I was a vegetarian, still ate cheese and a few eggs, but no meats for about 5 years back in the 70’s. Eventually I returned to the middle path and while I do not eat a lot of meat I do eat it and happily, probably, average, 2–3 times a week, beef maybe once, such as spaghetti sauce and otherwise mostly chicken. We also eat a lot of non-meat dinners as well. I bake cabbage and potatoes and have a lot of veggies over rice, veggie soups, veggie chili etc.
Tonight is home made split pea soup with home made croutons and salad. Last night I had albacore tuna salad on toast with home made bread and butter pickles and salad and whole grain and seed tortilla chips with cantaloupe on the side.
I do buy though the better lifestyle raised, organic grass fed beef and non-factory farmed chicken and because I live in a rural area we have lots of locally and humanely raised organic animal products. Tyson, Foster Farms and many others practice horrible “farming” procedures and the abuse of animals is horrendous.
We also have 8 happy hens here that give us lovely fresh eggs and geese too. Our birds are all pets and enjoy a nice, free ranging lifestyle and are safely out up in their coop and barn at night.
Humans are Omnivores and eating meat, fish, poultry and dairy is not the issue, the issue is people eat too MUCH of it and the issue is also promoting the cruelty based industry of factory farming practices. Eat less and buy quality and humanely raised and…viola…a non-issue.
My neighbors raise a few head of beef a year and they enjoy a wonderful life, grazing in a huge, ( like 10 acre ) irrigated green pastures studded with giant Oak trees, frisking around, napping in the grass, living happy cow lives until one day the mobile butcher arrives and it is all over, painlessly and quickly, right at home. No trauma from being trucked to feed lots, slaughter houses, getting banged up, injured or killed in transit, no terror filled last hours and moments watching their comrades be slaughtered in front of them.
Quality of life is everything and if we could sustain the teeming masses on the scale of small farms from yester – year, this would be ideal.
Sadly those days are long gone except for some of us rural peeps that can still grow our own.