I suspect that for most students, the question “how is your uni work going?” is the most dreaded dinner table topic of conversation. But for me, the question: “why are you vegetarian?” will always be the hardest one to answer.
I’ve been a vegetarian for almost six years now and I’m still hesitant to let many people in on this. Of course, the part where I actually tell them isn’t really so bad. It’s all about what comes after. As soon as I’ve uttered the final syllable of the dreaded ‘v-word’, I have no choice but to stand there. Waiting. Wishing. Hoping with every fibre of my body that they won’t ask the inevitable follow-up question which pains me even to write down: “why are you vegetarian?”.
It’s the why part that I hate having to answer. I usually give them some waffle about me liking animals. And don’t get me wrong, I do like animals, but that’s not why I’m vegetarian.
Lifestyle influencers love talking about the benefits of following a meat-free diet. There are whole YouTube accounts dedicated to unloading the reasons why “YOU SHOULD BECOME A VEGETARIAN TODAY!!” and “HERE’S WHY YOU’RE A BAD PERSON IF YOU AREN’T A VEGETARIAN!!”. Easily recognisable by their scare-mongering word choice, shaming tone and excessive use of exclamation marks, these accounts typically do quite a poor job of persuading people to make long-term changes to their diet.
Of course, there are important issues and real-world concerns that motivate people to become vegetarians. Some people become vegetarian for personal or religious reasons, and others feel that they have a moral incentive to avoid meat due to the environmental and ethical concerns surrounding the industry. More recently, there has been a focus on the health benefits of adopting a plant-based diet. A new umbrella analysis compiled from more than 20 years of research suggested that eating a vegan or vegetarian diet may help to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
But I don’t find any of these reasons particularly persuasive to me. After six years as a vegetarian (well, it’s probably more realistically five and a half years because for the first few months, I snuck down to the kitchen and ate prawn crackers most nights after my parents had gone to sleep), I can’t say that any of these reasons fully capture why I’m still a vegetarian.
I’m vegetarian for the same reason that I brush my teeth every morning; always put my right shoe on before my left; and walk up the stairs in my accommodation two steps at a time. It’s a habit that I’ve grown accustomed to doing. And, as boring as that sounds, there’s no deeper philosophical reason behind it. I think that’s something that a lot of non-vegetarians struggle to wrap their heads around. I don’t eat vegan ham because I feel called by some profound desire to save the world. I eat vegan ham because and now it would feel strange to put anything else in my sandwich instead.
When I’m out at a restaurant (vegetarians can go to those now, you know) I don’t have to tear my eyes away from the steak. Suppose I see chicken on the menu: it doesn’t induce hunger in me in the same way that it did seven years ago because chicken is no longer something that my brain considers food. In the same way, when a non-vegetarian looks at their goldfish, they’re probably not overcome with the all-consuming urge to eat it. What their brain perceives as ‘socially acceptable food’ doesn’t include goldfish. For me, my conception of ‘socially acceptable food’ doesn’t include chicken. Or beef. Or any kind of meat.
If someone asked you: “why don’t you eat the goldfish?”, the immediate intuitive answer would be “because that would feel weird to me”. It would feel like you’re eating something that you’re not meant to – that’s kind of how I feel about eating meat.
But why did I start being vegetarian in the first place?
That’s a good question – and the less good yet perfectly honest answer is that I don’t really remember. Maybe I did just really like animals after all. But my point is that, this isn’t why I’m vegetarian anymore.
I would love to be able to give a well-informed and interesting reason to explain why I’m vegetarian. I’d love to say that I’m vegetarian because of Peter Singer’s concept of Speciesism or reference Immanuel Kant’s notion of the categorical imperative to show what would happen if vegetarianism was maximised on a global scale.
But quite frankly, the reason that I’m vegetarian now is because I was vegetarian yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that…
So don’t ask me why I’m vegetarian; I just am.
