"A vegetarian who hates meat is not so serious as a vegetarian who loves meat." - G. K. Chesterton
Chesterton was not a fan of vegetarianism, strictly speaking. He even wrote a satirical poem about it, "The Logical Vegetarian." (See below)
At the same time, he called himself a "vegetarian," albeit in the context of consuming fermented vegetables. That despite what he said about too many vegetarians.
“A modern vegetarian is also a teetotaler, yet there is no obvious connection between consuming vegetables and not consuming fermented vegetables. A drunkard… might well be heard huskily to plead that he had fallen there through excessive devotion to a vegetable diet.”
He, like me, enjoyed fermented vegetables.
But unlike him, I am a vegetarian, though one for whom the quotation at the beginning of this post rings true.
I like meat. Or rather, I liked meat. But to qualify even further, I liked some meats. I suspect still would.
I grew up in a meat-eating family. On a weekly basis we had porkchops, meatballs, meatloaf, hotdogs, sausage, and, when my dad was home, something grilled on Sunday, usually steak, but sometimes venison. He was a hunter. And at Thanksgiving, of course, turkey. On Christmas and Easter, the main course was always ham.
I was not a fan of all of them, but I dutifully ate them. And there were some I really liked.
Ham sandwiches, for example. Ate them regularly. I savored the ham on holidays and Sundays when dad was not foisting his grill products on us. Italian sausage always set my mouth to watering. I even liked bologna and spam. I sang along with Monty Python enthusiastically.
And then there was peperoni. I loved it piled on pizza. And my mother would even buy sticks of peperoni, and we'd cut chunks off them and gnaw away.
Fast food burgers were also a regular part of my weekend diet, especially after I consumed some "fermented vegetables."
My absolute favorite with salami. I'd eat it cold on sandwiches, or even better, fried. It was one of the first thing I learned to cook on my own.
So, what happened?
When I got to college, I learned how much grain went into producing a serving of beef. One statistic at that time was the amount of grain needed to produce that serving could have provided food for 10 people. I was concerned about hunger and malnutrition, and through study found that we could produce enough food to feed everyone, but we focused on producing for profits rather than on feeding people..
And I learned about vital rainforests being cut down to free up grazing land for even more beef production. The environmentalist in me was angered.
Further studying also exposed how poorly the animals were often treated - including what later became known a factory farming.
I decided on ethical grounds to stop eating meat. Even the meats I really liked.
My low opinion of farming priorities was reinforced by a church visit to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, a nation where there was widespread hunger and malnutrition. On a tour of the countryside we saw acre after acre devoted to raising sugar cane for export and profit - even as people just a few miles away desperately needed food.
I'm not a perfect vegetarian. I do eat cheese, eggs, and yogurt, and drink milk, I also eat fish. But beef, pork, mutton, turkey, and so on have been off my diet for some 50 years.
And as a vegetarian, I enjoy some fermented vegetables. Indeed, I enjoyed some as I wrote this.
About Chesterton's poem:
The Logical Vegetarian
You will find me drinking rum,
Like a sailor in a slum,
You will find me drinking beer like a Bavarian
You will find me drinking gin
In the lowest kind of inn
Because I am a rigid Vegetarian.
So I cleared the inn of wine,
And I tried to climb the sign,
And I tried to hail the constable as “Marion.”
But he said I couldn’t speak,
And he bowled me to the Beak
Because I was a Happy Vegetarian.
Oh, I know a Doctor Gluck,
And his nose it had a hook,
And his attitudes were anything but Aryan;
So I gave him all the pork
That I had, upon a fork
Because I am myself a Vegetarian.
I am silent in the Club,
I am silent in the pub.,
I am silent on a bally peak in Darien;
For I stuff away for life
Shoving peas in with a knife,
Because I am a rigid Vegetarian.
No more the milk of cows
Shall pollute my private house
Than the milk of the wild mares of the Barbarian
I will stick to port and sherry,
For they are so very, very,
So very, very, very, Vegetarian.
