More Reason to Not Eat Meat. (I Hope.)

Being a vegetarian, I can't tell you how many times I've gotten into discussions where people feel the need to justify to me why they eat meat. Becoming a vegetarian was a personal decision I (well, we), made. I have never given unsolicited reasons as to why I made this decision. I have never preached to others that they are morally and ethically wrong for eating meat. I never get defensive. I never ask people to not bring meat into my home, or to not eat meat around me. I never expect people to go out of their way to create a entirely vegetarian meal when they have us over for dinner.

So why do some people feel it necessary to explain to me why they choose to eat meat? Do I think it is morally and ethically wrong? Yes. Do I think the "excuses" are pretty lame? Yes. Do I wish more people would really stop to think about how eating meat is affecting the world we live in? Yes.

Do I say that? No.

Like I said, it is a choice. A very personal choice.

I came across this op-ed today, and I wish I was as eloquent and educated as Jonathan Safran Foer. He says so many things that I wish I would have said during one of my I-eat-meat-because-humans-were-made-to-look-at-our-teeth discussions. It's intelligent, informative, and just... real. (Please read the comments, too. Some interesting -- and annoying -- discussions going on.)

I'm very excited for his book, Eating Animals, that's due out on Monday. At first I didn't think I would read it -- I don't think I can bare to read another horror story about factory farming. But after reading the synopsis on barnesandnoble.com, I can't wait to read about this very personal decision he made, and why (and am particularly interested in how his child affected his decisions).

Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood -- facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf -- his casual questioning took on an urgency. His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting. Marked by Foer's profound moral ferocity and unvarying generosity, as well as the vibrant style and creativity that made his previous books, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, widely loved, Eating Animals is a celebration and a reckoning, a story about the stories we've told-and the stories we now need to tell.

A celebration and a reckoning. A CELEBRATION AND A RECKONING!

I'm hoping -- praying -- that because he is such a known and respected writer, this book will peak the masses interest, and the overwhelming evidence as to why a vegetarian diet is so positive will change some lives. One can only hope, right?

I read a quote from Toby Maguire (I know, right?) the other day that really resonated with me:

“I’ve never had any desire to eat meat. In fact, when I was a kid I would have a really difficult time eating meat at all. It had to be the perfect bite, with no fat or gristle or bone or anything like that…. I don’t judge people who eat meat—that’s not for me to say—but the whole thing just sort of bums me out.”

Totally and completely bums me out.