Vegetarianism

Like any good bleeding heart liberal, I am a vegetarian. Not an exceptionally strict one, by any means. I fully intend to eat turkey on Thanksgiving, and if there is nothing good and meatless at the Derb (dining center) on a friday night, I'll have the popcorn shrimp. I was a vegetarian my sophomore year of high school, for about 4 months. I thought it was the hardest thing I had ever done. I became really anemic, had to stop volunteering at the local animal shelter and then gave up the vegetarian thing. But this time around, it was the most natural transition. I rarely eat meat anyways, there are many options. At home it was steak and potatoes, every night. Cut out the steak and you're living on potatoes. Which I've heard is possible...
Ok, back on subject. I've always seen myself as a vegetarian. I mean, really. How could someone with my ideals not be? I don't do it so much for the animals, although I really do think that the standards in the industry need to be upped, and dramatically. The real issue in my mind is humanitarian. Running perfectly good sustenance through this wildly inefficient machine we call a cow and then getting a 10th of the actual amount of food, for several times the price? Doesn't that seem backward to anyone else? There are starving people everywhere. I don't know the statistics, but I'm pretty sure that over half of the world goes to bed hungry every night. Some number of kids every hour die of hunger. Hunger! What the hell, this is 2004 and the US is battling an obesity epidemic and there are still people dying of starvation? Listen to these numbers:

• To make one pound of beef, it requires 2500 gallons of water
• 12 lbs of grain required to make 1 lb of beef.
• 35 lbs of topsoil lost per lb of beef.
• 70% of all US grain production goes to feeding cows.
• 5 million acres of rainforest are cut down each year to make grazing land for cattle.
• 20% of North American endangered species are harmed by the beef industry, through habitat loss or pollution.
• The water pollution caused by livestock waste is 10 times the pollution caused by humans.

And does anyone know how long it takes to die of hunger? You can go months without any food at all, and if you're getting some minimal amount... they live their whole lives in the process of dying of starvation. Sure we're all in the process of dying, whatever. We say that here in the US, that and the whole, "dream like you'll live forever, live like you'll die tomorrow; I hope you dance and love and hug puppies" crap. Dying of HUNGER. That has to hurt like a bitch. And they don't have a chance. Maybe if enough people will, for the cost of a cup of coffee each day, save the children, whatever. Meanwhile, Desi has purchased a second pair of the same $400 boots, so she has brown and...a darker brown?

One more reason for vegetarianism; I don't like the aesthetic of meat eating. It's disgusting. Really. That thing was alive and is now dead. And there's blood, loss of life, undoubtedly some pain. I'm supposed to put all of that in my mouth? No thanks. Muscle tissue, skin, rot. It's ugly.