on being a vegetarian, part 3

i could pull a super-size me, eat mcdonalds for every meal, and nobody would care.

i could consist entirely on doritos and coke and not a word would be said.

i could eat lead-based paint chips all day and only my insurance company would take notice.

i stop eating meat, and suddenly everyone is worried that i'm going to die.

it's been about three months since i posted my thoughts about becoming a vegetarian. since then, i have been meat free. i really thought it was going to be tough, but it's been quite the contrary. i don't miss it. i'm not tempted (though i sometimes feel like putting sushi back onto my menu). the toughest parts have been dealing with nagging questions and criticism and finding places to eat. i've frequented bajio, cafe rio, and durangos enough to have my own private table. found a nice vegetarian restaurant in salt lake, but it's a little too far away. luckily most places have a vegetarian menu, though they are usually sparce and lacking. oh well. i barely eat anymore anways, so it isn't too much of an issue.

i'm not really sure why i made this decision. i guess it started a year ago when i wrote a paper on mormon environmentalism. that had me thinking, though i hardly acted on it. in march, chris foster from byu gave a really good presentation at uvsc's mormon mormon studies conference about why mormons should be vegetarians. that had me really thinking. but it wasn't that either.

rather, i think it was mostly spite. it was a reaction to the almost total disregard of this clear aspect of the word of wisdom when other more ambiguous portions are treated with pharisaic legalism. i could go off for hours, but i'll leave it at that. spite.

while it may not have begun with pure intentions, i enjoy it and would recommend it to anyone. since i began, i've been much more inclined to avoid too much junk and fast food (which isn't saying too much as there aren't too many vegetarian fast-food options). i excersize more. find that i have a litte more self-control with other aspects of my life. and other crap like that. i've also had friends and family comment to me that they have begun noticing how much meat they are actually eating and have said they want to cut-back... though i don't know if they actually will.