When I was a little boy we periodically visited our cousins in Long Island.

I had no older brothers or sisters so I was on my own to determine what was “in” and how to be cool from the media or by observing other kids in school. I would like to say I was better at this vetting process than I was but unfortunately I was rather confused by it.  My two older cousins were the best reference point I had as to what was lacking in my public persona. What is more, they lived in Long Island where everyone was cool.

My oldest cousin was a sultry, smart, aloof young lady who stayed mostly in her room with the door shut or would be “out with friends” during our visits. The first time I was granted access to her room was momentous on many levels. Her walls were coated with posters and images, yellow paint poking out here and there.

What struck me most was the enormous skull on her closet door. I forgot my manners and stood staring at its dark eyes until my jaws hurt.

“You like the Dead?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” How do I remain cool and not blurt out a million questions about satanic worship and whether she was part of a satanic cult.

“I’m really into the Dead. You should check them out.” The nail was in the coffin, so to speak. She must be into some dark things that a little boy would do well to avoid.

I was soberly aware that my cousin knew things and thought about things that were entirely out of my field of understanding.

Her younger brother was several years older than me and seemed much more tapped in to what was in and out. For starters there was the enormous color rug of Farrah Fawcett at the foot of his bed. I was certain this would not fly in my own room, but was even less sure if I would have even wanted it there. I would sit on his bed and watch him crunch barbells in front of his mirror, always shirtless.

His brazen masculinity awed me.

My cousins were both living in a world that felt very different from my own and they only lived in Long Island. It was one of the first aha! experiences I had in my young life when I realized that there were circles of thoughts and experiences that were outside of my own. While there were moments of overwhelm that tempted me with the urge to decide that they were too different for me, I learned a great deal from my cousins. I learned a great deal about differences. I learned a lot about myself because they were different from me. Or was I the one who was different?

I believe we become conscious in early childhood about the way we feel when we encounter difference. Does it frighten, intimidate, or aggravate me? Do I feel insecure? Curious? Ah, curiosity, yes…

How we make our personal judgments on things based on the limited experiences and knowledge we have at a given moment in time and space in many ways determines the world we share. As a small child with no positive connotations for skeletons (yet) I was convinced that the skull on my cousin’s closet was a bad thing; a scary, dark thing. I mean, it was a skeleton!

And yet, down the road, with more life experience and insight, things change. At least they can change if we allow ourselves to be open to new information and insights about the world.

I was turned on to vegetarianism in college at my co-ed, co-operative living situation. There were 30 of us living at the “Peace House” and we took turns cooking communal meals each night, all veg. I liked the idea of communal living and with tensions brewing in Iraq (it was 1990) the thought of a group of students aligned around creating more love in the world was very appealing.

I grew up eating meat (chicken, beef, bacon, fish)  just about every day of the week and was super attached to it! The idea of a vegetarian diet was more romanticized than an easy switch. I found myself eating big, whole foods dinners at the co-op and while I no longer felt hungry, I still craved roasted flesh. I was programmed (like so many of us) to believe that a meal was not complete, couldn’t be satisfying, without some type of animal protein.  It was more than a little embarrassing but I sometimes found myself drive to Burger King after house meals to grab a cheeseburger. Yet, the “seed” was planted and I was already more open to non-carnivorous alternatives.

However, I still resisted the “full monty” until I went to the Middle East for a year after college. I was walking down a cobblestone street in the Old City of Jerusalem when a religious man in white stopped me and gently touched my arm. He peered deep into my eyes with his bright, blue Paul Newman’s and slowly shook his head with great concern.

“Brother, you’ve got to stop the dairy. You’re killing yourself!” And here I had figured my big problem was simply cutting out meat. Thus was my introduction into self-directed Macrobiotics. I started to run with the dangerous crowd of macrobiotic, Orthodox Jews. Who knew there was an even tinier sub-group of the sub-group?!? I found there were hundreds of  observant folks in Jerusalem who took their religious adherence to include a healthy, sustainable diet that is in sync with the rhythms of nature.

That year I learned a great deal about how my relationship to food is deeply connected to my emotional life, my socio-political world and even the metaphysical. When I returned to the States, I brought with me a new sense of my connection to food and an affinity for Tamari roasted pumpkin seeds.

Lots of friends and family did not (and many still don’t) understand the point of removing animal products from my diet. There were times when I argued and fought about it, provided supporting materials and links, and yet in the end, I find the most peaceful approach is simply smiling.

One of the things I have learned in my life is that whenever I feel the need to convince someone else about something, I am already on shaky ground within my own being. Whether it is politics, social justice, faith or even food, if I need to convince you that I’m right, I’m wrong. If someone is interested in what I feel or what I believe, they can ask for more information.

So, I smile at the comments, breathe deeply and continue to enjoy my seitan. As the savvy vegetarian suggests, I’m counting on the hundredth monkey effect in the hope that more and more people will just consider removing meat from their diet one day a week!

Macrobiotic actually means “big life” and it seemed consistent with my intention for the type of existence I wanted. Since my time in Jerusalem, now more than two decades, I have delved deeply both into Macrobiotic living as well as the  McDonald’s Life. I have been lean and fit for some time, as well as soft and obese. Periodically,  I am able to maintain a macrobiotic diet for one or two years, amassing an array of jars filled with seeds, seaweed, dried shitakes, and grains. In fact, I have never felt more alive, more energetic and more healthy than those periods on a primarily macrobiotic diet and lifestyle. I love the rigidty of it! I love knowing that there is a very limited array of foods I can eat. Like Temple Grandin and her cattle chute, I feel contained by it…

The problem has been that it can be so restrictive and extreme that I find myself eventually resenting it and craving chocolate cake, pizza ( I mean, a whole pizza) or even barbecued chicken. Yet, as it is once again a new year, I broke out the brown rice and seaweed in the hope that this is my year. Back to basics. Right?

A great resource for the macrobiotic  lifestyle is anything by Michio Kushi and Jessica Porter’s Hip Chick’s Guide to Macrobiotics.

Being a vegetarian isn’t considered as far “out there” as it used to be: according to a 2008 study from Vegetarian Times, 3.2 percent of Americans are vegetarian, .5 percent are vegan, and 10 percent say they follow a largely vegetarian-inclined diet. Whether you are interested in eating less meat and animal products (or cutting them out altogether) for ethical, health or environmental reasons, here are the basics of vegetarianism:
1. Vegetarian: This term basically describes a person who does not eat poultry, meat, seafood or fish.
2. Pescatarian/ Semi-Vegetarian: A person who eats dairy products, poultry (including eggs) and fish, but does not eat any other animal flesh or products.
3. Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarian: Someone who eats eggs and milk, but doesn’t eat any other animal products.
4. Ovo-Vegetarian: A person who eats eggs but no other animal products or flesh.
5. Lacto-Vegetarian: Someone who eats milk but no other animal products or flesh.
6. Vegan: Vegans do not knowingly eat or wear any animal flesh, products or by-products. Some vegans also don’t consume yeast or honey, and often opt not to wear clothing and accessories made from animals, although a recent piece I stumbled on suggests (rightfully) that it isn’t really feasible to be a vegan anymore in this day and age…I have been vegan for several years of my life and it is in many ways more challenging for me than being macrobiotic. Vegans don’t have an easy time eating out and I LOVE eating out.

If you are considering a change in your diet that excludes or limits animal products, be sure to take appropriate supplements that can supply essential vitamins, minerals and fats that are typically provided by animal-based sources.

Want to Eat Less Meat? I’m sure you’ve all seen the photos that Manhattan artist Sally Davies captured of the same McDonald’s Happy Meal photographed each day for 6 months without any visible change.

Whether you want to minimize your consumption of animal products or eliminate it altogether, there are hundreds of alternatives to fast food and even over-produced, genetically modified slow food. In their place? Completely satisfying alternatives, from beans and legumes to whole foods.

I’d be a big (fat) liar if I said that I eat a perfectly healthy diet every day and that I haven’t enjoyed any meat from time to time. In fact, it has been a tremendous challenge for me in the past two decades as I have learned so much about the food I eat and still make unhealthy decisions sometimes. I have to be one of the most well-informed overweight people in the world. However, the dialogue is in place and I tend not to stray for too long if I find myself on a bender.

For now, even choosing healthier alternatives a couple days a week not only makes me feel better, it is better for the planet.

Exactly twenty years ago this month, I visited Germany for the first time. As a 19 year old university Junior on my semester abroad in the international city of >Geneva, Switzerland, the allure of a week-end jaunt to Munich with some friends for a stint at the Hofbrau Haus tent was too “educational” to pass up. It was to be far more enlightening than I ever imagined.

In many ways, the fair itself was a kitschy display of Germania, much like an Independence Day picnic with fireworks or even Thanksgiving in the U.S. People were happy, drunk and stuffing brats in their mouths with great strength.

Coming to Germany offered a momentary tilt of the head as I considered the history my family had in and with Germany during the last world war, however I was 19 and this was going to be a blast. A huge party.

The party was pounding. We raised our enormous beer steins to the sky and shouted the drinking songs with the rest of the happy people, consuming more beer than I choose to remember. We met up with several more folks from our college who had the same idea for a free week-end in Europe and the group of us stood on a picnic table and fit right in.

Some other folks began to huddle around us as we were becoming rather rowdy, sharing our Colgate party skills with the rest of the world. Before I knew it, some of the onlookers were now participants, standing up there on the table with us, their steins raised and their cheeks flushed. A few of these new friends were even more aggressive than we were. Black jackets, tall black boots and white T-shirts. One of the guys, sporting a blond crew cut and a faded tattoo on his neck, was particularly interested in my friend Haroon. He kept on clinking steins with him and wanted to talk rather than simply laugh and drink.

“Where are you from, my friend?” he asked.
Haroon was a very proud son of his country, and shouted “I’m from Pakistan!” with passion and a requisite raise of his beer.
The gentleman began a rant about how the Moslems were taking over his country, living off of his taxes and taking his jobs. He was what many of us commonly refer to as a buzz kill. We just didn’t realize soon enough that he would actually try to kill the buzz for real.

Somewhere during the rant, Haroon offered the sensible recommendation that our new friend go fuck himself. I saw the now empty stein sail past me and land on Haroon’s temple in a moment that I replay from time to time when I think about how important it is for me to remain sharp and alert in most situations. The assailant was disappointed that my tall, robust friend did not fall with the first blow, smashed his huge glass (I know, really?) stein on the edge of the table and proceeded to stab him in the head.

There were, of course, other branches to this conflagration that occurred simultaneously. Our rugby friends from school took on the other two skinheads while Haroon and I were left with the chief assailant. For the first time in my life, I jumped into a real fight. It all happened quickly, but I tried to stop the shard of glass from hitting Haroon with my bare hand which was in turn, mangled with glass and blood. Ouch. Haroon was pummeled unconscious before the police reached us and I had managed to kick the skinhead off the table.

In a surreal turn of events, the German Red Cross threw all of us in the same ambulance as we raced to the hospital. The skinhead managed to cut himself with his own weapon and he sat in the front with the ambulance driver as I sat with Haroon in the back, my hand wrapped in a blood soaked napkin while Haroon lay unconscious beside me, his head wrapped in stained gauze. The idiot in the front tried to apologize for hurting me, noting that his only beef was with the half dead Pakistani. I decided to leave the part of my being Jewish out of the dialogue, but still managed to repeat Haroon’s previous recommendation.

Haroon received over 100 stitches that night and I came out with ten. We were very sober, very quickly. It was a turning point for me. At nineteen, I discovered that I would fight for a friend and that I would also put myself in harms way when I believe in something bigger than myself. It was huge. The scars remain on my hand to this day as a reminder.

I was reading Pepe Escabar’s article on Islamophobia on AlterNet and I couldn’t help but remember the skinhead who tried to kill my Muslim friend and left us both scarred. Angela Merkel suggestion that immigration is prejudicial to the German economy reminded me of a twisted double standard that is true not only in Europe but in my own country. The belief that letting other ethnicities inside our “pure” culture in order to work in jobs that we tend not to want to do is somehow a compromise to the homogeneous bubble we enjoy is not only farcical but is dangerous to the immigrants we welcome as well as the hosts that open the doors.

I always think of the pride in Haroon’s voice when he lifted his stein and shouted “Pakistan!” when I consider the danger of nationalism. Just a few degrees past pride lives extremism. A notch above that floats terrorism. We must find a way to reconcile the global culture that is rapidly enveloping us all with the onset of technology and the stale, limiting belief that we are still one nation under God.