Valentine's Day Vegetarian

Every year for Valentine's we do a family dinner. (Mike and I go out on a different day--a long wait for a table doesn't make me feel romantic.) We wrap the table in white paper to draw on. I sprinkle it with M&Ms and we leave their Valentine's out. This year we had dinner with friends, so we did a special breakfast instead. Mike got all of us girls flowers and the boys a heart filled with chocolates. I gave Mike my traditional Valentine's mix CD.



We had heart-shaped pancakes with eggs and bacon.



It was a relaxing morning (one of the few benefits of 1:00 church.)



Background story: I have been reading the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. I have been thinking a lot about where our food comes from and what our food contains. We try to eat healthy and we talk about it with the kids. Recently, Christian has been asking lots of questions specifically about, "what kind of animal we are eating." He also wants to know what part of the animal we are eating. We tell him and have a little discussion.



If these discussions occur while I am eating, I tend to lose my appetite. I struggle a little with meat myself--I go through phases where the smell of beef makes me sick, and then a few weeks later all I want is a hamburger. As a teenager, I went a few months without eating beef after visiting a slaughter house. I still only eat it occasionally. Pork, however--well, lately that is another story. You see, my sis-in-law Erika told me about these ribs at Costco. She really talked them up, so I decided to give them a try. I have only eaten ribs a few times in my life, and I did not like them. Well, that has changed. We have had enjoyed Curly's almost every week since. They are da bomb and I feel bad. This book is good and the information is important, but being informed sure has it's downsides. I wonder what they had to do that poor pig to make those ribs so yummy.


Back to Valentine's breakfast. Christian started with the questions because we ate real bacon--not the precooked kind that he is more accustomed to. We told him it comes from a pig. Then he said, "That's mean--it's animal cruelty. It's mean to eat animals." (I think some of his strong feelings come from having Tiger in the family. Whenever one of the animal abuse commercials comes on, the kids stop the tivo and watch it. They feel bad for them and say we should go get one.)


So, Mike told him that Heavenly Father gave us animals to use and to eat. I can see in Christian the same concerns I had...that I still have. I told him that if he decided he didn't want to eat meat that's called being a vegetarian and that he would have to eat other foods to make sure he is healthy and strong. I can see the wheels spinning. He may very well end up like me--always having mixed feelings about meat.


But, in the meantime, I will be heating up the grill--we've got us some Curly's to cook tonight.