A Half Full Glass of Vegetarian Water

First off, those people that become Vegetarian's because they are against killing any living whatever is bullshit. There is so much life in your average glass of water (and even more if you aren't looking at just developed nations water) that the result of not consuming life force would be death.

Anyway, I decided to try it out because I couldn't come up with any satisfactory counter argument to 'there would be no climate change issue if everyone was just vegetarian.' A claim I don't know the validity of, but it is on the surface a much simpler and easier solution than getting rid of petrol fuelled cars.

Of course fossil fuels have to go, but without any investment over night people could switch to being vegetarian and the worst thing that would happen is that a bunch of beef farmers go broke, but they seldom get a say in consumer affairs, and inflation would probably hit chick peas, beans and whatnot pretty fast. But seriously what could the government do? Make it illegal to not eat beef and lamb?

So anyway I decided to go 31 days without meat. Eggs are okay in my book as is milk. So too would Kopi Suak if I ever drank it, or indeed eating any kind of shit but thus far I haven't had to go there.

Anyway the first 3 days I was cruising, I found it much much easier than I expected.

1. Desserts are in. With the exception of an African Sugar Ant dish all desserts are vegeterian. Arguably those Pork Steam Bun's are sweet enough to be considered a dessert, as is almost all Japanese cuisine but it isn't. Donuts, Ice Cream, Chocalate, Sugarcane juice, Slurpees, Cake... you guessed it, vegetarian. As a result I haven't lost any significant amount of weight from my dietary shift.

2. Breakfast laughs. Since it is not socially acceptable for single people to eat cafe breakfasts on a sunday morning, it has been a long time since I had much bacon, sausage, chorizo, kransky, ham or fish for breakfast. There is rarely bacon in the house so put simply breakfast is more or less the same as always, peanut butter toast or an omelette, or eggs or pancakes.

3. Fast Food dissapears. I found the Colonel hard to resist, but as good as people may think the chips are I'm not going to become one of those bitches that goes to KFC and gets a large chips. Similarly Hungry Jacks is out and as for McDonalds, as much as it was a staple overseas if I wanted meat to taste like candy (see 1) that's where I'd go.

4. White people fucking love potatoes. I find myself cooking every day now, whereas before my sister, mum and I rotated every three. I was actually in a funk, stuck with the old marinades, parboiling snags in beer and onions, and had done few experiments of late. My experiments usually result in a dish I am immensely dissatisfied with but my philistine family don't know the difference and think its great like rubbing salt into a bitter bitter wound.
But since going veg I find it has both rattled my cooking and eating out habits. I eat falafel a dish I have never had anything against but never ate because there was china town in the CBD. I cook beans up with cheese, potatoes into curries, sweet potatoes into whatever, risottos, omelettes, mexican rice etc.
It's all surprisingly easy. Plus I don't have to deal with the headache of miss timing my pan temperature and failing to seal meat.

And those are the upsides. You see I am convinced that the fundamental physical principals of climate change are sound, this is the advantage of doing physics, a subject I believe should be mandatory along with economics in order for people to be decent human beings after highschool.
I also know the longer we are inactive on a solution, the more drastic the solution will need to be for survival. So the question I am answering is 'if called upon could I become a vegetarian?' and the answer is yes. I am fully compatable with a carbon free lifestyle. I am sure I could do 80% of my work without using a computer, I ride a bike everywhere and if absolutely necessary I could become a vegetarian.

The last disclaimer though, most disturbing is the solidarity amongst vegetarians. The 'good for you' attitude. This solidarity and brotherhood would be most welcome for things like 'male pattern baldness' but not for vegetarians. All I can compare it to is Denzal Washington's scene in Philidelphia in the chemist where he has become famous for taking on the unfair dismissal case of an HIV positive homosexual (tom hanks) and a gay guy approaches him in the pharmacist thinking he is gay.
Whilst I like to think I'm more progressive than Denzel's character, I am not one of you vegetarians. I am doing something out of principal, I don't want my kids marrying your kind, I don't want them going to the same school. I don't believe in interdietary marriage either okay. I don't intend to stay vegetarian, I will simply do what I must to survive, much as I'd happily go to jail to avoid going to war, and I'd happily suck the gang leaders dick to avoid being cornholed in the shower.

It doesn't make me gay, it doesn't make me a vegetarian, it makes me a coward.