A few months back, one of our priests at church asked if I knew of anyone who could give a talk on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA’s) at our Sunday morning adult education (I work for a farm that has a produce box program similar to a CSA, so the question wasn’t completely out of nowhere ;] ). I volunteered myself, and then put off planning until the very last minute, but in the end, gave what I thought was a pretty nice talk that mentioned CSA’s as part of a larger picture of making sure our food choices are sustainable, and honor Creation.
In preparation of the talk, I finally watched Food, Inc.– if you haven’t seen it, I encourage you to, or you could take Todd’s suggestion and read The Omnivore’s Dilemma instead if you would rather read about than see slaughtering imagery… Long story short, I am a newly minted vegetarian unless I know the source of the meat I’m eating. What do you call that? Ethical omnivore? Flexitarian?
I’m hoping to be gracious about it, and if I’m at someone else’s home and they serve me meat, I’m not going to question, scold or refuse. We went over to Jake and Cerra’s house a few days ago, and when I mentioned that I wouldn’t be having a beef hamburger, Cerra found me an awesome black bean burger in the freezer. That was super accommodating of her, but I don’t expect that everywhere we go. (And plus, I later turned a blind eye and ate a marshmallow…:/ )
I also really have no intention of raising Seth as a vegetarian, nor could I impose a no-meat policy on Todd even if I wanted to, nor do I want to make two separate meals at dinnertime. I’m trying to find a good balance between veggie and meaty meals at home; few enough meat meals to not raise our grocery budget by too much, but enough so that Todd doesn’t go on Arby’s benders on the sly. Todd, lovely guy that he is, spends a lot of time making sure that I don’t feel stressed out as a mostly stay-at-home mama, and is hoping that I don’t feel undue stress by having to make special trips to find “happy” meat, as a friend calls it. So far, I would say that it’s actually renewed my excitement in grocery shopping and cooking. 101cookbooks.com is an all vegetarian recipe blog that is always fun to look at, but I’ve started a delicious account to bookmark the recipes that I think look especially good (and quick and Seth-friendly*). This also gave me an excuse to visit the Grainery, a natural foods store in Burien, for the first time. I probably got way too much joy out of buying french lentils in bulk. Anyway, we’ll see how this goes, but at the very least, I won’t feel guilty every time I sing a round of Old MacDonald to Seth.
*Seth is a really good eater so far. He likes lots of different veggies, and loves rice, other grains and beans (maybe he likes beans a little too much), so it’s less to cater to typical toddler tastes, but more to make sure that it’s something that he and the rest of us will enjoy. :]
