Vegetarian

I was a vegetarian for five and a half years. It was a big part of my life. Almost a third of my life I was a vegetarian, and yet, I hardly remember eating meat before that…

I remember liking hamburger and steaks, but not much else. It seems like forever ago that I decided to become a vegetarian in the first place. What I remember about that night is that I was at the hibachi restaurant and the plate was still full in front of me, but it made me sick just to look at it because I was so full.

So, I gave up meat for a week. Which became a month. Which became a year. Which became a significant part of my life.

Part way through, it wasn’t about the food anymore, it was about the meaning. The idea of killing a living, thinking thing just to sustain myself when I could live just as healthfully as a herbivore. Seeing or smelling meat just made me sick to my stomach.

Being a vegetarian made me learn a lot about myself. It opened my eyes to so many new kinds of food. I attribute my taste level to this period in my life. I learned how to live a more healthy life. In the beginning I ate simply junk food, by the end I made my health educator of a father proud.

Going into college seemed like a good point in my life to transition back to eating meat. It is a feeling that you cannot explain. It was just the right thing to do.

I still don’t eat all that much meat, I am still not completely comfortable eating it. And when I do, it can only be chicken or fish. Red meat will probably never be part of my diet.

I have to convince myself to put the meat into my mouth each time. It feels so unnatural for me, at this point, to eat meat, even though I’ve been eating it for six months now.