Leigh's Meatless Mondays

I have all these half-arsed ideas about ethical eating and food politics, but I never quite got around to tangibilising my thoughts and making a scrupulous stand. I have, several times over the past few years, attempted to dig a little deeper, but it's hard to breathe in a whirlpool of discourse when you've got confusion sitting on your lungs.

"I'll only eat happy meat or none at all." Now that's something I wish I could say with conviction, but I have a million questions running through my head. Are kampung chickens considered to be free-range? What about pigs? And cows? Is free-range even an applicable term when it comes to farming in Asia? The answers probably lie within the encyclopedia of information out there, considering the number of investigative journalists fighting to expose dark trade secrets, but inertia currently has an iron grip on me.

The next best option for a confused but concerned meat eater would probably be to not eat meat. I did attempt it for awhile, back when I was 21, living in India and getting into the yoga swing of things (and trust me, it isn't that hard to go veggie in India), but any green notion was lost to the wind the minute I set foot on Parisian soil. Steak frites? Oui! Confit de canard? Oui, oui! Foie gras? Oui, oui, oui!

And realistically speaking, vegetarianism is hardly an option now that I've made a career of knowing and writing about the flavour nuances in the infinite world of food, of which meat is a huge part of. The most conflicting part is perhaps how much I love and crave the whole process of tasting, learning and knowing.

Gone are the days when I would eschew a hearty burger (medium doneness, with a side of limpy hand-cut chips, please) in exchange for stir-fried greens. In the past year, I haven't had even the slightest conviction to going green, but a recent conversation I had with a friend has got me thinking that I could, amidst all this bumbling and self-doubt, let go of my nonchalant all or nothing approach and try to make a semblance of a difference.

This quite wisely sums out what I think:

image from here

So yes, I've decided I am going to embark on my personal Meatless Mondays, starting today. It's one hell of a baby step, and perhaps an inconsequential footprint in the world of food ethics, but I think I owe it to me. Salad, anyone?