An ethical diet

January 2, 2023

As part of the ethical diet challenge, I’m going vegan this month. Over the last few years, as I’ve developed this program, my diet has become predominantly vegetarian, but milk, eggs, and cheese are still an important part. I’ve been planning for this, using up the leftover animal products as the new year approached. My refrigerator isn't any less full, it's just got more fruits and vegetables in it.

Today’s a meatless Monday; I’ve got a variety of vegetarian recipies I cook anyway, but now I’ll make sure none of the ingredients are meat-adjacent. My biggest concern is forgetting about it, or eating something where I don’t realize that animal products are among the ingredients. But I’m very sure that this is an experiment worth trying.

Mohandas Gandhi has been called a world-renowned humanitarian and vegetarian, but he wasn't always that way. As a teenager, he experimented with eating meat. Secrecy was mandatory; in his autobiography, Gandhi wrote that his parents “would be shocked to death” if they learned of his diet.

His co-conspirator in these meals was an older boy, Sheikh Methab. Gandhi admired him for his physical prowess and self-confidence, qualities he attributed to the meat in his diet. The first portion of goat meat made him sick, and triggered a nightmare where Gandhi imagined he could hear bleating from inside him. However, Methab continued to arrange elaborate dinners, and within a year he “became a relisher of meat-dishes.”

While teenage Gandhi wasn't troubled by the ethics of eating meat, he knew it was wrong to lie to his parents about why he wasn't hungry. So, with some regret, he vowed he would no longer eat meat until his parents were dead. Then, he would do so openly and proudly.

What lessons do you think your children learn from your food choices?