I didn't plan on this decision - I like meat. I organise barbeques, I take my steaks medium rare, and my shepherd's pies are legendary*.
But the other night (as of this draft, and who knows how many there will be until I publish this), as I was preparing some food, I noticed something.
And I realised that while eating meat is okay, the meat industry itself is a little... off. And that as a consumer, the least I can do is not encourage it any longer.
Now I'm just a drop in the ocean, but I see a lot of vegetarians around me these days, and together they probably have a fair amount of consumer weight to throw around. Maybe with time, as less people buy meat, the industry will revert from 'industry' to 'actual farms with real living happy animals that ultimately die for our benefit but at least live decent lives'. Or, more realistically, maybe some cynics will notice the untapped market of bleeding heart meat lovers like myself, and will open some nice farm selling ethical meat, for which of course they will rob us blind.
If neither of these happen, I will open such a farm myself, for which I promise not to rob anyone blind. My plan is as follows, and it is airtight:
1. Make huge money
2. ???
3. Meat is ethical again. Do not profit, that wasn't the goal.
This is a nice plan to have for when I want to feel good about myself, and the promise of meat is certainly a way to push myself to finish all the steps. In the meantime, however, there is a tiny flaw: it's going to be a while until everything is fixed, and I need to eat. The second and far more important part of this post is about this issue.
I went through my list of recipes to see which I can salvage, cried (inside) over the ones I'd be putting aside for a while, and then noticed that (unsurprisingly) almost all of the remaining ones contain cheese. This is a problem as I am trying to reduce my cheese intake following the catastrophic binge I went on last semester, when my friend introduced me to a shop with a fine selection of same.
(I am allowed to shop like this because I still have money left over from my soul sucking summer internship)
Pressing on: I do know one vegan (!) curry which I have enjoyed even as a meat eater, but I can't eat the same thing for the next decade or so. Luckily, I really am surrounded by vegetarians, and turned to my dormmate for advice:
Sadly, it seems the vegetarian lifestyle is not quite as exciting as I'd hoped.
So, yeah. This may be difficult. Recipes in the comments plzkthx.
*As found by a completely unbiased survey of people who know what's good for them.
