So many people have asked me WHY I am a vegetarian, and the topic always seems to come up over dinner… which is like, the worst time to explain it all. So, fair warning: if you are eating right now, maybe save this little bit of reading for another time :)

First of all, I would like to say that I don’t care who ISN’T a vegetarian, and I’m in no way hoping that my explanation turns YOU into a vegetarian. Not even a little bit. Also, I grew up in a meat-eating household (and the “cook of the house,” a.k.a. Mom makes delicious food). I have tried all kinds of meat, to include guinea pig and alpaca, so my being a vegetarian isn’t from lack of finding a delicious option.

In May of 2003, I traveled around Morocco: wandered the streets of Marrakesh and Casablanca, got lost in the port city of Tangiers, and heard the wailing calls to prayer on crackling loud speakers throughout every city. The arches that graced the opening of fruit markets and meat markets looked like the ones from the movie Aladdin (being 20 years old at the time, Disney seemed to be a fair enough frame of reference for cultural comparisons).

As I entered the meat market in Fez, the smell of cooking beef mixed with rotting flesh met my nose. Goats and cows, skinned and quartered, hung in the open air with flies swarming around the suspended carcasses. My stomach turned my lunch over and over, so much that I had to slow my pace. The thick, evening heat gently moved the rancid smells around me. The smell of cooking beef made me think of a warm philly cheese melt, but the distinct smell of rotting meat reminded me of vomit and garbage and dead bodies in a morgue. (Smelling both at once has forever changed the way meat smells to me.)

My mind started blocking out the sights and smells and I looked down at my feet going over the cobblestone, something to fixate on until I walked up the hill of the meat market. That’s when I saw the small rivers of blood trickling through the stones of the street, inches from my sandaled feet. I looked up to see why the rotting animals were hanging close to the street—they conveniently dripped their juices in the gutter, creating two large rivers of blood flowing downhill to who knows where. A butcher with a no-nonsense expression sliced a pound of flesh from the pink-colored, hairless chest of a goat, its bones and veins visible.

For the rest of that trip I could barely get my meal down when it included meat. My friend Jordan would sit next to me and slowly steal most of the food from my plate to make it look like I was being a good guest and eating everything. (Thanks, Jordan. I still owe you one!) Later when we were in Marrakesh, some of my friends ate monkey brains and other weird stuff, I’m not even sure what. Some of these friends had some major digestive and health issues when they got home. We were all told to take medication to get rid of possible parasites (ewwwww).

The weight of that five minute experience didn’t hit me immediately, I spent two years after that slowly chewing my meat and feeling it cling to the sides of my throat when I swallowed. At barbeques the smell of hamburgers cooking jolted something in my mind and I could smell rotting flesh and feel blood between my toes. But I ate my hamburger, chewing it like it was a pink, raw pound of flesh cut from a butcher who scraped the mold off the top. Then one day at a restaurant I realized I could ask for my dish with no meat, extra vegetables, please. The waitress didn’t flinch, wrote down my order and moved on. No one at the table noticed or cared, but I felt free. I could enjoy my meal of things grown in the ground and in the air on trees. No bones in my mouth to stop my heart or odd bites of hamburger that can’t be identified. No throat involuntarily closing or gag reflex or stomach aches or being grossed out.

I even saw a therapist about it all to make sure I wasn’t just traumatized by the experience. I thought maybe there were some exercises I could do, or a different way to look at it all that would make me see meat like everyone else again. Turns out that not wanting to eat meat IS NOT a special kind of crazy – HA! Who knew.

In 2006 I wrote a paper about vegans/vegetarians and organic/sustainable farming in a college English class. For me, the “being mean/not fair” to animals and the damage to the environment from the mass farming of cattle was just icing on the cake. Those things could never have turned me vegetarian on their own, but when looking at the whole picture I knew it was the right choice for me. Here’s an excerpt:

An article in a popular British newspaper, The Independent, recounts the moment when Watson (who grew up on a farm in South Yorkshire) first knew he could never eat meat again. He had just watched his uncle kill a pig when he had his epiphany. Watson said of the experience, “I decided that farms- and uncles- had to be reassessed: the idyllic scene was nothing more than death row, where every creature’s days were numbered by the point at which it was no longer of service to human beings.”

By mid-2007 I was done with meat, but I never thought of it as a permanent choice, just something to try for awhile. So many times I repeated the same lines, over and over: Oh I definitely won’t be a vegetarian for long I just have this thing to get over… No, I’m not offended if you eat meat. Oh geez, no, it’s not spiritual or anything… Animal rights? I mean, sure I support that, but it’s not the main reason. Well, you probably wouldn’t want to hear about the details, we’re about to eat dinner; I don’t want to gross you out… For a few years I never really considered myself a vegetarian – I just preferred to eat non-meat dishes. (Potato, PoTAHto). But here I am all these years later, feeling the same way. Feeling quite vegetarian.

So that’s my story of how I became a vegetarian – the long version. I’m definitely not hoping to change anyone’s mind about meat, just explain my story. But if you ever feel like meat isn’t for you for a time in your life – I say go for it. As adults we can eat whatever we want! :)