in other big news...

I forgot to mention this when it happened. I should have, because it seems like kind of a big deal. However, I've found that it hasn't really changed much of my day to day life, except not getting pepperoni on my pizza on Sunday. So.

I decided on Friday to become a vegetarian. OK, not exactly a vegetarian. Maybe a health and morality conscious omnivore. I will only eat meat that I feel confident in knowing that it has been treated humanely. Before you jump (ok, you probably already have) to the conclusions that I really have become a total San Francisco hippie activist snob, my reasons lie more with my own health than caring about the animals. Let's take a trip back to Friday morning.

I was in my car, driving around this city, and I got to listen to almost an hour of Science Friday. It was about the FDA relaxing the standards on importing cows from Canada. Read: mad cow disease. So, included in the story, were all sorts of fact about mad cow disease, how it is caused, and what we are feeding our livestock. Long story short, I can't bring myself to eat meat that has been pumped full of hormones and other various chemicals so that it has more protein, it grows faster, it's bigger, it's healthier etc. Well, just eat organic, you are probably saying. No thanks. The FDA organic label is mostly a joke. I'd rather eat something locally farmed, which is more likely to be actually organic, as well as better for the environment. As far as meat goes, the thing that concerns me most is what these animals are being fed. I refuse to eat cows that have been fed cow (or other meats for that matter). I refuse to eat chickens that have been fed cow (and other meats). This includes eggs (but it's pretty easy to buy vegetarian fed eggs...this actually is something I've already been doing for a while). Additionally, cows are often fed chicken litter, which is about 30% chicken feed, which contains...yep...cow.

So. I vote a little more with my dollar, and with my eating habits. Because, no matter how you put it, feeding cows other cows is just wrong. I feed my lizard at night because he is naturally nocturnal. I expect the meat that I eat to be treated with the same respect, not just for them, but for my own health.