Explaining our choices

I abandoned this food blog some time ago for a variety of reasons but have recently been thinking about continuing it, partly as a result of conversations with various people about why I chose a diet without meat and, more importantly, why I chose to bring my children up without it.

I quite often feel the need to say that I don't feel morally or nutritionally superior to anyone with a different diet and I know that my children don't. I have found, to my surprise and confusion often, that a lot of people imagine that those of us who abstain from eating meat feel so. We don't as a family, although we quite often lament others not giving it a go. Having said that, it has been quite a difficult thing to maintain as you grow up eating at friends' houses, going out for meals, going abroad or on holiday anywhere and the fact that we have all, as a family and as individuals, kept going with it, indicates that it must be something we really want to do and think is worthwhile.

I have often told my kids, knowing how tricky it can be when away from home ; "just eat what there is to eat, don't worry if you have to eat meat ", but they have always said that there's no need, they would rather just eat bread or whatever non-meat food is available and wait until they get home to eat properly. In retrospect, ideally I would have introduced a very small amount of meat into their diet at an early age in order for them to be able to do this. It isn't really realistic to expect someone who has never eaten meat at home to suddenly feel able to try it out as a child away from the home environment. Especially if that child is already quite shy and a bit particular about what they eat anyway. 

This reticence to eat unfamiliar foods has worked both ways - sometimes young visitors, and even some older ones, have been reluctant to try our vegetarian food. It's something I've never been offended by because I'm quite a fussy person and the more years go by when I don't eat meat, the less it appeals to me, probably as much due to my distaste of it than any other reason. How much our reluctance to eat meat is due to personal taste and faddiness is hard to assess. Once you've honed your tastes it can be difficult to be flexible. 

Taste is a complex thing isn't it. Some of my earlier blogs were an attempt to pinpoint where my own tastes in food originate and these kinds of origins will always fascinate me. It has taken me many years to establish what I like to eat and how to cook meals that I and my family enjoy eating . This is an evolving process which involves discovering new foods and trying new recipes as well as adapting and tweaking old ones.

Not eating meat has to be, if it is to be sustained throughout life, more than just a matter of abstention. It has to involve positive choices about food we like to eat. Food is, after all, one of the pleasures of life. It's one of the last pleasures to leave us and when it does, is sometimes linked to indications of imminent death. It's important, therefore, to engender and nurture a love of food in ourselves and our children, that is, a pleasure in the various tastes and textures and an enjoyment of creating meals and sharing them with others.

I believe our taste in food describes and defines us even more than our taste in clothes or music. In my view, it's so fundamental to who we are and how we live that it deserves our attention. I know we don't always have time to cook elaborate meals, and we should never be so faddy as to deny ourselves food just because there's only fast food or "junk" available, but thinking about what we want to eat, how we're going to prepare it and who we're going to share it with is time well spent and will pay off in the long run in terms of our physical and mental health and well-being.

The Dalai Lama isn't able to be vegetarian due to an illness he had in his youth and we can't pretend that it's easy for all of us to not eat meat for a variety of reasons. Me and my family are fortunate that we have found a way of eating that we seem to all enjoy, keeps us reasonably healthy and provides sufficient energy to do the things we want to do. It's taken many years of effort, research and experimentation for us to reach this point, but I think we'd all agree that it's been worth it.