Playing Chicken

People often ask why I do not eat meat. I can never think of a concise answer, because I have many reasons, not all of them easy to explain.  Often I just give the one that will satisfy the most people, even though it explains the least: I refrain from taking life as part of my practice of Buddhism.

It started in the fall of my sixteenth year, when my mother found an excellent deal on chicken leg quarters at the IGA supermarket. Growing up impoverished in the Taiwanese south had given her a strong frugal streak, so she bought enough chicken to fill up the entire freezer.

As my mother hated cooking, she worked out an ingenious scheme for expediting weeknight supper. Each weekend, she would broil as many chicken leg quarters as would fit in the oven, dice them up, and keep them in the refrigerator, ready for use.

I did not--and do not--begrudge my mother for saving money or time. After a month of bland, chewy broiled chicken, however, I was ready to snap. Raised in Chinese fashion, I harbored no notion of asking my mother to vary the menu. So I started making ramen for myself when I got home from school, arguing that I was too hungry to wait, then skipping dinner to study (and/or play MUDs).

Once soccer season arrived, though, I regularly made it home later than my parents and could no longer use hunger as an excuse to make my own meals. So I came up with a reason that I thought would pass the filial piety test: vegetarianism.

It did not impress my parents.

My mother, perhaps more perceptive than I gave her credit, insisted that I hated her cooking. There was no fighting her on that one. My father calmly explained that I could not possibly get enough protein to survive his PT regimen and varsity soccer without eating meat. I, with the stubbornness I inherited from him and perhaps a bit of teenage defiance, insisted that I most certainly could.

I did some research on nutrition and presented it to my father. He remained unconvinced. I kept a journal of what I ate for several days, demonstrating that I got plenty of protein. This annoyed him, but he knew too much biology to argue that protein from meat was qualitatively different from the protein in other foods. Reluctantly, he allowed me to continue, convinced that I would grow out of the phase soon enough.

Ironically, I might not have stuck to vegetarianism if my father had just let it alone from the start. The fact that I fought him (amicably) over the issue and won meant a lot to me, and thereafter my diet represented one of the few areas I controlled in my highly regimented life.

As the years passed, I often considered eating meat again--and at times have done so in limited capacities. I have a strong aversion to habits that do not serve any purpose, and make regular audits of my habits in order to eliminate or change unnecessary ones. My vegetarianism has survived several such audits, emerging at last with renewed conviction.

Meat in the Middle

Stir-fried vegetarian 'beef' and green peppers over brown rice.

I became a vegetarian several years ago for a variety of reasons that could probably fill an entire post but pretty much amount to 'orneriness'. In any case, I do not use my dietary choices as a brickbat, nor judge others who do not share my views, nor try to convert them (except jokingly, with close friends).

Still, a not insignificant percentage of people get defensive or skeptical when they learn of my dietary preference. By 'defensive' I mean reacting as though I had accused meat-eaters of immorality, and by 'skeptical' I mean insisting that a vegetarian diet cannot supply adequate nutrition, despite sound evidence to the contrary.

In turn, I find myself reflexively throwing scientific research and dietary arithmetic around to justify my choice. This works about as well as you might expect, and accomplishes nothing except firmly convincing the other person that I (and probably all vegetarians) look down on meat-eaters. Lately, I have grown more conscious of this phenomenon and try to refrain from engaging such individuals.

Of course we have a desire see our own choices and preferences--even the largely arbitrary ones--as Correct. In some of us the need to validate this desire runs stronger than others. Perhaps those people would get equally defensive/skeptical about my preference of colors, or movies, or music, if different from their own.

Interestingly, I have found that I trigger the defensive/skeptical reaction less frequently when I say "I do not eat meat". This discovery came as a side effect of my 2011 yearly 'project', in which I undertook to eliminate the verb 'to be' from my vocabulary as much as possible. Doing so meant I could not declare "I am a vegetarian", and so I started expressing my dietary preference differently.

Why would insecure or excessively passionate meat-eaters find "I do not eat meat" less offensive? I would have imagined a negative statement about meat more likely draw more objections than a positive statement about vegetables. No. Instead, most people respond by asking me why.

I usually reply that my motivation stems in part from my practice of Buddhism, but that, for the most part, I simply do not like the taste of meat (though, as implied above, my vegetarianism has a far more convoluted history). They usually accept this without complaint.

So what makes this exchange more acceptable than "I am a vegetarian"? Perhaps the participation of the other party forges a sense of cooperation with me? Or the avoidance of identifying as a member of a group side-steps the in-group/out-group reflex? Or maybe the word 'vegetarian' itself has negative connotations in the American imagination, conjuring visions of PETA and the Counterculture?

Whatever the case, I have learned that creativity in language use comes with an unexpected bonus. Who knows what other psychological minefields I can circumvent by expressing things in unconventional ways!