the principles behind a squash

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I had principles for lunch today, and they taste like butternut squash.

You guys, I am having a hard time with this vegetarian thing. I love vegetables. Seriously love them. My parents always had a garden when I was growing up, and I spent a lot of summer mornings outside with my dad, eating more than weeding, but learning nonetheless. Spending that time gave me an appreciation for things that came from the earth, and for the feeling of caring for something myself, and ultimately reaping the benefits. So I don't dislike healthy things - I really, really love them, and I feel great when I eat them.

BUT. (you knew it was coming). This stupid squash. Why am I eating this?

I just really want some hot wings, okay? Or a good steak. Or ribs covered in barbeque sauce. Or an entire rotissere chicken. I'm not desperate.

I've been giving it a lot of thought based on things I've been reading online and in class, and via some good old-fashioned introspection. It's not the idea of eating meat that I mind. Not at all. We raised steers, pigs, and chickens in addition to our garden, and my dad would bring a deer back every fall. I worked in the deli section of a grocery store. I know where meat comes from. I don't have any delusions or princess ideas about it.

So here's the conclusion I've come to: if I can find good, healthy, humanely raised and killed meat, I will eat it. In small portions. And I will enjoy it. But I refuse to support an agricultural system that forces chemicals and God-knows-what-else into our foods and bodies. 

Our system - there's just so much wrong with it. So many faults. So many consumer ignorances that are happening and things we don't control. It would take pages and pages to even scratch the surface of the problem. It makes me so angry. I don't know what I can do about it right now. I'm still learning. But I will not put bad things in my body to the extent that I have power over ... And that's why I ate squash for lunch.

Just for the record, that bad stuff is in our vegetables too. Our fruit. Our grains. But in smaller portions. When you eat meat, you're eating an animal that has consumed all of those chemicals in its own feed. You're eating a collection of all those chemicals: biomagnification. And it collects in our bodies too. So when in doubt, and when it's affordable, I try to buy organic everything else too. I'm a college student. Money isn't the easiest thing to come by these days.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. I don't claim to know a lot about the body or biological processes. But I know what I've read and what I believe. Being the kind of person that needs to have solid convictions - these are mine.