Anything is possible

Every year I get push-back from my extended fam for not eating beef and pork.  I eat the turkey, and yet they still find a reason to bring up the issue.  I was going to stop eating chicken and turkey unless I knew that the animals came from a farm that practices humane and organic animal raising and killing.  But it was too stressful to keep having to defend myself at EVERY family function.  After years of being a sort-of vegetarian (I hate labels) and making conscious eating decisions (only half the time really, the other half I'm scarfing down Taco Bell at 3am like the rest of the bar crowd)...I've realized that, in my experience, everyone who has criticized my eating choices seems to be secretly freaked out that one day they'll have a conscious too (oh no!) and won't be able to eat a damn steak again.  Guess what?  I don't CARE what you eat.  So stop badgering me because you don't want to face the facts or ask yourself the tough questions.  I'm not one of those people who thinks I can convince the masses with preaching.  I do what I want and if people have an interest in being responsible consumers then, that's great.  There are tons of resources out there.  Even though I don't touch a soapbox with a ten-foot pole, they pounce on me anyway just in case.   I haven't eaten beef or pork for over ten years because I think that factory farming is unhealthy, unsustainable, and inhumane, and that it's going to keep being a corrupt and monopolized industry until consumers change it.  (If your interested, Food, Inc. is one of the latest documentaries about conscious eating.)  I've read and watched and experienced so many things on this subject worth mentioning, but I don't think everyone wants to hear it.  And that's OK.  I don't want to hear why you think I shouldn't care!  Why does it personally offend some people when  you're not like them?  I suppose this is just where I'm at in the process of totally accepting my choices and not feeling as though I need to explain myself.  It's only a matter of time until the industry is so wrought with health problems that society demands natural conditions for animals again.  Yah, I probably can't avoid buying a lot of things that were made by little kids in China, but wtf, why does that make it wrong for me to avoid buying Nike or shopping at Walmart?  It doesn't.  It probably won't make a difference in my lifetime.  But it's who I am and it's how I live.  Deal. Regardless of my venting (I do feel better, thanks peeps), I am sooo thankful for where I'm at in life today...