Misconceptions

I haven’t eaten meat in over two weeks, but I still consider myself a meat-eater. I just don’t feel it in my meatless gut that I don’t do the meat thing. I still hold some of my old notions of vegetarians, even though I have something in common with them now, namely vegetarianism. I wonder why I don’t fully relate? I suspect I am actually different from a genuine vegetarian. I saw something in a TV show that made me think about this. I was watching an episode of The Office (Thursdays at 9/8c on NBC) where all the characters attend an Indian holiday celebration called Diwali. At the party Angela, who is generally the unhappy and annoying character, is walking through the buffet line of Indian food and asks the server if there are any vegetarian dishes with a disgusted tone in her voice that indicates she is assuming the answer will be no. While the man responds “It is all vegetarian” she is already rolling her eyes and saying “I will just eat some bread” and walking away with some dry Nan and a sad evening ahead of her. It makes me laugh because it is Angela, and she is always up to something crazy, and then I smile afterwards because I think to myself “Yeah, vegetarians are so mean like that.” But now that I think harder about it, I don’t really remember the people in my life who are vegetarians. Not that I forget them, I just don’t keep close tabs on other people’s diets. So I don’t have the chance to see if they are pricks about the whole thing when they go through buffet lines.

So why is it engrained in me that vegetarians are overbearing jerks about their special dietary needs? Maybe it is TV shows and jokes that perpetuate the idea. But on the other hand, maybe it is something I have genuinely felt before in mild doses. If you are having a cookout and somebody doesn’t eat the meat, you feel like you failed them. I am sure they didn’t want to offend you by not eating the meat, they may have even brought their own veggieburger to enjoy, but why wasn’t your food good enough for them? Are you living an inferior lifestyle? Do you suck at grilling? Is it your apron? It was a mistake to get the one with the cow carcass on it, wasn’t it? You feel these things subtly, deep down as a host, but not because the vegetarian asserted any of those things about you. You jumped to those conclusions on your own. I think everyone who ever goes against average societal trends incites these feelings in others. Why did they have to go and be all different? Why is my way not good enough for them anymore?

I think I understand why people think this experiment of mine is strange now. It may not be because they have stock in Big Meat or run a struggling slaughterhouse out of their cellar. Maybe its just because they don’t like seeing someone turn their back on something they themselves still partake in. I find I can soften the bad news by making it sound like something very personal that doesn’t apply to them. Then I slowly sneak the truth on them: of all the vegetarians they have ever met I am the one who in most concerned with their personal choices as well as my own. At that point they fall back on other assumptions that distance it from them again. “So, you expect to lose much weight?” No, I will probably gain some with all these carbs. “Aaahhh…but you will save some money at least, that’s nice.” No, this organic hippy protein stuff is expensive. “Oh…so how about them Lions?” They suck, they are unpredictable at best.

If anyone feels the slightest bit inferior after reading all these pompous blog posts of ours, no need. Yes, we think you are part of a problem. But so are we, and we love your cooking and your hideous apron even if we sometimes forget to tell you. Some people out there have earned our collective resentment, surely. We all know that one person who thinks we all eat maggoty vomit compared to what they eat, but they are few and far between. I actually don’t know anyone like that off hand, but I just had to say that in case any of you do.

Well, looks like we all learned something today. If you are a pretentious snob you need to knock that off, and if you heap guilt on yourself for things people are not even accusing you of you should that stop too.

Nothing

On Saturday night, since Alex always posts at normal times during the day (and me at ridiculous hours such as this – sorry!) I panicked and thought I had to post Saturday night. In my frantic push for ideas for something to write about, before I realized it was not my day to post, I came up with - nothing. I had exactly NO ideas on what to write about, which made me pretty nervous. Then today, my actual day for posting, I again struggled with finding a topic. I point this out as a good thing, however, not a troubling thing. First let me say that Alex and I make this look easy. We come up with brilliant ideas pretty much every time we post (your comments reassure that), and it’s not as easy as it seems. It takes an inquisitive mind – someone who notices small details about their diet and how it makes them feel, or on the contrary pieces together large broad themes that arise from personal experiences. We gots skills.

But today I am not ashamed to admit I have nothing to write about. And let me tell you why. It means that, since my last post, I have lived essentially two full days as a vegetarian with nothing significant whatsoever happening to me. It has become so incredibly normal for me to not eat meat that I can’t even find anything abnormal or interesting to talk about with regard to it.

Let me give you a few examples of how normal it is. The other night whilst hanging out (whilst is a word, look it up, its definition is on my blog idefinewords.blogspot.com) with a few friends we all suddenly became hungry at a horrible hour – 1 in the morning. However, instead of sucking it up and living with our pangs, we decided to order Papa John’s pizza for delivery (now accepting convenience points! How amazing is that! And the garlic dipping sauce keeps PJ’s in business, hands down). When asked what kind of toppings do I like, meat didn’t even cross my mind. I would have said sausage or pepperoni or really even meat lovers if I were asked this question a couple weeks ago, but that night I said “cheese; I don’t eat meat.” So normal.

Today, while in a burrito place in Portland, Maine (random day trip with roommate and a friend of ours. It was bomb.) (oh and Portland is known for their Mexican food…blame our broken borders if you want, but those illegal aliens (what an absurd term for human beings) flock to the similar climate and culture of Maine) I looked at the menu and immediately went to the vegetarian options. When my roommate said he was getting the chicken quesadilla, I actually said “gross.” Gross?! Me?! About my favorite bird in the world (for eating. Favorite bird in the world for friendship – big bird. Second reference in two posts, sweet)?? I have changed! Let me say though that the sweet potato burrito (albeit not Mexican in the slightest, for as we all know, sweet potatoes originally came from Mr. and Mrs. Sweet’s farm in Idaho) was phenomenal. Absolutely delicious. Didn’t miss the meat once.

What does this all mean? For one thing, it means my creative juices weren’t flowing this evening (flowin’ like molasses in August, which is still pretty slow. Have you even seen molasses flow?) and I couldn’t come up with a better topic (especially after Alex’s incredibly thoughtful and clearly presented discourse on solving just about every world problem ever; or at least attempting it.. bravo, that was a great post, in all seriousness). Following Alex’s incredibly deep post I sit here and make up stories about the origin of sweet potatoes or tell you about my favorite bird. Where do I get off? (Next stop.. Thanks, I get confused.) But it also means that I am a vegetarian. It means that maybe I can do this after T-day (you’ve heard of D-day..this involves more eating and less killing, unless you count the turkey, but you don't do you!). This may be boring for some to read, as I have talked about this before, but I will do one other thing I have done before. I urge you to try something like this. You can do it! And even if you don’t stick with it, you will gain perspective you never had before. And empathy.

I will leave with an anecdote from a party I attended this evening. I was discussing this very experiment with a fellow vegetarian at the party, a friend of a friend, when the subject of the source of food came up. I told her that I had just posted on that (http://meatmeetsgreen.blogspot.com – check it out to see my post! You...you’re already there….? Oh.) I told her that’s what this is all really about for me. Being conscious and aware of where our food comes from. I then began on my rant on bottled water (especially Fiji water. I will destroy you Fiji water). Apparently I ranted a bit loud, and when I said “I hate Fiji water with an intense passion” a girl nearby overheard and came to the defense of this horrid product (and bottled water in general). She grew up on it, she said. “Never before BU had I drank non-bottled water.” Come on, really?? Can’t be possible. Either way she claimed to be able to tell the difference in taste. I challenged her and said in a blind taste test she’d never be able to tell. We went back and forth a bit in a civil manner (during which she admitted to recycling and using public transportation as signs of her positive lifestyle choices for the old environment, and I gave credit where credit was due). But she wouldn’t budge on this water issue. And I realized something. I could spend hours, days, years, eons, seconds (wait..) trying to convince her of the evils of this “free-substance in a bottle!,” but as long as I lived I would never convince her of it (only to convince her posthumously!! Dun dun dun…. No, really, never). There are some things we just can’t convince people of in this world. Finding that distinction, knowing when to forge ahead versus abandon ship, is both hard and crucial. It is this reason that I do not advocate the preaching by vegetarians to non-vegetarians – it will never prove fruitful (or vege-ful.. no fruitful, definitely fruitful.). Since it would be impossible to convince her to never drink bottled water again, we have to work at the source, and make free water more accessible, and encourage recycling when bottled water is necessary. Until then, we will have to put up with the Fiji water drinking, SUV driving, global warming deniers. Until we can make the alternative (and correct choice for the environment) easier for the consumer, then we will have to kick our feet in the dust and “hope” that people will come to their senses. I got a lotta hope, but I want to act too, and see results. Let's do that, too.

The Real Reason

…so reads the sticker on the back of my car. Not on the bumper mind you, just the back. I know for a fact that this sticker causes grief for some people. I had a man I did not even know yell at me about it. We never really got around to introductions because it wasn’t exactly a dialogue. He was just using me to vent his anger at the color green and then he apparently had somewhere to be. Now, in all seriousness, I know the sticker is easily read as a political statement, maybe even intentionally so, but I assure you all it has nothing to do with politics. God doesn’t vote. (Ooo, that sounds kinda edgy too, but really, don’t try to deny that one) So why the back-of-car sticker and why bring it up here and now? I am going to tell you, you might have guessed.

What is the meaning of life? It’s one of those ridiculous questions that nobody takes seriously because it so serious and impossible to answer. I liken a philosopher asking that question to a beauty queen saying she wants world peace. You nod in sympathetic affirmation but deep down you are rolling your eyes and thinking “You are so unoriginal and aiming just a little too high, don’t you think?” But I think there is a real answer to this question. (Aren’t you glad you read this blog today?) The answer is the same reason I say that God is Green. What makes human life so different from all other life? Why do we love? Why do we ask philosophical questions? Why do we plant fields of grain and eat bread instead of reaping our wheat from the wild and eating it raw? Because we were put here on earth to do these things and to be this way. If you are familiar with the biblical book of Genesis you may be familiar with this concept. Mankind was put in creation to be the caretakers of creation. Caring for both ourselves as well as all things non-human. A special feature of caring for creation is the responsibility to maximize its potential. Wheat is just better when it is ground into flour and baked into seasoned bread. A tree makes a better home when cut into boards and nailed together. Creation is not only something worth maintaining; it has the potential to be even more, with our help.

“Great, so God put us here to cut down all the trees and turn all the land into farms for bread-making. He doesn’t sound so green to me. Your back-of-car sticker sucks!” says you. This is indeed where many people get a little caught up on the role of humanity. And it is where sustainability and Shalom step in to settle the dispute. Whoa. I just lost a few of you there. Hold up, I am still explaining. Do we plow the field or let it grow wild? Do we make more bricks and roads or do we hike out and find a nice cave somewhere? Do we let the chickens run free or do we grow them on (dis)assembly lines? (You see the relevance to the blog slowly growing) What would a creation caretaker do? How do you harness the potential of creation without destroying it? Ask a gardener or a farmer. Do the plants grow that big on their own? No. Do the flowers arrange themselves so pleasantly on their own? No. But are all the bugs in the garden bad? No. Can your beans grow without bacteria in the roots? No. How many years will a farm survive without rain? How strong does a monoculture grow? Nature relies on a balance of systems that are beyond human control, but it can flourish and be modified within those systems. This is something we humans have slowly been learning for thousands of years. Now I say we need to look beyond the garden and farm. There is an entire planet out there after all.

The earth is like a giant garden, or nature preserve, kept by resident gardeners - the human race. But when our favorite vegetable is wiped out by a disease, we can’t call our neighboring planet for more seed. And when it is unbearably hot out, we won’t have enough shade or water for every plant. What we need to understand is the difference between merely harnessing nature’s potential and maximizing it. It requires perspective and patience to understand that just because you can do something impressive, doesn’t mean you should do it in the long run. Nature is a hearty machine capable of producing endless wonders when coupled with human ingenuity, but it is a machine that relies on the proper functioning of its innate parts. If we find it amusing or pleasurable to pull that machine apart here and there - just this once, it will make us so much money, we promise we will stop if it becomes a problem - we may find one day that it doesn’t work anymore. It is not beautiful any longer. Then what has happened to its potential? Has it been maximized? Are we good gardeners?

And what about Shalom? I threw out that foreign word back there a ways and never even gave a reason. You may have heard that Shalom is the Hebrew word for Peace. That is a rough translation, or very narrow translation rather. Shalom is more than just a description of how settled or unsettled, violent or non-violent something may be. It is the perfect arrangement of all things in creation as God intended. It is universal flourishing. It is all things in proper relationship with God, the creation around them and even with their own selves. Shalom is our ultimate goal as those charged with the care of creation. So let’s get busy! How do we make this happen? Sadly, we have proven that we can’t do it alone. If you haven’t noticed, we are nowhere near Shalom and we seem to be working in the opposite direction. Now, a courageous person would not give up in the face of such adversity. We still have a task. We have to enter into the discussions of our society that influence the direction it takes, toward Shalom or away from it. And how do we know which way is the right way? We often do not know. It is rarely an easy question. So we must prepare ourselves. To start, we can practice justice and compassion and seek wisdom. Where do you find wisdom? Whew, I don’t have all the answers here, cut me some slack now. But that is one thing I hope to find through this experiment. I don’t expect to see radical changes as a direct result of this temporary diet modification. I simply hope to raise my own awareness, and maybe a few other peoples’ along the way, to hone my own social senses and be ready to weigh my options when the real issues arise.

I may not raise beef cattle, but I know those cows have a place in the creation that I get involved with every time I eat one of them. A place that has been spread thin to cover the realm of human activity in a way that suits us. In fact, ALL the food I eat has been through the same process, and on top of it all, scarce natural resources have been commandeered to make this happen. The next thing I know I find myself complacently taking a first-class seat away from Shalom. How many other first-class tickets do I hold? In which direction will they take me? How can I find out? How can you?

Big Iron

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Doesn’t that meat just look delicious? The sweet, savory tenderloins on the left, next to the chicken legs and turkey breasts, with the bacon in the foreground set beautifully underneath ham, steaks, and ribs. Mmmmmm. I miss meat. I would like to thank a commenter on a recent post for calling us on not including pictures of meat. I hope this makes up for our clear bias against meat. I promise you, Mr. N, that this was not an intended consequence of our blog about going vegetarian. We in no way planned to have any bias in our posts, let alone bias against something as delicious as meat. Again, let me apologize for writing a blog about going vegetarian with such a clear bias towards vegetables. I can’t imagine what lead me to do that. This picture I can only hope will heal the wounds we collectively gashed in our readers hopes and dreams.

(Editor’s Note: The above is saturated with sarcasm, but I am in no way in a feud with Mr. N. At least not after this concession and the photo above. Bias removed, valiant commenter.)

So, Big Iron. One of the things I was told about meat was that it is a good source of iron. Get your iron, they say. If you give up meat, you gotta take iron supplements. Oh, I wouldn’t go vegetarian if I were you, you won’t get enough iron. Iron iron iron. I am sick of it. How true is it?

I decided to put the theory to the test the other day, after being inspired to add a multivitamin to my daily routine. (Trips to CVS always end horribly, with me spending 30 bucks on stuff I didn’t know I needed, when all I wanted was some hair gel.) I got the multivitamin “with iron!” because of this myth (oops I gave away my conclusion… save it Devin, come on… its not a myth, meat is the only source of iron… yessss, saved it.) So the other day my diet consisted of (and I’m not necessarily proud of this, it was a lazy day for me, didn’t feel like cooking cool things.. unless you are impressed, then I intended it and eat this stuff everyday!):

2 PB and J’s

Apple

Apple Cinnamon Bar

Bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats (45%)

Milk

Pizza Rolls

Yogurt and Granola

I added up the total %DV of iron I got from these glorious foods, and I was sitting pretty at 95%! What a load of crap. It was only 9, and I had another bowl of cereal (45% of iron alone in the cereal) so I was well over my needs. We have all been fed a bunch of lies by Big Iron. You’ve heard of Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Drugs, Big Tobacco, Big Candy, and Big Bird, but one culprit that I am proud to expose is Big Iron (who works for Big Meat, but talking about Big Meat sounds weird…). Thousands of people choose not to go vegetarian on a daily basis because they fear not getting enough iron in their diets. Well I am here to tell you that you need not worry. You will be fine.

On a different note, I went to the BU basketball game tonight, our home opener, so they had a “party” with “free food.” Of course it was hot dogs and chips. No love.

So this is the 2 week mark, and I have to say, not much is new from the 1 week mark. I actually like being vegetarian. It seems easier, for some reason. Like I don’t have to worry about meat, even though it’s always a constant thought to make sure I don’t have any. I can’t explain it, but its nice. So, I challenge you, like Alex did a few days ago, to give it a shot. Even if its just for 2 weeks, you may surprise yourself and find you actually like it. Even if you love meat and say to yourself daily “I could NEVER go vegetarian; I love meat too much,” keep in mind that I said that all the time before this experiment. Daily. In fact I was a pretty boring person and all I would say to people is how I could never go vegetarian. Going vegetarian has liberated me and made me an interesting person with more to say than things about meat. And it always gives you something interesting to write about too… right… this is interesting to read yeah? Oh dear…. I have lost all my readers. Sorry for the shorter post, but I have gotten comments (verbal – everyone is afraid to post written comments) about how I need to shorten up my posts anyway, so I guess I apologize for boring you all, and you should be thankful I have nothing more to say. Goodnight, talk to y’all soon.

Public Service Announcement

Look at those colorful vegetables. Look pretty good don’t they? I bet you want to eat them. I know I would if I were you. You would feel pretty healthy if you ate a great big plate that looked like that. Vegetables are special like that. And always good for a laugh when you are feeling blue (have you ever seen a blue vegetable?) Yes, we have had a lot of fun in this blog, joking about beans, dark cults, fungus and imported tropical water – the usual things you think of when you consider vegetarianism. But I want to talk to you about the side of vegetarianism you don’t hear about. It is not all fun and games for some people out there. There are those among us who are allergic to things like nuts and soybeans. Look at the person to your left, they may be one of them, you can never know. It is impossible. For these people, giving up meat means puffy lips, a rosy red face and an itchy inner ear. “Isn’t that what we have botox and blush for?” you may ask. No! Botox and makeup actually do not make your inner ear itch, and besides, to those affected by this serious condition it is anything but a romp through their grandmother’s cosmetics box. Every glass of soy milk, every veggieburger – yes, even the extra-chunky peanut butter – they are all close encounters with death itself. How do these people give up meat? Well, they usually don’t, and nobody is making them, so why are they complaining so much? This is not a serious problem at all. We need to spend less time worrying about things like this and focus our energy on the real problems our society faces, like monkeys who can’t read or children whose hair has gotten way too long. We can’t even see their eyes! Their beautiful young eyes…

On the other hand, people who are allergic to nuts and soy products really need to be careful. My beautiful girlfriend, Tabitha for those of you who don’t know her, despite her allergies, has been quite a trooper and stood by me as my vegetarianism has drove me to hit the nutbag hard these last couple weeks. (Wow, that was one of the funniest things I have ever written and I didn’t even do it on purpose…hit the nutbag hard…Alex, you old rascal, you’ve done it again!) Now, to be honest, I do most of the cooking in this relationship. That was bad news for Tabitha at the onset of this experiment. Where was she going to find food? Especially now that it is cold out and scavenging is getting harder every day. She might have to pull her summer stash out of the tree early this year. So, the other night I was preparing delicious bruschetta veggieburgers and I made one for Tabitha as well. Tabitha knew better than to eat them without checking the label for soy products. Soy was actually the main ingredient, but I, always being eager to see exactly how many peanuts etc. it would take to make her lips puff up like red bananas, encouraged her to just try some and see how it went. She made it through half of the burger just fine when her inner ear began to itch. I suggested it might just be her makeup, but she assured me makeup does not cause inner ear itching. I asked if she had ever put some on her inner ear before, because it didn’t seem fair to rule out my suggestion without firsthand experience on the subject. She still felt like it was the burger’s fault though. Her lips never puffed up, sadly, and she was just fine, thankfully, and I got to eat extra bruschetta burger, yay! Despite the happy ending in this case, the moral of the story stands. I am glad Tabitha is still here today, even if she does have to bring her own piece of chicken over every once in a while.

One concern when originally committing to write this blog was the ability to have captivating, engaging material on a semi-daily basis. Clearly, this has not been a challenge. How did we overcome this obstacle? I have been finding that many things in life are suddenly related to this little experiment. I am probably quite biased and on the lookout for relevant material, but nonetheless, I have many more stories to share. Since I know you are starting to read faster and faster, hoping to see those bold letters of the title beneath this entry every time you scroll through more of my silly yarns, I will only tell one story now and save the rest for later.

Last night, a small vegetarian hope of mine was fulfilled. (vegetarians have smaller hopes, its part of a lower calorie diet) My friend Grace, who I have mentioned as my vegetarian sage (think wise, old, wrinkly woman, not little green plant) has always seemed to hold most of her knowledge just out of my reach. She teases me with tales of how much she knows about maintaining a healthy vegetarian lifestyle, but rarely sends me away with more than a tidbit. However, last night she passed off her bundle of knowledge to me. She had formatted the key points about eating without meat into a colorful and easily understood fact sheet, which I got to take home. Jackpot! Has Grace been softened by the years? Have her miserly ways broken forth into a renaissance of free knowledge? No. She wants her sheet back in the end. One day I will journey back to her feet, where I will leave her colorful fact sheet. Until that day comes though, I will be eating a proper balance of fortified foods.

My deepest Thanks to Grace, and everyone else who I may refer to as an old miser, give squirrel-like properties to, or bear false witness of my interactions with in this blog. That probably includes all of you readers whether you know it or not. (I just find squirliness to be more universal than most, its not a bad thing)

Personal Choice, Collective Responsibility

Being a vegetarian is a personal choice. Hands down. Everyone has their reason, and that's great. Animal rights, the environment, Buddha, whatever it may be. And I encourage everyone to share their reasons with other people. As Ghandi: "be the change you want to see in the world." (The mantra of any environmentalist it seems). What that means to me, in regards to my food choices, is that I really think being a vegetarian is best for the environment. And instead of being preachy to those who choose to eat meat (me in 2 weeks.. get ready to be preached to future self!) I think its best to adopt that change in my own life and be proud of it, to give an example to others. I can share my story and hope that it will promote change in someone else's life (hence the blog, on some level. on most levels this blog is for jokes though. and most of my jokes appear in parentheses, so I apologize for the lack of joke here :-) ). So, since we are approaching the two week mark and Alex and I seem to be in full prediction mode, I will expand on a thought that was put in my mind from my counterpart's previous post.

The two things I will expand on are the source of food, and awareness of meat/food in general.

As opposed to preaching to people, castigating them for not even considering going vegetarian, in general reducing their self-esteem to minuscule levels in order to scare them into changing (never works, trust me...), or urging, imploring, arguing, stamping my feet, etc etc., I will take a different approach. The point of going vegetarian for us was not really about meat, but rather about food. Not about only meat I should say, but rather about the sources of our sustenance (shout out to Mark P, Danielle, other IB kids...). If meat weren't wasteful, I would order a whole chicken sent to my apartment immediately (they do that, right?). What I am getting at is the process of delivering that succulent bird to my plate is wasteful.

Just like Florida apples in Michigan. Let me say a few things about this. I have a few pet peeves, and that is one of them. I wish people were more conscious about where their food comes from. Alex, I would wager that if you looked, you could find Michigan apples in some grocery store or at some stand somewhere (not that you are not looking, I am sure it's harder than finding those Florida apples). It may not be the most convenient to find and buy them, or most cost effective, but when it comes to the environment, you will be thanked (I think the environment sends out gift baskets these days... complete with one can of clean compressed air, a gallon of pure drinking water, and a box of sunshine (don't ask how they do that)). What's worse is most apples that people buy don't even come from Florida, they come from Chile, or worse, NEW ZEALAND! You couldn't pick a further place to get produce from! You are essentially paying for a first class ticket around the world for your red delicious (honestly who likes red delicious anyway.. leave comment if you do so I know who you people are). There are countless examples of this. Milk comes from Wisconsin over New Hampshire (important here in Boston of course). If you look, there is almost undoubtedly a local version of the product you seek, or at least something from a state a bit closer.

The worst is bottled water. I, Devin, right here right now, vow to never buy bottled water again. I can give that up for life and not have to blog about it (can you imagine? One week without bottled water - I gotta say, I don't know if I can do this. I smell bottled water everywhere.. Soy water just doesn't cut it..) (Soy water? In Spanish that means "I am water"). My revelation about this horribly wasteful product came about a month ago at a burrito place (of course. I find I have a majority of my revelations at burrito places...something about the beans). I got my delicious chicken burrito (don't worry, it was awhile ago) and decided I was thirsty, and opted for a bottle of water, only to discover seconds later that I could have gotten 100% free, local water, from the pop (soda) machine. Already upset at the money I lost, I looked at my bottle. The water came from New Jersey somewhere, and was trucked to Atlanta to be bottled, to finally be shipped to Boston for me to not enjoy (still bitter about the money lost). That's absurd. If New Jersey weren't known for their exquisite potable water, I would say this isn't worth it (a joke outside of parentheses?? wait, I'm confused...). So, I urge you all to look for the free water next time you are thirsty - your wallet and planet will thank you (wallets don't send gift baskets).

Above all, one thing I think I will publicly castigate people for (just this one thing, I promise...and maybe eating meat.. wait no, I just said I wouldn't do that! ok just this, read on to see what it is..if i ever closed this parenthesis you'd find out..I have a lot of control here..mwahaha) is not bottled water, but Fiji water. Shipping water from Fiji is the most absurd thing ever. Hands down. I propose a competition. If you can think of anything more absurd than shipping "the purest spring water on Earth!" from Fiji to your local store here in the U.S., post it in a comment. I defy you.

So where am I going will all these angry rants? (When is he going to tie it back to his title?!) Thank you concerned reader. My point is, while I will probably eat meat again in the future (probably=definitely.. its like those criptoquips. Just substitute all instances of probably with definitely, and you'll find the hidden message! Go ahead.), I will forever and always be aware of what it means to order one of the 200 options for meat on the menu. And when I buy produce or milk or any other product for that matter, I will try to be aware of where it comes from.

What I mean is, while vegetarianism is a personal choice, we all have a collective responsiblity to be aware of the products we buy, and what it really means to ship water from Fiji. (ahhhhh, sweet relief, the title finally makes sense!)

Exploration Mandate

In my last entry I told you all about the joys of experimenting with new vegetables. Not the coolest thing I have ever been excited about, you don’t need to be told, I am sure. But I am not the only one who thinks these things. I am not talking about Devin either. I get regular emails from a magazine in the National Geographic family of magazines called The Green Guide. One of their featured articles yesterday was about enjoying the seasonal foods of your local farmers market. I was thrilled to see the first sentence of the entire article was, “Exploring unfamiliar varieties of favorite fruits and vegetables is a delight.” I was glad that I could sympathize with the author. Especially since he mentioned fruits as well as vegetables because it sets me up to share this anecdote I would normally have no reason to write about…

Some of you may be aware that Devin and I spend a disproportionate amount of our time in Minnesota at our favorite grocery store when everyone else has gone to bed. When our friend Danielle is with us she is equally thrilled to browse the exceptional selections of the store with us. One night a few summers ago the three of us decided to buy all the crazy little foreign fruits they sold. Things like Feijoas (pronounced Fie-shwa as far as we are concerned, and always with a breathy inquisitive tone of voice) They really were not that good. I think they are not meant to be eaten plain. This story has no point, so I will tack this semi-relevant rant on for you to give it some depth:

Food is exciting. One theme of this blog is that the food we eat is both a major part of our lives and of our social structures. The ramifications of what you eat are bigger than you likely care to know. Buying imported tropical fruit is not the solution to any of our problems, but pulling yourself out of a pattern of food buying you have held for a long time can make you aware of new things. To roughly recall a statistic I heard last year, the average food item Americans eat has traveled over 1000 miles since it was in its natural state. Floridians have grocery stores full of Michigan apples and Michiganders have grocery stores full of Florida apples. Why don’t we just eat our own apples? I am sure there is some economic principle driving it, but I am pretty sure that principle does not take into account the sustainability of such apple vending practices. Unless you live in Greenland, there is probably a farmer down the highway who would love to feed you his crop. If you DO live in Greenland, I don’t even know where your food comes from or how you heard about this blog. Please leave a comment so I known you are out there.

Speaking of which, Devin revealed something else very important to us in his last entry: your comments. Honestly, the reason Devin and I squabble about who writes better blog entries (*cough*Ido*cough*) is because Devin gets more comments than I do on his entries. We want to know you have been reading so we can feel better about the time we waste writing about shopping for Feijoas. Devin said some other things I felt I needed to address. When this is all done, will I stay vegetarian? Not a chance. Will I think differently about the meat I eat? Heck yes. When something is so deeply engrained into your lifestyle you cannot learn enough statistics about it to understand the role it plays in your life. Maybe Devin and I will have to try to not use any gasoline for a month next time we feel like being weird. Maybe I will really regret suggesting that. I don’t expect others to do these strange things, but if you are curious, I would suggest testing your own self-control and discipline. Can you make a commitment to learn something about yourself and follow through with it? Are you bigger than your habits and your appetites? Even if you conclude you should be eating more meat than you were before, at least you learned something. As for myself, I will watch the sizzling fajitas pass by my table and savor the beautifully deceptive flavors of my veggieburger a while longer.

(This is where the entry officially ends. If you want to hear a short funny story, read on)

Every fall, as it gets colder and the ground begins to freeze at night, the grounds department on campus flushes the sprinkler system and shuts it down for the winter. To do this they disconnect the water supply and crank up the pressure to blast out all remaining water in the pipes. Today, I was unlocking my bike, idly watching my fellow students wander about the paths of the common lawn area, when this sprinkler-flushing process began. One girl was walking with her eyes fixated intently on the ground in front of her when the sprinklers just to her left erupted with a massive and noisy burst of mist, right into her face. She screamed, recoiled, dropped her books and curled up into a ball on the ground, covering her head. It was amazing! It was like someone threw a grenade at her. She quickly got up and made a stiff-legged jog to the nearest building, probably pretty embarrassed. Classic.