Jane Goodall has been influencing my life for a long time, but she is not the first to illustrate the how vital the environment is. I grew up in Truro, Massachusettes, a tiny town near the tip of Cape Cod. Much of the land was allotted only for the Audobon Society, to preserve the natural habitats and native species. I was able to see endangered species such as the plover and the horseshoe crab. My education involved learning about ways to protect the environment by not trampling habitats on nature trails, recycling, composting and more. I felt very much a part of the Earth because nature was all around me. If people overfished, I knew that fisherman would have problems in the future because of the lack of fish.
In fifth grade, I began to think more about my food choices. I stopped eating baby animals like veal, because I did not like the idea of an animal being killed as a baby, without a full life. I stopped eating duck. People have told me, oh so you stopped eating the animals because of their cuteness, which is true, but it was important because it made me starting analyzing myself more.
In sixth grade, I had a lot going on for me in my personal life. My dad had just died of pancreatic cancer, as a result of being an alcoholic. I promised myself never to let that happen to me. At the same time, my mom started expressing her interests in healthy and organic foods. This meant food tasted less good, and I was often jealous of classmate's lunchables and chips. In fact, I only drank an average of about a liter of soda a year, and only caffeine-free Sprite. Instead, I was encouraged to make my own "soda" out of juice and seltzer. We started composting in our back yard. I became more involved in the gardening, raking, weeding, planting of our large yard. We grew our own vegetables like basil, tomatoes, corn, and lettuce. We also had wild mint growing on our land, along with a huge diversity of flowering plants.
Because I lived in a small town, we had our own well, our own boiler, had built most of our own house, took our mail to a post office and our trash to a dump. The dump was very disgusting, with sea gulls flying around. I think back with a little of embarrassment of the dumster dance, which used the dump parking lot as a kind of tailgate and dance. Besides these things, we had no grocery store in our town, and one restaurant, so the style of eating in San Diego of going out often and choosing between a myriad of places was not an option. Because Cape Cod is a tourist destination, the impacts of visitors on the environment, traffic and economy were all felt. I began to also distain tourists who did not appreaciate the land but would litter.
The circle of life, as shown in the movie the Lion King is a really obvious concept to a person who lives in a town full of cemetaries and experiencing death in their personal life. It was often described in the various places we would go for feild trips relating to the audobon society and other similar organizations. The cycles of life, tides, sunrise and sunset, were all so potent.
I became more aware of these factors in sixth grade, when my best friend told me more about being a vegetarian, and introduced me to Jane Goodall's club for kids called Roots and Shoots. I had a lot of education about the processing of meat and the cruelty of it, and I stopped eating red meat. Later in 9th grade, I was a pescatarian. That always caused me to a bit of an outcast even among my friends, who were not very understanding. I think really, only vegetarians understand each other. It is frustrating to me that people did not give me the equal respect I gave.
As college has progressed, I had difficulty paying for and cooking my own vegetarian choices, and experienced symtoms of anemia. I started eating meat in the summer of 2005 (chicken), and began eating red meat while living in spain in the fall of 2006. Despite my choice to become a non-vegetarian again, I still do not consume much meat, and always opt for organic when it is availible. I continue to be extremely conscious of what I consume, and try to avoid all the tempting fast food. I realize that I could be eating better right now, but for me with all the challenges of paying for my own education and what life brings, I find it easier to eat a limited amount of meat. In the future I hope to become a pescatarian again and rely more on soy products and legumes.
Graduated
Joy
Artistic
