Vegeterraneanism: Day 4

No, I spelled it right. I’m not a vegetarian. I am a devout lover of bacon. But lately, I have converted to vegeterraneanism, which I roughly translate to mean “eater of vegetables of the earth but having no beef (ha!) with meat of the air and sea.”

The thing is, I’ve been listening to my 71 year old Garden Goddess tell hideous stories of hormone-filled chickenlings that are nothing but one giant, globulous breast. In my mind, these appear as malformed beaks and watery eye spots bobbling gelatinously atop slug like torsos. Yikes! While we take three hours to play a single round of Phase 10, Garden Goddess tells me tales of diseased cows having basketball-sized dead zones in their bodies - nerveless area of blackened mush, caused by hormone injections.  She tells of “meat dust,” left over after sawing apart frozen carcasses, swept up and added to the grinder to mix in with the rest of your weekend barbecue. She tells me my cellulite is caused by my body’s inability to flush meaty chemical sludge from my system, so it camps out around my thighs instead.

Not so, you’re saying. Blame cellulite on all those commonly accepted causes, like eating too many French fries or wearing underpants with too tight elastic. I am deaf to your logic.  My cellulite, so lovingly referred to by my delightful high school students as “orange peel syndrome” and “hail damage,” is out of control. It cauliflowers up from my overwhelmed viscera and explodes in lumpy clouds around my once-firm quadriceps. It is now visible through fitted slacks, chafes when I jog in hot weather, and causes me to wear bathing suits with built in skirts.

I start to think there is something to what she is saying.

I don’t actually have a problem with earthmeat. Not in a conscientious objector sort of way. I have absolutely no problem with running outside, rifle in hand, and shooting and then devouring my dinner. Obviously, this scenario is fully dependent upon my ability to attain the Hunter’s Trifecta: 1) remain upright after rifle reports; 2) actually hit targeted creature (the odds of which, if it is alive at the time of targeting, are astonishingly high against me); and 3) actually be able to lug its lifeless weight back to my home.   I just don’t want to be packed full of the stuff that makes little girls achieve menarche at age 8 and become so top heavy that they need surgeries just so they can walk upright.

Many people believe their childhoods were rosy. I, like them, certainly see my past in a much rosier light, now that the excruciating awkwardness of adolescence is at such a distance. In my warped version of the world, I flourished in a place of purity where superfood was rare. Growing up in Alaska meant we fished. A lot. My father hunted. We canned everything, made our own jams and jellies from berries in our yard, and grew our own potatoes and hardy vegetables. This leads me to the conclusion that I was perhaps not as pumped full of growth hormones and chemicals as others.  I am, after all, stunningly average in height and frame (though this may be a side effect of vitamin D deficiency, or due to the fact that both of my parents are the runts of their litters). I matured at an insufferably slow pace. Embarrassingly slow, even! But I’ve blocked this all out now, and only remember snapping ends off of fresh snow peas, and raspberries so ripe they fell into my waiting palms.

So now, thanks to distorted memories and the terror of the Garden Goddess’ yarns, I am mired within Day Four of Vegeterraneanism. Current meals consist of cheese and tortillas, cheese and crackers, bagels with cream cheese, and ice cream. Obviously, my distress over foodzilla has not traveled far enough to prevent me from consuming milk products, which come from hormonally buffered cows, and according to some, has high volumes of udder puss within. (Point of issue: I could clearly use a new cookbook.)

This is a social experiment of sorts. How will people who have known me to be a lifelong-bacon-loving-over-eater react to the new me: a bacon-loving-but-non-partaking-over-eater? It is also an exercise in self-discipline. Will I forgo earthmeats altogether? I can’t say for sure that I am quite that dedicated to the cause.  Ask me in a few weeks and I’ll let you know if I’ve strayed from my veggie terrain.

Spouseling holds our dinner. At Eckert's Farm in Belleville, IL. © Heidi Tauschek, 2011.