Reply #53: I haven't eaten red meat in 20 years [View All]

and at one point, managed to give up all animal foods. That didn't last - I missed dairy and eggs (especially cheese), and I really missed seafood. I don't miss beef or pork at all - I never liked hamburgers to begin with, and pork never liked me, it always gave me a tummyache. So gradually I added eggs and dairy back in, and then seafood, especially shellfish (I loves me some shellfish!), and these days, because I'm lazy and don't cook, I eat some poultry too.

But I'll probably never eat red meat again.

None of this is for cute and fuzzy type reasons - originally I gave up beef as a protest against what free-range cattle farming does to the environment around here. Then there were so many other reasons not to eat it, chief among them being that, well, I don't miss it. I gave up pork because I tried to eat it after having eschewed it for a long time, and was in agony for days. I don't think I have the enzymes to process that stuff anymore.

It's no sacrifice to me to give up red meat. If I cooked more, I'd give up poultry too, but I'm too lazy. It's difficult to find prepared foods that don't use meat of some sort.

I found that people in the midwest think you're a vegetarian if you don't eat beef and pork, regardless of how much fish and poultry you might consume. Around here, they're more likely to not consider you a "real" vegetarian if you eat any animal products at all. I think making any kind of moral judgements about people based on what they do or do not eat is pretty silly and shallow.