{"id":172,"date":"2009-03-05T11:46:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-05T16:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/hungerrumblings\/2009\/03\/05\/more-on-our-lenten-meat-fast\/"},"modified":"2009-03-05T11:46:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-05T16:46:00","slug":"more-on-our-lenten-meat-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/more-on-our-lenten-meat-fast\/","title":{"rendered":"More on our Lenten meat fast"},"content":{"rendered":"

At David Creech’s suggestion, many of us ELCA World Hunger staff have gone vegetarian for Lent. (He explains why in previous posts, like yesterday’s<\/a>.) Admittedly, I’m on the “vegetarian lite” plan – only abstaining from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays. But even so, and even only a week into it, the experience has been educational for me.<\/p>\n

I’ve never attempted to be vegetarian, but nor am I especially carnivorous. In fact, I find nothing appetizing about a steak or a roast; big slabs of meat kind of gross me out. At the same time, I really like most vegetables. I eat vegetarian meals regularly, though not exclusively, simply out of preference. So I didn’t think skipping meat two days a week would be particularly difficult – or even different – and I liked the reasons for doing it. I agreed to participate without hesitation.<\/p>\n

And this is where the role of meat in my life and culture began asserting itself. I myself had no hesitation about an experiment in vegetarianism. Not so my family. I am the primary meal-maker in the house, and there was swift resistance to the idea of several weeks of a vegetarian menu. Not keen on preparing different food for myself and them, we agreed on the two-day-a-week plan. Lesson one<\/strong>: there is social pressure for me to eat meat, even in my own home. Or maybe especially there, since unlike a restaurant, we don’t each get exactly what we want every meal. My choices are tied to the choices of others.<\/p>\n

I’m also learning that meat can be difficult to avoid. Compared to much of the world, meat here is cheap and plentiful, and therefore ubiquitous. It is on offer everywhere I go, and often, it’s no more expensive than non-meat choices. Last Wednesday, I consciously looked for vegetarian choices on a menu and discovered that there weren’t many. Lesson two<\/strong>: meaty meals can be easier to obtain than vegetarian ones. There’s a cultural expectation and incentive to eat meat every day.<\/p>\n

Then there’s the challenge of remembering what day it is. It was sheer luck that I didn’t eat meat yesterday. At lunchtime, I opened the refrigerator and saw some leftover soup. I considered it, but decided that a leftover beet burger sounded better, so I had that instead. It wasn’t until I started thinking about dinner that I realized it was Wednesday and I almost ate Southwestern Chicken soup for lunch. Lesson three<\/strong>: when you live surrounded by a wide variety of plentiful food, it’s easy to be careless about what you eat.<\/p>\n

All of this awareness in only a week! It’ll be interesting to see what else we learn – both individually and as a group – by the time Easter rolls around.<\/p>\n

-Nancy Michaelis<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At David Creech’s suggestion, many of us ELCA World Hunger staff have gone vegetarian for Lent. (He explains why in previous posts, like yesterday’s.) Admittedly, I’m on the “vegetarian lite” plan – only abstaining from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays. But even so, and even only a week into it, the experience has been educational […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[69,62,218,58,60],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post","tag-elca-world-hunger","tag-environment","tag-food","tag-hunger","tag-lent"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMore on our Lenten meat fast - ELCA World Hunger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/more-on-our-lenten-meat-fast\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"More on our Lenten meat fast - ELCA World Hunger\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At David Creech’s suggestion, many of us ELCA World Hunger staff have gone vegetarian for Lent. 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