At the tender age of twenty(20), I started taking interest in my
diet, as a particular. Before then, I mostly bothered with avoiding the "really
bad" items, like Coke Inc. sodas and McBlurghs.
You see, it is a funny thing, but I was actually raised on those two seemingly friendly corporations. We always had
Coca Cola in the fridge, growing up, and it was not a rare event for us to get eat at the local
Burger King. Oh, memories...
(A couple paragraphs about my childhood... Skip it if you can't bother...)
Now, surprisingly, already as children, both me and my older brother started
condemning our parents for
smoking. We were raised on certain values, such as the nineties(90's) American television, and we did not really have other sources of acculturation. It did not take much, from that act, to turn
against Coke. Such
consuming habits (pun intended) were bad for people, and we saw the truth in that; even if it was coated with zeal and general morality on the
TV.
Eventually, I noticed myself becoming more
fat than I wanted to be, as a kid that watched a lot of WWF and NWN
wrestling and valued physical aesthetics. I realized that it was not just "
bad" consumables that were hurting people, but it was a greater issue to
observe and
examine. At that point, I started noticing my diet, and reduced specific items, such as Peanut snacks ("Shoosh") and pita bread (that extremely doughy bread, if you've ever seen one.)
It worked.
(End of childhood bit.)
As an older teenager, looking for more
excitement and
understanding, I learned of
vegetarianism and
veganism. I took the time to experiment with different foods, that I would either
reduce and
avoid or
introduce and
increase. I decided to completely embrace a
99.9% vegetarian diet, and eventually vegan, at about twenty(20).
Joel Salatin knows how it feels like, to be a hungry farmer.
In recent years, after much learning from
experience, I have come to the conclusion, that while I do support the
moral issue of
killing or
mistreating animals for food (or otherwise), I do not feel that I would rather
starve, than feed on others. A year with hippie anarchists in nature, with
very little food, and also a lot of adventures, in both East and West, has taught me the value of
eating what is available.
Only recently, have I really learned
the meaning of being hungry. Do not get me wrong now, I had many occasions in which I was
famished, but managed with the little bread and fruit that were available. But, that only worked when I was living an
abnormal (and generally unsustainable) life style. I feel that the
excitement kept me going, mostly.
So,
to conclude, while a person can
survive on less, at least more often than not; it does seem apparent, that living hungry is not pleasant or wanted. These days, at twenty-six(26), I am still
99% vegetarian, but I eat cheese regularly to keep full, and even some eggs.
Eating the flesh of animals is still not attractive for me,
morally, so I avoid it; but, I do get those little tidbits here and there, when they are made
available.
What about road kill and moral corpse consumption?
Honestly, I have to agree that it is moral to eat it, if you found it dead. However, it would
not be so, if you know that its' death had anything to do with you being
hungry.
I imagine a farmer, keeping an eye out for fresh corpses, to quickly process for eating and storage. It might not be sexy, but hunger does not seem to care about aesthetics.
