eating my words

I keep getting myself in trouble because I can't keep my mouth closed.
Last January I fell into a rabbit hole. Some new information was given to me, or maybe old information given in a new way, and since that moment I can't bring myself to eat any animal products outside of the eggs my own chickens lay -- and even those I am feeling less and less open to.

Years ago when I stopped eating meat, but still ate fish and eggs and dairy, I discovered that I could no longer walk by the meat section of a store. When I looked at meat, I saw flesh, body parts, dead animals and other such things that I was not used to seeing before. But I could still purchase meat for guests or when shopping for my mom. I just detached myself from what I was looking at so that it became lean or fat or chops that were thick or thin, but not something that used to be living.

I stopped eating meat for political reasons. I was aware that the quantity of meat consumed by wealthier countries was impacting food availability in less affluent parts of the world. Slowly I realized that meat eating was detrimental to health and then last January I became aware first that the industrial animal agri-business was emitting more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector and right after that, I went down the hole. My eyes were opened to the reality that a real live animal with nerves to sense pain and sense enough to know that it was miserable, was being killed, was having its young murdered, all so that meat was available on the human table along with milk and cheese and other tasty delights. All such food products instantly lost their tastiness. No longer were they delights. I was finished with that part of my life. No longer could I participate in the intentional killing of other animals so that I could eat them.

When the lens that protected me from this obvious realization dropped away, I fell hard, down the rabbit hole of a reality that had always been right in front of me. I just never saw it before.

Now I can't stop talking about it. I want other people to know what happens to animals, how we raise them without any opportunity to have a real life, how we manipulate the lives they have - modifying their bodies whenever possible to augment their "tastiness," shorten the time it takes them to grow, multiple their offspring, or otherwise increase their dollar value to their owners. I am horrified in many ways by what I have learned and some part of me wants to believe that others will feel the same. So far, that is rarely true. I blurt out the truth or sometimes merely allude to it and immediately I wish I could eat my words.

How do people survive in a meat eating culture when their eyes are suddenly wide open?
There must be people to offer advice, consolation or support. (Are you out there?)

Meanwhile, I try to keep my words light and not too filling.