Icky Flesh

It was pure coincidence that I came back from San Francisco a vegetarian. No, really.

Several days before I left the Actual City of Brotherly Love I was reading Jeremy Rifkin’s European Dream, a multifaceted argument for the demise of the relevance of the American Dream and the promise of the EU mindset for the next century. He covers many topics, not least among them ecology, environmentalism, and animal rights.

Now, I’ve seen the PETA videos. I have close vegetarian friends who’ve explained their reasoning to me. My family tried vegetarianism for a time back in the day, for health and ethical reasons.

Despite all that, my palate for gourmet food had given me a reputation as a voracious carnivore amongst my friends. I liked my steaks bloody rare, was no stranger to trying unusual game, and had even partaken in live shrimp just a couple weeks previous.

But the past tense in that last sentence is, obviously, telling. As I read Rifkin’s chapter on the aforementioned topics, the collection of economic arguments and grotesque accounts of animal rights abuses in a world evermore scientifically aware of animal cognition and emotion left me repulsed. I didn’t make a conscious decision at that moment, but I was utterly unable to eat meat that evening.

Or the next day. Or the next. Or any day until yesterday.

I tried a bowl of pho with flank steak and bo vien (meatballs), a pretty tame order for me. The meat was tasteless and its texture unpleasant. I ate the small bowl, but was not pleased. Later that day I tried a bite of a friend’s lamb kabob. The flavor agreed with me, but I couldn’t fathom eating a plate of the stuff. Flesh simply didn’t register as food.

I think my decision has become conscious. I have no intention of proselytizing my vegetarianism, but for now it feels like the right thing.