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Perspective

Healthy eating, living ... and voting?

By Masako Yamada


ベジタリアンであることの意味

雅子さんは2年ほど前から菜食主義の食生活を送っています。といっても、時と場合によっては肉や魚を食べる、比較的緩やかなベジタリアンです。実は、アメリカでは菜食主義はすごく浸透しています。そして、「菜食」という食のポリシーにも政治色というものがはっきり表れるようなのです。

Almost two years ago, I decided that I wanted to become a vegetarian. This is partly because I wanted to be kinder to animals, partly because I wanted to lose some weight, and partly because I wanted to be a bit more disciplined about my lifestyle. Considering that my previous philosophy had been to try everything that passed under my nose, I've been doing a good job.

News photo
アメリカでは市民権を得ているベジタリアン。このベジタリアン向けサイト(www.vegetarianusa.com/)では、全米のベジタリアンレストランやショップ、関連団体が紹介されている。
When I eat at home, in the company cafeteria, or in restaurants by myself, 99 percent of the food I choose is vegetarian. I haven't cooked a piece of meat or fish since I started this diet, and I only serve vegetarian food to my friends. The one-percent non-vegetarian content might be a few spoons of anchovy paste, oyster sauce, or dried shrimp to use as flavoring on special occasions. Usually, I stick to my own vegetarian dashi, with kombu and shiitake as flavoring. I also use aromatic vegetables such as onions, garlic and scallions, as well as many kinds of miso and spices.

Vegetarianism is much more common in the States than it is in Japan. When I first started this diet I noticed that most Japanese foods, including vegetable dishes, have a bit of meat or fish in them. I have a new collection of vegetarian cookbooks now. I've been able to choose from among tens or even hundreds of vegetarian cookbooks published in the States, but I've hardly been able to find any vegetarian cookbooks from Japan. A growing number of restaurants are also careful to offer vegetarian dishes.

Vegetarianism is so common here that when I told my colleagues that I was going to be vegetarian, nobody flinched. As a matter of fact, they have been extremely supportive. For example, one former colleague of mine specifically chose a veggie-friendly Italian restaurant for his own farewell party so I could enjoy the food. Another colleague prepared a vegetarian meal for my birthday. My labmates tease me when my "vegetarian lunch" consists of pizza, French fries and dill pickles ... but nobody has questioned my decision or has tried to convince me out of it.

In the States, as I've mentioned before, one's day-to-day lifestyle choices are often tied to one's political beliefs. If I know a person's chosen car, newspaper, radio station, hobby, coffee shop and yes, diet, I could give a pretty good guess of that person's political orientation. The liberal commentator Al Franken was recently interviewed in New York Magazine, and he said one listener had e-mailed him the following message: "I voted for Bush, and all I knew about you I'd heard from Bill O'Reilly. On November 3, I tuned in to your show in my pickup to hear you cry in your vegetarian chili." Yes, it may seem unbelievable but vegetarianism is associated with liberal politics in the States.

To add to my desire to live a healthier, more thoughtful lifestyle, I've also started taking yoga classes three days a week. Yoga is completely consistent with the vegetarian lifestyle, and one would typically assume yoga fans to be quite liberal. I simply cannot imagine a vegetarian who gets up at 6 a.m. to go to yoga class in the morning voting for Bush. My boyfriend used to live in a vegetarian dormitory where all chores, including cooking meals, cleaning bathrooms and turning the compost pile, were shared among the students and all important decisions were made by consensus: I'd be willing to bet that all of them were liberal, some of them extremely so.

A true vegetarian would probably disapprove of my diet, since I do bend my rules. When I travel, I will try the regional specialties. When I'm being served as a guest in somebody's home or at a business function, I'll eat whatever is served. When it's my birthday, I'll have seafood. When it's Thanksgiving, I'll eat turkey. One of my vegetarian friends recently ate beef for the first time in years. He was at the funeral of a close friend, and he was offered a meat pie by one of the relatives. He absolutely could not refuse the hospitality.

Personal belief must be balanced with common sense. No policy, liberal or conservative, is worth being set in stone.



Shukan ST: July 1, 2005

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