My Green Family. ramblings of one family's journey to green living

This is a guest post written by Kelly Basford who can been seen writting regularly on her blog thealmostcarlessfamily.

So, you’ve made the effort. You’ve de-toxed your bathroom cupboards and laundry liquid. You diligently reduce, re-use and re-cycle. Your fridge is full of organic produce and your car is gathering dust in the garage while you cycle everywhere. Pretty much done all you can right? Well there is still one very important thing left on that green list, and for some it is the most scary and impossible sounding extremism there is. That’s right, I’m talking about going veggie.

Vegetarianism and veganism have unfortunate connotations attached to them. The old image of the hairy arm pitted hippy or the earnest 15 year old girl are hard ones to shake. There is often a thought that a diet choice like this is a phase, one to be grown out of, like Goth clothes and Emo bands. There is also the thought that it is a “girly” thing to do, and few people appreciate that a man can be a veggie through his own choice.

True story. My husband happened to mention to friends that he had enjoyed a good steak at a pub a couple of years ago. The friends immediately pounced on this, offering to cook him a steak when he came over without me, his wife. The assumption being that he was only veggie when I was around!

For the record my husband made his own choice’s and journey in his own time.

So, why veggie? Well there are several routes to the same end:

The ethical vegetarian
Most people start out vegetarian because they don’t agree with the killing of animals for food. This can be controversial because many would argue that by still consuming eggs and dairy from commercial farms you still ARE killing animals¹. The next logical step for the ethical vegetarian is to become vegan and therefore cut animal products out of the equation all together.

The healthy vegetarian
Vegetarianism and veganism are also often approached in this way. Many people believe that the eating of animals and eggs and the drinking of milk is completely unnatural to humans and causes chaos in our bodies. Add to that the unnatural way animals are reared today and there is a strong argument for the healthy vegetarian.

Myself?

I take a little from each category and refuse to label myself. As a family we eat no meat, fish, dairy or commercially bought eggs. We eat the eggs our rescue chickens give us as pets with benefits, but I would not breed chickens. I only take in the year old hybrids destined for dog food. I save a life, they give me 5 eggs a week each. So I could not say we are vegan, but we are more than vegetarian².

I first became vegetarian as, yes, an earnest 14 year old girl. Back then there was little available to the budding vegetarian and I had a mother who was determined to get me back “on track”. So no special meals were made for me, no extra food brought in. Not surprisingly after a few weeks of eating only carbs I caved and ate some turkey. Thanks mum!

After that I started doing my own cooking, mostly baked potato with cheese. I carried on like this for years, eating a bad diet of junk food and dairy products. When I got pregnant with my first child I got the most amazing urge to eat chicken. Looking back it was my body screaming out for more protein and vitamins and asking for it the only way it knew how!

As a family we ate meat again until a round 2004 when, after coming out of the fug of 3 pregnancies in 4 years, I started to feel uneasy about eating meat again. We took it slowly, we still ate fish for a while. Unlike before I now had the INTERNET!!! (cue fanfares, party poppers etc.). I started my own research on how animals were farmed and the impact it was having on our health and the environment.

Around about this time I developed adult onset Asthma and decide to give dairy free a go. I’m not cured but I am much better and can really tell now if I accidentally have some dairy. It also cleared up to the point of almost healing my eldest and youngest sons eczema.

So what do I think? I think that:

Animals have a right to a fear free life.

That eating fear can only harm your body.

I know what you’re thinking: “But we are meat eaters! Carnivores! How can a diet devoid of animal products be healthy!!??”
To answer that question I should point out that no, Humans are NOT carnivores. We are omnivores like pigs or apes. We have canine teeth sure, but so do horses. Never seen one of them in line for a burger I bet!

Let’s make a check list here. To be a carnivore you have to have at least some of the following:

• Sharp teeth – We have flat plant chewing teeth.
• Sharp claws – We have nails that are too flimsy to gut an antelope with.. although I have never tried so please let me know if you can!
• Short digestive tract – A carnivore has a short tract, where as a herbivore has a long tract. Guess which we have?
• Strong stomach acid – This is needed to break down the enzymes in meat. Our stomach acid is more consistent with a herbivores and much weaker, than say, a dogs.

So in the wild, with no spear or gun (or clothes, oops!) a human would find it near impossible to hunt for game, and if he did catch something he would find it very hard to eat. Looking at things from a natural point of view, humans only became meat eaters when they discovered fire and how to cook meat. As with all food (animal OR plant based) if we can’t safely eat it in its “raw” state should we really be eating it at all?

So am I apposed to eating meat? No.

Surprised? Don’t be.

There is one kind of meat I will happily serve up for my meat eating parents this Christmas. Wild shot game is the most natural and environmentally conscious meat there is. The animal is raised without interference in the wild. He is stalked by a hunter and shot. The hunter is then a prey animal, he has done nothing a wolf wouldn’t have done. The wild game animal will never have to endure the discomfort of factory farming or the long journey to the slaughterhouse followed by the long wait to be killed. He will never be pumped full of drugs or fed a diet he hasn’t evolved to eat. Game is far superior to organic free range meat. Even life on one of these farms is far from a bed of roses and the end result is always the same. There is no first class travel for these animals, no comfy holding pen at the slaughter house. They meet their end the same as the factory farmed beasts.

But your organic meat has no hormones! No drugs or chemicals! But what is fear but a chemical? Fear as they are manhandled onto trucks. Fear as they are manhandled off again. Fear as they wait for their turn and then more when they are dispatched. That’s a lot of chemicals coursing around your organic meats body for a long time before dispatch.

Like all areas of environmental awareness do what you can. If your family has a “veggie” day once or twice a week, you HAVE made a difference. Don’t look upon it as restricting your diet, but rather enhancing it with pure healthy foods and basking in the knowledge that you have taken another small step on the road to sustainability.

Notes:

1. In commercial chicken breeder factories where eggs are hatched in incubators, the male chicks (in the case of egg laying hens) are dispatched at birth. This can be done “humanly” in gas chambers but is more commonly done by tossing them into large bins or black plastic bags, for speed.

The male calves produced in dairy herds are either dispatched within a day or two of birth or are eaten as veal. In the UK veal is not widely eaten so calves a few days old are often loaded onto trucks and transported to Europe to be produced as veal.

2. The classifications of vegetarian are commonly:

• Lacto, ovo vegetarian – One who consumes no meat or fish but does eat dairy and eggs.
• Lacto vegetarian – One who consumes no meat, fish or eggs but will eat dairy.
• Ovo vegetarian – One who consumes no meat, fish or dairy but will eat eggs.
• Strict vegetarian – One who consumes none of the above including all products containing gelatin and other animal by products.
• Vegan – One who consumes none of the above including honey. Will also reject all leather, fur and skin products.

Most people fall into a mix of two or more groups. What group(s) do you fall into?