"Going Veg" in Argentina

One night over dinner at the Hare Krishna farm, I was talking with one of the nuns, Jai Radhi, a mature and fun-loving 17 year-old, about vegetarianism. I think the conversation began when I asked how they make the delicious, fluffy cake we had eaten the night before for a birthday celebration, without eggs. Hare Krishna don´t eat eggs, according to Jai Radhi, because its part of the menstrual cycle of the animal. Somehow this evolved into a recounting of my experience helping to kill thirty chickens last summer at a friend´s farm in Vermont. By the time I noticed the look of horror on her face, and on the faces of the two or three other devotees in the dining room, listening in, it was too late. "Sarah, you´re a criminal!" she exclaimed, not at all swayed by my argument of, "No, but it's better to come to terms with the killing of the animal than to buy a styrofoam package in the supermarket," etc. The nuns eventually forgave me (I think), but for the remainder of my stay, Jai Radhi greeted me (in English) with "Sara, Go Veg!" which always made me laugh.

I had no intention of "going veg" back then. I was willing to forgo meat during my stay at Eco Yoga Park, but this is Argentina, after all. People eat more meat here than in any country in the world. Nearly every Argentine male I've met has said he eats meat every day (and here, "carne" or meat, means beef), and often, twice a day. I'd be crazy to become a vegetarian in Argentina...right?

Well I've been here three and half months now. I don't eat steak every day; in fact, on the farm, we don't eat any meat, but a steak dinner at A Punto, a great steakhouse (or "meat restaurant," as I call it) is a favorite Saturday night ritual. Let's just say I've eaten my share of great steak since I've been here, not to mention chorizo, salchicha, morcilla (blood sausage), conejo (rabbit), cordero (lamb), and ham.

At the same time, however, I've been listening to the audio version of book that's made it more and more difficult for me to square my carnivorous ways with the reality of meat production. It's called The End of Food and it's about the industrial food system, both in the United States and abroad, and its various and major negative impacts on everything from human health, the environment, and the economies of developing nations.

There are a number of compelling facts in the book that have made me rethink my meat-eating ways. I'd say I'd spare you the details, but I'm pretty convinced that these things are important to know, whether you eat meat or night. One of them is the fact that a single hamburger patty contains meat from an average of fifty different cows, and can have meat from as many as 1,000 cows. This was given as part of the chapter about food-borne illness, and the near-impossibility of tracing the source of an outbreak of e. coli, and it made my stomach turn.

The second fact that I learned, which I'm sure I've heard before, but which really hit home this time, is that beef is incredibly inefficient to produce. It takes 20 lbs. of grain to produce one lb. of beef, versus around 5-7 lb. grain for the same amount of pork and even less for chicken. Like I said, I know I've learned about this before, and even tried out being a vegetarian for a year in college. But, as Jonathan Safran Foer explained more eloquently than I can in this article in the Times Magazine a few months ago, it's easy to "forget" what you don't really want to know, and so I did.

So I've decided to go partially veg, for now. I'm going to stop eating beef, even though I'm in Argentina, the land of beef. I know it sounds crazy, and, some may say, impossible. But I think it can be done; in fact, I've even met some full-on (albeit foreign) vegetarians here, and have eaten in some lovely vegetarian restaurants. Like I said earlier, I've had my share of delicious steaks since I've been here. I've done it, but I don't need to keep doing it. For now, I'll keep eating pork and chicken, placating my conscience with that fact about them being much more efficient, and selectively forgetting all of the reasons why maybe I shouldn't be eating them, either. Maybe when I get back to the States, I'll take Jai Radhi's advice and fully "go veg."

Maria, Maria

A week ago Saturday, Dagmar and I went to Maria´s house for what we thought would be lunch, but what turned out to be an afternoon of outdoor cooking and dinner with she and her family. It was an awesome afternoon. Maria is our "boss" in the garden. She´s a 32 year-old Bolivian woman who emigrated to Argentina with her four children and husband three years ago. Her sons often come with her to work, before going to school in the afternoon (I´m still not sure why they only go to school in the afternoon). Javier is 15, and loves riddles and listening to my iPod. Nelson is 8, and very smiley, despite his shyness. Nector is 9, energetic and playful. Maria´s daughter, Andrea, is 12, and until Saturday, we hadn´t met her.

We arrived around 2:30, after walking about twenty minutes using the directions Maria had given (without any street names or numbers--Maria and her husband don´t know the name of the street they live on). Knowing that Maria´s family had emigrated from Bolivia for work, and that her husband works at a nearby strawberry farm, while she works for about $15 a day at Eco Yoga Park, I had expected their home to be small and poor. which it was. What I didn´t expect, though, was the beautiful, fragrant orchards and gardens that surround her house. Maria´s family rents a house that is behind another house, owned by a man who lives in the city. He only comes by on Sundays, to check on the place. The property he owns, and that Maria´s family enjoys, is beautiful.

In addition to the fruit trees and flowers everywhere, Maria has a two vegetable gardens, plus a chicken yard with several chickens, for eggs and meat, and geese. After a tour of the property, Maria put Dagmar and I to work, cooking a feast for us to eat for dinner. One thing I love about Maria, is that she loves food. At least half of the conversations we have while working in the garden are about food. "What did you eat for breakfast this morning?" "What do you think we'll have for lunch today?" "Are there any chapatis leftover?" "What kind of cake do you like best, and how do you make it?" Since the first day I arrived, though, the dish that stood out among all others was lasagna. Dagmar and I both had described to her fifteen different ways to make lasagna, at least. I gathered that she had eaten it somewhere, or maybe just had heard of it, but had never made it before.

So, naturally, that´s what we made on Saturday at Maria´s house. Lasagna with a chicken/spinach/carrot tomato sauce and a soft cow's cheese that Andrea brought back from the neighbor´s dairy farm. Made pretty much without utensils (chicken shredded and sauce mixed by hand!) and baked, along with everything else, in the mud-and-brick outdoor oven. Along with this, pizzas with the same sauce and cheese, salad, rice, and cake. Dagmar and I left at dusk, stuffed and happy.

While visiting Maria´s home highlighted the many ways in which our lives are a world apart, it also helped me understand her a lot better. On Monday, when we saw each other again, I felt differently about her. Where I had once gotten frustrated with some of her habits, like never giving specific directions for the tasks she wanted us to do ("Go weed over there," she´d say, pointing vaguely. "Where?" I´d ask. "There! There!" she´d say, slightly more impatiently), now I would just tease her about it, and she, too, seemed much more at ease with me (Dagmar had left the previous day). Those hunger-inspiring conversations have continued, and though we may never cook lasagna together again, I can´t wait to make chicken lasagna again when I get home.

Staying in the now.

My current schedule allows a lot of time for thinking. Which is good, of course, but as I tend, like many, to think too much, I´d like to spend some of that time not thinking. One thing I´ve found myself thinking about is the time that lies ahead of me, and how I might possibly spend it. Will I find a farm I like and stay there for a few months? Will I decide to travel around the country after another month, and hop from Bariloche in Patagonia to Mendoza or Salta in the Northwest? Should I look into plane tickets to travel to other countries in South America?

Last night, Gustavo, one of the non-H.K. (Hare Krishna) residents of the finca, showed Dagmar and I a video of a speech given by Eckhart Tolle in Barcelona. The speech was in Spanish, but he spoke slowly and clearly, as he is a non-native speaker as well. I haven´t read his books, The Power of Now and A New World Now (I think), but they´ve been very popular in the US and elsewhere (both Dagmar and Gustavo had read one or both). His philosophy incorporates aspects of different religions, but much of his speech focused on living in the present, a la Buddhist philosophy. He makes it sound very simple: the past and the future don´t really exist except for in our memories and our thoughts. The only life we have is right now, this moment, so we should not obsess so much over what´s to come, and rather live each moment as it comes.

I´ve come to town today to see if I´ve gotten responses from the farms I emailed the other day. I think I know now where I´ll be headed in a couple of weeks, but I´m going to try my best not to think too much about it, and to focus instead on getting the most out of every day at Eco Yoga Park. Wish me luck.