Under these circumstances, it is understandable that you may consider your vegetarian diet as the best option for you and that you cannot do better than that. But you can. Like with all addictions, you can get rid of it. You can get 'sober'. You can get free.
We need to talk.
First of all, I want to thank you. I applaud your choice to move toward a
more compassionate diet, and I think it’s great that you decided to reject
meat. Your commitment to vegetarianism shows you can handle peer pressure
well and know how to say “no” when you need to. Choosing ethics over
convenience is a rare virtue these days, so I salute you for it. However,
there are some matters we must address, and I hope you’ll take the time to
reflect on them.
You probably can guess what I am talking about. I understand, you rather not
discuss it right now, but you can’t keep pushing it under the carpet.
Believe me, the longer you avoid it, the harder it will be.
If you have been vegetarian for a long time, you probably have found a
comfortable spot in your lifestyle where you can rest in peace curled up
away from those images and thoughts that made you stop eating meat in the
first place. Or perhaps you just followed what your religious scriptures
said was the right way to eat. Maybe your choice may have initially been
disconnected from ethics, and it had something to do with health, or with
what your parents fed you.
Either way, it’s time you look at that choice with different eyes, the eyes
experience have been sculpturing on your face over the years.
You and I have many things in common. From some perspectives, I am,
technically, one of you. I also try to be a compassionate person like you.
And I also prefer to eat healthy food and reject any dish made from the
flesh of someone — seasoned with hormones, antibiotics, carcinogens, and
tears.
For many years, cheese was my favourite food in the whole world. So creamy,
so aromatic, so warm. So convenient, so characterful, so versatile. When my
friends went travelling somewhere, I always asked them to bring me some
exotic cheese. I could not get enough of it. And I loved omelettes too! Made
with potatoes, courgettes, or spinach, they were one of the most common
meals I ate when growing up — in fact, omelettes were the first dishes I
learnt to cook! Ah, and we should not forget those fabulous desserts. Where
I come from, my favourite was “mel i mató”, made from honey and milk curd —
delicious, I can tell you. Vegetarian food has a comforting, homely quality,
almost like a mother’s embrace, don’t you agree?
But — I think you know — there is also something very sinister in vegetarian
food. Something that many people don’t want to know about—especially
long-term vegetarians set on their ways. Before I made my choice of diet, I
kind of knew, but I did not want to acknowledge that I knew.
I didn’t want to accept that I had blocked it out of my mind. I knew that
milk only comes from the breasts of mothers who have given birth, but I
didn’t want to know what this meant for a cow and her kidnapped calf, or
that they both are killed when they are still young.
I knew that eggs only come from laying hens, but I didn’t want to know what
this meant for the doomed male chicks born in the egg industry (who are all
killed soon after hatching), or that the hens live a horrible life in
factory farms.
I knew that honey was made by bees, but I didn’t want to know how they would
react when the beekeeper stole it from them, and that many would die in bee
farming.
I kind of knew, but I didn’t want to know that I knew, if you know what I
mean. I didn’t want to accept that, in effect, milk, eggs, and honey are
“liquid meat”, plain and simple.
Have you ever wondered why vegetarians do it? Why do they block all this
critical information from their minds when they are licking a chocolate ice
cream, sucking a honey candy, or devouring a cheesy egg scramble? Well,
because, like in the case of smokers, they all fell victim to an industry
that exploits a human weakness useful to recruit customers: addiction
I was very addicted to cheese, and unless you are an ovo-vegetarian, the
chances are that you are too. You are most probably an addict, like I was,
and your main drug is casein. As you may already know, that is a protein
found in milk that gives it its white colour.
However, perhaps you don’t know it is responsible for another thing. It
causes addiction in baby mammals of any species making them seek their
mother so they can be breastfed regularly. It’s a drug that evolved to
guarantee that baby mammals, who often can walk soon after birth, stay close
to their mothers always seeking their milk — any mother who has weaned her
child knows how strong that pull is.
But what happens if humans are not weaned off milk? What happens if you keep
feeding humans with milk in their adulthood, from another species, and now
concentrated in the form of cheese, yoghurt, or cream, with higher doses of
concentrated casein? You make dairy addicts, that’s what happens.
And I believe that dairy addiction leads to the rest. Once you are addicted
to dairy, I think it is easy to begin consuming the rest of liquid meat. If
your addiction made you rationalise exploiting cows, another mammal like
you, what stops you from exploiting birds in the same way? And if you allow
yourself to exploit birds, what stops you from exploiting insects?
Ultimately, I think it is likely that your addiction to casein made you
accept the exploitation of animals for milk, eggs, or honey and “convinced”
you that you had no other choice than to consume products derived from them.
You shouldn’t blame yourself for becoming addicted, as, like me, you were
exposed to substantial amounts of casein from a young age and grew up in a
society where animal exploitation is commonplace and accepted. Under these
circumstances, it is understandable that you may consider your vegetarian
diet as the best option for you and that you cannot do better than that.
But you can. Like with all addictions, you can get rid of it. You can get
“sober”, You can get free. My addiction to cheese was clouding my judgment,
but I got rid of it over twenty years ago. You and I have many things in
common, but there is a big gap that separates us. Unlike you, I became a
vegan instead of a vegetarian, and I no longer support the exploitation of
cows, goats, hens, ducks, or bees. It only took me just a month or so of
dairy abstinence to get rid of my addiction to casein (so it was not as hard
as I thought it would be) and now my diet is solely dictated by me — not by
any unethical industry.
You must also know it’s healthier, right? You know that the high cholesterol
in eggs, milk, and cheese is not good for you, don’t you? You know that it
is better for the environment too, as the dairy industry is one of the most
polluting and damaging industries for the planet. You must also be aware
that avoiding animal products is not incompatible with any religion. You
know that whatever the religious scriptures you may be following say you
should not eat is the minimum you must avoid, not the maximum. And I am sure
you know that, in the second decade of the 21st century, you can get any
animal-free versions of any vegetarian dish you want (in most cases, you
would not be able to tell the difference in terms of taste and texture).
You can become vegan too. It’s easier than you think. Perhaps you have
considered it before, but something stopped you, so if you want some help to
do the jump, you can try this:
Find a comfortable place to be, with no distractions. Once there, remember
when you decided to stop eating meat. Go back to that moment. You should
never forget it, it was an important moment in your life, so close your eyes
and try to recall it. Try to remember the arguments you used to make that
decision, and the fears you had. Recreate the mental process you went
through, re-live it, if you will.
Then, when your mind is fully engaged in that moment, do this: ask yourself
what your choice would be if that important moment had happened today,
rather than then. Ask yourself which diet you would choose if you had to
decide today, with everything you now know. Don’t get too attached to the
dietary habits you have created since then, they all can easily be replaced
and become your new comfort zone. Give yourself credit for what you can
achieve, because remember, you already achieved something similar in the
past.
Given your current knowledge of the world and the person you became,
reconsider that important decision and see if you can improve it (which is
something I do every year, by the way, and I always conclude that I can do
better).
Do this today, if you can. Use this letter as a challenge, if it helps. As
the ethical person you are, you know that, sooner or later, you must face
the music, so why not right now?
It’s time to take the step you probably already wanted to take for some
time. I know you are not one of those stubborn closed-minded old-fashioned
vegetarians because you would not have reached that far in this long letter
if you were. You can do it. Many of us have. It should be easier for you.
You already know how to take steps to stop eating unethical foods.
You only need to take a few more, until you are finally free.
It’s time.
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