This whole journey has been about me trying to make a change in my life, to balance what I saw as something wrong with how I viewed and ate meat. I am eating offal for a year to balance out my ‘meat debt’. I’m lucky. I like offal. Some people (some friends amongst them) don’t. I thought it was about time I did a post for YOU. My valiant readers who follow what I’m doing even though you don’t like looking at the web page.
I believe there are two important parts to eating meat. The philosophy you use and the practicality behind it.
In the western world we are all used to eating meat when we want and pretty much however much of it we want. As an undergraduate student I regularly bought the well cheap mince and chicken in the packets in the supermarket, making the excuse of “I’m poor, I can’t afford quality meat”. What I was eating was from badly looked after animals, filled with artificial drugs and probably killed in an unfriendly abattoir where their bodies filled full of fear hormones just before their death. Not very tasty. What I didn’t realise was that BEANS, LENTILS and CHICKPEAS are all much cheaper and also excellent sources of protein. If you’re using the poverty excuse, I have done too, and appreciate it. However think about how you can shop differently …
There’s the psychological factor there as well – if it doesn’t have meat in it, it’s not a meal. Going off to uni for the first time, I would have probably agreed. Now I think a meal can be whatever you want it to be.
My offal journey has been over for a while now – but the changes I made have continued on – I eat much less meat in general and have a “think twice” rule while shopping – it goes something like this (in my stream-of-consciousness). “I really fancy mince, where am I? Morrisons. I’m not buying the frozen mince. [First though] Hmmm. The fresh mince looks dubious. Sweaty. Sweaty mince. Sweaty, unhappy mince from animals I don’t know where from and where they died. Do I really want mince? I probably just want protein. What other protein would I like? [Second thought] Tofu? Not today! Quorn? Quorn mince exists. Bolognaise is back on the menu.”
My lasting advice would be to always think twice about what you put in your body.
offallygood 