“It’s like giving bacon to a starving vegetarian” – Stage Kiss

Saw a new play, Stage Kiss, at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.  I Had dinner beforehand with an old friend who had never seen me eat meat.  When we heard this line in the play “It’s like giving bacon to a starving vegetarian” we both started laughing.

Throughout the next few days that line from the play stuck with me.  Every vegetarian is starving in a sense.  Robb Wolf writes that when having a vegetarian diet you can survive but you can’t strive.  When you are not fulfilling your dietary needs part of you is starving.  I look back now and wonder, in my vegetarian days would I have eaten bacon if I was starving?  If you would have asked me that question three months ago I probably naively would have said no.  Now, give me bacon (the thick meaty kind) when I am starving or full and yes I’ll eat it!  And, I’ll love it!   And, I’ll know it is the protein and type of fat my body strives on.

This next statement may not sit well with many but I have come to looking at vegetarianism as an eating disorder.  Vegetarians, myself previously included in this group, like to delude themselves with the idea that it is a healthy lifestyle.  They even use environmental reasons to justify that ‘lifestyle’.  You can eat locally.  You don’t have to use harming the environment to ultimately harm yourself.  I've never had a traditional eating disorder but isn't starving your body basically that?  My understand of eating disorders is that they stem from some psychological base.  For me, vegetarianism definately stemed from some sort of self imposed atonement.  I am sure I will have more to say on this later but right now I am still working through it all.  Until then, I'll keep recovering!