Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About (But Were Afraid To Ask): Vegetarianism

[impersona]

sporky_rat  is holding a Q&A about Southern Culture at her journal.  I thought it was a pretty awesome idea, and since I brought up vegetarianism up a few posts back, I thought it'd be awesome to field questions.  Anything you can think of, even the smallest questions you might have.  Diet, morals, cost of food, sadness while watching Food Network because you will never eat anything featured there, the crush of social criticism against vegetarians, Cillian Murphy, anything!  

Note: I forgot to mention that I am a lacto-diet vegetarian, so I still eat milk products.  I eat eggs technically too, but only if they are whipped into other things cause I think eggs are mostly gross.


I've been a vegetarian since I was 3 years old, by choice.  At some point I realized that moo-cows, piggies, and chickies were killed to make my food, and Little Sage was really, really upset by this.  For my first month of vegetarianism I literately only ate cream cheese and bagels, because my paranoid little toddler mind could not bring myself to trust anything else my parents put in front of me.  I would probably not be a vegetarian today if it weren't for the support for my doctor, who was also a vegetarian and encouraged my parents to facilitate my wild whim which would surely disappear in a few months :D   

Because I've been a vegetarian for 22 years now, the lifestyle is really not something I think about unless someone else asks about it, or if I'm put in a situation where my food choices are limited.  I can't say that I remain a vegetarian for ethical or moral reasons - I still think it is uncool to kill animals, but most of all the sight, touch, and squelch of meat just grosses me out massively.  Making chicken noodle soup for Kol last week was enough to turn my stomach. 

I do believe that Americans overdo their consumption of meat as a whole, but I think there are other banners that are more important to wave, like same-sex rights and rehabilitating the educational system.   This 'do what you will' attitude is common among the other vegetarians I've met.  But I've had a good number of people get angry and defensive at me for simply being a vegetarian, as if my dietary choice threatened their entire way of life.  Somehow 'vegetarian' equates to 'a PETA member and insane and will burn down your meat-loving family's home' in the mind of the general public, I suppose. 

Comments

[prodigy]

Okay, I'll betray that I stay up too late and bite. I imagine (though I dunno if I imagine correctly) that you've met at least some fellow vegetarians -- any idea what the racial/cultural breakdown has been like? The dominant stereotype is that it's a predominantly white, educated sort of dietary lifestyle, though I've had a few friends of Indian (Asian, not American) descent who inform me it's very common there. I know when I tried to go veg for a time my (Korean) family was kind of lolwut is this American hipster thing you're doing? at me. But I have no idea what the breakdown of actual vegetarian demographics is.

[alzbeta]

Cool idea. As we Southerners are not a monolith, I'd be curious to see if there are any deviations between the South I've experienced and the one s/he has. Curious to see your answers as well.