When people ask me why I’m vegetarian I typically say, “It’s a challenge to myself”, or “It’s good for the environment”. But I think the real answer is a little more complicated.
I started being vegetarian in February of 2017 because I was bored and unemployed and I needed a new and inexpensive hobby. Anyone who does not think that dietary choices count as a hobby clearly does not understand the amount of time I spend thinking about mundane tasks like grocery shopping and going out to eat.
Becoming vegetarian means looking up new recipes and rethinking your old go-tos at your favorite restaurants. It also means explaining to your friends that you brought Taco Bell’s Cheesy Bean and Rice Burritos to their Thanksgiving potluck not because you are lazy, but because you are vegetarian, which as everyone knows are mutually exclusive.
But the best part about being an unemployed vegetarian is not the monetary value, its getting to feel like you are a better person than all of those carnivores with jobs. You get to say things to people like, “Do you have any idea how much methane came out the butt of that cow you are eating?” or, “Have you ever thought about veal?”. It’s great.
As far as the animals themselves go, I’d like to think I’m about as indifferent as most people, maybe a little more. I mean, I would eat a dog. Not the family dog or the neighbor’s dog, but a dog I didn’t know? Sure, why not? Now, I don’t like to see or think about animals suffering, but thankfully we live in a world where one can go to the store and pick out 8 pre-circled mounds of meat and believe, if you want, that they came into the world that way. A litter of 8 little hamburgers, brought into this world by their big hamburger mother.
The moral of the story is, if you’re going to go vegetarian, and you should, it’s pretty fun, do it for the approval of everyone else.
Wander and Waver 