Our Meatless Community – The Home Stretch

Forming a community around my sustainable behavior change, minimizing meat consumption, has been a truly eye opening experience. I’ve greatly enjoyed reading about my peers’ experiences, and have taken comfort in knowing that they’re having trouble succeeding with it as well. I no longer feel alone. My entire community seems to be acknowledging that minimizing meat from our diets is indeed more difficult than we initially thought. The best part about reading about others’ experiences is noticing the commonalities and differences  within our experiences, and how certain strategies work and how some don’t.

The most common ways my community successful in minimizing their meat consumption has been through having a reward at the end of a meatless week such as a treat or sweet. Another strategy prominent in my community is having friends partake in this experience with you, by holding you accountable and making it less tempting to give in. When people around you at meals are eating anything meat-related, it is much more likely that you will give in and get yourself a helping of it. However when those around you are purposely eliminating meat from their diet, and reach towards the vegetarian and vegan options, you will be much more inclined to follow their lead. I am a bit envious though, of two of the members of our EVST 100 Meatless Community: there’s a set of best friends who eat each meal together and both have been eliminating meat from their diets. They are in it together, and have a support system between the two of them. They hold each other accountable and encourage each other daily. I don’t have that, and it has been a difficult experience trying to convince my non-EVST 100 friends to eat vegan and vegetarian options, but they all believe that eating chicken nuggets is far more important than saving our very own environment.

Having a community, although it was slightly forced and only was for a couple of days, has influenced the way I viewed my experience in the sustainable behavior challenge drastically. I initially thought of myself as a failure, because there were days in which I gave in and ate meat when I wasn’t supposed to, or days where I didn’t stay honest with myself in terms of meat eating. However, by being a part of this community, I learned that it’s okay to eat meat sometimes, and it’s okay to be temped to eat meat. Hearing about my community’s struggle as a whole influenced my opinion on this behavior change, because now I feel like I am part of a group that is honest with one another about their meatless experiences. I don’t feel as alone in my endeavors anymore, and I feel like I can reach out to any of my community members for encouragement or a pep talk.

Overall, I feel like I’m not the only one who finds this behavior change incredibly challenging, and I really appreciate this project of a sustainable behavior change because it truly encourages you to set a goal and achieve it, with a community by your side. By finding a community that is as enthusiastic about a sustainable behavior change as you are, it is just one small step towards making a bigger difference in our environment. This experience has influenced not only the way I think about our EVST 100 sustainable behavior change, but about behavior changes as a whole, and how our nation can make a change in terms of minimizing carbon emissions, and therefore bettering our environment.