Will it be meat ... or veggies?

Food is Food

By Casey Cavalier
Staff Writer

Everything in moderation, including moderation. That ‘s a guideline I use daily, with varied degrees of success. It ‘s effective when applied to nutrition and health. I ‘m not a vegetarian and I ‘m not an enthusiastic carnivore.

Food is not good or bad. A thing can only hold the value that we assign it. With balance and moderation, few things can cause us irreparable harm. Food is food.

I was raised two blocks from the Pacific Ocean. As a barefoot kid, I enjoyed the “low-tides” created by the moon ‘s tractive force pulling on ocean waters. On certain spring days, the water withdrew and revealed tide pools, encrusted rocks and mysterious life forms. The Pacific had a way of saturating daily life. The salt air, foghorns, squawking seagulls, big orange sunsets and the freshest seafood imaginable were all part of life.

Drive 20 minutes from the ocean and you‘ll reach a mountain range. On the other side of the chaparral-covered hills, vintners grow grapes and ranchers raise cattle. The area is known for a unique cut of beef from the bottom sirloin, called Tri-Tip. It ‘s triangular, weighs a couple of pounds and is grilled slowly. Serve it with pinto beans, salsa, tortillas and a Corona – then repeat.

World-famous avocados, strawberries and citrus are grown there. These, along with vegetables grown in nearby fields, are shipped all over the country. With this in mind, and because we have a couple of professional chefs in the family, I couldn‘t imagine banishing any one food group from the table.

I eat chicken and fish most often; I cook pork and beef infrequently. Nutrition-related hype and media-driven fear are modern inventions. Moderation seems the best approach.

Eat your veggies

By Bethany S. Mueller
Associate Editor

I have always enjoyed fruits and vegetables, as a kid. I think I ate more fruit from the garden then I did potato chips or snack packs. The thought of fresh-picked strawberries, raspberries and Concord grapes in the summer still causes my mouth to water. To me, meat was just something that I was told to eat by my parents. It was not until my adult life that I ever thought that I would be better off without it.

Vegetarianism and veganism have always interested me. If I met someone who was, I would be sure to bombard them with tons of questions. Why did you stop eating meat? How could you go without barbecue? What do you do for protein? What do you eat? The questions would go on and on. I found that there were a lot of reasons why some people chose to eliminate meat from their diets. Ethical, religious and health reasons seem to be the top few.

So recently, I decided I would give it a go. For me it was not religious nor ethical. I just wanted to see how I would feel without having to digest meat. I did a lot of research prior to eliminating it from my daily diet and found that it wasn‘t a bad idea after all.

I started off small, eliminating pork, something I have never been fond of. Red meats went after that, which was surprisingly easy as well. The hardest one to give up was chicken. The smell of baked chicken still gets me from time to time but once I see the meat I quickly turn away. It has gotten to the point where the sight of certain meats makes me nauseous. I haven ‘t given up fish yet, I am not sure I will. I feel there are some limits and some things that I can ‘t go without. Yellowtail sashimi happens to be one of them.

It has been approximately four months now and I must admit that I do feel better. I have more energy and my body isn‘t as physically tired all the time. Some things have been hard to give up.

The hardest thing that I have come across is the lack of options veggie lovers have. In a world run by the on-the-go-McWhopper-burger value meal, my choices are slim and practically none. Whether ethical, religious or health, the veggie lifestyle is not a bad way to go. As the commonly used adage says, “You are what you eat!”

Meat’s my dinner

By Desiree Espada
Contributing Writer

The connotation of meat has a lot to do with the decision to eat meat. For example, while some people may see a slab of bloody dead cow on their plate, others see a delicious sirloin. I see the sirloin.

Eating meat has always been second nature to me. My entire family eats meat, my cat eats meat, and most of my friends eat meat. Almost every meal I eat consists primarily of meat. Meat is filling, healthy in the right proportions, energizing, and well … it ‘s good.

Now, don ‘t get me wrong here. Being a vegetarian could be a wonderful and fulfilling thing to be and, honestly, if I didn‘t love meat so much, I ‘d be on the wagon as well. But I ‘m not.

There are several different reasons why I choose not to be a vegetarian. One is because, honestly, all of the P.E.T.A. videos of cows being slaughtered alive do touch me, but it ‘s the people watching those and bawling over them that get on my nerves. Crying isn‘t going to help anything. If you want to be an animal rights activist, then get up and do something about it. Being a vegetarian is a start, but what about animal shelters that need volunteers, strays that need homes or food?

I know every morning I get up and open about four cans of cat food, one for my cat and the rest goes on the front porch for about six strays that I care for. Another reason I choose not to be a vegetarian is because if I don ‘t think I would eat very well. I am really not a big vegetable eater besides salads, and these days there is even meat on salads.

Another reason why I eat meat is because it is natural to me, so I really don ‘t see anything wrong with it. Humans have been consuming animals for who knows how long, and I know it may not be morally right, but I have to eat, too. And that ‘s why I believe that one‘s connotation of meat has much more to do with eating meat than we know. From the way you were raised to your religion, to just what you like to eat.

It all filters into your perception of meat and those who eat meat.