With the temporary closing one of the country’s biggest pork processing plants in South Dakota due to hundreds of employees testing positive for Covid-19, I am sensing panic setting in from all of my meat loving friends.

They’ll eat bacon at breakfast, a ham and cheese sandwich at lunch and maybe some sausage and meatballs with their pasta at dinner.

As the supply is expected to go way down as the demand goes way up, there will be a price to pay or a major decision for them to make.

I live in a vegan household filled with veggies, soy milk, and a host of plant-based alternatives including alternative sausages.

To come clean, I consider myself a flexitarian and will at times eat fish or even an occasional meatball.  However, my finance is a good cook and 90-percent of my meals are vegan or vegetarian.  This morning my vegan pancakes were delicious.  I even loved my birthday dinner on Monday…lasagna with an alternative cheese made out of cashews.   My vegan pizza Saturday night was awesome!

I know what your thinking…disgusting!  At first me too.  I’ve been living this lifestyle for almost two years.  It took about 6 months to really buy in.

The same way you don’t want to see how the sausage is made; the cruelty of factory farming is shameful.  You would not order chicken if you spent 5 minutes at a factory chicken farm.  The same with beef or anything else that is sent to slaughter.

I’m not preaching…just suggesting that it might be the right time to spend more time in the produce section, or the local farm stand, than hording beef, chicken and pork like its toilet paper.

You don’t turn vegan or vegetarian overnight, but incorporating less meals based around meat will make a huge difference in your life both mentally and physically.  Try an alternative meat in the frozen food section of your grocery store.  Chicken, beef, fish, and every other alternative meat source is now available and very good tasting.

It is believed that the coronavirus was caused by people eating what is not considered “normal” in our culture.  We want to puke when the discussion turns to the wet markets in China that are once again serving bats and other species not in America’s grocery stores.  However, you would be very surprised what your stuffed chicken dinner tonight from the factory farm is really stuffed with.

If you have to eat meat, search out a local farm that raises their cattle on grass and chickens on natural feed.   It will support the local farmer and add days, months or years onto your life.

I started by cutting out a couple of meat-based meals a week and worked my way up from there.  It’s spring and nothing will taste better than fresh veggies that mother nature will be producing in all of her glory very soon.

Just my opinion but Dairy Counsel, the cow on TV holding up the sign telling you to eat more chicken and the obsessive hype about bacon is almost as disingenuous as the tobacco industry was in the 60tys.

You don’t have to take my advice…but your mother always did tell you to eat your vegetables.  It might just be the right time to eat even more of them.

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