Tuesday 18 August 2009

How I became a vegetarian

It was 28 years ago today, on 18th August 1981 that I became a vegetarian. I'd been toying with the idea for a while, and was starting to think I wanted to do it. I was at home on the day in question eating one of those little frozen pizzas with ham, cheese and mushroom for lunch, when the phone rang. It was a friend, calling to tell me that a trip to the local swimming pool by two of our closest friends, Mark and Joe, had ended in tragedy. Joe had drowned, aged 16. We never found out how or why it had happened, but the shock of the news brought home to me the fact that meat on your plate is the dead flesh of what used to be a living thing. It's not why I became a vegetarian, but it's how it happened.

2 comments:

Abe Silberstein said...

I'm sorry about your friend.

Though I disagree with vegetarianism on the basis of that you are eating a dead animal. If every human stopped eating meat, it would disrupt the stability of the ecosystem. Even PETA would acknowledge that.

Also animals do not have the intelligence to know the difference between life and death. Also for the entire history of the reign of the modern homo sapiens (150,000 years)we have been eating animals.

Cruelty to animals is bad, but I still eat veal because I like it. I can't stop lol

Ben said...

I became vegetarian just over 12 years ago. I'd been thinking about it for a while. I'd come to the conclusion that eating meat was wrong but, because I liked the taste, I was ignoring the connection between bacon sandwiches and pigs. In Florida on holiday, the family sat down for a meal of spare ribs. They were so big, grisly and obviously hewn from an animal's chest that it was a tipping point. I stopped eating and announced that I was a vegetarian.