Celebrating Fifteen Years of Vegetarianism

I decided to become a vegetarian when I was six years old, it was something I decided for myself and not a choice my parents made for me- although my mum had spent a lot of her youth as a vegetarian.

I can't recall the exact reasons I started but in these fifteen years I have come to really love being a vegetarian, its a huge part of who I am. For me, it is more than just a moral choice. I like animals and don't want to eat them, a vegetarian diet is better for the environment as well as being cheaper, I think it encourages one to broaden their diet - eating meat is admittedly, very convenient these days to the extent that some people also don't regard a meal to be a 'proper meal' unless it has meat in it. That is a terrible thing to think! Meat (and dairy products) should be a luxury, if you eat them at all. The ONLY thing that bothers me about being vegetarian is that I am wary of drinking ale as it is, very often, not vegetarian.

It also extends beyond simply just 'not eating meat', which is something I think some non-veggies/vegans struggle to understand.
In a previous job I was asked to lay bacon out onto a tray (so I had to touch it....ewww) and then cook it (so I could smell it....ergh) and then I had to remove it from the oven, put it into tubs and then pour off all the fat and other stuff from the bacon into a bucket (uurrrrrrrrrrgggghhhhh!) and then I had to scrape off all the crap that had been baked onto the trays and wash them. URGH. By the end of it I was surprised by my own reaction to it... I'd been telling myself the whole time I wasn't eating it so it was okay but by the time I'd finished I'd gone pale and felt really very sick. Even writing about it again gives me a deep seated feeling of disgust. I have eaten meat a handful of times by accident as well as the nausea it made me feel really dirty... I had a huge urge to detox and get that vile stuff out of my system, ASAP.

We don't want to eat a sandwich the ham taken out and we ask you kindly to prepare meat in a designated kitchen area to avoid cross contamination and vegetables with noodles in a chicken broth is NOT a viable meal option and please remember to check the labels if you have us for dinner because you will be surprised by what contains animal products!

Some people seem to think that feeding a vegetarian or a vegan is difficult- but I really think those people should be more open minded. If I were not a vegetarian there is a whole host of culinary delights I would have not thought about trying. You need a box to think outside of it, right? I am so bored of going into a café and finding the only vegetarian options to be cheese or -if we're lucky- hummus. This kind of attitude was one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place!

I love food and I love being a vegetarian. :)