Fresh on the heels of my announcement Tuesday that I was going to make a healthy choice and start training to run a marathon, I’ve recently made another choice that is arguably less healthy.

I’ve decided to start eating chicken.

The dietary restrictions of diabetes have been pretty tough to cope with, and I’ve come to realize that the limitations of the vegetarian diet have made it even more difficult for me to add a variety of foods to my diet.

I originally became a vegetarian, with the help of Joan and John Robbins, back in 2003. I decided to go meat-free mostly because I felt that I had a social responsibility to do so.  I respect all beings and I think that humans are responsible for a disproportionate amount of suffering that animals endure (pollution, endangering of species, imposing cruelty upon them in factory famrs).  Going veg was, for me, a way to simply opt-out of that process.  A drop in the huge bucket?  Probably.

So what now?  Am I a total hypocrite?  Will I try to justify eating chickens with some sort of half-assed rationalization.

Nope.

Chickens are animals, and most of them are slaughtered in pretty inhumane factory farms.  Many of them don’t see the light of day and we could still feed about 800 million more from the grain that we feed to livestock each year here in the U.S.

I’ll work on the half-assed rationalization and get back to you.

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