Meatout is today

Today is the annual Meatout, with art, educational and activist events held all around the world. The goal is for people to refrain from eating meat for just one day, and to learn about healthy, nonviolent ways to eat.

My own meatout has been in progress for 30 years, and it still amazes me when people ask "What do you eat?" "The same things you do, I tell them, "but without the meat."

It is extremely difficult to be vegan in a consumer society (for example, my feet are so narrow, I am forced to wear leather shoes--human-made ones do not fit; some of the capsules I have to take are made of gelatin; and I would have to travel 80 miles to buy vegan wine, and even then, the selection is very small). As someone pointed out to me a few years ago, many organic farmers kill garden invaders, so growing one's own food is the only guarantee that even organic produce is actually cruelty-free.

But we can all strive to be as vegan as possible, and the first step is to adopt a vegetarian diet. If you are at a loss about preparing vegetarian food, there are many good cookbooks available. Kathy of What Do I Know? is providing a number of resources for this year's Meatout, so be sure to check them out.

And if you are still unaware of the unspeakable horrors of factory farming, here is a good place to start learning.