51: Meat Buzz!

It started four days ago, on Monday. I woke up thinking about beef. Not chicken, or pork. Just beef. I had to have some.

Of course, I haven't eaten meat in nearly six months now. I've had cravings come and go after the initial induction period when I almost ate a French Bulldog on the street, and had passing thoughts of chewing on my own arm; but I eventually learned these were just cravings that I could get through with a vitamin and a protein substitute.

Not so much this week. It was different. My cravings were more intense. Monday was almost unbearable. By lunch time, I could think of nothing but steak. I took myself to the best salad bar around the corner and examined the beefy options but they were pathetic. I kept my pledge not to support potential cruelty to animals.

That evening, the cravings rose up again, but I managed them; and then the same again all day Tuesday, and Wednesday. Wednesday night my date ordered Ethiopian lamb stew and I had all I could do not to take my fork, thrust it across the table and plunge it into one of his chunks of meat.

This morning, I woke up at 5:30AM from a dream about eating a juicy, char broiled steak. So disturbing! I took myself for a run in the Park and tried to clear my mind. Then the strangest thing kept happening when I was out there on the loop. My eye kept catching on the various metal lamp posts and stop lights along the route... I felt a strong desire to run up and gnaw on one. "OK, that's it!" I thought to myself. I know farm animals will naturally chew on iron posts when they're iron deficient. This obsession with meat is clearly founded in some kind of deficiency!

Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, is very close at hand. I am mindful of the way I've lived my life this past year, what behaviors I'd like to carry through to the next year, and which I would like to discontinue. This is a period of reflection and planning, and I take it seriously. Of course, what I eat is included in that consideration set.

Not eating meat has been a burden lifted! I feel more self-expressed, healthier, and lighter, even though I'm not physically lighter. But tonight I decided to open myself up to the possibility that moderate meat consumption, of organic meat, that has been minimally processed in a cruelty-free way, could be an acceptable route for me. The moderate path is in some ways more noble than total abstinence. It requires more willpower and planning, more daily consciousness.

So, after picking up some materials at the NYRR office tonight, I headed over to Whole Foods and bought myself an organic, grass fed beef fillet. I chose the piece carefully, and thought of the animal which had given its life for me. I didn't feel sad. I felt positively expectant!! I broiled the steak up perfectly. From the first bite, it felt like exactly what I needed. A chemical change washed over my body and the frantic urgency I've experienced for days dissipated.

I wasn't sure if it was OK to eat the whole thing, or I should just eat half, but it was so delicious and satisfying, I went all the way. Right now I've got a bit of a buzz on. A meat buzz! Can you imagine that? I can't say beef has ever had that kind of effect on me before. It's so interesting what happens to you when you abstain from something for a long time and then return.

For now I am content. One serving of dead animal every six months - even every three months - feels reasonable to me. A lot better then losing four days feeling mortally deprived and drooling over street lamps.