Day: September 14, 2006

Food:

I, too, like J.E. have longed to be a vegetarian at certain points in my life. Gandhi speaks quite frequently about this and it certainly has re-instated that longing. He refers to the fact that red meat makes people more aggressive, which I don’t think has been proven through science but is interesting nonetheless. It has been tested empirically in dogs. Gandhi states that his rigid adherance to this lifestyle often came at quite a cost. Unfortunately, one of the larger hinderances to this choice in lifestyle is its accessibility for me. It takes more time, more planning, and more money to be a vegetarian where I live. I think it might have been easier to do this in NY but here it is quite difficult. We shop at the local Co-op occasionally, but the food is more expensive (sometimes more than I can afford on my tight budget).

This brings me to another point about choices (NPR had a program about this.) Fast food is really over-used by people who have little money and little time, which adds to their plight by giving them health problems in the long run. All of this may make healthy living sound like more of a luxury than a choice, but I think there are some truths here. I think giving up caffeine, as Jeff did, is an example of a very deliberate and healthy choice. I think one of the questions of morality is how the food was raised and how animals were treated before their slaughter. This is why smaller, local food stores are often better, but because they are smaller, they are more expensive.

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