The First-Vegetarian-I-Met e-mail discussion list - http://groups..com/group/First-Vegetarian-I-Met/

[Guest guest]

Some vegetarians were reared in vegetarian families, so their parents were the

first vegetarians they met; in those families, if they're lifelong vegetarians,

they first met a vegetarian while in infancy - perhaps in utero.

 

But, in the West, most of us vegetarians are converts, and many of us have

become vegetarians relatively recently. I'm an exception to both: over half my

life has been spent as a vegan, but I, too, converted to the herbivorous

lifestyle and a Pythagorean philosophy.

 

At , the First-Vegetarian-I-Met e-mail discussion list should

provide fascinating conversations, since the discussion there is not primarily

about OUR reasons for being vegetarian today, but rather about someone else's

reasons for being vegetarian (at that time) AND our reasons at that time for

becoming vegetarian.

 

This 'First-Vegetarian-I-Met' list discusses the first vegetarian each

listmember (and each of of us) met, and how that person influenced each person

(including you and me), our impressions of that person and how s/he perceived

the pre-vegetarian-becoming-vegetarian (each of us?), the listmembers' thoughts

(then and now) about being (and having become) vegetarian, and thoughts related

to this issue and other issues important to the listmembers at the time we were

friends/acquaintances.

Psychoanalysis, anyone? Or, in the words of the title of Karen Horney's

famous tome, Self Analysis!

 

Those of us social scientists who think about personal psychology, child and

adolescent development, social and personal transitions, " passages " , conversions

related to philosophy and value (including religion), value and axiology, and

dietary change seen through the broadest possible human understanding will find

this a welcome network for the hard-working vegetarian intellectuals, the few

who seem to find no intellectual home among the ordinary vegetarians who are

more intrigued with which celebrities are vegetarian (you know - the folks like

Kelly Clarkson of American Idol) than with how searching souls find in

vegetarianism something analogous to a late life religious conversion.

 

Sure, to the animals all that matters is that a growing number of persons

stops killing them for food. But without deep reasons for the entire society to

end its needless slaughter, will fundamental change on this topic ever follow?

I'm a doubter, a really serious doubter. Call me a skeptic.

 

But now, let me ponder some of the first vegetarians I ever met!

 

In elementary school a number of families in my hometown were vegetarian. We

did not manage to get to know any of them well - until, during my high school

years, my mother commented during a drive past a health food store that some

families we knew liked to shop there. Click those fingers. I didn't make any

connections. To me, that seemed unwarranted. What possible reason could such

persons have. Oh, well. We didn't spend much time with them, and I had only

known them from a distance.

 

They weren't important to me in a personal way.

 

In my first college there seemed to be no vegetarians, though I had a serious

of three roommates who were religious pacifists (all Mennonites!). Not until

my second college at a large state university did I find vegetarians -- then all

hippies (what a stereotype) who were " raw fooders " . I thought their strange

was just related to their being Jewish. For them it may have been; I don't know

today!

 

But I told myself, " I'm not a do-gooder! " Do-gooders might be vegetarians;

I'm not.

 

The mother of a friend of mine, none of the family vegetarian, opened a health

food store in town. I managed to work for a short while for her (and enjoyed

her delicious " earthy vegetarian foods " - that's how many of us remember

vegetarian foods in those days. Unlike the light (lite?) and more

health-supporting plant-based cuisines of today, those were days of heavy

breads, nut butters, lots of cheese and heavy sauces and full-feeling entrees

and sandwiches.

 

But I told myself, " I'm not a do-gooder! " Do-gooders might be vegetarians;

I'm not.

 

In graduate school at Harvard I met a series of fellow (and gal) students in a

network of " simple living " groups who shared quite enthusiastically and

unapologetically their " living simply so that others might simply live "

philosophies. I joined a " simple living " group and enjoyed eating for 82 cents

each day - some wholesome, healthful vegetarian meals.

 

I was not (yet) a vegetarian, but I was eating like one in the kitchen of one

of Harvard's dorms.

 

But I told myself, " I'm not a do-gooder! " Do-gooders might be vegetarians;

I'm not.

 

Then in a field placement I met a kindergarten teacher and a fine artist, two

chums whose differing vegetarian philosophies were as intricately intertwined as

a neurotic couple whose neuroses complemented one another. One was a

lacto-vegetarian; the other was a lactose-intolerant ovo-vegetarian. Like Jack

Sprat who could eat no fat (and his wife who " could eat no lean " ), the artist

was philosophically a lacto-ovo vegetarian with a lactose intolerance, so both

ate most of their meals together as vegans.

 

But I told myself, " I'm not a do-gooder! " Do-gooders might be vegetarians;

I'm not.

 

In those days, I ran a church-sponsored dining program for college and

graduate students at Harvard called " The Gather Inn " (in Harvard Square) which I

inherited from a tall, blond Harvard Divinity School graduate named Cleveland

Abbey. When these two persuaded me to let them demonstrate Francis Moore

Lappe's " diet for a small planet " with protein complementarity cards besides

each menu item, I reluctantly capitulated! But the food was good, though the

preparation tedious, I thought at that time.

 

Today we know, and Francis Moore Lappe knows, too, that food combining for

" complete protein " (really complementing amino acids in plant foods with

" incomplete proteins " ) is unnecessary because the premise is false. But what

Lappe showed us was that, despite false ideas, even with such a false but

widely-held ideology (of that time), vegetarianism would be possible, if only we

had the will and the fortitude to make it work.

 

But I told myself, " I'm not a do-gooder! " Do-gooders might be vegetarians;

I'm not.

 

But somehow I found that will and fortitude in a strange sense of inward

events that remain unclear in my own mind. In a short period of time I decided

(a) to become vegetarian and (b) to become vegan. Perhaps I'm the only one of

that " simple living " group who is still vegetarian; I don't know. But my change

at that time will not be reversed!

 

Oh, and those two women? One (the ovo vegetarian with the lactose

intolerance) was a militant feminist who could only find wrong with me. The

other was a schoolteacher who enjoyed explaining the most intricate scientific

details -- to kindergartners. But she drank socially, and I'm a convinced

teetotaler, and she moved to the other side of the continent to take up a

support role in the sort5 of work I had then been preparing to do, but which

today doesn't much appeal to me.

 

Not a one of those individuals is present in my life, nor does that matter to

me.

 

Now, here's a real twist: I have vegetarians friends who were NOT vegetarians

then, when I first met them, became their friends, and developed really close

rapports with them, but who ARE vegetarians today. Those vegetarians I met

before I met those influential vegetarians, yet I met them before THEY became

vegetarians, and they're good -- even really great - friends to this day -- yes,

this day. I've interacted with several of them during the past two days, and

others have e-mailed me this week.

 

Here's another twist. In my very first college (I've attended quite a few,

BTW) none of my friends was vegetarian - then! But over the years a great many

of my friends during my freshman and sophomore years have become vegetarians

independently of my ongoing experiences. Some have become quite famous (Kate

Pearson of the B-52s was a college chum!); others have found more personal and

vocational success in ways that are less flamboyant! One roommate has become

quite knowledgeable as a lay student of the Bhagavad Gita!

 

Do we have much in common? Well, yes, but we have in common today is not what

we once held in common when we were much younger!

 

First-Vegetarian-I-Met/

 

 

 

 

 

Maynard S. Clark Info

Vegetarian Resource Center (since 1993)

P. O. Box 38-1068; Cambridge, MA 02238-1068 USA

617-571-4794 (cell) Maynard

" Making connections for plant-based diets. "

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

The " first college " is referred to several times but not named -- why not? It

would be as useful a detail as any other.

 

Liz