One of the virtues of a Lenten fast--whether or not you're particularly religious--is that it focuses you on what you have. I do mind being a huge pain in the ass to those around me, since the number of things I can eat, and the number of places I can eat, just shrank dramatically. But I don't actually miss cheese or eggs or butter or meat. The food I'm eating is all delicious and varied (to be fair, I'm at a nice hotel in Florida for the weekend which has been ridiculously accomodating). And because I can't casually graze, I think about food a lot less between meals.
Before I became a vegetarian, I used to think that a meal wasn't really a meal if there wasn't a piece of meat in it. After I stopped being a vegetarian that first time, I actually felt as if I had more choices than I'd had before--because now I was open to the possibility of meals that didn't contain meat. Similarly, temporarily removing something--almost anything--from your diet, by focusing you on the goodness of what is left, can actually leave you with a richer set of choices on the other side of the fast.
Just out of curiosity, what do you eat to get enough protein?
Yes, exactly! That's why, for Lent, I'm not eating any vegetables.
It wasn't part of a Lenten plan or anything, but the other night the family and I had the Tofurkey that I'd been looking forward to. It was much better than I ever would have imagined. And it wasn't just humans who were fooled by its turkey-like taste, as some of the cats tried to grab it off our plates.
"Occasional experiments of our moderation give us the best proof of our firmness and virtue. A well-governed appetite is a great part of liberty..."
Seneca
Libertarians for Lent!
"A well-governed appetite is a great part of liberty..."
is why we see, now, a year-round Consumption Carnivale...
Similarly, temporarily removing something--almost anything--from your diet, by focusing you on the goodness of what is left, can actually leave you with a richer set of choices on the other side of the fast.
Funny how that is. I never would have tried seitan (a savory, high-protein, somewhat rubbery substance made from wheat gluten) if I hadn't gone vegetarian. Nor would I have learned that flax meal can serve as an egg substitute.
Great, another food post! I think you are getting a tad obsessed with it all.
"But I don't actually miss cheese or eggs or butter or meat."
It's day three!
The early days are usually when you miss something the most
I am 83 years old, the child of a Chef and a baker who studied nutrician and served green salads to their six children every day. I have gained and appreciation of Japanese food by living there a decade, fruit by living in latitude twenty for a total of nineteen years (Hawaii and Paraguay where I live now)People in both places nearly cancel their advantage in having fresh veggies and fruit all the time by eating barbique for social reasons. I very recently went almost all veggie and raw fish, seaweed, nuts and legumbes even though I have take no pills, and see no Dr.s. I do tai chi off the infinity channel and have ridden my bike going on 65 years. A Dr. nutricianist here heals dying cancer and heart cases with nothing but natural and mostly raw food minutely monitored.
I am 83 years old, the child of a Chef and a baker who studied nutrician and served green salads to their six children every day. I have gained and appreciation of Japanese food by living there a decade, fruit by living in latitude twenty for a total of nineteen years (Hawaii and Paraguay where I live now)People in both places nearly cancel their advantage in having fresh veggies and fruit all the time by eating barbique for social reasons. I very recently went almost all veggie and raw fish, seaweed, nuts and legumbes even though I have take no pills, and see no Dr.s. I do tai chi off the infinity channel and have ridden my bike going on 65 years. A Dr. nutricianist here heals dying cancer and heart cases with nothing but natural and mostly raw food minutely monitored.
And it wasn't just humans who were fooled by its turkey-like taste, as some of the cats tried to grab it off our plates.
I wouldn't place to much stock in that outcome. In her long and healthy lifetime to date, my folks' cat has turned feral on one cake, two bags of dinner rolls, a loaf of freshly-baked bread, and close to a half-dozen 5Lb sacks of flour. She has also been known to eat cooked corn (with or without butter) and green peas, as long as neither have an appreciable odor of garlic or black pepper.
Apparently the average cat can be quite the omnivore when given a chance, and as long as it smells good, it doesn't have to be flesh per se.
Unfortunately, if you're already an omnivore who likes vegetarian meals, it does focus you (or at least me) on what you can't have. I like grains and vegetables. I like meatlike veggie products. I don't eat meat when out with vegetarians, nor animal products when out with vegans, and I don't think animal products are necessary to a meal; I've gone weeks without eating meat. But even though I really like tempeh, sometimes I start jonesing for chicken enchiladas and I do feel like I'm "doing without" if I pass it up for something else, even something else good.
(Also, having an unusual restriction would make me think more about food... then again, I can't ever manage to go for long without thinking about food.)
Apparently the average cat can be quite the omnivore when given a chance
Then why do vegan cats generally seem to be so miserable compared to their carnivorous counterparts?
Aren't you a little young to become a daft old biddie?
Aren't you a little young to become a daft old biddie?
Megan's principle can be extended beyond food. For me, extended camping trips are like a fast from most material goods. After my return, some things seem neat, while others are of little value. An automotive fast of a few years was also nice; it showed me how easy it is to get around by bike, and made habits that car ownership hasn't broken.
"Similarly, temporarily removing something--almost anything--from your diet, by focusing you on the goodness of what is left, can actually leave you with a richer set of choices on the other side of the fast."
That's why I only eat pizza on the weekends.
Then why do vegan cats generally seem to be so miserable compared to their carnivorous counterparts?
Let us revisit the definition of omnivore...
What is the reason for this religious conversion? Are you feeling guilty about something? Did you give away all of your leather shoes and belts (not forgetting wool products)? If not, you're just pretending to be a vegan. So, will you refuse all drugs that were developed using animals in experiments? Are you ready to suffer and die for this new religion of yours?
BTW, it should be noted that the human body is designed/adapted to be omnivorous - just look at our teeth and our intestines (I don't mean that literally, except for the teeth).
Did you give away all of your leather shoes and belts
I fail to understand how that might prevent the death of any additional animals.
So, will you refuse all drugs that were developed using animals in experiments? Are you ready to suffer and die for this new religion of yours?
Perhaps some people find a happy medium somewhere between "an animal's life is worth nothing whatsoever" and "an animal's life is equal to mine?"
Frankly, I could think of a few totally humanocentric reasons for avoiding animal products, cheifly that factory farmed animals are fed huge amounts of antibiotics to keep them healthy. Feeding the resulting meat to humans is one of the best manufacturing and distribution methods I could think of for spreading antibiotic resistant bacteria.
If anti-semitism is the socialism of fools then I guess veganism can be the keeping kosher of atheists.
I think vegetarianism goes real well with the ideology of Stalinist Libertarianism. If I was a Stalinist Libertarian, I would too renounce feasting on flesh.
Megan,
The blog below looks like it has some interesting vegan recipes.
Wednesday Food Blogging
Let us know if you come up with some interesting dishes
Cheers,
TJIT
Sorry, just can't resist:
Isn't this rather like beating your head against the wall because it feels so good when you stop?
And it wasn't just humans who were fooled by its [Tofurkey] turkey-like taste, as some of the cats tried to grab it off our plates.
I wouldn't place to much stock in that outcome. In her long and healthy lifetime to date, my folks' cat has turned feral on one cake, two bags of dinner rolls, a loaf of freshly-baked bread, and close to a half-dozen 5Lb sacks of flour.
Good point. One of the Tofurkey-stealing cats has displayed a willingness to eat nearly any organic substance. I was once eating an orange, and he was happily munching away on the peel.
The best thing about a Lenten fast is that Sundays are not technically part of Lent, so you can knock down a Porterhouse steak tomorrow.
Isn't this rather like beating your head against the wall because it feels so good when you stop?
I think it's more like going kayaking rather than rafting. It makes you more responsive to the river specifically because it's harder.
Congrats again, Megan, on your work to be a more moral person, and contribute to less suffering in the world. Although the absurdities tossed out by anti-vegans never cease to amuse, it is really empowering, to take control of one's choices, to no longer be a slave to habit, tradition, and peer pressure; to make decisions based on respect (for one's self and for other animals) and not wanting to cause unnecessary suffering.
"Historically, man has expanded the reach of his ethical calculations, as ignorance and want have receded, first beyond family and tribe, later beyond religion, race, and nation. To bring other species more fully into the range of these decisions may seem unthinkable to moderate opinion now. One day, decades or centuries hence, it may seem no more than 'civilized' behavior requires."
-The Economist
Cited here.
I am actually Catholic, but I don't think I could go as you. I mean I don't know of many Catholics, or Eastern Orthodox, who'd go outright Vegan for Lent.
I do know of Catholic monks who do not eat meat as a sacrifice. I actually think I could do that as I don't really see meat as the center of a meal. However the things I do see as centering a meal often contain dairy or eggs. Like yesterday I was on a trip so had a cheese pizza for Lenten Friday. If I also couldn't have dairy or egg I'd be at a total loss whenever I eat out.
Therefore if you maintain your Lent you might be a stronger Catholic than I even though you're apparently not of any religion at all.
PS: On the protein thing I think Vegans use legumes, nuts, and beans. Is that correct? And if so how do you deal with err the gas problem that might cause.
Catholic Lenten practice involves fasting and abstinence. Fasting is defined as eating only 2 full meals per day (Ash Wednesday and Good Friday). Abstinence is defined as not eating meat on certain days (Ash Wednesday and the Fridays in Lent). Many Catholic also "give up" (abstain from) some favorite thing during Lent, such as chocolate, dessert, TV, reading blogs, etc.
What you are doing is a form of abstinence; you are abstaining from meat for Lent. I, on the other hand, am not abstaining from reading blogs, or from commenting on them. As a "mature Catholic gentleperson", I am no longer required to fast, even though I do most days to avoid becoming 1.5 Catholics.
@9:16pm:
Being a vegan makes you more moral? Whose moral scale are we using, and to how low a creature do we extend those moral calculations?
Or is it the discpline in the stance that makes it moral?
And is it, if moral, selective morality, and on the least important issue, in that we can spend a lot of time plotting out our sacrifice for Lent, which probably has negligible importance in terms of what Christ actually asked us to do going forward.
A person can spend more time thinking about what they are giving up for Lent, and decidedly less time thinking about greater issues that would actually make Christ's sacrifice a bit more real to the world.
I just wonder why we do some things, and why temporarily. Is it possible that being a vegan has an ultimate moral worth of, say, an ounce, while perhaps sharing the gospel has an ultimate moral weight of, two pounds? Thus we create a clean healthy body that is a temple for a blind, useless-to-God heart? (God seemingly particularly concerned with men returning to him in heaven, and speaking very little to Christians on animal maintenance/justice/happiness issues).
Or is that just a backwards way to look at it, because really any decision made--at any time, for whatever length--that helps us be discplined ultimately makes us better?
Congrats again, Megan, on your work to be a more moral person, and contribute to less suffering in the world. Although the absurdities tossed out by anti-vegans never cease to amuse, it is really empowering, to take control of one's choices, to no longer be a slave to habit, tradition, and peer pressure; to make decisions based on respect (for one's self and for other animals) and not wanting to cause unnecessary suffering.
Megan has variously tried standard American diet, purist vegetarianism, the Atkins diet, omnovorism using only free-range meat, and currently, veganism for Lent. My assumption is that after the fasting period is over, she'll possibly take up a month-long diet exclusively consisting of club-tenderized seal pups and turnip blood, and when that gets boring, maybe experiment with South Beach Switchgrass Diet ("Eat all you like! Look like the Stars! Shame your cat for having such small hairballs!").
Maybe you can clarify which of her dietary experiments are the specifically "moral" ones, why, and what you plan to do for your own personal safety the next time I get in the mood for Soylent Green?
"Being a vegan makes you more moral? Whose moral scale are we using, and to how low a creature do we extend those moral calculations?"
There are three plausible places to draw the line for moral considerability: (1) sentience (sufficient awareness to experience pain and pleasure); (2) having some conception of a self existing over time, such that one has forward-looking preferences; (3) rationality. Arguably, chickens have (1) but not (2); dogs and cows have (1) and (2) but not (3); most (but not all) humans, and perhaps some non-humans like great apes, have (3). But wherever one draws the line, either some non-humans will be included in the moral community, or some humans will be excluded, since there is an overlap in cognitive capacities. One can escape this dilemma (if that's what it is for you) by resorting to a Hobbesian contract theory of ethics -- but that has potentially dire consequences for marginalized humans.
Catholics and other theists have a trump card: God has endowed humans and only humans with souls. Of course, that view has everything to do with faith, and nothing to do with reason.
Finn - re: vegetarianism and morality. I think that vegetarianism is of only a little value, unless it is part of an expression of compassion for other creatures, including all humans.
It can also provides some benefits in terms of forcing you to think about how your food is produced and making you realize that you contribute to much larger, less apparent systems via your buying habits.
Furthermore, it's possible to make the somewhat heterodox argument that in Judiasm an animal has rights in proportion to its ability to obey the law.
Catholics and other theists have a trump card: God has endowed humans and only humans with souls.
Technically speaking, in Judaism animals also have souls though of a different type than humans. But the nature of those souls in the Judaic view is, so far as I'm aware, agnostic. But I'm no Torah scholar.
Catholics and other theists have a trump card: God has endowed humans and only humans with souls. Of course, that view has everything to do with faith, and nothing to do with reason.
Once at the zoo I passed the primate exhibit where a bunch of them were sitting around discussing the very same issue, suggesting that a qualitative difference (a soul) has more to do with faith, than with reason. The same discussion has been had by the lions the previous week. "But why not a soul to explain an obvious difference in outcome?," I asked.
The primates (apes I believe) then reflected on the similarity in our gene structure, noting that over 95% of our genes are identical. I asked the primate who was fingering his genitals if the gene (s) that differed (and what might be religiously called, the soul) might appear to be one small difference in terms of percentage, but much greater in weight and purpose?
They grew disgusted and threw feces at me and I ducked out of there. I thanked God for the strong social contract that allowed us (humans) to keep them behind cages in order to avoid the type of chaos that killed off the dinasours when they got all uppity about rights, sentience and freedom.
"Apparently the average cat can be quite the omnivore when given a chance"
'Then why do vegan cats generally seem to be so miserable compared to their carnivorous counterparts?'
Most carnivorous animals wouldn't be getting a healthy diet if they just ate what we consider to be meat. In the wild, the first thing they usually eat from a kill are the entrails, full of partially digested vegetable products (mmmmm....entrails). This gives them a lot of nutrients you don't get from a sirloin steak.
You left out a fourth... being human. Of all the animals, only humans are human.
Personally, I don't see a binary choice... when considering the suffering of animals, I see a continuum. I would not hesitate to step on an ant. I would hesitate to kill a primate unless it was currently endangering someone. Animals that are in between would cause me to weigh their life to varying degrees. It's also a subjective value... not measurable in any objective sense.
I have no strong objection to veganism in others, as long as they do not try to impose it on me. Likewise, if you start out with a certain set of assumptions, I suppose you can make a moral case for it. The argument I don't understand is Gore-Edwards 2008's: "to make decisions based on respect (for one's self and for other animals) and not wanting to cause unnecessary suffering." "Mother nature" does not have respect for anything. Animals kill and eat each other all day long and care nothing for the "suffering" they cause. Either we are animals like any other and there is no moral order to prevent us from eating and being eaten, or there is something "special" about us that justifies different treatment for humans. I'll be more sypathetic to the latter argument when we start passing laws to prevent chimpanzees from raping and murdering each other and pet cats from toying with mice. Personally, I think it is "immoral" to cause suffering for no reason whatsoever, but I set the bar pretty low for acceptable reasons (veal/foie gras is okay with me).
Catholics and other theists have a trump card: God has endowed humans and only humans with souls. Of course, that view has everything to do with faith, and nothing to do with reason.
Spirits, actually. Humans are endowed with spirits that give spiritual awareness and thereby allow the human soul to transcend mere sensual awareness to advanced logic and reasoning, and thereby exercise governance over their emotions and impulses. The animal soul can be quite complex, as commonly observed in higher-level housepets (e.g. cats and dogs) and primates, but Christian teaching does not recognize a spiritual component in animals. Both humans and animals, however, are considered to be designs of God.
These two factors are the critical component in why systems of Christian teaching, and societies that have been influenced thereby, generally shun unnecessary cruelty to animals (morally wrong on the human's part), but considers animals to have a primarily a utilitarian purpose (no inherent morality in the animals' existence).
"You left out a fourth... being human. Of all the animals, only humans are human."
This is quite valid, particularly from a utilitarian point of view. With morality based on utility or what is best for us all, is easily expressible as applying to all humans and only humans. Even in the case of humans with less reasoning ability than more intelligent animals, and no capacity to knowingly enter into a moral compact, it applies. The most brilliant genius could be rendered profoundly retarded by disease or injury, but he will never tun into chimpanzee.
PS: On the protein thing I think Vegans use legumes, nuts, and beans. Is that correct? And if so how do you deal with err the gas problem that might cause.
1. Beans cause flatulence because they contain certain sugars which cannot be digested, except by bacteria. These can either be washed out with rinsings or else broken down via purchased enzymes.
2. Wheat gluten, and other forms of gluten (high gluten 'sushi' rice) are also popular. Veggies have more protein than people give them credit for. Though as a guy who exercises a lot, I still take whey suppliments. Europe exports a lot of gluten, since they wash it out from their grains before they turn them into sweetners. America uses corn syrup, so despite our huge wheat production, we still import wheat gluten. Contaminated wheat gluten, marked food grade, was, incidentally, the cause of those recent pet food poisonings.
Njorl: You have a strange notion of utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham famously included animals in his utilitarian calculus. ("The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but Can they suffer?") Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation, bases his argument on utilitarianism. But "only humans are human" is a brilliant and irrefutable argument -- right up there with "only men are men" and "only corn syrup is corn syrup." However, there is a logical problem in moving from "Every rational being deserves to be treated with respect" to "Even humans who are not rational deserve to be treated with respect."
Hi Dad,
I am glad that you are doing well and enjoying living in Paraguay. I am glad that you are eating well, and riding your bike. I came accross your comments on this blog because I am archiving family history and was looking for clues. It would be much better if you could identify these archives for us, and let us know how you are doing.
Love,
Your daughter, Cynthia