Trying To Go Vegetarian

Christian and I are going to try to become vegetarian this year, mostly because of the animal welfare issue. We're going to start by cutting out red meat first. I think I'm going to do ok with that, but Xian might have some trouble with it. That's why he's designating one day a week where he can still have red meat. It'll be an easier way to wean him off the meat! The next step, once we've mastered the red meat, will be pork products. I think I'm going to have a tough time with that one. I like the pig many different ways: ham, spam, sausage, bacon, scrapple, chops, etc. Weaning myself will be a bit more difficult.

I go back and forth with this topic a lot. Part of me doesn't want to go veggie, but instead just buy our our meat from Whole Foods, PCC or some other specialty store where they have implemented humane animal welfare standards from their suppliers. That makes it easier for me to eat meat, knowing it was raised humanely without antibiotics, fed a healthy and natural diet, and hopefully transported and slaughtered humanely too. I'm a meat eater with a conscience. There's a great book out called "The Omnivores Dilema". "The author addresses that fundamental question of "what should I eat" with great wit and intelligence, looking at the social, ethical, and environmental impact of four different meals. Eating well, he finds, can be a pleasurable way to change the world.” I should probably read it soon (it's on my bookshelf) with the hopes it can provide some tips on how to not feel guilty about eating animals or how I can make better choices.

But when I watch videos like this one from the Humane Society about the Overlooked Lives of Farm Animals (don't worry it's not graphic, just truthful), I just know I have to make a change for the better for the animals AND myself.

A New Project

I was told I don't blog often enough. I guess that's true. I tend to forget that this place exists or that I don't have anything special to talk about, unlike my good pal Holy Juan. I've never been very good at journaling, but I'm hoping that will all change soon. I recently picked up a book called: fotolog.book: A Global Snapshot for the Digital Age. It's a book of pictures from floggers (photo bloggers) from around the world. Here's the website: fotolog.com.

Just flipping thru it in the bookstore inspired me to pick up my camera and do something with it more often. Take a picture a day. Talk about it. Sounds simple enough I guess, but it's hard to get inspired around this suburb of Seattle. However, things always look different thru the lens, so there's probably a lot more photo ops out there than I think. Stay tuned for something exciting and new!

By the way, I did get my tattoo and it rocks! Here I am showing it off in Hawaii: