Crabby

Every day I get closer and closer to going vegetarian.

I can say I'm mostly vegetarian. The only flesh food I currently have in my home are some pouches of tuna and a pouch of crab meat. I've lost track of how long they've been there, and they're probably not safe to eat anymore!

Everything else is either fruit or vegetable, or grain, or meat facsimile (I've got some soy crumbles and chik'n tenders in my freezer).

I never flat out decided that I'd eat this way. I can and have cooked with meat, albeit not in many, many years. Many years. But even before I thought of going vegetarian I knew meat wasn't really my bag. Raw chicken makes me want to puke. Hamburger is too gross to look at. Ground turkey stinks. It's just so much easier not to cook with meat. And cheaper. Oh, and fish? Too stinky, and I never knew what kind to get, and it just seems silly because you've just got this piece of fish on your plate, and you still have to have other things to round out your meal. Why not just make a meal out of all those other things?

I'd still occasionally buy a meat based soup, or chili, but lately I don't even do that. If left to my own devices I'd probably never make or buy meat ever again.

You know what got me thinking about all this again? A recent study I read about that says that crabs feel pain. Personally, I never really doubted that crabs feel pain. I find it complete baloney when anyone actually says 'this or that doesn't feel pain' because how could you ever, ever really know without actually being whatever it is you say doesn't feel pain? How can you be so sure? How do you actually know they're not suffering? And all suffering aside, who the heck am I to decide it's time for this or that to die?

I'll admit it, I love crab. I really do. Probably my favorite seafood. But aside from that, I've also always been a fan of the crab as an animal. They're cute, in a weird way, and all that walking sideways is just adorable. When I was in South Carolina there was a little crab on the beach next to where I was sunning myself. Occasionally he'd pop out of his little hole and toss some sand. I don't know exactly what he was doing in there, but he was sure busy. They're just cool animals, and I felt conflicted about eating them. I probably haven't had crab in 3 years.

To think that they're thrown into boiling water so we can eat them. We put them in our mouths and eat them. I don't want a crab to suffer because I like the way he tastes after he's been boiled alive.

It's not the easiest thing being vegetarian. I did go full on for about a year maybe 10 years ago, and I think my biggest problem is that I want everyone to be happy, so if someone makes a meal with meat in it, I don't want to disappoint them. Silly, I know. And something I don't like is having to explain to someone that I'm vegetarian. People don't freak out or anything, but you realize once you make the switch that there aren't a whole lot of them out there. Public support is not necessarily in your favor.

So, I still haven't committed. But every day I get one step closer. This is the closest I've been in a long while. It's those damned crabs, I tell you. Who would have thought that a crab is what would push me over the edge?