Eat well and prosper

My personal journey to become a vegetarian was both physical and mental. From just a pure health perspective, I followed a typical path: first cut out the red meat, and eat only birds and fish - later just fish - and finally just vegetables, nuts, grains and dairy. At each step along the path I felt better, as if a weight had been lifted from me that I didn't know I carried. And my journey was filled with doubts, twists, turns, and fears. What would I eat? What happens when I travel and there are no options without meat? How would I survive? What about protein? All were easily answerable, though it took a lot of help from others to get there. Thirty years later I can't imagine going back. It was one of the best moves I made in life. And then there's the spiritual part of the journey, which include my feelings about animals and the eating of them. I remember well the day my son and I were food shopping and he asked what was being displayed in the meat department's refrigerator. "Chicken." "Hah! He laughed, that's funny. It sounds like the same word as chicken." "It is a chicken." "Doesn't look like a chicken." I don't think the kids ate chicken for a few months after realizing what was in the package was the same as the feathered creatures in their books. And that's when I made a mental switch. I wondered if I could kill a chicken, remove its feathers, bleed it, hack it up, and eat it. I couldn't, no more than I could kill a cow, pig or fish. Easy enough to go to the market and buy something in a box, but that left the responsibility of death to someone else. To me, I was a hypocrite if I could not do the deed, hiding instead behind the safety of plastic packages. I spoke with hunters who killed their prey without remorse. I admired that. It was just something I could not do. Here's the thing. We all kill to live: plants, animals, whatever. Where are you comfortable drawing the line? That's the question I asked myself and found I hadn't a problem picking a tomato, unshelling a nut, or eating cheese from a cow that was humanely treated. I could not slaughter anything that looked me in the eye and I was not ok with others doing it for me. It still mattered. As we move back to audio related matters I will just say this. If you do nothing else in your life, try your best to be in tune with your body. Just as we need to be in touch with our stereo systems for best performance, that same attention to detail helps with your physical and mental state of being. At the end of the day, all any of us really have is our health. Long life has less meaning if you're not healthy enough to enjoy it to the fullest. Eat well!