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The start of a new year comes with some excitement. Behind us lay the old year with all its blunders and unaccomplished dreams. Ahead lies 365 days with no mistakes in them. There’s so much stretched in front of us- opportunities to live to our full potential, to repair bonds with family and friends and to make time for ourselves.
I have been part of that excitement of making New Year resolutions on the first day of the new year. I have even repeated resolutions. This usually happens because although my first few months of the year typically start well, sticking to my resolutions never seems to last.
To beat a less-trodden path, this year I decided to do things differently. I resolved to stop eating meat bang in the middle of the year. Off went my mandatory fix of tumbukiza at my weekend haunt. No more nyama choma with my boys as we bonded after work.
Kamaley my cousin prophesied that I wouldn’t go for a week without meat. When I hammered three months without it, he finally said that I had been diagnosed with a life-threatening condition. My uncle, on the other hand, was livid about it.
He had this belief that I was just kidding, and would soon go back to my carnivorous ways. But he too noted that I was serious when he ordered a kilo of tantalising choma to test me- which I didn’t touch.
Meat, however, is not my main concern. My motivation to go vegan wasn’t motivated by all that activist mumbo jumbo about meat being nothing but pesticide and the antibiotic-laden corpse of a tortured animal. Granted, there are valid environmental concerns for abstaining from meat. A plant-based diet can reduce greenhouse emissions drastically and owing to that, more and more people are going vegan.
But for me, it’s simpler than that. At my age, there were valid health concerns for quitting meat. My doctor told me my weight was ballooning, and so was my blood pressure. My uric acid levels were abnormally high for my age. It’s either I gave up meat and risked hypertension, gout and God forbid, an early appointment with Mwenenyaga.
So I quit meat and told my buddies that I no longer eat my friends. One of them pointed out that one famous writer had said that before. I added that I don’t eat anything with a face on it. My shift was not informed by that animal lover fanfare- I am not the kind of person who strokes a pet as I watch TV.
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Instead, my vegan shift was informed by a desire to better myself and save myself too. Do I lie in bed all night, thinking about meat? Nope, because I wasn’t addicted to it. In any case, I have fought a bigger battle before-getting over nicotine addiction.
As you make your New Year resolutions, remember the biggest obstacles will be those close to you. But that shouldn’t worry you. If you falter, you can make them afresh bang in the middle of the year. They are your resolutions.
Thanks a heap for being our reader here. May 2024 bring you closer to that which you hold dear.
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