In Defense of Meat

As most of you may recall, I have been on a bit of a mission to find some new friends, as a lot of mine have up and abandoned me in recent years. Recently I have come into contact with some vegans. I don't want to say this like I think it is the plague or quantify these folks as vegan as if it is the only thing that defines them, nor that i have been avoiding the local vegans until I became desperate for friends. I just have happened to meet some new folks who happen to have vegan lifestyles (and I like them all). I should probably look in the want ads for vegetarian and vegan friends as they are typically my type of folk.
My actual point: in my attempt to try and find common ground with these new folks I started questioning my own obsession with eating meat.
Fact is though, I am completely comfortable with my ethical eating, I just wish is didn't seem like such a burdon on others. Vegetarian is well defined, Vegan is getting there, but Ethical Eater- eats some meat, but not others? that is a bit of a puzzler.
Once upon a time I was a vegetarian, I didn't eat meat due to the fact that mainstream agriculture is one of the most horrifying things that I know too much about. You can live your life not knowing, or you can educate yourself. Traditional agriculture is a destroyer of our environment, our health and enough other things to fill it's own post. I can't support factory farmed any animal, and I try to avoid factory farm raised any other living thing-(plants are living things that actually grow and give their lives for us to eat)- this is why we eat as local as possible, and if necessary support the organic factory veggies- thought I don't think that they are doing all that much good, they are just the lesser of the evils. Fast forward some number of years in my life, and we move to IL, we meet the Moore's, we learn about their farming practices and decide that meat can be part of our diet. That first roast chicken was incredible, and I don't know that I have looked back since.
I really think that animal flesh (I don't like to pretend it isn't) is an important part of a local farm's sustainability. While there are solely vegetable farms in the vicinity, I don't know of a single organic vegetable farmer able to make ends meat solely by growing vegetables. Nor do I know of an organic vegetable farmer who farms without animal inputs, (manure). I think that in order for a farm to be a fully sustainable system, animals are a necessity. Not only do they provide a greater profit margin for a farmer, they also can cycle energy in ways that plants cannot and return things to the soil in ways plants cannot. It is phenomenal that a cow can eat grass and turn it into protein. Sun-grass-cow-me. That is a pretty small food chain of great energy conversion rates that I am happy to be a part of.
When I start questioning my meat eating diet, I must remind myself that while I am not eating a vegan diet, I am not the traditional meat eating American. My meals are predominantly vegetarian. We cook with bacon and guanciale, but they don't take center stage. We have a chunk of meat centered meal at most two times a week and sometime just once a month. We use a lot of ground to round out meals. This is atypical to the average meat eater.
Recently I have been wondering what the farmer's market would be like if everyone were vegan, would many farmers be able to survive on the income of veggies alone? I think that for a farm to be financially sustainable, they need to be diverse, sure no one area brings in a ton of money, but the combination of veggies, grains, eggs, chicken, beef, pork rounds out a good lifestyle for a family living on the land. This also allows for crop failure, as (fingers crossed) not everything should fail in the same year.
I do think that if you can't stomach where your food comes from, then you probably shouldn't eat it and join the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle. If I was squeamish about animals dying for my benefit, or couldn't participate in harvesting our chickens, I would have committed to a vegetarian life. Luckily, the process was more peaceful than expected and taught me to be very thankful for my food and the animals and plants that I am consuming. On most nights at our home, we give a thanksgiving to all the animals, plants and farmers who have contributed to our meal.
And dare I bring up the subject of the unethical vegetarian/vegan? For my philosophy minor in college, this was my topic. I set out to find out why people were vegetarian's and then argued that most were unethical vegetarians- a little strong, but I do think that trendy vegetarianism can be problematic. I don't think anyone could convince me that morning star soy products are better for the world than locally raised grass fed beef. Though I wish someone would try, that would be interesting. And really giving up honey for the sake of the honey bee, yet using comercially farmed and sprayed destroying the world cane sugar?
I am going to publish this without sitting on it for weeks and it is too late for me to spend any further time discussing. I apologize for the possible rambling. Goodnight.