Why I’m Not A Vegetarian
It’s hard not to be a vegetarian these days. You may believe the opposite is true, but only because you have been taught that everything that has acquired the label of “healthy” is hard.
In truth, health is easy and natural; depending on how you define it. Those with something to sell you under the banner of “healthy” need you to believe that health is hard, and that only their product/service — or, also their product/service — is necessary to overcome the difficulty of being healthy.
The health you do for yourself is the easy and natural one.
It is only when health is something you do for recognition, or the envy of others, that it is hard. The health you do for yourself is the easy and natural one.
The former is the “health” of appearance, weight loss, and bragging rights. Those bragging rights consist of the number on the bathroom scale, clothing size, and entries on a medical chart, among others. This is also the version of health wherein everything has a label and a brand; like “vegan”, “keto”, “Mediterranean”, “low-fat”, and on and on.
The latter is the “health” of vitality and feeling great. End of definition. The only thing that matters in this version of health is how you feel and having a body that supports your life. No labels needed, because it is only for you.
Most of us would have to admit that the former version makes up the vast majority of what is labeled “health” in modern times. You remember modern times, the age of social media when everything we do and say is aimed at garnering the maximum number of “likes” and congratulatory emojis.
As an example, the image you see at the head of this article was acquired by searching for “healthy food”. Not an animal product in sight. Is it a good idea to eat everything in that image on a regular basis? Probably. But not for me to decide.
This brings me back to the real reason why it is hard not to be a vegetarian. Vegetarianism is celebrated as the “healthy” choice everywhere you look. From the most casual of conversations to the (overt and covert) advice from health “experts”, being a vegetarian is presented as what serious and disciplined people do. Those who are not vegetarians are painted as undisciplined and uninformed.
This translates into lots of recognition and envy for the former version of health, of which being a vegetarian is part. Every form of eating that goes by a label, or promotes weight loss as the test, is a part of the modern and “hard” version of health. Being a vegan takes this to a whole new level of “hardness” because, so the story goes, health is supposed to be hard. Bonus emojis.
However, when you choose the easy and natural version of health — the one guided by your own wisdom and how you feel, whether or not you are a vegetarian is such a minor issue that it wouldn’t even be worth a mention. What supports this version is never available for debate or approval from others, and features an absolute minimum of universal rules.
The real problem with being a vegetarian is that there is no practical definition of the practice anyway. There are so many versions of vegetarianism that it renders the label meaningless. But that doesn’t stop the machinery from propping up the label of “vegetarian” as the right thing to do; which is only significant in regards to how others perceive it. And, “others” aren’t you.
For some individuals and their lives, being a vegetarian is an unnatural and difficult choice. For others, a natural and easy one. Same goes for not being a vegetarian.
The point of the headline is not whether I am or am not a vegetarian; the point is that it doesn’t matter to anyone but me. Even if I am, I would never use that label to describe my food choices anyway.
For those of you that are some version of “vegetarian”, is it possible for you to simply never mention it? And, is it possible for you to modify your choices in favor of what feels best, and not what conforms to the universal rules of vegetarianism? That is the true test of your intent.
What matters to me — and, I would hope, to you — is that you feel great, that your body can engage in all of the activities that bring you joy, and that you care about those things more than you care about doing the “right” things with your food, or what anyone else has to say about it.
That is what health has always been until the age of rampant commercialism and profiteering. What profiteering calls health is only the health of your fears and dependencies on the approval of others, not about your life. And, it always has a price tag dangling from it.
My goal in articles like this one is simply to remind you that you already know how to eat in the way that supports your life, and you don’t need anyone else to approve of it, label it, or acknowledge it in any way. That is what personal power is all about.
