Intersections: WHO report excites the told-you-so in me
Bacon lovers, sausage aficionados, cold-cut obsessives, I know you got some bad news this week. The World Health Organization confirmed this week that processed meat causes cancer, with the report going on to say that even just two slices of bacon a day can increase the risk of bowel cancer by 18%.
To be fair, you probably already knew eating too much meat had the potential to be problematic to your health, so I don’t think this declaration from the WHO is actually surprising. But as someone who gave up eating meat almost a decade ago, this is probably the only opportunity I’ll have to gloat just a little.
You see, ever since I stopped finding meat even remotely delicious and started thinking about how I actually had no interest in putting most things that were once living in my body, I’ve been prodded, by virtually every new person (and many people I’ve known for a long time) about my choices, choices that become instantly difficult when you’ve grown up in a culture that uses its regular dinner times as a chance to celebrate family, friends and food regularly.
Some people are just curious, and I’m happy to oblige answering questions on why I’ve chosen this particular lifestyle, and some people have made it their mission to either convince me that I’m wrong, catch me out as being a hypocrite for wearing leather shoes while giving up meat or crack jokes at my expense.
I used to try to veer much of my explanation toward the fact that I wanted a healthier lifestyle to avoid more ridicule, and while that is true, I’m just going to say it here, once and for all: I like animals, and I don’t want to eat them, OK?
I have never been interested in telling people what to do, or criticizing their life choices, so I don’t bring up the fact that I don’t eat meat unless I’m asked. I don’t have a problem with people ordering meat, eating meat in front of me or talking about how great it is. Every person is free to make their own decisions about how living their life is comfortable for them. That to me, is a fundamental human right.
Perhaps my presence at the dinner table, once it’s known that I don’t indulge in kebobs or hamburgers, has caused some subconscious discomfort, as if my abstaining from a certain aspect of a widely accepted cuisine is inadvertently threatening to those who do — that my reluctance to eat meat is making them feel self-conscious about what they already know: that they probably should eat less of it.
Over the years, the criticism has lessened, and sometimes friends and relatives have joined me on the dark side of the table. Just last month, I even briefly rejoined the meat-eating club when I traveled to the most pro-meat eating country I had been to: Mongolia.
Out of respect for an esteemed shaman I was visiting, I ate meat for the first time in seven years, chewing the boiled mutton I was given with as much pleasure as I could muster. Eating meat didn’t even phase me at that point, as I had been ingesting all kinds of animal milk including camel and horse milk — offers I could not refuse — for weeks.
The boiled mutton, cut off the bone, rubbery and caked with the overwhelming smell of earth, was enough to put me off meat for a lifetime probably, This week, the WHO announcement made me feel that, for the first time in a while, I’d have a better comeback next time someone attempts to criticize me for making a personal choice.
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LIANA AGHAJANIAN is a Los Angeles-based journalist whose work has appeared in L.A. Weekly, Paste magazine, New America Media, Eurasianet and The Atlantic. She may be reached at liana.agh@gmail.com.