trace your food's past
Asked twice in one day last week why I'm vegetarian, I found that my usual answer -- that I want to be a little more responsible -- might come off as presumptuous. So I'm thinking of adding because I'm lazy to it, to balance it out.
The only (rare) prayer I'll say alone before eating is to contemplate the lifespan of each thing I'm about to consume. Garlic, bean, rice: imagine seeds being spread, fertilizers applied, guy in overalls on tractor, machines grinding and packaging and loading and delivering.
More unknowns and unpleasantries with an animal on the plate (what was it fed, and where did that come from?) stretch contemplation duration while the food cools. I'm a hungry fool.
I'm lazy, and I want to be closer to the source.
take responsibility for [your] food -- no matter what it is -- by tracking its path back to the sun. If you can face the path of your food in full knowledge and be at ease with it, then happy eating!
-- Kevin Kelly, [Review of] The Omnivore's Dilemma (Cool Tools)
comments
Not a bad answer, especially if true. Probably better than my "habitual" or someone else's story about a bet.
-- jenita (January 10, 2007 10:00 PM)
habitual as
"i betcha will, lass,"
habichuelas!
-- jeffschuler (January 10, 2007 11:01 PM)
I know some folks that use this as their before-meal reflection:
"All life is one, and everything that lives is holy: plants, animals and man.
All must eat to live and nourish one another.
We bless the lives that have died to give us food.
Let us eat consciously, resolving by our work to pay the debt of our existence."
In fact, I have that magneted to my fridge.
Also, I had habichuelas for dinner.
-- Adam Harvey (January 13, 2007 6:12 PM)