a long/short vegan rant

a few thoughts in response to my own post from friday regarding my (continuing) choice to not consume animal products:

- since i've been vegan for six months now, i recognize i'm at a turning point where i should opt in and figure out how i'm going to make a life out of this or just give it up. if i opt in, i really want to have a firmer philosophical foundation, because i'm that kind of thinker. one of my continuously evolving philosophies is that i don't want to make a negative impact on animal life. like, a "no animal footprint" kind of deal. i think that's what i'm going for. in the meantime, i've been driving 1600 miles thinking about humility, so i want to make it clear that i don't have this all figured out.

- since i've been at Aunt Kathy's & Uncle Dan's, i've been grabbing a lot of veggies from their garden to eat. and every time i do, i have to knock a bunch of bugs off of my lettuce and berries. wait. they're animals. vegan dilemma.

- so, what does respecting animals look like to me? i don't know! for the last six months, it has been not eating them. and i think that's what it means to me. but where's the line? i'm going to admit to my blogosphere that the jam we made has a trace amount of butter in it - during the boiling process, it helps reduce foaming. usually, i wouldn't TOUCH anything with butter in it, but i spent 5 hours making that jam, and i'm eating it.

- i know there is a difference between using animals for food in a humane way and exploiting animals for money. that's why i have respect for small-scale farms that use as much of an animal as possible, who respect animals as living things and not just as a commodity.

- honestly, meat and dairy don't appeal to me anymore. i remember liking them, i remember them tasting good, but there was a time recently where i ended up eating some egg and some shrimp (i don't want to talk about it) and i had two fears: that i would get sick (i didn't - that suprised me) and that i would like it (i didn't - that also suprised me). i'm happy eating things that grow out of the ground.