What I do and what I don’t do. Most of my behavior is habit and thoughtlessness. I do what I was taught, what I enjoy, and what I assume is “natural” and not what I have considered long and hard and found to be wrong—unkind or harmful. Some activities are basic: food, drink, and shelter. Today: consider FOOD.

In 1990 I gave up eating most animal flesh. It had taken me a few years to convert or replace recipes focused on chicken and pork, lamb and beef, but I worked at it and early in that year I became a pescatarian. I generally called myself “vegetarian” because people rarely understood the more accurate term, and if I explained I only ate seafood they tended to go through a list, But you eat chicken? Right?

I did not give up eating flesh because I did not like eating it. I loved eating meat. Roasting chicken, chili verde made with port shoulder, leg of lamb roasted with garlic and rosemary—all were signature dishes I enjoyed preparing and eating. It was a sacrifice. I gave up flesh because I learned how animals are raised, fattened, butchered, and sold. I gave up eating meat because I did not like thinking about any of that and I did not want to participate in a process that I could not bear thinking about. 

Maybe it comes down to this: I loved animals more than I loved eating them.

Most people assumed I made that decision for health reasons. That assumption has always made me laugh. Do I look like I am a vegetarian for health reasons? Today, of course, it might be true. And choosing not to eat meat would be not only impact the individual’s health but the health of the entire planet. We would all be best served by not eating the flesh of animals, or eating it only rarely.

A home economics teacher once served the staff at my high school “vegetarian” soup made with chicken stock. Fortunately, I thought to ask.

True vegans eat no animal products at all—no dairy or eggs, nothing sourced from live creatures, not even honey from bees. They are probably careful about the source of the wool they wear or refuse to wear wool at all. And yes, it is perfectly possible to eat a balanced diet without animal products. Human beings are not carnivores—a quick comparison of human anatomy to that of a true carnivore such as a cat should make that clear. Look at their teeth, much less their digestive system. As a species we have been cooking and consuming grains and legumes for a very long time (the underlying premiss of the so-called “paleo” diet is a crock). Humans have probably been eating sedges and grasses for millions of years.

Although I have been hearing regularly about the threat to my health by eating a largely vegetarian diet (with seafood once a week or so), it is nonsense for people to worry so much about protein. Almost everything we eat has protein. Plants have protein. Wheat, the gluten in wheat, has protein. Legumes have protein. Ordinary leafy greens—the ones health experts keep telling us to eat more of—have protein. You could be protein-deprived by not eating food. Sodas have no protein. Sugar has none. Actual food does.

Eating a varied vegan diet of vegetables with some grains and legumes provides plenty of protein.

But cheese.

A vegetarian diet serves the planet well. Among the great dangers of the current American diet of fast food, packaged food, non-food, and way too much protein, aside from the threat it poses to the health of the people eating it, is the damage our meat-eating habit does to the planet. Like flying in airplanes, eating meat is a fast track path to planetary ruin.

Of course, that is not true. The planet will survive. It is our own species that may not.

Nevertheless, I am not vegan. I bake. I cook. I want my cheeses. I want eggs in my baking, sometimes even scrambled. But now, finally, after all these years, I am eating as a true vegetarian.

This year, 2020, my husband and I have decided to abandon pescatarianism and become true vegetarians. We will continue to eat honey, eggs, and dairy. No more salmon or crab. I love them both, but this year I will not eat either. We’ll see how it goes.

Yesterday we returned an item Gary could not get working and we sold back books to Powells, bought lunch and a few grocery items, and came home richer than when we left. Temperatures were in the 50s throughout our drive except when temperatures rose to 60°. In January.

In the mean time, my husband and I are avoiding the appalling national news, and I am halfway through weaving the second of three scarves which will be on sale in December. Today is a new month, so I will go to the local yarn store and buy #0 double-pointed knitting needles. And it is not raining.

Our neighbor to the north is built on a seasonal creek. Several thousand cubic yards of sand were trucked in and spread over the wetlands to provide a base for that house. A drain pipe carried water under it and emptied onto the beach. That pipe was recently replaced by a much smaller drain laid over the top of the old one that had silted in. No surprise the new pipe is failing. (When our garden flooded yesterday we were grateful to discover it was not the result of a broken water pipe.)

We collected just over 80 pounds of trash from the shore, most of it plastic foam, bottles, bottle caps, and rope, with almost 4.5 pounds of metal. I found a brass ring this morning.