This is a picture of a delicious cookie I made yesterday. Please excuse the poor photo--J. is a much better photographer than I am, and he often takes the pictures of food that end up looking really great.
Not eating random treats has been good for my body, I think, but it has made me think about food and connections to other humans. Over the weekend, I was offered pizza after judging an awesome lego robot tournament. In that moment, I was prepared to pick off the cheese and call it good. I was also able to make light of my eating choices, attributing it to a "crazy vegan-for-a-month experiment," which didn't require too much explanation or defense. It made me think about what I would have done if actually was a vegan. It made me think about how personal our food choices are, and how we balance our eating principles with our connections with others.
I believe that sharing food is a way to connect with others. I know that people can connect without eating, but man I love to eat. And try new food. And compliment people on food they make. And cook with people. And learn about people's cultures through food. The list goes on and on. To me, some of those connections can be made difficult or impossible if I make stiff rules about what I will and won't eat. So I generally make loose rules that I break for a variety of reasons. In my mind, I can justify all the rule-breaking by thinking that my principles are still met by using loose guidelines. But these two weeks (and two weeks to go) have made me think about this a little more, and it makes me wonder if I'm actually compromising my principles with such loose guidelines.
These are the two main principles I use to make decisions about what I eat:
1. It is best for my body to eat very little meat. I've known this for a while. My digestive system works better and I have more energy when I don't eat meat. This may not be true for others, but it's true for me.
2. Much of the meat produced in our country is bad for the environment. I like this article as a resource to explain some of the issues involved, even though it's now a couple years old. I know there are other foods that are produced that are harmful for the environment as well, but this seems like a conscious step I can take that doesn't require much thinking.
3. I have concerns about the way meat is industrially produced in our country--hormones, antibiotics, etc. I don't want to be putting these things in my body on a daily basis.
I have been an on/off vegetarian for the last 8 or 9 years, with varying degrees of strictness. The last time I started up again (it's been about 2 and a half years), I decided that I would approach my eating with more flexibility, in an effort to sustain my diet and not feel deprived. Thus, I would say 98% of my diet is vegetarian. However, I:
1. maintain a don't ask, don't tell policy with broths and other flavoring agents when eating out or in the homes of others.
2. sometimes buy beef or other meat from our local dairy, which supplies meat from other small local farms, for special occasions or if I am really craving it (I sometimes think my body is lacking something it needs when I have very strong cravings for meat).
3. try food if I want to, even if I know it has meat in it and I don't know where that meat came from. For example, we went to our neighbors' house for a cocktail party and they had a delicious appetizer with prosciutto and pears and cheese and I had one.
4. eat seafood once in a while (probably less than once a month) and try to pay attention to the seafood sustainability list.
These four exceptions/policies have made me feel that I am never deprived of things I want to eat or try which makes my diet really easy to maintain. If I look at reasons 2 and 3 above, this will be much better for the environment and my health in the long run than if I go back and forth every couple of years. In terms of how I feel, well, the quantities of meat I eat are usually so small now that I don't feel affected. This is how I justify keeping loose principles about my eating choices. I feel able to meet my major principles while still connecting with others over food.
Sometimes, though (and this month, especially, while I use more restriction), I wonder about my little justifications. I think I could probably have very similar connections with people even if I made stricter rules for myself. I might not feel deprived if I changed my mindset. I guess what I am trying to say, in this long-winded post, is that this weekend, and this month in general, has made me think about the balance between principles with eating and human connections--if I should really feel okay about justifying as much as I do with my eating. I don't feel I've articulated my thinking very well today, even though I've revised and written two drafts, so this may be something to come back and explore more.
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