I find this question so interesting and I'm super glad you're asking us to discuss it in your kitchen Kenny :)
So I became conscious of how much meat I was eating roughly 4 years ago and realized this was quite excessive. I did not eat many vegetables and ate way too many processed carbs and meats.
I quit all meat at 19 and became pescetarian which has more or less been my default diet for the last 4 years. So these are my thoughts on the topic
Morality:
- Honestly this to me is the biggest problem with consuming animal products is the lack of intimacy and connection between the meat of the animal and the person eating it. I think the idea of grinding cattle down to mince and selling 150g of shredded meat which is actually recombined pieces of tens if not hundreds of cows is sickening. It just seems like having unprotected sex with lots of partners, it's just not clean and I think it has a negative effect on our aura because I believe we do ingest the emotional/auric/etheric energy of what we ingest. It creates unnecessary clutter as it's just filled with toxins and other unhealthy molecules resulting from the carelessness of the operation.
- However I'm specifically skeptical of factory farming and the idea of buying meat in a super-market. Actually the idea of eating animals caught in the wild, or even raising and butchering our own animals does seem like it could be very beneficial. I think the difference comes from offering a full, good life to an animal, and then when it gets sick or starts getting old, giving it an honorable death and making good use of its body. Personally, I don't know that I would need or feel the desire to do this, but I at least appreciate it. I've always maintained I'm okay with eating meat, I just don't believe killing an animal should be taken as lightly as picking up some meat at a supermarket. We outsource the inhumanity out and are alleviated of the responsibility of our choices, but it's all illusion. I think if I had to slit a throat, eating beef or lamb once or twice a year would be more than enough. I wouldn't do it every day, and so that's also how I eat meat. Once in a blue moon, when it is a really special piece of meat.
Health:
- Now here is something I'm curious about because there is this supposedly pseudo-scientific "Japanese" theory that says that much of our dietary needs are determined by our blood-type. Now I don't know if this is true but what I have noticed is that all of my O blood type friends are very carnivorous and they have a metabolism that really can handle big quantities of red meat, whereas I (an AB) simply can't handle one/fifth the amount. I have a friend of mine who is blood-type O, he can lift 200+ kg in a dead-lift and digest 500g of beef in 30 minutes. Now if I ate 500g of beef at any given point I would be knocked unconscious and be sitting on a toilet for 36 hours trying to move what would feel like a steel cannon ball through my bowels. So far as I can tell, depending on whether A, B or AB (and a whole host of other genetic and epigenetic factors no doubt), our optimal sources of nutrition for fats and proteins can vary a lot. For some of us, we may really need quite a bit of fish, dairy or eggs. For others, legumes, nuts and seeds may do the trick. I'm not entirely sure, but I do believe there is a way of eating protein that puts no strain on the body. I just believe that despite the hype of "eating vegan", the vast majority of us do not have access to the kinds of foods that would really constitute a super vegan diet.
- I think plant-based proteins are actually really healthy and abundant but one really needs to eat a much more varied and balanced diet in order to reap the optimal benefits of a plant-based diet. The reason why it is much simpler to eat animal products (in some cases) is because the nutrition gets carried up the trophic levels.
Environment:
- Well this one is probably the biggest no brainer. Monocrop intensive agriculture like it is practiced today is mainly to feed the earth's incredibly large population of stock animals. We definitely do not need this, it is literally bad for the planet in every way imaginable. So whatever we do, we should stop buying meat at the super-market, pure and simple. If we want some, it's best to get it from a local farmer's market, preferably from a farmer who raises his own animals.
Economics:
- To be frank I perceive veganism is a very positive light, I wouldn't be surprised that increasingly more and more humans could thrive on an entirely plant-based diet, especially as we reconnect with the earth and discover all of these lost or forgotten super foods and super plants with incredible healing properties. Veganism seems like a kind of purification phase for a lot of people. I'm not entirely sure we don't decide eating bugs, or eggs, or some kind of seafood, would be an entirely bad thing 500 years from the future. I just think we're trying to wean off the industrial food-grid matrix and start finding nutrition from better sources.
So for me, whether its just a phase, or a permanent lifestyle change, I support it. I just hope that if it's a permanent lifestyle change that people will be educated enough to make it work. As I see it, being vegan and eating out of a grocery store seems flawed to me, unless it's a really happening market. There's so much more I could add but, I guess within animal product diets or exclusively plant-based diets there is reason and extremism alike, so as always, listen to your bodies and do what they tell you to is the right ethos for any diet selection.
I will say this, I personally tried vegan before I turned 20 and after two months I was encountering health problems but that was because I was surviving on oreos bread and spicy humus... I'm open to trying vegan out again a bit later in life, when I'll have my own garden and can get over 50% of my food from my back yard