Part of my excitement this past weekend
was discovering that Gill St. (my all time favorite bar in Bloomington-Normal) had Big Buck Hunter. This poses two problems (a) I immediately see a fairly large percentage of my paycheck each week getting now pumped into this machine and (b) it solidifies that I’m a hypocrite. Don’t you just hate those moments? I’m 99.9% sure that every single person in this world has experienced these moments even though many will refuse to admit it (even when called out on it as I tend to enjoy doing because as we all know if you’re called out on something that you know is right, you just immediately refute it even more—again, I know this as I’m a walking example of a hypocrite). So yes, I realized I’m a hypocrite. Here I am shooting at poor innocent bucks, elk, etc (avoiding the cows of course) while being a self-proclaimed animal lover that won’t even read a fictional book that looks appealing due to its spiritual confliction since it mentions slaughtering animals.
On top of that, I have recently become what seems like a vegetarian (I have yet to determine if it’s a short-lived trend or a long-term lifestyle change) because I can’t fathom how many animals are terribly treated and then slaughtered just to fill my plate. The crazy part is that this just happened. I went from craving juicy burgers from Meatheads just two weeks ago to waking up one morning and feeling absolutely repulsed by the thought of eating meat. My most visited website went from Facebook to WSPA (World Society for the Protection of Animals – which is an amazing organization and I highly suggest that people sign up to contribute to a cause that’s making a drastic difference in this world . C’mon.. you can skip a couple of Starbucks runs a month for this). Even though all those Sarah McLaughlin commercials would make me bawl my eyes out when showing abused animals, I never gave this website much consideration (because I tend to lean more towards local donations which is what I do at the Humane Society of Central Illinois and Miller Park Zoo- again, two other organizations I recommend you donate to) until last week when I woke up feeling the way that I did.
I blame half of this on a situation that I've tried to forget about that happened in the early winter of 2008. My quick lunches used to consist of me coming home and boiling a few eggs and heating up asparagus to eat at work. I was doing that like usual one day and I put the eggs in the hot water in the pot on the stove. A couple of minutes later (ugh, even as I am thinking of this story my heart is just breaking), I swear I heard what sounded like a little bird chirping. I tried to ignore it because it wasn’t possible, right? Again, the chirping… then another… then some more. I ran over to the stove and pulled out a couple of the eggs. I put them in the sink and ran some cold water over them. Then I carefully started opening them up (completely freaking out this whole time). Nothing that looked like a baby chicken. So I calm down (after scolding myself for being delusional) and then put the eggs back in the hot water on the stove. A few minutes later, the chirping started again. I took the eggs out, threw them in the trash can outside, and never boiled eggs again. Well, I moved on… kind of. I would think of that story every now and then and get sad. Well, guess what story I was thinking of the night before I became a vegetarian? Coincidence…?
In summary, I’m being haunted by a baby chicken and I encourage all of you to donate to the WSPA.
In summary, I’m being haunted by a baby chicken and I encourage all of you to donate to the WSPA.
3 comments:
I still come from a family of hunters so I just let everyone else be. :-) Don't know if you knew or not, but Amber and I have pretty much been veg for a little over 2 years now... I've had a few meat instances but otherwise smooth sailing in the wonderful world of greens. I don't even like regular milk anymore, just Silk. Just had some amazing tofu Pad Thai last night too! Although I do miss a good steak sometimes. :-)
That's really interesting, Trev! I may have to turn to you then to get some good recipes to learn how to cope with this. I've had to do meat a couple of times this past week because I needed something with more substance even though after I ate it I felt incredibly sick. So if I could learn how to make really good satisfying veggie dishes then I think I could make this whole thing work for me.
One easy change is to use those Morningstar or Boca crumbles in place of ground beef. Make chili or tacos or sloppy joes with it and you can barely tell the difference! The texture is pretty much the same.
Also, vegetarian cookbooks - you wouldn't believe some of the stuff they put in those. Deliciousness!!!
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