why do i eat meat, though?

because my doctor told me i should.

when i was a kid, i was legit anemic. i wasn't a vegan kid exactly, but my mom didn't really feed me. we don't have lunch programs at school in canada because we don't really need them, and it's not like my mom couldn't afford to make me a lunch, it's more like she was too lazy to make me one, and often actually usually more like she was too drunk and/or stoned and/or unconscious from overdosing on something to make me one. when you're like eight years old, your culinary options are a little restricted. when my mom did cook, it was usually kraft dinner (sometimes with broccoli, usually not), and she tended not to keep things like peanut butter or jam in the house, let alone any lunch meat. she'd rarely eat, herself. so, i frequently ended up at school without a lunch.

my dad just didn't know. when the doctor eventually realized i was horribly iron deficient due to malnutrition and got the information to him, he started sending me home with lunch meat. i didn't figure it out for years later, but the reason he sent me home with eastern european salamis was because they had the highest protein contents. and, i've been eating things like "hungarian salami" ever since.

to my mom's credit, she seemed to be a little embarrassed by the situation when it was explained to her, and briefly adjusted by making things like liver, which is pretty iron-heavy. but, the truth is that she was a drunk, and she didn't enjoy doing motherly things. she hated cooking. really, any attempts to do normal mom things were always very short-lived; it was not long before she gave up, and went back to destroying herself.

so, i was never a regular meat eater because i was raised in such a fucked up family. i consequently never developed the kind of meat-eating habits that are considered unhealthy, but have always been struggling to force myself to get enough protein, to keep my iron and b12 up.

i went "vegetarian" briefly around 2002, but it wasn't a big lifestyle change because i kept eating eggs and cheese. and, i'd eat bacon, specifically, at an opportunistic basis, because it's bacon. so, basically, i just stopped eating meat at fast food restaurants. i flopped on this a few years later, but i still never had a steady source of meat in my diet until i moved to windsor and started buying salami regularly.