I know it’s more expensive but you could buy organic meat, eggs, dairy. I buy organic eggs at the grocery, and also get them from a couple of local friends who have chickens when available (they are totally different from the mass produced grocery store eggs). We can also get organic dairy products of all kinds at the grocery here.

Organic meat is another story – but I would think you could find someone in the area (lots of agriculture near GR) who is growing beef/ chickens organically and buy from them and put in freezer. Sometimes you have to get 1/2 beef that way – and have a big freezer (we can find them used around here all the time).

You should watch the documentary “the Corporation” by Michael Moore.

I became a vegetarian at age 18, so over many years have become very aware of how abusive factory farming of animals is, how laced with hormones and other drugs. You’re an “O” blood type – historically hunter/gatherer. (I’m a B – historically nomadic tribes that settled the steppes of Europe).

If you became a veggie you’d have to be aware of getting enough protein. But if you look at my website Dennis – my friend who’s turning 66 this month who I interview there is a a raw food veggie (was cooked food veggie for years). He runs/hikes 10-18 miles / day. Is in exceptional shape. He’s an “O” blood type like you.

For me being a vegetarian is a spiritual and a health choice. I don’t like killing animals in order to eat. Never have. It’s easy to get displaced from that picking up meat at the grocery store or restaurant. Factory farming is grotesque – watch a few PETA videos at youtube. Feedlots produce something like 40% of CO2 emissions on the planet. Rainforests (our source of oxygen) are being decimated just to grow more beef.

At this point with the huge population we have as a result of fossil fuel agriculture providing enough food to grow more people – becoming a vegetarian is also an environmental choice – as we could fee the entire population of planet earth a vegetarian diet without decimating the earth to do it. Which gets into, “what kind of future are we leaving our children/ grandchildren?” Overpopulation is probably our single most serious problem on Planet Earth (a product of the fossil fuel culture allowing us to grow) “like an algae bloom” as Richard Heinberg says in “The Party’s Over.” I do believe there are healthy solutions – and like you’re doing right now, we must question the impacts of our lifestyle.

You need to decide if you really don’t want to eat meat, or if you want to eat meat that is healthfully produced respecting the environment too. Based on the way you were raised, and lifelong habits it would take a little education and commitment that came from logical reasons that make sense to you, if you were to choose a vegetarian path. For instance I think your sisters were naturally vegetarians as kids, and then sort of blended into what was going on around them. Not sure about you, but you could ask your mom.

We’re vegetarian – and I’m glad Randall is too, because it makes our life together much easier; even though we each eat a little differently – I eat more raw, he eats more grain. Believe it or not, I feed our dogs raw bones & meat (obtained from scraps from friends who hunt elk here in this region – that I get in the fall and freeze for use for the rest of the year). After losing several dogs to severe cancer I believe this is their natural diet. And I do keep dog food around but it is grain free. That is another subject.

As far as always eating meat – I suggest seeking out locally grown organic, and maybe reducing animal foods. (ie: being veggie 2 days/ week)

Here are some resources worth checking out to educate yourself as to the effects of your lifestyle (now that you’re having kids, etc):

- The Corporation documentary by Michael Moore – with good parts on the negatives of factory farming
- The China Study – recent best seller on 35 year study in China 8,000 people, 64 counties concludes that all degenerative illness can be prevented or reversed with maximum 7% animal foods in the diet. (Maybe just something to look at over the long term – make gradual changes)

I have always eaten meat – a lot of meat. Quitting would be extremely hard for me. It’s something that I honestly don’t know if I could do at this point in time. I have already tried to stop eating cheese, and that is harder that I thought? There is cheese in so much stuff that I never realized