Last week I did something I was proud of. The main struggle I've dealt with along this new path is eating out or eating when someone else prepares the food. I'm good at sticking to my resolve when I'm cooking for myself and my family, but when I'm not putting the food on the table, it's pretty much a fail.
I changed that for myself one day last week. I was down in Olympia, working for the state superintendent's office. Each day, lunch was catered. It was delicious, but not always what I would choose for myself. After reading the chapter in Food, Inc. about the treatment of animals at the large factory farms, I was feeling disturbed about my choices with eating meat in my life. Not that I didn't know terrible things were happening to animals in our country, but I just shoved it to the back of my mind. I still do that to some extent even now, but less and less so.
Of course, after reading that, the next day there was flank steak available for lunch. I stood there and stared at it for probably 30 seconds before I chose not to eat it. Without knowing where it came from, I just couldn't do it. Now, that's just one time that I made that choice, but it's a start, right?
Also, the last two times I've bought eggs, I bought those that were organic and cage-free. Terrible things happen to chickens in large farm settings: beaks snipped off so they can't peck each other, living in tiny cages, standing in their own feces... chickens may not be the smartest creatures, but they deserve better than that. From now on, I will be making better choices when I buy eggs and chicken meat. I feel like it's one of those changes that are rather easy to do and is totally the right thing to do. Doing better for the Earth and its creatures (including my family and myself) is what this is all about after all.
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