I've been involved in so many conversations about food lately that it's actually driving me a little crazy. This is probably due to a combination of a few things:
-with books (Michael Pollan, Jonathan Safran Foer) and movies (Food, Inc.) directing the mass conciousness towards this matter, everyone is talking about it more than they used to
-more of my best friends are vegan than not, and only one of them is a meat eater. I am surrounded by herbivores.
-Matt and I are/were reading Michel Pollan books (I am very slowly reading The Botany of Desire and he is or maybe was reading The Omnivore's Dilemma)
I think being educated liberal kids from the woods and farms is a strange thing. It creates a strange dichotomy of wants for me. I may have written about this on here before, but I can't stop thinking about how I'm not really a city girl. Nor am I entirely a country girl. I like the accessibility and goings-on of the city. But I do miss horses and deer and dew on grass and pristine snow and the smell of the woods a pretty incredible amount. And hanging laundry out to dry, silence, a woodstove. It's a combination of missing home, missing childhood and my family and homecooked meals and missing summer, even, but there is more to it than that, I think.
Anyway, this agriculture/factory farming/vegan conversation surrounds me in circles every time I find myself in a social setting. This New York Times blog really sums up the problems well in cute words and images.
5 comments:
I think people should be able to eat whatever they want and not get bothered for it.
I say this after a decade (give or take a few months) of being a vegetarian/pescatarian. I've always felt it was very invasive for people to try to tell me what to eat or ask why I eat the way I ate. Pretty much at this point, I feel like it's no one business what I eat or don't eat.
That being said, I do think it's a responsible thing to think of where your food comes from. Where and how were the cows and chickens raised? Where did this corn come from? In that way, I think food can be political. If someone chooses to eat meat and knows where it comes from, has met the farmer, has seen the cows, that's a choice I can really get behind.
That's not to say I'm going to start eating meat anytime soon. I have psychological hangups. Although I do love bacon. And, let's be real here, who doesn't?
i think eating is akin to voting. so if you think it's rude or inappropriate or obnoxious to ask people who they voted for, then i guess it is all of those things to ask people if they eat meat and why. except eating is different than voting because we do it over three times a day and really publicly. and since it's so public i think it's okay to comment on it.
i think mostly i feel this way because i am so used to people thinking it is acceptable and normal to tell me my vegan diet is unhealthy and unnatural.
I like that this blog entry was your expression of exasperation about all this conversation and debate about food and diet and here it is again in the comments. But anyway, while I'm here, sustainability is the word. All the rest is showboating.
i know haha i thought that was funny too. i miss you best roommate everrr
Mindy--
I respect your opinion but disagree on the fundamentals. I think we've had the exact opposite reactions to people commenting on the food we eat.
--Courtney
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