Tulane Hullabaloo
Tulane University
Today I came to empathize with vegetarians.
Now, fellow meat-eaters, don't groan and roll your eyes yet, this article doesn't expound upon the "dangers of meat" and condemn us all to heart disease. Let me denounce any rumors of anti-meat sentiments preemptively: I would kill for a surf-n-turf buffet right now. Instead, merely understand that I'm writing in response to my realization about what being a vegetarian entails in practice.
For religious reasons, I'm on a 21-day fast: no food, no milk, no alcohol, no V8, no chicken/beef broth, no caffeine and no carbonation. Food is my life, bringing me each day a new set of complications: I am in love with chocolate, but I must avoid chocolate. I need Popeye's fried chicken for survival, yet each tender, crunchy morsel is so very taboo. Milk does the body good, yet I abstain.
Deny true love? Discredit Popeye's? Reject skim milk? My entire system is quite perplexed by such irrationality, and yet Friday is only the twelfth day.
This has been hard work. I've sat through entire dinners with other people. I've moved aside my roommate's pizza box in the fridge on multitudinous occasions to retrieve my cranberry juice. I've made many a campus eatery hegira to breakfast with friends, very cognizant of the fact that I'm drinking only apple juice and that they're on not the first, but second plate of bacon.
I began this fast in harmony with my convictions, depriving myself, in effect, to achieve a spiritual goal. No one forced this on me, and therefore no one would punish me if I were to quit suddenly. This quest matters to me. Consequently, I know I'll continue the decisions I've made throughout the duration of the fast.
Vegetable broth isn't very exciting. If you can imagine extract of carrot, beet juice, celery oil, essence of lettuce and preservatives mixed in a gumbo of broth-tinted food dyes, you get a general idea. I spoon myself a bowl of this stuff every day for the vitamins and minerals it provides, and because it's one of few warm things I can eat.
Vegetable broth isn't nearly as flavorful as chicken broth, nor does it have the aromatics of beef bullion, but it does fill me up, and I'm starting to imagine that I like it. I guess that's how I came to empathize with vegetarians.
This is purely based on the belief that vegetarians don't hate the taste of meat, but let me say that the will power of your run-of-the-mill vegetarian must be immense. Every day of their life, from the day they make that first decision to abstain, vegetarians make a constant decision not to eat something that they once may have enjoyed.
The impact behind choosing a veggie burger over a quarter pound of pure, grade-A, American beef is much deeper than a mere preference could be. It's a decision made from a conviction in that person's heart, and therefore, indefatigable.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
This is the very serious part. I can't enumerate the number of times that I've heckled a vegetarian for his/her practices. I've desecrated the very bounds of fellowship by my base disregard of another's conviction, and for that I truly apologize. A vegetarian essentially takes the idea of a fast to the next level, extending the conviction to the entirety of his or her life. The cause is a very humane desire to save innocent animals from being violently butchered.
The sacrifice made to this cause is impressive; who am I to mock? Can I imagine giving up the entire meat food group for the rest of my life? No, I cannot; the very idea horrifies me.
Do I have any facts on vegetarianism? No. Is this article written to laud the efforts of the vegetarian cause? No. Was it written to make fun of vegetarians? No. Was it in fact the insane ramblings of a guy who hasn't eaten any food in twelve days? Yes. Definitely. Right on.
The point is, anyone who has ever consumed an entire bowl of vegetable broth is worthy of respect. In fact, perhaps we should all be more understanding to the plight of vegetarians.
They suffer every day the absolute terror of bland substitutes, uninteresting menus and jeering meat-eaters, all in pursuit of a very noble cause, a cause that is so noble and so grand that I may never comprehend it. Regardless, in respect to the valor of every vegetarian, I have decided to follow my own convictions.
That's right, at the end of my fast I will become, most meekly, a meatitarian. Save the veggies!
Jordan Lewis is an Engineering School freshman at Tulane University.
