Grassroots vegetarianism

See what I did there?

After reading the wikpedia article on Environmental vegetarianism, I wonder if I should seriously consider becoming a vegeterian.

The only thing is, vegetarianism feels impracticle in an urbanized society like Hong Kong. At least on my university campus, meals with meat are pretty much everywhere because it is cheap and conventional. The vegetarians (by culture or by religion) here have trouble finding variety in the foods that they eat, citing that they can't go 1 week without having to order the same meal option twice. Other impediments include the fact that I love eating fish.... and that I'm ethnically Filipino and Filipinos make really good adobo chicken, lumpia, and fried bangus (milkfish).*drooool*

Before jumping into anything cold turkey, one always has to do their research. Minimizing meat consumption is the best option at this point and highlighting the environmental/world impact of vegetarianism could get me past the tipping point. Of course there are valid other reasons like animal rights and ethics and personal health and such. But like many other people, I feel like PETA's attempts at veganizing the world are a bit annoying, too brash, and often hyperbolic. On the other hand, healthy living is probably the most enticing reason to become vegetarian but we've seen time and time again that people in developed countries unwittingly forfeit their personal health for immediate gratification and thus fail on vegetarian diets.

Truth be told, I've always been a bit reserved about vegetarianism. I felt that whenever someone altered their dietary choices outside of a cultural/religious, medical, or upbringing context, it was about self-glorifying statement-making and not about changing the world for the better. ("Look at me and how I'm showing compassion to animals"/"I'm doing this for my health." versus "I believe that doing this will in some way help alleviate our current world dilemmas").

Take Mark Zuckerberg, for example. After hearing about his recent marriage to his long-time MD-degree-endowed girlfriend, I took on the role of a typical Facebook stalker and I also found out another of his life events was that he became a vegetarian. 'True vegetarians' don't agree on whether or not it's okay that he would 'only eat animals that died by [his] own hands' but Zuckerberg states that it is more responsible and respectful of life and it would make you more thankful about what you ate. I personally think vegetarians who complain about the trueness of his vegetarianism are missing the point. Even if he's got his own lofty fanfare going on (which I frown upon), he's got a point about respecting nature and being responsible for your own actions. I just hope he doesn't miss the more critical aspect of his choice... does starting with the man in the mirror make the world a better place? And what can he do to make sure it does?

Just my one cent on the matter: Vegetarianism should be about a grassroots movement... by your one dietary choice, you could have a conversation with your friend and spread the word about whatever it is you believe in. For me, IF I became a vegetarian, it'd be about trying to make others more conscious about world sustainability, for the sake of humans & all of God's other creatures. In Zuckerberg's case, he should use his position in the public eye to take his "responsibility" argument a bit further: a worldwide reduction of meat consumption (and the resultant reduction of processed meat production) can help alleviate world hunger and at least slow down our rampant race towards environmental collapse.

Anyway, even more pressing: FINALS! (lol why do I always have more blog posts around exam period?)





Highlights from the wiki site:

• The meat industry contributes about 18 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions 
• Western dietary preferences for meat would be unsustainable as the world population rose to the forecasted 9.1 billion by 2050
• A person existing chiefly on animal protein requires 10 times more land to provide adequate food than someone living on vegetable sources of protein

"A widely adopted vegetarian diet, in and of itself, may not be enough to make the US food system sustainable, unless greener agricultural practices, such as the adoption of renewable energy, are also implemented. The support of alternative farming practices (e.g. well husbanded organic farming, permaculture, and rotational grazing) and the avoidance of certain plant commodities such as rice, also have a beneficial impact on environmental health and sustainable agriculture, though this would have little effect on animal welfare and rights."