I'mm a big The Smiths fan so was
reading into Morrissey and his beliefs/views/opinions and found myself on his fan
page. There was a tab where people had asked him about his vegetarianism and
why he chose to become a vegetarian and he had replied to some of their posts. So
I got reading and he referenced a video called ‘The Video the Meat Industry Doesn’t
Want You to See’ on YouTube, and I went to look it up. I would embed it into
this post but the content is really explicit and not for you if you are
offended easily. Luckily I’m not too fazed by things like this normally, but I literally
couldn’t watch beyond 1 minute into this video. The mistreatment of animals shown in the video was absolutely disgusting. Admittedly the video is a couple of years old (I’m not
sure when it was posted) but the point still stands.
I was literally appalled by
some of the things I saw, but wasn’t initially convinced to give up eating meat.
This is a link to the video but be warned that there are very explicit pictures and it's not for the faint hearted.
So if you watched that you know it’s not nice at all.
Aside from my initial reasons for becoming vegetarian, there
are other reasons. Diets which don’t involve meat aren’t unhealthy for you
despite popular beliefs. In fact there are some positive health benefits to
cutting down the meat! It can reduce your chance of heart disease which is definitely
a positive for your health. It’s all biological and stuff, but it’s to do with
the type of fats in meat. The LDLs (low density lipoproteins) can cause fatty
deposits and may even lead to CHD (Coronary Heart Disease). In women, it can
reduce the chances of contracting breast or ovarian cancer, as it cuts out some
of the hormones which cause cancerous growths. It also saves you from eating a
higher amount of calories (especially in red meat) and helps you stay skinny in
your skinny jeans!
On another The Smiths note, the title song from their
album ‘Meat is Murder’ discusses the
moral reasons for being vegetarian. I’ve played it so much in my house; my mum
has dubbed it ‘Hala’s vegetarian propaganda song’ which I resent but unfortunately
she’s got a point.
Hear the song here:
In addition to my moral and health reasons for being a
vegetarian, I think we can all admit that both raw red and white meat feels a
bit gross.
Initially, my mum was a little concerned when I told her I wanted
to become vegetarian as she was unsure as to how to supplement for excluding
meat from my diet, but after doing some research and being vegetarian for
months, I can positively say that there are loads of tasty alternatives to not
eating meat! There have been loads of new products launched onto the vegetarian
food market in the past 10 to 15 years for example; quinoa (it’s a bit like
grainy rice and lentils), nuts, beans, yogurt, cheese, tofu, legumes, almonds
and other nuts, veggie burgers, and if you really want to eat meat, there’s
quorn meat available which is actually delicious despite what people may think.
I don’t really mind people asking me about my vegetarianism
as I am totally willing to talk about it, but the only thing that winds me up
is when people try to dig at me or say that they don’t believe in what my
choice is. For example a girl at college said that to me and I just got annoyed
and wasn’t willing to talk to her (she was being extremely rude as well I may
point out). When people try to tell me I should start to eat meat again I think it's pretty rude, it’s not like I’m going
round forcing my beliefs on you, I’m not asking you why you eat slaughtered
animals!
I’m pretty sure they should be thankful that I’m not as a
passionate vegetarian as Morrissey because if he finds out you aren’t vegetarian
in conversation, he just walks away. Maybe I should go all Morrissey on these
people…
