Vegetarian Myth

I guess I'm making up for not writing much lately ...

I've been on a journey for the past half year away from veganism. Creme brulee and Nourishing Traditions were the impetus for making a change away from my eating habits of the past 11 years as I've posted about previously. Now as I'm eating cheese/eggs/yogurt/milk on a daily basis and fish weekly, I'm struggling a little as whether to make further changes.

Every time I eat any fish, I saw a brief thanks to the fish for giving its life so that my body can be healthy. One of the young nurses I work with recently went fishing and caught a 37 pound king salmon. She brought pictures to share. It was a monstrous (at least 3 feet long) and beautiful fish.

I'm just struggling with the necessity of killing these beautiful animals for nourishment. I find my body wanting to eat fish and enjoying it more than I would have ever guessed.

I've been doing some reading on line and came upon a book called The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith (she was vegan herself for 20 years) and found the following passage:

"In his book Long Life, Honey in the Heart, Martin Pretchel writes of the Mayan people and their concept of kas-limaal, which translates roughly as “mutual indebtedness, mutual insparkedness.” “The knowledge that every animal, plant, person, wind, and season is indebted to the fruit of everything else is an adult knowledge. To get out of debt means you don’t want to be part of life, and you don’t want to grow into an adult,” one of the elders explains to Pretchel.

The only way out of the vegetarian myth is through the pursuit of kas-limaal, of adult knowledge. This is a concept we need, especially those of us who are impassioned by injustice. I know I needed it. In the narrative of my life, the first bite of meat after my twenty year hiatus marks the end of my youth, the moment when I assumed the responsibilities of adulthood. It was the moment I stopped fighting the basic algebra of embodiment: for someone to live, someone else has to die. In that acceptance, with all its suffering and sorrow, is the ability to choose a different way, a better way."

I teared up on reading this. I think I need to get a copy of this book.