Responding to the Global Food Crisis

Many of you have been gradually finding out about my relatively recent decision to go vegetarian. To avoid the stereotype of being a hippie PETA activist, here is an explanation for my recent lifestyle change.

My sister and brother-in-law made this decision earlier this year. They’ve continually challenged me on the issue (even to the extent of offering me dumpster meat from Trader Joe’s for Christmas dinner). Their reasons for making the change kept haunting me every time I went to stick a piece of meat in my mouth. It wasn’t that I ate an excessive amount of meat, I rarely cooked meat myself and typically when I ate it I was eating dinner out. But I couldn’t seem to shake the issue from my mind. I’ve been praying a lot about the issue as to how to approach this tug at my heart. It became evident that there was only one clear choice. No more meat. Here are the reasons. (I’ve stolen this from my brother-in-laws blog because I’m not sure I could explain it any better. Thanks Dave!)

“[There is a continual rise in the] cost of food throughout the world. Britain has called the crisis a “silent tsunami” that is sweeping across the already impoverished places of the world. An NPR report mentioned that many families in Egypt spend up to one third of their income to buy bread (one of the cheapest foods available - everything else is drastically more expensive than a simple loaf of bread).
All over the world, this is an incredibly serious and deadly issue. It’s estimated that more than 100 million more people (and these types of issues always seem to affect kids more than adults) will start to go hungry because they can’t afford to buy the food necessary to survive. Meanwhile, we (in the West) continue to eat more than our share of the world’s food, largely because our meals are so meat heavy. I came across a blog that had a great post on these issues, and noted some statistics about how demanding on other food resources it is to produce meat . While the post is somewhat dated, I thought these numbers were kind of mind blowing:

~it takes 10-22 pounds of grain and soybeans to produce 1 pound of edible animal flesh.
~it takes 5,000-7,000 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of edible animal flesh.
~Percentage of corn grown in the US eaten by livestock: 80
~Percentage of oats grown in the US eaten by livestock: 95
~Percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 90
~Cattle produce just 100 pounds of flesh protein for every 1580 pounds of plant protein
~One acre of land can produce: 14,000 pounds of sweet corn
~One acre of land can produce: 28,800 pounds of navel oranges
~One acre of land can produce: 40,000 pounds of potatoes
~But one acre of land can only produce: 250 pounds of edible beef
~(one acre of soybeans produces 462,000grams of protein- one person’s protein requirement for over 23 years)”

This was not an easy decision by any means. I will miss my fresh turkey sandwiches at lunch. With spring on the horizon I’m definitely not looking forward to going to cook-outs and having to smell the delicious fragrance of hamburgers and chicken being grilled. But it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

The most difficult part so far has been what to do when other people offer to feed me. I have been hesitant up until recently to even tell people about this change for fear of coming across as a “vegetarian bullhorn evangelist.” So here is what I’ve concluded: So long as it’s in my control I will not eat meat. If people offer to cook for me I will tell them I am a vegetarian. However, if I am offered a meal with meat and it would be offensive not to eat it I will gratefully eat the meal. If I’m ever in a situation in which if I don’t eat it, it will be thrown away, I’ll eat it. (As wasting food would directly contradict my entire reason for going vegetarian.)

So there it is. No more meat. I hope that doesn’t make me a freak, but if it does, I guess a freak isn’t a bad thing to be.

Dangerous Wonder

It was one of those snowfalls you never forget. Millions of white flakes filled the air, quieting the earth and swallowing the sounds. The resulting silence was thick with a texture you could feel.

My nephew stood in the living room at the opening to our deck, a stranger to snow, his two years of life about to be altered irrevocably. His eyes were blank, unaware; his body clueless; his mind about to be overloaded with the electricity of discovery.
In the dark, Mother had maneuvered herself onto the deck’s two feet of snow to capture the event on video. Dad manned the sliding door, which had been unlatched for quick opening into the darkness. Uncle’s hands were poised on the switch to light the deck. And Aunt was ready to lift her nephew into the mysterious new world of twinkling ice and frozen softness.

The moment arrived.

In a perfectly timed instant the deck lights went on, the camera started recording, the sliding door swept open, and a two-year-old was transported form the world he knew to a world he had never seen.

Wonder filled the air.

His eyes stretched wide with astonishment, as though the only way to apprehend what he was seeing was for his eyes to become big enough to contain it all. He stood motionless, paralyzed. It was too much for a two-year-old, too much for an any-year-old (too often, when a person gets older, the person’s “too-much detector” malfunctions, corroded by busyness and technology). He twitched and jerked each time a snowflake landed on his face, feeling it tingle as it was transformed from hostile cold to friendly warmth, caressing his face with tiny droplets of water.

Just behind his large eyes you could see sparks flying from the crosscurrents of millions of electric stimuli overwhelming the circuit breakers of his previously small world. His mind was a confusion of strange, conflicting realities: white, cold, floating, flying, tingling, electric, landing, touching, sparkling, melting – causing an overload so great, so overwhelming, he fell backward – a slow-motion landing in the billowy whiteness, the snow tenderly embracing him. He had given up trying to understand snow and had given in to experiencing snow.

A moment of dangerous wonder.

(Dangerous Wonder - Mike Yaconelli) If you have not read this book yet it should be put at the top of your list!