Being vegetarian is becoming more and more popular in recent years. Many restaurants and grocery stores are carrying more and more options for those who do follow a vegetarian diet making it easier to make this change in your diet. Here is why I chose to follow a meatless diet:

1. An attempt to be more environmentally conscious

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While I do believe that big businesses and corporations are the reason our environment is in the state that it is in, I do believe that it is important to watch your carbon footprint, and animal agriculture alone is responsible for 57% of greenhouse gases.

2. Taste

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It could be just me, but I don’t even really like the taste of most meats. Even before I made the switch I constantly felt as if I was just forcing myself to eat it because I had to. I have never been a person to get excited over anything like a steak dinner, so it was not a hard switch.

3. Major diseases

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Not only do meats often cause food poisoning and diseases such as salmonella but they can also be the leading cause of heart disease. There is also some evidence that shows vegetarians have a lower risk of death during cardiac events, and as someone who has a history of heart disease in my family, I like the sound of that.

4. Aesthetic honestly 

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Okay yes, this one seems silly, but a vegetarian diet makes for a way more colorful plate than the one that you would get with the same grey meat and potatoes.

5. To try new things

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This one honestly may have been my biggest push to change my diet because I have always been a pretty picky eater. I was the person who would go to a fancy restaurant and order chicken tenders. Now that I no longer eat chicken tenders, I am forced to try the things that I was scared to before, and to no surprise, they’re very good.

While I have only been fully vegetarian for about 2 months I already feel so much better throughout my days. Maybe it is placebo, but I feel so much more energized than before. Whether it is for these reasons specifically or not I encourage you to give a vegetarian diet a try. You can start out small with just a week or two, or you could jump straight in and see how long you can do it for.