Annotations, Ch 61
A note on vegetarianism
I’m vegetarian. There’s many different shades of vegetarianism-I am of the variety that don’t eat meat or fish. I’m also lactose intolerant, so I might as well be vegan. But I eat eggs, since I need the protein.
There really are many reasons why people become vegetarian. Personally, my reasons would be classified as political/environmental. I’m not a Peter Singer follower (his book Animal Liberation is very famous, a foundation philosophical work on animal rights), but I do object to current factory farm practices, as well as the depleting of our oceans by overfishing. Even if they are generally considered to be ‘lower’ life forms, nothing deserves to suffer in the horrendous conditions of factory farms. Also, if we didn’t divert so much of our grain supply to feeding cattle and so forth, a large portion of world hunger would be significantly reduced.
If you’re not vegetarian, that’s totally fine with me. All my family members and most of my friends are devout meat eaters. I don’t try to convert anyone, but I have gotten a lot of shit for being vegetarian, which is why I’m writing this. I’ve been in situations where it’s almost impossible to be vegetarian, since everything seems to come with meat, especially chicken. And just because I’m vegetarian does not mean I live off salads. I’m fortunate to live in a location where vegetarianism is well supported and very tasty.
I’m also writing this because in some fanfictions, they describe Spock’s food as looking really unappealing, and I don’t see why that should be. I rather imagine Vulcan food to be really good with lots of spices, maybe a lot like Indian food.