Vegeterian DUers: I'm considering it, need some advice. [View All]

[liberalhistorian]

I've known in the abstract, and for a long time now, the horrendous conditions of the meat slaughtering and packing industry, the dangers, the toll on the environment, the terribly inhumane treatment of the animals before and during slaughter, etc., etc. I've known in the abstract, and for some time, how much healthier it is for humans not to eat meat and how much better off you are. All these things I've known, but pushed to the back of my mind because I enjoyed meat too much.

But today I read a Counterpunch article that another DUer was kind enough to post, and that was the last straw. I could no longer keep what I had long known in the back of my mind and forget it so I could enjoy meat like I have my whole life. I had already stopped eating any kind of fast food last year after I bought my son a copy of Fast Food Nation and he read to me some of the more disgusting pages.

But now, after reading that article (and I'm telling you, I wanted to vomit afterwards, it read just like the description of the slaughterhouse and sausage-making process from Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle, guess we haven't come very far in a century, now, have we), and after the e. coli infections and mad cow disease incident, caused mostly by the practices of the meat industry itself, (such as allowing the slaughtering and packaging for consumption of "downers", or cows too sick to enter the slaughterhouse unassisted) which only cares about profit, and not the animals, their workers, or the health of citizens, I don't think I can ever eat meat again. Feces-contaminated meat (from slaughterhouses not allowing workers adequate time to wash their hands), meat with pus from abcesses and tumors that weren't totally cut out of the meat during slaughter, workers treated like slaves, etc., etc., makes me physically ill to even think about.

But my problem is that I come from a meat-eating family, and I've always eaten meat and meat products, as my family continues to do. I also, frankly, don't like many vegetables, and most veggie meals I've seen include a lot of the vegetables I can't stand. I like beans and peanut butter and cheese and things like that, though. So what do you suggest, how should I begin doing this? I'm thinking it would be best to give up red meat and pork first, then wean myself from other meats like turkey and chicken. I don't think I can go, pardon the pun, cold turkey all at once. But I know there are plenty of recipes and vegetarian meals nowadays, especially since more and more people are becoming vegetarians or at least drastically cutting back on the consumption of meat and meat products.

So, do you have any suggestions or ideas? Any feedback at all would be appreciated.