Yes I'm Vegetarian and NO, I'm not trying to convert you!

It isn't often I get to sit and openly talk about my vegetarian lifestyle, mainly because I feel preachy if I do, or get negative comments thrown at me, but as this is my blog I feel I can, also maybe informing others along the way. I have learnt to let people's negative comments wash over me now, when I was younger I felt the need to justify myself and why I didn't eat meat. Nowadays, I simply respond with "I have a conscience". My parents raised me from day one as a vegetarian, so I have never known anything different. Today, at 23 years old, it would be my choice to eat meat or stay vegetarian, and I still choose to be vegetarian. 

I don't eat anything that is dead, basically that's the long and short of it. People often say "Do you eat fish?" NO. However, I'm not vegan but the eggs I eat are free range and family member's have chickens so I eat those eggs. I do eat cheese and occasionally have milk, If i ever eat cereal or have a coffee. I also don't wear leather, which is nothing to do with me being vegan I just choose to not wear leather.  

As a vegetarian I believe that it is unnecessary and cruel to raise animals for food. Examples of questionable treatment: 

* Lobster and other shellfish are boiled alive and not killed before the are cooked. 

* New born calves are locked in crates, not able to move and underfed until they are slaughtered and served as veal. 

* Factory farming: Chickens are packed so tightly into cages that they can barely move. 

* And a million other reasons I could sit here all day cite, but I won't. 

I often think meat eaters assume I am trying to convert them or push my opinions on to them. Whereas 9 times out of 10 I often sit down to eat a meal or simply my lunch and I get asked a million and one questions, when all I am trying to do is eat my meal without having to cite all reasons why I'm vegetarian. I even like explaining why I'm vegetarian, once you have convinced me you aren't only asking so that you can tell me why I'm wrong. So if i tell you I'm vegetarian, I'm not challenging you, I'm attempting to explain as politely as I can why I'm passing on the beef burger and heading for the salad bar.

Below are the first veggie marshmallows I have ever found from Holland & Barrett, and I haven't opened them yet because I'm going to savour them! I'd like to also thank a lovely girl I know called Jess, who inspired me and prompted me to write this post <3  

"Because one species is more clever than another, does it give it the right to imprison or torture the less clever species? Does one exceptionally clever individual have a right to exploit the less clever individuals of his own species? To say that he does is to say with the Fascists that the strong have a right to abuse and exploit the weak - might is right, and the strong and ruthless shall inherit the earth."

Richard Ryder