Kate began life as a vegetarian one cold winter in Canada. She's continued her passion for vegetarian food for the last ten years in her native Australia and while travelling overseas. Now she can't imagine ever going back to the dark side. Kate publishes the popular Veggie Friendly blog, which reviews restaurants to rate their vegetarian friendliness and features vegetarian recipes. She's looking forward to this new soapbox blog where she plans to write about the issues and myths surrounding vegetarianism.
Ok, great, you're vegetarian. Sounds simple, right? But being vegetarian can mean a lot of different things. One of the personal challenges of being vegetarian is figuring out exactly what it means for you.
At a minimum, being vegetarian means you don't eat meat. But it could also mean you forego seafood, dairy, eggs and honey. And what about all those products like soup, tarts, alcohol, cheese, and lollies that sometimes contain animal products such as stock, rennet and gelatine?
Then there are decisions about where to draw your broader ethical line.Is it hypocritical to wear leather but forego steaks? If you only eat vegetarian cheese must you alert your host every time you go to a dinner party? Should you avoid getting a cat or dog because they will kill insects and reptiles? Should you impose your dietary choices on your children?
In my experience, it's hard to draw a permanent line in the sand. Each year you'll be confronted by new questions or challenges. Learning more about your nutritional needs, environmental and animal rights issues is good way to make better choices. But being pefect can be hard, unrelenting and thankless work, and being consistent can sometimes seem impossible (as many a carnivore will gloatingly point out).
Often, the best moral compass is the reason you became vegetarian in the first place. If your prime concern is the environmental impact of meat production, you may wish to give up meat and dairy but continue to eat sustainably harvested seafood.
If your reasons have a religious underpinning, then your faith will provide guidance on which foods are acceptable.
If becoming vegetarian is a health choice, your dietary constraints and doctor's advice are likely to determine the strictness of your habits rather than any ethical concerns.
If you feel strongly about being responsible for the taking of the life of another creature, then chances are you will want to check the label on ingredients to make sure that animal products are not being used, consider the circumstances in which food was produced, and reconsider whether you are comfortable wearing cosmetics or leather goods that come from animal.
I've been vegetarian for ten years and every year I've had to make decisions about my personal line in the sand. My decisions are generally a mixture of conscience and pragmatism.
I find it easiest to be strict about the things which I have direct control over- i.e. the food I cook at home and the clothing I wear - and flexible when I'm in a situation with little control - i.e. the type of cheese used at a dinner party by a new friend.
I'm also conscious that a one-off choice can sometimes achieve more than trying to change an ongoing habit - i.e. if you only need to purchase a durable cruelty free item once, but stopping yourself from drinking beer or wine week in and week out may be difficult to keep up.
And it's amazing the difference some research can make, for example, to find brands or products which meet your ethical standards, or to research food dishes in foreign countries before you visit them.
Ultimately, I've had to face up to the fact that I'm an imperfect vegetarian. I don't always grill restaurants on the full list of ingredients that they use in each dish, I eat some dairy and egg products, own leather shoes, and my love for my cat is undiminished by his penchant for killing flies. But I've reconciled myself to imperfection by making sure I've thought through my choices, and reminding myself that all changes to diet and lifestyle, no matter how small, can still make a difference. And for the moment that's good enough for me.
You get a lot of different reactions when people find out you're vegetarian, but one of the most common is "so what do you eat?" The tone is never unfriendly, but usually a blend of curiosity and bewilderment at the idea of such high martyrdom. It's as though people genuinely struggle to imagine a meal without meat.
This reaction has always puzzled me. My eating habits are hardly a mystery. I eat vegetables, grains, legumes, rice, fruit, eggs, cereals, pasta, milk and cheese. The only things I don't eat are meat and seafood, which in the greater scheme of things don't account for most types of food available. Try a thought experiment where you imagine a meal with only meat or seafood - now that would be tough.
Being a vegetarian is not grounds for sainthood. With countless varieties of vegetables and herbs available, I've never felt that giving up meat involved deprivation. Quite the opposite, becoming vegetarian opened my eyes to the amazing diversity of vegetables and legumes, encouraged me to experiment with unfamiliar ingredients like quinoa and tempeh, and led me to discover non-Western European styles of cooking that are far less meat dependent. Given the abundance of vegetarian ingredients, I find it hard to understand how anyone could be at a loss to imagine what vegetarians eat.
But therein lies the nub of the "what do you eat?" attitude. Many people underestimate, or aren't aware of, the huge variety of vegetarian foods and tasty ways of preparing them. It's not logical given non-meat ingredients form the basis of a healthy diet and these ingredients far outnumber their meat and seafood counterparts - but perhaps this attitude is a by-product of affluent, time-poor Western societies where people are in the habit of basing meals around meat and relying on familiar "convenience" options for meals. Or perhaps it's a symptom of "meat and three veg" syndrome, where people struggle to see vegetables as anything other than an over-boiled, under-dressed accompaniment to steak.
Whatever the reason, and however well-intentioned, it's wrong to assume that vegetarians are the poor cousins of carnivores. On the contrary, the real tragedy is the poverty of imagination that prevents people from imagining what a healthy, delicious vegetarian meal looks like.
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