Why I Became a Vegetarian

I've been a vegetarian for over 4 months now. I don't miss meat at all. I'm actually enjoying experimenting with all kinds of new ingredients, like chickpeas and lentils. (Everybody in the family agrees that my chickpea curry is the "bomb-hot-diggity"...Not to mention the curried rice with toasted almonds...and the cashew curry...)

Many people are curious to know why I made such a decision. Surprisingly, my decision wasn't based on "health" reasons.

When I first came to live in Tonga, I wasn't overly impressed with the meat choices available. Tonga does have fantastic fresh seafood, but I've never been a seafood fan, so I was left with lamb flaps, frozen chicken pieces imported from America (I know what they feed their poor chickens in America. Nope, that option didn't excite me), sausages, ham or bacon or corned beef.

Sometimes I think I know TOO much. I know what they use to preserve and colour ham and bacon and corned beef (sodium nitrite - google it...). I know what they often use to flavour sausages (Monosodium Glutamate). So I felt kind of turned off by ALL those options.

So I simply ate less and less meat.

But the reasons I became fully vegetarian were spiritual and ethical reasons. I began to feel uncomfortable with the fact that a creature had to die, so that I could eat it's flesh.

It just began to feel wrong.

I began to see that our environment is groaning under the weight off all these animals, bred to artificially high numbers to satiate our seemingly endless desire for animal flesh. It pains me to think of all these animals living lives of utter misery in horrid, cramped conditions and then slaughtered and packaged into little packets for the supermarket shelves.

Quantum physics tells us that everything is energy. Our thoughts are energy. Our words are energy. Our food is energy. If I eat food that has been produced in horrible conditions, slaughtered in horrible conditions, am I taking in that low-vibrational energy and somehow expecting it to nourish and invigorate my body, my cells...? How does that work?

I realise that not all meat is produced in this way. I grew up on a farm, where sheep and cattle were free to roam the paddock and graze. But the sad fact is that most of our food is no longer produced that way, at least, not the imported meat options available in Tonga.

The rest of my family still eats meat (though not as much as before), and I pass no judgement on others for choosing to eat meat. I trust that we all do the best with what we know now...

But as for me, I'm happy eating vegetarian.

I never say never, because I don't know what tomorrow will bring. At this point in my life, this is the choice that feels right for me.