You will be amused that one of the most popular burger places in town is Local burger that gets all the ingredients locally.

I do tend to get our meat at Checkers grocery because I know they buy at local farmers.

When we have anyone over for dinner we try to ask “Do you have any food allergies / likes / dislikes. Are you a vegetarian of any type and if so please define what the type means”

This is a great post. I’m not very eloquent in saying or writing why I eat what I do and why I don’t eat what I don’t. I suppose that’s why I’ve never influenced anyone except the BF to refrain from eating meat.

We all have our reasons for what we eat and we all have our rationalizations. I’m one of those people who’s said, “I could never give up cheese!” and I still haven’t entirely. It’s a choice that I can’t really justify, but I don’t have to answer to anyone but myself. As long as I avoid arguments with people who think I’m a hypocrite for eating cheese.

Seems to me, you’re doing great. It’s too bad so many people are so judgemental about other peoples choices that aren’t their business.

I have, however, occasionally felt somewhat defensive about my own choice to eat meat when talking to veg*ns. Not sure why that is, really, or whether it’s them or me. I suspect that it’s at least in part because I do feel somewhat guilty about contributing to the atrocities done to animals and uncomfortable about stuff like antibiotics and other ‘improvements’ the meat industry does (although I do make an effort to buy organic meats from sources that treat their animals humanely whenever I can)…but my convictions are not quite strong enough for me to make such a radical change in diet, especially since I’m a very picky eater and it’s hard enough finding a decent variety of things I can eat. And that makes me a bit uncomfortable in the face of people who do manage to make those changes, because I feel like I should too.

But that’s not your problem (the collective ‘you’ meaning all veg*ns); it’s mine, and so nowadays if the subject should come up (which it doesn’t often because I don’t really have much day-to-day interaction with any veg*ns), I make a conscious effort not to make any more of a big deal out of it than my own often odd food preferences. It’s just another thing about people — like one friend of mine who can’t eat wheat, or another who has a nut allergy, or my dislike of salads — something that only needs to be addressed when cooking a meal for someone or picking out a restaurant where we can all find something to eat.