I've been vegetarian since July 1998. When I was younger, say pre-sixteen, I didn't each much meat, because I didn't like it. Eventually, I started making conscious decisions to cut back on my animal intake because I felt it was economically and ecologically sound, taking a lesson or two from Diet For a New America by John Robbins. Even when I wasn't vegetarian, I would make an effort to use animal-free products whenever possible. I used rice milk, bought oriental flavored ramen, and spread soy margerine on my toast. In Summer 1998, after living with a vegan and satan knows how many hippy vegetarians, I started avoiding meat altogether. For me, that meant buying vegetarian chili, as I really didn't eat much meat anyway. But still, it was a change.

I'm putting this page up to say, "hey, being a vegetarian is cool. You might want to consider cutting back on your intake of animal products." I'm not saying "Go vegan! Straightedge! Ya!"

There are some great reasons to not eat animals. One of the first reasons I cut back was because of the issue of sustainability. We feed an insane amount of grains to animals we eat. Livestock consumes something like 80% of the corn and 95% of the oats grown in the U.S. It takes like 16 pounds of grain to create one pound of beef. If we cut back on eating meat, we could pretty much feed the entire world a shitload of carbohydrates.

Another reason I began cutting meat from my diet is because I truly believe that meat is bad for your health. You know those people with triple corinary bypasses, getting the strings of fat pulled from their veins by a medical doctor? That's called animal products.

More recently, I've been feeling a need to abstain from animal products because I believe killing innocent creatures is disgusting and I don't want to contribute to it. Your hamburger patty didn't live a good life on an open farm with grass and sun and ... it lived in a stall with cement and the occasional hose-down, until it was beaten with a sledgehammer or shot through the forehead. That pig was sliced open and bled to death before making it to your Jenny-O box. Let's not even get started on chickens.

I wouldn't eat people and I wouldn't eat cattle and I wouldn't eat chickens. Some people see a difference, but I don't. They're all living, they all feel pain when you chop off their heads. I just don't want to contribute to the whole thing.

Check out these resources:

• Veggies Unite! - Lotsa vegetarian recipes