It’s no secret that I’ve given up meat and gone vegetarian. In fact if you want to be technical about it, I’ve gone Lacto-vegetarian. [Lacto-vegetarians do not eat beef, pork, poultry, eggs, fish, shellfish or animal flesh of any kind, but do eat dairy products.] I decided to cut all of this and milk out of my diet 130 days ago; since then my friends want to know why, my husband thinks it’s a phase, and my mother thinks I’m going to waste away to nothing.

Just about everyone I know is curious and have asked many questions about vegetarianism. The top question on everyone’s lips is “Why?”, even Don has been asked about it. For me the reasons are numerous, however my typical response is simply “to eat healthier”. But what pointed me down the path of vegetarianism was a book I picked up on a whim called Skinny Bitch. Of course it was the title that initially attracted my attention, but after reading a short passage, it was the writing that hooked me. The style of the writing was very up front in your face tell it like it is. Some may not respond to that type of strong language (instead preferring the beat around the bush method), but I find it refreshingly straightforward. However it was by no means solely the book that “turned” me vegetarian.

Don keeps saying Skinny Bitch scared me into vegetarianism, this is far from the case. None of the material in the book was new to me (except for maybe the fact that in the sugar refining process, filters are commonly made of charred animal bones). Now I don’t see statements such as this as a scare tactic but as simple information presented matter of factly. I have actually been aware of the messages presented in Skinny Bitch before from other sources; from Robin Cook’s Toxin to Super Size Me and Fast Food Nation. But I finally decided I wanted to take my head out of the sand and learn more.

I was really curious to find out more about the authors and who they were, so I turned to the internet and looked them up, from there I found GoVeg.com and vegcooking.com. By then I had decided I was willing to go veg for my own health. But it was on the GoVeg website that I came across the video Meet Your Meat that solidified my decision to quit eating meat all together. If you’re willing to take your head out of the sand and learn about out what happens to the food you eat then watch this video.

So the actual reasons I’ve gone veg is for my health, for the animals, and for the environment.

If you’d like to learn more about vegetarianism visit goveg.com. If you plan to make the transition to a vegetarian diet, do so gradually. Keep in mind the most important foods to cut out of your diet first are bird flesh and eggs. “While many people think that “red meat” and dairy products should be the first to go, this isn’t the case. By cutting bird flesh from your diet, you’ll save many more animals. Because chickens are so small, the average meat-eater is responsible for the deaths of many more chickens than cows. Plus, chickens and turkeys exploited by the meat and egg industries are the most abused animals commonly used for food.” [goveg.com]

Ah childhood, we’ve all got one, and I find it amazing how different we turn out based upon it. I often wish I had had a better childhood than I did, as I’m sure many many individuals wish, but I’m not here to lament or rant.

I’ve heard it more than once from my husband, Don, that he’s very proud of how he was raised and I find that fascinating since I can not claim the same of mine. I was raised with a really wack set of standards and expectations and my parents are really weird. I know, I know, everyone says their parents are weird, but you haven’t met weird until you meet my parents. They are weird with a capital W. For example, I was pretty sheltered from some things, but exposed to other things that I probably shouldn’t have been.

When I look back I wonder where was the harm in watching MTV or even VH1 and hanging out with my friends after the football game or concert at the local steak n’ shake. Nor was I allowed to attend parties at my friends’ houses. Sure things happen at parties—alchohol, drugs, accidents—and you could argue from a parents perspective that if I didn’t go to those so called riot fests, then I wouldn’t get injured or killed. Just look at what happened to that couple in Nebraska in 2005. But hanging out with friends are the things kids do, it’s called socialization, hell even puppies are socialized, it’s how we learn to develop our leadership and decision making skills. Kids don’t learn these skills sitting around at home in their rooms.

The list of things I wasn’t allowed to do, see or, go to was longer than my arm and by 11th grade all that pent up sequestered energy reared it’s ugly head and culminated in me receiving a concussion and my mother receiving a tetanus shot. Fun times, fun times. Of course that just lead to a tighter leash and more animosity (imagine that). But I digress into ranting.

As a teenager I often figured relations with my parents would grow more conciliatory in my adulthood, however this doesn’t seem to be the case. They’re still just as weird as ever. I know I sound like a resentful brat who should just get over it, but there’s more there, lots more. Maybe some day I’ll get into it.