Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Everybody's stories are so interesting! I went vegetarian around age 8, my mom says she knew it was coming since leading up to that I would just push meat around on my plate and eat almost none of it. I think it was a little bit after the "animals = meat" connection really set in for me, but it took me a bit to get my courage up. I didn't even know the word vegetarian when I told my parents, I just told them I wanted to stop eating meat. They asked "...you want to be a vegetarian?" and I was like "...what's that?" Plus, I just never liked how it tasted, the texture, any of it.

It's funny, my family was basically supportive -- plenty of BUT HOW WILL YOU GET PROTEIN conversations, though -- but the things I didn't know were meat (definitely lox, and I think maybe shrimp?) they just never bothered to let me know, I figured it out later.

Oh, I didn't say anything about when/why I became vegetarian. I was old (13), so it's probably less relevant. I learned about antibiotic-resistant bacteria and that animal agriculture involves the use of huge amounts of antibiotics. I figured that my eating meat was less important than trying to reduce the problem of antibiotic-resistance. I didn't become vegan for a long time after that, so I guess I still thought dairy ice cream was more important.