Oh, dear. I have the pill in my hand...do I swallow it and find the truth, or...well, there is no option. I already know too much NOT to swallow the pill. The question is, do i become an obnoxious activist type, willing to rain on everyone's food all the time?
The Pill is this book "Eating Animals" and the first 20 pages or so are invading my consciousness and raising it rapidly. Reminding me of things I already knew. For instance, I already knew I would never eat shrimp again, even when I was still thinking I might have fish once in awhile. Why not shrimp? Because the trawlers that are used to scoop shrimp off the bottom of the ocean floor are destroying this planet. Seriously, the ocean is in so much trouble, and so much of that is this destruction of ocean habitat by shrimp boats that scrape up everything, and throw back 260 times the amount that they bring to the market. That is, in "fishing" for shrimp, 26 lbs of "bycatch" is destroyed for every ONE POUND of shrimp that is brought in. (this factoid is in the book, just reinforcing my determination not to eat fish, for it reminded me that seafood of any stripe is harvested using fishing factories that are destroying the very bottom of the food chain for THE ENTIRE PLANET)
On Jeff's forum, a thread rose up that I got engaged in, essentially an argument with someone who thinks eating animals is immoral. I was arguing the position of my faith, which is that all foods are permitted. What is immoral is how factory farms produce the animal products in our culture. The discussion was interesting, but it did evolve into arguing about religion, unfortunately. That was never my intention...but I did think up a cool little argument for "the other side"
to ponder: in Africa a family might live if they had chickens, or die if they had to rely on plant crops which fluorish or fail based on weather. Should the African family raise chickens for eggs, meat, and resale?
But the book tells a story about the author's gramma, who survived the holocaust including literally scavenging her food through towns and countryside. How that trauma shaped her life and influenced the way she raised her children and grandchildren...but the story goes, that she was starving and a farmer was kind to her and brought her some meat. She couldn't eat it. It was pork, and she was Jewish.
My mother's specialty dish is soda cracker pie, made with crumbled soda crackers, broken walnuts, sugar and egg whites. I can't eat that...it is counter to my own ethical standards about food. With punkin pie, tofu is a suitable substitute for the egg...there isn't anything that can replace the egg white in soda cracker pie.
I already knew I couldn't eat anything made with factory farmed eggs, because of how layers are housed...let alone the absolute CRIME of what happens to male layer chicks
...
Now, I know someone who has a family member that raises chickens for eggs...maybe I can buy a dozen eggs from her. They would be locally raised on a family farm (it is not a big farm factory, but some backyard chickens that make these eggs) but I won't eat the pie if it is made with Cruel Eggs.
The answer for that African family dilemma is the truism that meat and animal products are survival foods. I think that's valid. In a prosperous society such as we have, we have the option of eschewing animal foods. Because we spend less time and energy on surviving, we have the leisure to think about the underlying implications, the consequences, of our food choices. The African family beset by drought, whose crops have failed for three years in a row, maybe doesn't think about those things. When the primary thought is "How do I feed my children?" the right or wrong of animal food goes out the window, eh?
That Jewish gramma, though! starving, and refusing meat that is from the pig.
What do I do? I'm a very laid back person, living by the maxim "Live and let live" and not likely to speak up about this kind of thing. I hate it when someone corrects grammar or questions another person about things "How can you eat that?" is my LEAST favorite phrase, because my mom gave it to me every day starting at age 13...my thinking still is that each person must make up their own mind about whether to eat animal foods from factory farms, or not.
Educate them...it's obnoxious to have someone in your face about things like that. My sister, showing our sister-in-law the label of a baby forumula with "Look at the ingredients in this! you should nurse!"...sorry, but that was OBNOXIOUS and it didn't change my sister-in-law's mind about bottle feeding vs. breast feeding. It just made her feel bad about herself when she was in the middle of fighting some very tough battles (we didn't know it, but she was using meth and THAT is why she wasn't nursing...
)
ah...what a way to start the morning, and I haven't even finished. If you've read this far...sorry bout that. I may pick it up again later in the day.
Current conundrum: how to be part of my world when I am this much changed and want people to know WHY I am making the choices that I am. How to inform people without being obnoxious.
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"Sweatin' to the WAAAAY Oldies" hee hee hee 
Lots and lots of fun, if not as long nor as challenging as Richard Simmons. Because it's all "arms up" and moving, it is a real workout. I'll do it every day this week. I can picture it really firming up my arm flaps!
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It's all good.
Maybe I'll throw it in some soup. Or the compost pile! 
The weather has been so nice, I'd like to take a walk, too.