On Meateating

11/21/2019:
Copied from here. 

I'm not a vegetarian. As in, I don't go around telling people I'm vegetarian and don't avoid meat like I'm allergic to it. I'll eat little bits of meat once in a while and be reminded how much I don't enjoy eating meat anymore. As I've told everyone who will listen, if you pay attention, most meats have no flavour. If it's about the flavor that's just spices. It's about the texture that's just the method or cooking, you can have anything cooked like that taste similar. If it's about the indescribable quality that's the fat in the meat, add as much fat in any food with the spices and it too will taste good. In any case, there's not much about meat that I crave or miss.

There's an exception though. Goat meat, barbecued over coal. Goat brain, fire-roasted tongue and ears. From Pushkar's in putalisadak. The meat has the flavor no vegetable can even come close to. I wouldn't eat it every day of course like people eat chicken and rice every day, I treat it as a treat, for special occasions. What do I miss about home the most, I've been asked many times. Goat sekuwa and good sweet mangoes, I reply every time. Oh yeah and my family, I guess, I'll add, almost as an afterthought.

08/30/2020:
I am STILL not a vegetarian. I just avoid eating meat. If there were a party where there was nothing else to eat but meat, I'd try some, if the choice was between death and eating meats there's no question which option I'd rather prefer. And if someone made an amazing dish from an amazing cut of a really tasty animal, I'm always down for a bite or two or three.

Here's why I'm not a vegetarian. If you tell people that, people take it as a challenge, to convert you into becoming a meat-eater. They'll try to coax and convince, argue for this and that and make it their personal project to get some meats into you. It's fun, it's not exciting, and when they do it by hook or by crook it's annoying. Eff that shit.

I'm not into meat replacements either. I don't like the taste of meat, why would I put so much effort and money -- and boyoboy those meat replacements are so expensive -- to get a second-hand shitty copy of the perfect thing that I ignore.

Besides, when you're strict on defining yourself with such labels, it becomes difficult to be flexible. If you eat a meat once just to try the heck, people will try convincing you that your vow has been broken and you're not a vegetarian anymore. Vegetarians will argue you're not the true vegetarian they thought you were. And you begin considering...if I've already eaten meat might as well go all the way and start eating it on a regular basis.

That's...that's not why I don't meat. It's not because of vow or definitions or labeling. I don't like it, I can't digest it well, and the animals they come from are so mistreated these days I don't care for all the stress hormones in their bodies to get to me. That is all.