When I was a junior in high school, I made a lifestyle change when I decided to no longer eat meat. It was by no means a spur of the moment decision. It sounds cliché and cheesy, but my reasoning for cutting out meat in my diet dates back to when I was about ten or eleven. I had a teacher who was obsessed with food production and this whole clean lifestyle living, but instead of keeping her personal preferences to herself, she thrusted her opinions about meat and fast food at us fifth graders. I basically was scarred for life.
She read us a book (this book, to be precise) all about how many of the fast food meat companies are able to get cheap products, how they treat animals, etc. So at the ripe young age of 10 years old, I vowed never to eat fast food meat again. To this day, I can't even tell you the last time I had McDonald's chicken, a Taco Bell meal, or a Burger King cheeseburger.
That teacher and that lifestyle has resonated with me all these years. It started with fast food, and it just kind of grew. Ever since then, I've always been really picky about what types of meat I'll eat, and it even started to gross me out to even think about where my meat was coming from when I was eating it.
I've always wanted to quit - or cut back on - eating meat for as long as I could remember. But finally one day I just told myself I don't need this and in April of 2013, I quit cold turkey...no pun intended.
I was already against fast food meat, specific frozen meat brands, certain restaurant foods. I very rarely ate pork, chicken kind of grossed me out, and anything else, for the most part, made my skin feel oily, my body feel lethargic, and the rest of me just...icky.
It lasted a mere four months of strict vegetarianism before I caved at a Fourth of July barbecue as my aunts and uncles and cousins gathered around me with their mouth-watering hamburgers and hotdogs. After that, I didn’t feel like I could call myself a “vegetarian” when I indulged in an occasional steak or piece of bacon, and I started referring to myself as a “meat minimalist” - someone who ate meat (only beef actually, I went another year and a half without eating any pork or poultry) very rarely and only on strict conditions.
Labeling myself a “meat minimalist” is kind of lame, I know. It’s a term one of my high school teachers used to define herself when she limited her meat intake to live a healthier lifestyle. A lot of students related to her in that way - to stop eating meat would make them feel better, but no one had the will power to actually do it.
I get asked all the time why I became a vegetarian. That’s the reason. After a lot of research, consulting with my doctor, and talking to my parents about it, I decided it was right for me. It wasn’t to be different or to feel special or any of the other ridiculous explanations that friends and family assumed was the reason. It made me feel better, inside and out. I was happier, more active, more energetic.
I didn’t start eating meat regularly again until a few weeks into my first semester of college. (Long story short: cutting meat out of your diet is hard when all that’s offered is salad and vegan bowls. You get pretty bored. And hungry.)
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But winter break has given me some time to re-think some things. When things get hard, you can’t quit. That’s basically what I did. I stopped caring so much about what I was eating, and as a result I started eating whatever, whenever.
I think when you stop doing something for a while, you gain a greater appreciation for it. In this case, I found myself paying more attention to animals and animal rights these last couple of months once I was knowledgable and more aware of what food I was putting in my body. As the second semester begins, I won’t be taking the easy road. Meal prep might take longer and it might be harder to have dinner with friends at the DH, but this is a lifestyle and a cause that I believe in too much to give up on so easily.
