The Beginning

To start talking about why I became a vegetarian, I have to talk about at least one of my sisters (I have 4). From January to September of 2009, I lived in Pittsburgh with two of my sisters, my future brother-in-law and two of their friends from college. One of my sisters worked at a Q'doba Mexican Grill in Oakland, and over the course of the summer, decided to try being a pescetarian. She had thought about it for a while, but now that she got free food at work and could easily make vegetarian burritos, she decided to go for it. Her main reason for the change, at least what she told people when they asked, was the environmental impact of animal agriculture. After we moved back to New Cumberland, I decided to become a pescetarian, too. I told people it was for environmental reasons, and to some extent it was, but the main reason was simple curiosity. How long could I go before I needed to eat meat? That was what I wanted to know. Eating fish certainly helped keep me true to my new diet. I soon found that I might crave a burger, but if I just gave it some time, or ate something else, I didn't really need meat. All in all, I wasn't really sure that pescetarianism would be a long-term thing for me until I watched Food, Inc.

My First Blog

This is my first foray into the world of blogging, but not only that it is also the first place that I am putting in writing that I am a vegetarian. Some of you may think that I have been a vegetarian for about half a year now, but that is not true. I was a lacto ovo pescetarian, but more accurately I was a selective omnivore. I ate a farm-raised organic free-range turkey on Thanksgiving last year (with some help from my family), and have consumed my fair share of fish in the past 6 months. I am currently reading Jonathan Safran Foer's book "Eating Animals" and it has given me a new perspective on my eating habits. I am now officially a vegetarian, and I would like to share with you my reasons for choosing this lifestyle. To my meat-loving friends, I will try to avoid preaching the gospel of vegetarianism, and I would love for you to challenge me on any facts, figures, or statistics I give (I will try to cite sources). Also, please don't be alarmed if some of my posts have nothing to do with anything, I tend to do that sometimes.