a well watered garden?
Our family, like many families gives money to humanitarian organizations like World Vision. I’d definitely recommend World Vision as one of many charities doing a lot to address world hunger. Yet, although we’re giving our money, I couldn’t help but wonder whether addressing hunger is just a matter of giving our money. Was there something more personal that I could do to alleviate world hunger?
This is one of the things which led me to become a vegetarian. I’m making my small choice to lessen our nation’s demand for meat.
As I mentioned, giving up meat is not for everyone. In our own family Carla and the girls are not vegetarians, although they’ve significantly reduced their meat intake. (The overall result for our family have been almost uniformly positive. We’re eating healthier and I’ve even lost ten pounds along the way.)
A yummy Indonesian style vegetarian dish Carla made this last week
Something that has received a lot of attention, by organizations like Oxfam and musical artists like Paul McCartney is the idea of Meatless Mondays. This initiative encourages us to think about reducing the amount of meat that we eat each week. If each of us reduces the amount of meat we eat, even a little, just for one day, the result could be dramatic.
According to Oxfam:
If all the urban households in the USA, UK, Spain and Brazil made this simple swap, we could also cut over 900,000 tons of methane, making as much of a difference to the environment as taking over 3.7 million cars off the road for a year.
Life is often made up of small choices and following Jesus is often made up of small choices. Each day we’re offered new opportunities to love God and love others. Eating less meat might seem like a small thing, but for me it’s something.
Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way. (Message) Colossians 3:17
This coming Wednesday, we will have our second guest blogger Jo Hunter Adams, who will write some personal reflections on our topic of Sustainability and Faith.
