The Final Step

So yeah...haven't written in awhile, have I?

Thought I died, dincha?

Well no....not quite, just never get around to actually typing something out I guess. I mean, shit happens all the time, I just feel like no one really cares to listen. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being self-loathing or anything, it's just that everyone has problems, stuff happens to everybody.
If you spend your life listening to what happens to other people, it's like living someone else's life instead of your own. Like "Reality" TV. I dunno. Forget this. I actually wrote for a reason.

Ahem...


I wanted to say that I have finally made the decision to take the final step in my new healthy (and more importantly, morally sound) lifestyle. I have battled for awhile now with the idea of going Vegan. Yes, that horrible word. The word that makes half (nah, all) my family cringe and shudder, point fingers and say "HERETIC!"

Well, this may be a small embellishment.

Anyway, the only 2 things keeping me from doing it were CHEESE and EGGS. Let's face it, I love an omelet. Love 'em. Nothing better. An omelet with cheese? Even better. But those are the only 2 things I've had issues with. However, cheese has been giving me stomach (among other) problems as of the last few months or so, and I eat eggs once every...I dunno, month maybe. I don't even buy eggs, which tell you how often I actually eat them.

Life is about sacrifices. Sometimes you have to ask yourself what is more important?
A five-minute tasty treat? Or a lifetime of guilt and hypocrisy?

...

You're not actually supposed to think about it.

As a final push toward morality, Joy and I found a new issue of VEG NEWS at Whole Foods today. Natalie Portman on the cover was enough for me to say "Sure, go ahead". Albeit it's 5 bucks an issue.

Inside was a very interesting article informing us about the NUMEROUS ingredients in everyday prepared and packaged foods. Not only did it translate what the label says to what it ACTUALLY is, but also says HOW they make it.

This direct paragraph, for instance:

"If you've been vegetarian long enough, you might already be aware that an enzyme from a newborn calf's stomach appears in most cheeses (even "vegetarian" ones) and other products. It's called rennet or rennin, and it's obtained by removing the calf's fourth stomach after slaughter, dry-salting and washing it, scraping away the surface fat, stretching it over drying racks, grinding it up, and mixing it with a salt solution."

THAT is in your cheese.

Chris asked me if I would eat eggs from organic, free-range chickens.
Libby asked why I would be pro-choice, but not care about killing baby chickens in eggs.

Well, the egg thing didn't really matter, because eggs you eat are unfertilized.
The entire point with eggs is that the chickens are all bred on farms, stuffed in pens (free-range usually means that they are not caged "all the time"), and after they stop producing the eggs you want, you chop them up.

What is my moral issue that I've been dealing with on eggs?

Let the damn chicken just BE a chicken!
Stop forcing it to produce all the stuff YOU want, and let it just live!


But it's NOT only the cheese and eggs that are the problem.

L-Cysteine Hydrochloride, a flour additive in cereals and baked goods, is extracted from duck feathers.

"Natural Flavors", which is an item list on many, many, MANY foods (I can't say "all", but it's close), is a choice combination of many ingredients. The whole point is there are certain things that fall under that category, so if they are used in the food all they have to put is "Natural Flavors". You don't know how many or what is in there.

Here's a few "Natural Flavors" that may be in your food:

Castoreum, which is used to add a "creamy and raspberry" flavoring, is actually an extract from the anal musk glands of beavers.

Isinglass, which is gelatin from the bladder of a sturgeon.

Lipase, which is an enzyme from calf tongues.

Musk, from the genitals of the Northern Asian Hornless deer.

Ground beetles, to add a hint of purple to toaster pastries.

These are just a few.

The bottom line here is that nowadays, packaged and prepared foods use so many unhealthy, immoral, and unnatural ingredients, that you need to be a "Linguist or a scholar" (as one man in the article put it) to discern just WHAT it is you are putting into your body.

It will be tough, and it will be a pain in the ass for many people around me...especially this close to Thanksgiving.

But I'm not sorry for the decision.
From here on out, I am proud to say that I am a VEGAN.