NEWS
EVENTS
WHY I AM: Vegetarian
I watched a documentary called Earthlings and afterwards I couldn’t look at my ham sandwich the same way.
Earthlings shows you the most horrific footage of animal slaughter, and even though some UK methods may be more humane, seeing that real life horror made me feel sick.
I love animals, and I had no idea they were suffering this way, I had never learnt or seen any of these realities before. Turns out what is actually happening is mainstream media, collaborating with big businesses and the government, marketing meat eating as part of everyday life and normalising torture.
I was going on holiday so I decided to take the opportunity to try out a meat free life, and I actually found it extremely easy. I am a serial cheese fiend, so that helps with the step to vegetarianism, although this love is holding me back from veganism, which I would ultimately like to do.
The biggest challenge for me was telling my parents. My mum loves to cook for us, but there's so much that my dad doesn’t like, so I didn’t want to make her life more difficult. It felt like I was coming out. I got so emotional and they were both so confused, but eventually supportive, reluctantly from my steak loving father.
2 years on and I wouldn’t go back. Meat free is better for animals, the environment, your health, it’s more natural and I’ve gone from being a picky eater to loving cooking and being 10 times more adventurous with food.
I think the most surprising thing about being vegetarian has been how many questions I get asked about it, and how many people are confused by it. I thought it was all very normal, but having something different about you really does bring a surprising amount of attention.
