While nutritionists would vouch for the physical benefits of a diet with less meat, the benefits of abstaining from meat during Lent go far beyond lowered cholesterol. As a moral virtue, abstinence controls natural appetites in the interest of body and soul. Abstinence encourages a detachment from the physical needs of life, assisting our growth in the virtue of temperance. In other words, we learn to exercise moderation, deferring gratification.
One Lent several years ago, I gave up meat for 40 days. Granted, I don’t eat a lot of meat, anyhow, but this total abstinence was, at times, a Herculean task. Suddenly, the sizzle of steaks seemed louder. I would have sworn somebody had placed blowers in my neighborhood to waft the smell of grilled burgers my way. I don’t even like hot dogs; but at the ball park, I watched with relish as people squirted on the ketchup and mustard. When I went out to dinner, I suddenly grew aware of the limited fare for vegetarians while others at the table sliced into juicy, medium rare prime rib and glazed lamb chops and smoked pork medallions. The smell of bacon cooking nearly made me cry.
That Lent, I learned the religious and psychological values of abstaining from meat. By the time Easter arrived that year, I was ready to go out to a steak house and order a T-bone and pick it up with my bare hands and tear into it with my canines gleaming in my watering mouth.
Thinking again about this meaty issue, I submit that this long-standing Catholic practice supports the culture of life in another way: Meat abstinence feeds ecology.
Let me say that I can anticipate well the reaction of beef producers because my father’s family produced Black Angus on a farm in Iowa. Consequently, I was weaned on some of the best beef on the planet, and I was at least vaguely aware of the cattle industry, having overheard talk of markets and futures.
When I spent the night at my grandparent’s farm, I awoke to the pastoral sound of cattle lowing. I even know how to call the cows, having learned from my grandfather, Leo, who died the night of my First Holy Communion on Holy Thursday, 1967. In his lifetime, my grandfather established a quite comfortable lifestyle for his family by raising and selling beef.
But — and if my grandfather twists in his grave, I beg his patience — meat consumption taxes our planet’s resources. A huge imbalance exists between the protein fed to livestock compared to the protein we receive from eating livestock. Cattle consume around 15 pounds of grain for each pound of beef they yield when slaughtered.
Research reported way back in 1989 by the United Nations Environmental Program indicated that if Americans reduced meat-eating by 10 percent, 12 million gallons of grain would be save annually. That grain would be enough to feed all people on earth who starve to death.
Reduced meat consumption could conserve water used to irrigate grazing lands and could help preserve our tropical rain forests, too. Desperately needed for the health and survival of the planet, rain forests have been destroyed to create grazing lands. Without the forests, carbon has built up in the atmosphere, contributing to the extinction of plants and animals that produced raw materials, foods and medicines vital to human survival. Not to mention the land degradation that occurs from overgrazing.
Beef isn’t the only beef. In Colorado and elsewhere in the United States, enormous pork-producing industries have created environmental dangers from tons of manure threatening to contaminate the ground water.
Still other people raise animal rights issues in connection with meat-eating.
I’m not suggesting we all quit eating meat forever. But I hope our bishops aren’t too slow to return to the fast from meat on Fridays. If all Catholics abstained from meat on a regular basis, we could make a positive impact, in addition to reclaiming some of our Catholic identity. Who we are is determined by what we do. And don’t do.
So when you’re dishing out that tuna-noodle casserole, remember that you’re practicing penitential self-denial, offering reparation for sins and also supporting the culture of life by demonstrating a disciplined reverence for God’s creation. And this practice doesn’t have to end after 40 days.
