By Andrea
I feel compelled to write a little bit about being a vegetarian today. It's likely due to the recent footage on the treatment of cows at slaughter houses and how those videos reinforced my beliefs and feelings about meat. I've been a vegetarian since I was about eleven years old. No one else in my family was a vegetarian but ever since I could remember, I disliked meat. I hated the consistency, taste, and the idea that I was eating something dead. My parents reluctantly allowed me to follow this diet choice. I'm sure they thought it was a phase but after two years, my mom realized she should probably bring me to a dietitian. It was a official: their daughter was a vegetarian.
Honestly, I don't remember how people treated me in high school as a vegetarian. At the time, it was becoming more popular and folks thought more about the treatment of animals. Plus, as anyone who was a young woman in high school knows, being a vegetarian helped keep your weight down. The longer I became a vegetarian, the more I learned about alternatives such as tofu, tempeh, and seitan. More restaurants offered vegetarian options and my vegetarian diet gave my mother an excuse to buy a hundred vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. You think I'm lying about that. I'm not. Ask Ted and Lorraine.
Growing up in a liberal city made being a vegetarian easy; however, I was not naive. In college I joined the debate team and that required traveling to exciting locales such as Emporia, Kansas and Liberty, Missouri. Finding vegetarian options meant asking for spaghetti with NO MEAT in the sauce. I learned to pick through my food and tried not to show my frustration when a piece of flesh ended up in my pasta. Fortunately, I joined the most liberal and crunchy (does anyone still know that word?) debate team so the vast majority of us didn't eat meat. In fact, one of my teammates, and incidentally, an ex-boyfriend, was a vegan. Although I admire those who can go without dairy and eggs, I have been unsuccessful in reaching that level of dedication. Maybe some day.
When I met the Prof, he had been a vegetarian off and on. At the time we started dating, he ate critters. He asked me out on our first date and I told him right away that I did not eat meat. So being smitten already by my breathtaking beauty and killer wit, um yeah, he asked around to find the best vegetarian restaurant. We ate at the Daily Planet where I enjoyed a delicious vegetarian meal. We continued dating and he ate meat and I did not. Eventually, after we got married, he began to move into a vegetarian lifestyle. And at this point, I moved into a meat eating lifestyle. I kid you not. My meat eating lasted for six months when the idea of consuming meat disgusted me. Again, I was a vegetarian, the Prof was not.
Yet again in law school, I decided to try eating just white meat. Part of my rationale was that I wanted to jump on the Atkins bandwagon and try to lose weight fast. And I did. I cooked chicken, turkey burgers, and at times, pork. Honestly I did not think twice about it. But then, after two years, my conscious caught up with me. I couldn't do it. I couldn't consume meat. The idea made me ill. I felt guilty, and wrong, and horrible. I considered trying to find local producers who humanely killed their livestock but it wasn't just that. I realized if I could never ever consider eating dogs and cats and bunnehs, how could I rationalize eating cows and chickens. I couldn't and won't. I cannot be comfortable with saying eating some animals is acceptable and others are not. I just can't and now I won't. Plus, the more I've learned about the meat industry, its standards and its practices, I will never eat meat again. I love animals too much. And The Prof joined me and will forever be a vegetarian too.
My one frustration with opening up and telling people that I am a vegetarian is the reaction I receive. Certainly in my little fairy princess world where all animals hold hands together, I admit that I would like a world where no one eats animals or if they do, they raise, slaughter, and prepare it themselves. I know this is not realistic. I tend to preface my statement that yes, I am a vegetarian with but I don't mind if you eat meat. That is lie. Actually, I do mind that you eat animals. I know not every loves animals like The Prof and I do and not everyone thinks cows are sweet gentle creatures. I kind of do mind that you eat animals. Am I going to try to convince you otherwise? Probably not. I know that is weak but after telling people I am vegetarian and getting the same defensive asinine responses, I really don't have the energy to explain in detail that I think the meat industry is cruel, I love animals too much to eat them, I don't like the hierarchical thinking with eating one species and not another, that the meat industry is environmentally unsound, and I just don't like meat.
So I said it. I don't eat meat. I'll try not to judge you for eating meat but I do have my beliefs and I'll stick by them. Please do the same for me. Stick by whatever you strongly believe and I'll try not judge you either.
