Meat Free Summer

The Cooke family is going to have a meat free summer this year. We are going to be on the road and camping for most of the summer so I thought it would be an easyish thing to incorporate. I was a vegetarian for 10 years and fell off the wagon about 10 years ago and think its time to get back on. There is just so much empirical evidence coming to light that links the meat industry to cancer in humans...including fish as evidenced here: Farm Raised Tilapia. The more I read and the more I learn about the meat industry and the way the animals are treated from the second they enter the farm until they are slaughtered is disconcerting. Of course, I am interested in the ethical treatment of animals. I certainly don't want anything to suffer, but i am also very interested in what affect this meat is having on the human race, namingly my family. The World Cancer Foundation just came out stating that from this moment on, noone should eat any form of processed meat (the article here: Meat Carcinogens) because of the high levels of sodium nitrates which is a known carcinogen in humans. No to mention the amount of antibiotics pumped into cows and pigs while they are on the farm to keep them from getting sick. This obviously just aids in bacterial resistance to antibiotics because they are exposed to it so readily. These are the same antibiotics that humans use to treat bacterial infections. It makes no sense to use the same medicines on humans that we use on cattle to stave off bacterial infections. This is found mostly in processed red meats and pork products which we don't eat anyway but the poultry industry is just as disgusting and lackadaisical about their production as red meat and poultry. That leaves seafood, right? No, farm raised fish are also pumped full of antibiotics and hormones and grown so quickly that they are essentially devoid of nutrients. The argument is that if you get your meat from a local farm and you can observe their practices, you are better off. Or, if you go totally organic you are better off. The local farm, maybe but that is a giant pain in the butt in my opinion. Organic, who knows. There are so many levels of Organic per the FDA that I'm not buying into the overall health of this movement yet. So, the best bet in my opinion, for my family is to just eliminate meat from our diet all together. This can be scary too as my chances of contracting salmonella from sprouts is actually higher than getting it from a hamburger but I'll take my chances (except we don't eat sprouts...ever because of this). Cyrus and I will be fine with this, I've actually been doing it for a few weeks and really don't notice the lack of meat as I don't really enjoy it all that much anyway (except for fried chicken or chicken wings - I'm a sucker). Cy doesn't like meat, or milk, he never has. I can't get him to eat a piece of chicken if his life depended on it. He does love salmon and will eat that so I will continue to give that to him if it is wild caught and fresh. He loves veggie burgers and chic nuggets from Boca. He will also eat griddle "fried" tofu dipped in ketchup like chicken nuggets. Brad is going to be the tough one as this will be a different kind of mentality for him. He doesn't eat red meat because he is deathly allergic but he LOVES bacon and sausage and eats chicken/fish pretty regularly. I'm just going to have to keep it interesting for him this summer.