Meat Week
I'm not a pushy person. But when I tell you that I've been a vegetarian for fifteen years and that my husband Mike -- a lifelong carnivore before meeting me -- is now a vegetarian who salivates whenever we walk by a Wendy's, well...you might get the wrong idea.
I maintain that Mike's path to vegetarianism was, like my own, based on a moral opposition to the inhumane treatment of animals. As he often explains, "Why should I hurt something that never did anything to me, if I don't have to? Although I can't tell you how much I miss bacon." Okay, so maybe he's not the best advocate for vegetarianism. This became all too clear one night over dinner with our vegetarian friends Jacob and Rachel.
As we dined on a plate of crisp greens, Mike and Jacob reminisced about the last time they'd had meat. They spoke with the same wistfulness as two guys recalling their bachelor heydays.
"So, do you remember your last time?" asked Jacob.
"December '04," replied Mike. "You?"
"I don't know, it's been a while..." trailed Jacob.
"What are you talking about, did you forget Passover?" Rachel reminded him.
"Oh yeah! Meat Week. I guess that was the last time," Jacob offered, before taking another big bite of spinach.
Mike's eyes grew wide. "Meat Week? What's that?"
Jacob, who is Jewish, started telling us about how difficult it was being a vegetarian during Passover. Sensing our unfamiliarity with the holiday, he gave us a brief primer on Passover, including its restrictions on the consumption of breads, pastas, and beans. Jacob had decided that during the week of Passover, his religious commitments would override his vegetarian ones, and for one week only, he'd consume meat. At the time, the look of epiphany on Mike's face didn't register with me, but I soon learned that our delicate dietary regime was in danger.
It started out with Mike occasionally joking about converting to Judaism so that he could participate in Jacob's "Meat Week." But then, a rare opportunity emerged. In April (coincidentally when Passover is actually practiced), I'd be going out of town for a business trip. Mike would be eating alone. The Meat Week gods couldn't have planned it better. He began telling all his meat-loving friends about his plans to partake in Meat Week. They debated the merits of fast versus fancy food. Invitations to French restaurants and barbecue rib joints were received from people we hadn't seen in months.
I tried my best to dissuade Mike from his plan. Before the flesh-filled festivities were to begin, I tried cooking up the best, hardiest vegetarian dishes I could think of so that Mike would realize, "on his own," that he was quite happy with his current situation. One deep dish lasagna, two vegetable curries, and three soups made from scratch later, I was feeling pretty optimistic. "You're quite the cook," Mike said one night. I smiled. But then he continued, "I'm so glad I'm having Meat Week when you're gone, because there's no way I could make vegetables taste that good."
I'm not really sure what I felt about Meat Week. Conflicted, I suppose. On one hand, I was opposed to the concept for the same reasons I was a vegetarian to begin with. In my pre-Meat Week jitters, I worried that this was the summit of one gigantic slippery slope lined with grease drippings. I knew that life would be very inconvenient if my meal-time partner suddenly went his own way. On the other hand, I knew that Mike's commitment to vegetarianism was still in its infancy and had to be nurtured, not forced.
Most of my male friends took his side. "Let him have his meat!" they cried, as if Meat Week stood for something more in the great power dynamic between men and women. One noted the similarities Meat Week had with Mardi Gras or Carnival, when people often feast on meat before giving it up during the 40-day period of Lent. Meat Week was just Mike's version of these festivals, they reasoned, except that he would follow it by disavowing meat for 358 days rather than forty. Some of my girlfriends took issue with Mike's decision, albeit for non-nutritional reasons. "So now it's okay to cheat, as long as it's just for one week?" one said. "How can you be morally opposed to something one day and embrace it the next?"
In their attempts to explain Meat Week, everyone seemed to take an extreme position -- Mike's supporters cast Meat Week as a spiritual endeavor that one embarks on with a fork, while my allies clamored to indict Mike and his meaty mistress. It seemed that everyone approached Meat Week with a surprising degree of absolutism. And that's when it struck me. I had stubbornly tried to fit Mike's behavior into a neat moral and logical paradigm. This was the same approach that all the naysayers had always taken with me, when they wanted to poke holes in my dietary decisions. For years, people had peppered me with questions ranging from the interesting to the inane. "How come you still eat eggs and milk?" "Are your shoes leather?" "What about plants, don't you care about their feelings?" I rejected these "all or nothing" arguments when they were directed at me, so was I not compelled to reject them when directed at others?
While I didn't agree with Meat Week, perhaps I could appreciate what it represented, and in a twisted sort of way, even be inspired by it. I began to wonder whether it made sense for me to remain a committed vegetarian all year round. Maybe my rigid adherence to the vegetarian diet was actually holding me back. And so I decided to change up my own practices, if only for a week. "Mike," I declared, "I have news. I've decided that during Meat Week, I'm going to be a vegan."
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Is it OK for me to have a crush on ColoradoJake? He is a very well-spoken, alpack'n stud! And he knows his nutrition, too!
I'm a 5-10, 210 pound dude with a 46" chest and 34" waist, and I've been a vegetarian for a year.
The worst part about being a vegetarian, for me, is missing out on the social experience of sharing meat with other people. For whatever reason, we've learned, or it is inherent in us, to attach positive feelings to sharing meat with people. I do feel like I am rejecting my mother's love when I don't eat the meat she's prepared. Ladies in the office are offended when I don't share in meat dishes they bring from home. It's truly a visceral reaction that I receive from people that show their love through food.
I chose to become a vegetarian for several reasons: I wanted to examine how my diet effected my thinking about my world and myself; global warming; and animal cruelty.
I am very thankful for the opportunity to be a vegetarian and still have access to vegetables and dairy to sustain myself. I feel cleansed. My digestion is SO much better. I have broadened my palate.
If I do ease back into meat, I will do it with grass fed and free range meats. I don't miss meat, I miss sharing meat with people.
Look. I understand the environmental benefits behind a vegan diet but I have to say, it's really not feasible for everyone. I'm 6'3", in my 30's and about 190 lbs. I have a profession with a labor component and need about 2500 calories and 65 grams of protein on average. When the labor lasts all day, I require 30-40% more than that.
Now tell me, all you vertically
And don't say "soy protein powder" because men should not consume that much soy. The isoflavones found in soy protein have a very similar chemical structure to human estrogen and high levels in the system can impair testosterone production.
The next time I buy hay, I'll call you Ms. Chilakamarri. You can come on out from behind your air-conditioned desk in D.C. and help unload it off the truck. I buy 10 tons at a time, in 60-65 lb bales. You'll need to stack all 300-350 bales 7 rows high in less than 3 hours or you'll upset my delivery guy. I'll make you all the vegetable curry you want before you get started. We'll see how far you get.
You can get all the protein and calories you need on a vegan diet. Nuts, beans and lentils, and soy products can provide you with way more than 65 grams of protein a day. Rice and oil are good for extra calories (Additionally, any assertion that normal servings of soy protein powder raise estrogen/impair testoterone is, to say the least, a debatable proposition. But you don't need even need it to get to all the protein/calories you need)
Also, if you think vegans are necessarily scrawny wimps who couldn't possibly engage in strenuous physical activty, I encourage you to watch one of UFC fighter Mac Danzig's bouts sometime. Or just google "vegan bodybuilding" and see whether it's possible to have muscles with a meatless diet.
I never said soy protein raises estrogen levels, I said the isoflavones have a very similar chemical structure to estrogen. My mother ate normal to high levels of soy for 20 years. She was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years back, the mass was estrogen dependent and her doctor told her to stop eating soy. In any case, high estrogen levels in men lead to man boobs. Even if it's harder on the environment, I'd rather eat a few animals than turn myself into a woman.
So you're suggesting I consume 3/4 cup of various nuts, 2 cups beans and 1 cup lentils daily for a total of 1300 calories, 63g fat and 63g protein. Every day. Forever. Right. I do eat these things, a lot more than the average American and consequently, I consume far less meat (always less than 1/3 of my caloric/protein requirements). But variety is the spice of life. "Why would I want to hurt something that didn't hurt me?" Please. Do you think the wolf worries like that while eating the caribou? Variety is what being at the top of the food chain is all about.
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The problem with livestock contributing to global climate change has nothing to do with the animals. If the cows weren't there, buffalo would be. Resources will support a certain amount of life and life will always adapt and expand to fill that void. The problem is human overpopulation, pure and simple. How many resources does a city of 12-15 million people require? How much land is set aside to develop those resources? None. Humans never stop a city (or an economy for that matter) from growing when it's overwhelmed its resources, we just ship more resources in from somewhere else (like China). Kids are the ultimate pollution. Having more than two is the biggest ecological sin there is.
I also never said that all vegans were wimpy, I was implying that it's much easier to stand up on your vegan soapbox when you're a person of smaller stature and drive a desk all day (i.e.: low caloric requirements). And I would have been much nicer about it too if this piece wasn't posted in the STYLE section. Like it's COOL and STYLISH to deny your omnivore body of a mixed, balanced diet. Veganism is NOT for everybody.
And wrestling is fake Dog.
Bill Walton is a vegetarian. Few people need the calories required by professional basketball players. Edwin Moses, Billy Jean King Jim Kaat, Tony Larussa, Hank Aaron, Marv Levey, Robert Parish, Joe Namath, Carl Lewis, Martina Navratilova, John Salley, all are vegetarians. Do you need more calories than professional athletes?
Ridiculous! Are you buying that hay to feed catlle maybe?
Nope. I breed Alpacas for their fiber. Alpacas are modified ruminants with a three chamber stomach; far more efficient than the seven stomach bovine system. They produce little methane and I feed 15 adults on what a horse consumes daily. They don't rip forage by the root like sheep so pastures recover quickly. A properly managed Alpaca produces the same amount of ultra-fine fiber as 5-10 cashmere goats and some day I'll match that in all of the Alpacas' 16 natural colors (no chemical dyes). I run 50 on 40 acres and could be sustainable up to 150, year around if I improved the soil. It's too thin and drains too quickly to support thick vegetation. If I spread a years' worth of Alpaca compost out, I could improve 2-3 acres annually. Soon I'd have a hay field that would produce enough to harvest to get me through winters, but I'm renting this space. I'm just starting out and my capital is in breeding stock. I've spent $8-10K in fencing and structures, most of which will be difficult to reclaim after I leave, so I'm done improving the landlord's property at my expense.
We don't eat Alpaca because they are very rare here; further importation from S. America has been closed since 1998. I have never eaten Alpaca but would not be opposed to it. After a full life of fiber production when an Alpaca passes on, in a truly sustainable system, nothing should be wasted.
I loved your piece. And especially the kicker that you're going vegan for a week! I'm almost there, aside from yogurt which I just can't seem to kick. As for apparel, these days it's much easier to find stylish non-leather shoes and bags.
I hope your husband reconsiders. For me it's just gruesome to imagine eating meat again!
I'm Vegan, and married to a meat eater. He cooks his own meat, the same day it's purchased so I don't have to think about it, or see it in the fridge.
I have a question: after not eating meat for years, doesn't it induce illness to do so? I know for myself that after years of not eating it, I can't anymore, it tastes like blood (however it's prepared), and it gives me nausea. Cheese now tastes like salty fat, despite my previous love for it.
If your husband's been a vegetarian for years, I wouldn't worry about his new interest, I suspect after a few bites, he'll get over it. If the thought alone of what he's eating doesn't do it, the taste will.
"I have a question: after not eating meat for years, doesn't it induce illness to do so?"
I think "illness" is going too far. Digestive issues for sure.
A zinc deficiency often creates a repulsion towards eating meat because zinc is needed to produce enzymes that are necessary for breaking down complex sources of protein (meat). Most grains contain phytates that interfere with zinc absorption.
I loved your essay, especially the punch line.
I've been a vegetarian for long enough that I don't know how long it's been. While I'm sure that a ham sandwich would taste very good, I have no desire to eat one. If Mike's vegetarian diet really is about animal welfare, then I don't understand his Meat Week. Seems like he'll get a heaping helping of guilt along with his dead animal meals.
At least Jacob has a loony, religious excuse. Guilt won't be a problem because god has boxed him in.
There is anecdotal evidence that most vegetarians cheat. Perhaps Mike has been cheating because he loves is wife and is using "meat week" because he hopes this will make her more tolerant concerning his choice to eat the occasional steak.
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