Peace out, Fish. God speed...

It's not you, it's me

Last night was the first time I have ever been confronted with meat and wanted to eat it. Like, badly…

David, my ex-husband, is a deer hunter. At first I was very apprehensive about eating deer meat. It skeeved me out a bit to eat meat that didn’t come in a package. This was, of course, years ago when I didn’t know how grody the meat that comes in a package really is.

Once I cowboyed up and tried deer meat I found it wasn’t so bad. Kind of like steak without all that gross fat. People would complain of a gamey flavor but it wasn’t something I ever noticed. I grew to like deer meat over the years especially in summer sausage.

David would kill a deer and with the meat he would have it made into sausage, summer sausage, jerky, etc. And it was good stuff! My favorite being the jalapeno cheddar summer sausage. It’s spicy as hell and so delicious.

Last night I was at David’s house for a bit just catching up, shooting the shit as he says and I was told to help myself to whatever food I could find as I was starving and very poor. I opened the fridge and BAM there it was. Jalapeno cheddar summer sausage. Dammit to all hell.

My reasons for not eating meat are due, in large part as most of you know, to factory farming and the gross mistreatment of the animals and disgusting unknown contents of the meat that comes in the package at most grocery stores (feces, hormones, antibiotics, piss, cancer, tumors, Jimmy Hoffa, etc.)

So I tried to reason with myself: This deer that in this fridge right now hasn’t been factory farmed or in a meat processing center. It’s as clean as meat can be and I know that the deer hasn’t been mistreated and it was allowed to live in its natural habitat for its short life. It wasn’t fed any antibiotics and it grew to its full size naturally. 

If I was going to eat any meat, this would be it. I thought about it long and hard.  I was very close to breaking down and eating it. I didn’t eat it. I wanted to, for sure. My mouth was watering at the thought of it but I just couldn’t do it. It’s still an animal that didn’t have to die to feed me and I just didn’t want to eat it. (Plus, I am pretty sure they add pork fat to the sausage since deer meat has very little fat in it, but for all I know the pork fat could have been home killed as well.)

So it is with a heavy heart and bated breath that I begrudgingly say goodbye to fish. I held onto fish because I love sushi and I really don’t want to give that up but I don’t know that I can do it any more. I just don’t feel right about it.

It has been months since I have eaten fish. I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time so I am going to say it won’t be that tough to give it up, but yeah. No more fish. I will miss sushi but as long as I don’t ever have to give up sake, I think I should be okay. Vegetable sushi is pretty much the worst, but I think I can suffer through it. And I know tofu sushi exists so maybe it doesn’t suck?

Raw oysters is a whole other story. I may cry the first time I have to say no to them but I think I can do it. If I can say no to jalapeno cheese summer sausage, I think I can bid oysters adieu for good.

Oh raw oysters, I barely knew yee…