Omnivore

I recently stopped calling myself a vegetarian and have been thinking a lot about kinds of responses I've been getting so far. To be fair, I've been a really shitty vegetarian for a long time, taking occasional meat-cations when the mood would strike or if it was something that was too good to pass up. Baby back ribs and steaks have long been weaknesses of mine. And as any uptight PC vegan warrior would gladly point out, I was technically a "peskatarian" all along since I occasionally ate fish. Mostly sushi because, well duh.

I started going vegetarian around 2004 in an effort to "eat healthier." Well, that didn't really happen for a couple years as I was pretty much just eating the same bullshit without beef, chicken or pork. It wasn't until I learned more about getting protein and other needed nutrients from other non-meat sources that I started getting healthier. I also started losing weight sometime in 2007 due these dietary changes and walking to work and all around Seattle in general. Then I actually started working out again a little bit and lost more weight. Then I met Cassie who got me back in running and now I'm a fucking runner and can do nearly 10 miles with relative ease. These changes would have seem unfathomable in say, 2005.

These changes were partly spawned by the choice to become vegetarian. Now that I'm healthy, I feel perfectly okay with eating meat on a more frequent basis. But, being the environmental sustainability nerd that I am, I like to make the effort to make sure I know the source of the meat, as well as avoiding fast food. For me, it was never about animal rights. It was about reducing impacts on the environment through not supporting the current mainstream food and farming system in America and being healthier at the same time. I still believe in that, but there are plenty of ways to do so and eat meat when you feel like it, too.

But, the way people have been reacting to me not being vegetarian anymore has bothered me. Some act like they won some of competition that I wasn't aware of participating in. Some react in a told-you-so kind of fashion, like it was just a phase. Some just can't believe that I'm no longer the one being picky about what's for dinner and having to be like, "Um, yeah I don't eat chicken soooo..." Which I still kind of do depending on the situation.

I don't think it's fair to call it a phase since it was a choice that helped jumpstart the way view food and a healthy lifestyle. And it just goes to show that despite how much more socially acceptable being vegetarian has become in the last decade or so, it's still one of those stigmas that people (read: meat-eaters) really hold onto as something that's strange or peculiar.

So here's to being an omnivore, but remaining conscious of what you put in your body and where it comes from. Uptight vegan warriors can still fuck off and die.