unremarkable girl on eating veggie

so this morning it struck me that it's been 10 years since i caught the veggie bug.

a whole decade without meat. well almost a decade, it happened on a kind of sliding scale. if you don't mind, i thought i'd talk about that transition today. (don't worry, this isn't going to be a lecture on food choices). 

aged 17, my favourite food was a well done steak. i didn't like my meat bloody but that aside, i never put much thought into what i was eating. then i read a book from the college library in which there was a chapter about vegetarianism. as i remember it, that book was completely unbiased and discussed all sides of the debate from what human teeth have evolved for to what would happen if vampires knocked us off our spot at the top of the food chain. and just like that my mind was changed.

in that first year everyone, including me, thought this was just a phase. i could still be tempted to a bacon sandwich and while i was living under my parents roof, the traditional sunday dinner was mandatory. but the ball had started rolling and there seemed no way of stopping it. as i went off to uni and had the chance to "be myself" and other such cliches, one of my biggest freedoms was to eat how i wanted. that graduation photo on my parent's wall shows the fruits (no pun intended!) of such behaviour. thanks to 3 years living on cheese and chocolate, graduation em was a little bit plumper than the older models.

in the years since, i have learnt how to maintain a healthier veggie diet, but also a more extreme one. gone are the days of not bothering what's in the gravy or turning a blind eye to the gelatin in the desert. now i'm suspicious if my food was ever sniffed by a living thing. thankfully i've found alternatives to meat like quorn and tofu, which i couldn't live without.

i don't often talk about food here. i'm not a great chef, and i don't have the wildest of pallets. but i want to blow my own trumpet for once. many people may disagree with my eating choices,  but no-one can doubt my commitment to it. 10 years now and i think we can safely say this isn't a phase. while i'm not quite ready to become a fruitarian (though check out this site if you think it's an intriguing concept), i'm certainly proud to be veggie.

{em} x