vegetarianism

❄ it's jerry's birthday next week and all he asked of me as a birthday gift was that i stop being vegetarian. he's constantly pestering me about it and claiming that i'm missing out on the best things in life, telling me i can't possibly enjoy eating out at restaurants since i don't eat 'real food' and that i can't speak authoritatively about foreign cuisines because i haven't tried any.... it amazes me that someone can feel as passionately about another's eating habits as jerry does about mine!

i never preach vegetarianism or judge anybody else for their carnivorism, but it's astounding how people always have something to say when they find out i'm vegetarian, whether its questioning my vitamin and mineral intake or interrogating me about my reasons for not eating meat.

as a young uni student, i was more opinionated, political and self righteous and i occasionally enjoyed debating the pro's of a vegetarian diet: the health benefits, the horrors of the slaughterhouse, the barbaric treatment of the animals raised in cages and pumped with hormones, the environmental destruction caused by cattle raising (einstein himself claimed that the most 'environmentally responsible' thing a person could do is to become vegetarian). anyway, the older i get, the less ethical and opinionated i become. i've realised that i'm a hypocrite and so is everyone else and i prefer to just live my life my way and let others live theirs their way.

when people ask me why i don't eat meat, i quickly brush off the subject by saying that i was raised a vegetarian and have since remained that way. to be honest, i remember eating dim sims, salami, and hot dogs on a few occasions as a child but when i was old enough to understand why my mum was a vegetarian, i found myself agreeing with her ideology.

i was quite a sensitive child. i remember once discovering my brother and our neighbour in the front yard burning ants with matches and i ran away weeping at the cruelty of it. so i formally decided to become vegetarian at the age of five, simply because i don't like the idea of killing and eating animals.

it's a pity jerry's birthday wish won't come true, but i'm not gonna start eating meat now, as a birthday present for him or for any other reason.

:o)