Food Freedom: We Are What We…Label?
Eating my words…not always a good idea.
Yum! What a tasty “vegetarian”! I think I’ll eat “organic” next! When we define everything we eat by just a word, it can get tricky trying to figure out how to avoid eating our words when we say “I’ll never eat pork again,” or “I’m only going to eat organic food.” If we’re at a restaurant and the vegetable entree happens to have pork in it, our friends may tease us that we’re eating our words or even being hypocritical if we said before that we’d never touch a bite of pork again. If we’re at a local market and the vender isn’t exactly labeled “organic”, but is naturally grown, are we lying to ourselves and others if we say we’ll only buy organic produce?
This week’s Making Ripples in The Free Weekly is all about finding food freedom. I was so uncomfortable writing it, that it took me one month and 3 versions of the column to finish! What made it so difficult to write is that it began as a column about my vegan transformation, but in the process of writing it, I realized that I am not literally a vegan. I’m not actually anything, except a girl who likes food and has health issues restricting her diet. Finding the right words to eat was a challenge.
If we are what we eat, I don’t want to eat a label. Too much glue, anyway. 🙂
I have trouble with the same issue since I “became” a vegetarian about three years ago. At first, I was very strict about my diet, but now I have started eating meat to avoid having to scrounge for anything worthy of a meal at restaurants that my family likes to go to. Say, for example, Cracker Barrel. Everything, even the salads and side vegetables, has bacon or some sort of meat added to it. My only “vegetarian” alternative at this restaurant would have been to eat a house salad, which isn’t filling whatsoever. The only thing that matters to me… Read more »
Hi Chloe, thanks for commenting! Wow what an awesome way to explain it: having to choose between morality and family can be overwhelming. I completely agree with your decisions about food, and this method seems to be working for you. It’s easier to be vegetarian in cultures that entirely accept the idea (the US isn’t one of them – too much money to be made) and I’d like to travel to a place where it’s the “norm” to be fully vegetarian, and fully accepted socially. Just know that you’ve got friends who don’t ask you to choose between your beliefs… Read more »