well i’ve been sick as hell and i could go on and on, but it’ll just sound like an excuse. but if you think it is an excuse, just ask jeremy about the amount of snot he’s seen in the past 12 days from me holding a tissue in his face ”UGH! Do you see THIS? GROSS.” But! I’m feeling better and have a doctors appointment in the morning, so that’s that. Onto more important things like bacon… or the soon-to be-lack-thereof.
For quite sometime now I’ve been in the middle of an “it’s complicated” relationship status with meat. Before you start throwing rotten bbq scraps at me, please let me clarify. I love meat. Looooooooove it. Bacon, burgers, ribs, filet’s, fried chicken, sausage, bolognese sauce… must I continue? However, several months ago a little documentary called Food, Inc. came out. I watched a whole 15 minute preview until I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I took that movie preview memory, put it in an old Keds shoebox, and threw it far back into the closet, right underneath the tacky easter wreath. Whew. That was a relief. Now where’s my steak?
Just when I thought it was all stashed away, a little article here and there about factory farms and chicken breasts plum full of antibiotics were popping up in my women’s health and google reader (NOT MY GOOGLE READER! ATTACK! ATTACK!) left and right. Those articles then led to me being a bit more obnoxious at the meat counter. “Is this free-range? Organic? Was it ever frozen?” And- BAM!! – I became one of “those” people. Ugh. So, I switched to only buying meats at Whole Foods where I wasn’t an obnoxious shopper, in fact, quiet the opposite- obnoxiousness is an expectation! Also an expectation is bringing your reusable grocery sacks or face the wrath of middle aged scary hippie lesbian woman . Jeremy and I now own about 42 reusable grocery sacks.
So over the past month, I’ve gradually become more and more weird about eating meat and slowly remembering all the feelings and process I went through when I was a vegetarian from 2001-2003 due to an unfortunate hot dog incident (you don’t want to know). I’ve still been ordering meat at restaurants, really REALLY hoping that this time I won’t be weird. After the food arrives, though, I spend 30 minutes tearing my chicken breast into shreds while the rest of our friends look at Jeremy- “dude. did you bring the 4 year old?”
A few days ago I hit my peak. I ordered my favorite delivery Chinese carry-out meal (sesame chicken) and tried not to think weirdo thoughts about how the chicken was probably so fat, pumped with hormones, that it’s genetically engineered chicken legs couldn’t even walk its fat little chicken ass across the dirty chicken house. The cutie pie delivery guy came, dropped off my delicious meal, I arranged it on my pretty lil plate, soy sauce to the max, wine poured, bachelor on the tivo- what could be better?!
And then… I couldn’t eat it. In fact, I was gagging.
So that’s that. I can’t keep wasting food, and the process of trying to figure out if I can stomach meat is exhausting to me. It’s finally not worth it. So, to give myself a break from thinking way too much about it, and to give Jeremy a break from the annoying “i don’t know if I can eat this” remark he’s heard a zillion times in the last 3 months, I’m simply stopping. From now until my birthday, I’m going to give up red meat and chicken and just stick with fish, tofu and veggie based proteins. I’m going to try to follow some other rules from Michael Pollen’s new book and really try to figure out what my brain and stomach can handle.
This weekend I felt so sad by the thought of bacon being out of my life for a while, I actually pictured a mini-funeral for it. Me, throwing a little handful of dirty over the center-cut bacon package, crying at the grave of my dear dear friend and life partner. My best hope is that I’ll be able to put the weirdness behind me someday, and a resurrection will occur, but for now, I just have to go with it. I don’t think my body will let me do any less.
And before you even start to consider that I might turn into a smug-type vegetarian… jigga please. i expect nothing less than for you to hold up the chicken skewer fort for me.





