I was in the supermarket earlier on today, perusing the quorn section with that tedious feeling of not-this-again, when it occurred to me that, as a vegetarian, I don't make sense. Vegetarians are supposed to campaign for animal rights, get teary-eyed when one of those RSPCA adverts comes up on the TV and glare at anyone who devours a chicken wing noisily on the bus - right? And I just don't do any of those things. (Well, I do sometimes do the last one, but that's more to do with the fact that I can't stand noisy eaters. They could be chewing on a lump of tofu and I'd still glare at them.) I'm not a huge animal-lover. I mean, I don't exactly go around kicking puppies, but passing a cat in the street or a dog in the park or a sheep in a field is about as interesting to me as passing a drunk in a dark alley. You notice them, but only because you hope they're not gonna jump on you, or start clawing at your arse.
This is why I always struggle when people ask me why I'm a vegetarian.
"So what made you become a vegetarian?" they ask.
And, for once, it feels like they actually care about my answer. Not because I'm an incredibly interesting person and my lifestyle choices are of great consequence to anyone else beside me, but because they think that my vegetarianism is an indirect judgement of them: I don't eat meat because it's wrong, they think I think. You eat meat, therefore you are wrong. There is something intrinsically wrong with you, as a person. And I don't think that, not even in the slightest. I ate meat for the first sixteen years of my life; I used to love my chicken nuggets and spaghetti bolognaise. The real reason why I decided to become a vegetarian?
It was easy.
Actually, it was an accident. I was sixteen-years-old, had just finished my GCSEs, and I hadn't eaten meat in over two weeks. I remember thinking, This whole no-meat malarky is a piece of piss. Guess I'm a vegetaian, then! And that was that.
I suppose in some respects, the vegetarian attitude has grown on me. I may not have a direct debit set up to 15 different animal charities, but I wouldn't want to slaughter a cow just so that I could have a burger for lunch, or snap a chicken's neck just so that I could pick at a few nuggets - especially not when I can quite easily grab something from the quorn section of the supermarket which, after about the one-hundredth munching session, kinda tastes almost like the real thing. The way I see it, I've changed one tiny thing about my life, and the result, for a few animals, is vast. It means they don't have to die.
I should, however, hold my hands up and admit one double standard: I wear leather. Sometimes.
I try not to, but I find it harder finding a substitute for durable leather shoes than I do finding a substitute for lamb chops. I keep meaning to find a local-ish shop which sells vegetarian shoes, but so far, no luck. If anyone can point me in the direction of one and help to eradicate my hypocrisy, I would be extremely grateful (as would the cows).
I remember someone once telling me that they would have quit smoking much earlier had someone told them how not-that-impossible it is, and I guess that's the point of this whole post today. I could show you videos of cows getting skinned alive, a lamb having its throat slit and chickens being decapitated, but I don't really want to employ scare tactics to affect people; I just wanna say that it's not that hard, and that the more vegetarians there are, the more of us there are to stand together and demand more (and better) vegetarian alternatives - for both food and fashion.
P.S. In case you're wondering: no, I don't eat fish; yes, I do eat dairy products. A life without apple turnovers would be too unbearable.
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