Meatless Mondays or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Broccoli

In addition to our normal posting, we are going to be throwing in a Meatless Monday post every Monday featuring recipes, vegetarian restaurant reviews, and other information about why you should consider going vegetarian or at least, taking a day off from meat once a week.

To start things off, we both thought we'd share how we became vegetarians.

Beth: I became a vegetarian in 2001, after a previous 6 month stretch as a vegetarian in 1999. I became a vegetarian for a silly reason, I really liked Joaquin Phoenix and he was a vegan, so I decided to try it. At the time, I ate primarily meat. I would eat meat as a part of every dinner and I would rarely eat a vegetable (if ever). Shortly after becoming a vegetarian, I read "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins and it changed my life. I wasn't a vegetarian on a whim, I was a vegetarian because it was vital to my health, to animals, and to the earth. I am a vegetarian because I believe it is the only responsible choice I can make as a person who cares about the health of the planet. I am a vegetarian because animals were not put on this earth for food. I am a vegetarian because I feel healthier, more vibrant, and more alive. I eat vegetables, grains, proteins, and I don't think I'll ever turn back.

Mike: Although my current track record of strictly not eating meat has only been about four years, it is something I had fallen in and out of since about 2001.  In June of 2005, I began a voyage into the wooley world of semi-veganism (I still ate honey.  I have always had a weird kinship with bees, so this didn't really bother me) which I held strong for about six months before a slip-up involving sushi and downgrading to just vegetarianism.  These days, it is probably the closest thing in my life (besides loved ones) I have a real conviction for.  Eating animals is inefficient on a macro-biological scale, has a ridiculously detrimental environmental impact (sorry but "environmentalists" who eat meat have no credibility in my eyes), is terribly unhealthy for you, and yes, is the act of consuming the suffering, terror, and hardship of another living being.  That doesn't happen for vegetables.  I will never go back (and when I find myself in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, I will happily start chowing down on giant radioactive ants before I kill and eat an animal).
 
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