Journey to ethical eating: an update

I think it's time for an update on my personal journey to eat more ethically. Between the last post and moving, I moved to mostly vegetarian cooking. Since moving to Melbourne, I have cooked one meal utilising free-range chicken, and one with ordinary minced beef diluted with beans. All other food that I have prepared (and that has been most meals), have been meat free. We do have a friend living with us temporarily, and she occasionally cooks non-vegetarian meals, and I am currently adopting a "grateful not to be cooking attitude" and don't make a fuss. Eating out I have ordered vegetarian meals (with a couple of exceptions, I needed my Japanese comfort food!), but had tastes of Hunter's food where it looks good. He also tastes mine. There is also a local free-range charcoal chicken, where we have eaten a couple times, providing me with low guilt greasy fatty goodness.

All in all, I have been having some meat, but very little, especially for someone who up until very recently had some form of meat at almost every lunch and dinner, with the occasional breakfast thrown in. At no stage have I really wanted meat (except maybe desperately wanting katsudon when I saw in in a Japanese restaurant window). When I've eaten meat, it's been more a case of not yet being prepared to make a fuss. I'm really surprised at just how little I miss it.

Starting this, I was apprehensive about future food prospects, but so far, it's been great. I have discovered amazing food options that I would never have come across before. Recently, in a rather expensive Greek restaurant in the CBD, I had the most amazing meal I have ever eaten, an absolutely exquisite dish of gnochi, mushroom stuffed vine leaves, seasoned mushroom puree and extra mushroom. Eating it was an experience of pure bliss. I savoured, drooled over, every bite, no dead animal flesh required.

Having said all the above, I think the most important thing in my journey has been flexibility. I have left myself the option of eating meat, just less frequently, For me, having that option has left me quite satisfied to not eat it, whereas if meat was forbidden, I would become resentful and crave it.