Vegetarianism

Ever since I was a child I have always had a deep respect for animals and their life. I use to burst into hysterical sobbing fits at the sight of injury or the insinuated death of a creature on television or in a film. As a result, I wanted to become a veterinarian, until I learned that they could not save every animal. With such a hypersensitivity to the issue I knew I would not be able to handle such a harsh reality and gave up that dream.
Growing older, I began to have a few friends in high school that abstained from eating meat. I would listen to their arguments, and while they were valid I was never compelled to stop myself and join the cause, as I had never seen any personal effect. In biology class my junior year of high school we were scheduled to dissect fetal pigs. There was an accompanying handout that described the situation and the terms of how these dead fetus’ came to be. It read that the mother sow was almost full to term when she was brought to slaughter for use as meat products and that her litter was removed and promptly pumped full of latex and preserved to be shipped to our school for dissection purposes. Horrified by the description, disgusted and saddened, here is where I drew the line, I refused to take part in the act and was offered an alternative. Later that week my mother had fixed hot dogs for a dinner and I could not bring myself to consume one. I had finally begun to realize all the real life implications that my decisions held. I gave up red meat, and then quickly realized that there was no color line of muscles that lessens the impact for a species (gave up all forms). I had tried becoming vegan for a period, but I did not do it correctly and ended up constantly sick, so I was a vegetarian.
I continued in this manner for three and a half years, at which point, I allowed fish into my diet. For another three and a half years of my life this was the only, if any, animal I consumed. In the past year I have tested my beliefs and have allowed myself to be open to cultural and regional experiences and opportunities that at times might involve the consumption of meat. What this openness means is that if I am traveling, have an opportunity to try something new, or really want some, that I will not deny myself. Extremism, absolutism is not for me. I like to present myself with choice rather than be constrained by rules that don’t consider context. This is not to say that I will partake in the eating of meat in any regular manner. I understand that food is meant to fuel our bodies and minds with energy, and that energy is inherent in living things. Having an awareness to the quality of life, or lack there of, their altered state of tension and circumstance yielding less nutritional and energy values, the excessive antibiotic and hormone injections, their disrespect in care and their manner of death, I much prefer plants that, while faced with similar issues (over-harvesting, trying to create super versions that are resistant to disease, etc), their existence as non-willful beings and their death as the means to their procreation (dying fruit exposes seed that blow away and may get buried to spawn again) makes more sense to me as a form of sustenance.
For as long as I live I will never be able to look at or enjoy the process of eating meat as I do with other foods. I have conditioned myself to see past the veil the meat industry shrouds us in, and to look at the meat for what it is; the muscle of a once living, breathing thing. It is like the allegory of the cave once you turn around and walk outside to be engulfed by reality, going back in to sit and watch the shadows play can never be as fulfilling as it once was.