Socked in with snow, dreaming of Tu B'Shevat

It's the biggest winter storm in recent memory on the East Coast... we're good and socked in with snow, which leaves me plenty of time to think about all the things I've left undone, like pay any attention to how much I love to write, and how little chance I take to do so...

This spot has been filled with so much promise, but like seeds in winter, the work of writing a blog needs love and dedication, and I've been exceedingly remiss. But with an exciting summer plan ahead of me, sooner than I think, I thought I'd give another go at reflecting on food and spirituality, and the connections between them. So here goes, with no promises...

My friend Ellen agitated me immensely and helpfully by challenging me to read "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer. Strange-- as I heard about the book, listened to interviews with Foer, and began asking friends and colleagues about it, the reaction I had was the same as the reaction I got from most of my friends-- "I am afraid to read this book."

"What are you afraid of?" I asked myself and others. It seems we were all afraid of the same thing-- afraid of confronting what we intuitively know-- that something is profoundly wrong with our food industry.

I had read Michael Pollan's work religiously-- Omnivore's Dilemma, Botany of Desire, In Defense of Food. I had thought a great deal, preached a great deal, about the complexities and conspiracies of our food intake.

But nothing shocked my system like Foer's book. While Pollan takes a moderate view-- "Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants," Foer's basic case is, once you really KNOW what's going on, how can you eat industrial fish, poultry, pork, or beef? Where Pollan encourages us to do the best we can, encouraging industry to change by way of our pocketbooks, Foer wants us to drop off the grid of meat eating altogether, because the whole system is so vile and cruel and unhealthy.

I have to say that as I went through all of the examples of farmers who are trying, to some extent, to do the right thing, as I followed Foer's systematic rejection of best practices and best efforts, I couldn't help but think that, had Foer written a book called "Eating Plants," he'd likely be equally unsatisfied with most every organic farming effort in this country.

But the long and short of it is that, since reading Foer's book, I am deeply agitated. I've eaten tuna salad, but no other animal protein. I'm actually revolted by the thought of eating meat right now. And, like Foer's dabbling with vegetarianism over the years, I am struggling with the question, "what's next?" Now that I KNOW, will I simply let time pass, agitation ease, and then go back to the way I was before? I don't want to. Now that I will never be able to say that I am ignorant of the travesty that is the industrial meat industry in this country, I can't go back to blissful ignorance. I can't go back; I just don't yet know what's in front of me.

And I'm hungry to know.