I’ve been resting a lot recently, taking a warm rejuvenating hibernation that I’ve learnt improves nearly all situations. Blue Monday was this week but it didn’t feel very ‘blue’ to me, the sun was shining, the air was fresh, and it felt like the start of a good week. Because it was blue Monday, I decided to make this delicious blueberry, lemon, and yoghurt loaf cake. I’ve not baked much with yoghurt before and it came out more dense than I thought it would but it is delicious. An absolute smash. It grew a lot in the oven and I was so shocked by its size when it came out!

I’ve recently come to a revelation that I’m only vegetarian because it makes me feel like I’m a good person. It’s not performative. I don’t go to events, turn my nose up at meat eaters only to go home and eat slices of chorizo out of the fridge. Nor do I think meat eaters are bad people at all. But I find the phrase ‘it’s fine, I’m vegetarian’ plays like a sample in my head everytime I fail in a whatever minute way to be a model citizen. It softens the edges acting as a salve for every time I don’t fully rinse out a can before putting it in the recycling, everytime I make a harsh comment about someone behind their back (we all do it), or if I accidentally bash into someone on the pavement and don’t immediately follow it with multiple pleading apologies. I imagine the measure of someone’s ‘good-personness’ as a seesaw and we stand at the centre of it between the good and bad ends with every decision we make nudging us to either side. For me, my vegetarianism acts as a counter-balance to my wrongs, that for every misstep towards tipping the bad end, I have vegetarianism to anchor me to the good. I’m sure if in some horrible series of events in my future I murder someone, I’ll stand knife-wielding and blood-splattered over the body while a voice in my head says ‘well I’m vegetarian, that’s thousands of animal lives saved compared to this one lost’. I’ll be at the stand pleading guilty and looking forward to my last marinated tofu before going to jail forever.

But I do feel tempted to eat meat. If I go to a restaurant with a meat eating friend, I usually feel jealous when our food arrives. I’ve found myself not meeting their eyes when they talk but staring down at the table like a misogynistic man fixated on a woman’s boobs, practically drooling over how deliciously juicy it looks. Once the ice has melted in our glasses and we get up to leave, I’ll be happy with my life choices but next time I’ll do the same glazed stare and post-meal self-righteousness and so the loop ripples on. There’s no excuse for me not to be vegetarian. Everything points towards a yes. I’ve been vegetarian for ages so I know I can do it and live a fulfilling life. There are lots of options now, including vegan only restaurants so it’s perfectly accessible for me. No killing animals. It’s better for the environment. No meat guilt/sweats. And yet sometimes I want a meatball. The obvious solution is to go flexi but I’m an all or nothing gal with things like this so that’s never going to work.

I’m planning to go to Japan in October and I would like to eat meat then because it’s difficult to be vegetarian in Japan. Food (and meat) is a big part of the culture and I don’t want to travel so far to only half experience it. It’s been suggested to me to start with chicken stock to get my body used to it again. I don’t know if I’ll actually do it, or if I’ll end up going to Japan and sticking to a hearty diet of rice, miso soup, and tofu. I can’t imagine the moment when I sit down to do it either because I haven’t eaten meat in a long time or because my morality is too tied up in not eating it. What will I tell myself when I put plastic in the cardboard recycling and then sit down to eat a pork dumpling? The seesaw will tip to the bad end and I’ll be flung off into the abyss of badness never to be redeemed again.

I know that being vegetarian isn’t the last spindly thread clinging on to dear life that stops me from being evil. Again, I don’t think eating meat makes you a bad person. It’s just that being vegetarian is a clear, objective thing that I can point to when I feel I’m not behaving the best and think ‘at least there’s that’. Maybe if I eat meat I will recycle better and make changes in other ways to balance the scale. Or maybe the scale doesn’t exist and I’m overthinking this … could be, could be. Anyway, if I do eat meat you betcha I’ll be writing about it here!

This cake was fun and easy to make, just dry and then wet ingredients, mix and bake. The recipe is from @dietitianrose, make sure to see her original post!

Goodbye for now x

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