A question ethics: animal welfare vs environmental concerns, which stand should you take?

Being vegetarian is far harder than I thought. It’s incredibly easy to do it half heartedly or hypocritically as I have discovered! Whilst sat in the park yesterday, eating my veggie sausage sandwich and feeling virtuous about my veggie efforts I rather naively was ranting about the mistreatment of animals whilst wearing leather shoes! Having looked into the alternatives to leather I have discovered that shoes marketed as vegetarian or vegan are made of cotton or faux leather. The environmental issues associated with cotton production are well documented (including the almost complete disappearance of the Aral Sea due to the use of water for crop irrigation) and faux leather is made of plastic. Call me cynical, but personally I think using one cow to feed several people and make many pairs of shoes is far better than producing plastic, a non-biodegradable substance formed from petrochemicals! The evils of oil are far more wide reaching including global economic instability from the price controls, pollution and destruction of fragile environments for oil extraction, not to mention the heinous nature of the Iraq war. Having said that, beef production in the past has been responsible for the destruction of rainforests for grazing land, global warming from the methane and, ultimately, obesity and heart disease! Maybe I should just stay barefoot instead.

Veggie ventures into the world of meat free food

After a recent incident where I ate some steak which according to various people may or may not have been veal (can you get pale beef?), I have been having a serious rethink of my attitudes to meat. Whilst I was in Tanzania I saw cows kept in tiny sheds in the dark being fed only banana leaves and never allowed out to graze or see the sunshine. These rather callous attitudes to animal welfare in the farming industry are what have prompted various people such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, The Soil Association and Compassion in World Farming to campaign for change. My concern however, is no longer whether or not the ‘steak’ I ate was or was not veal, but that if the thought that I might have eaten veal has shaken me up this much then should I be eating meat at all. So, since Monday I have been avoiding meat until I have made up my mind on whether I should become vegetarian or if I should only buy free-range and organic meat. What has really shocked me is the total lack of vegetarian foods in the supermarket. It seems that the typical British diet is still very much focused on the ‘meat and veg’ mentality of the 50s.
It might be tough but that hasn’t stopped me before so here goes with the whole veggie thing!