1) It tastes good
2) It makes you feel good
3) It's a great American tradition
4) It supports the nation's farmers
5) Your parents did it
Oh, sorry...those are five reasons to smoke cigarettes. Meat is more complicated. It's a food most Americans eat virtually every day: at the dinner table; in the cafeteria; on the barbecue patio; with mustard at a ballpark; or, a billion times a year, with special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame-seed bun. Beef is, the TV commercials say, "America's food"--the Stars and Stripes served up medium rare--and as entwined with the nation's notion of its robust frontier heritage as, well, the Marlboro Man.
There are as many reasons to try vegetarianism as there are soft-eyed cows and soft-hearted kids. To impressionable young minds, vegetarianism can sound sensible, ethical and--as nearly 25% of adolescents polled by Teenage Research Unlimited said--"cool." College students think so too. A study conducted by Arizona State University psychology professors Richard Stein and Carol Nemeroff reported that, sight unseen, salad eaters were rated more moral, virtuous and considerate than steak eaters.
To true believers--who refrain from meat as an A.A. member does from drink and do a spit-take if told that there's gelatin in their soup--a semivegetarian is no vegetarian at all. A phrase like pesco-pollo-vegetarian, to them, is an oxymoron, like "lapsed Catholic" or "semivirgin." Vegetarian Times, the bible of this particular congregation, lays down the dogma: "For many people who are working to become vegetarians, chicken and fish may be transitional foods, but they are not vegetarian foods ... the word 'vegetarian' means someone who eats no meat, fish or chicken."
Clear enough? Not to many Americans. In a survey of 11,000 individuals, 37% of those who responded "Yes, I am a vegetarian" also reported that in the previous 24 hours they had eaten red meat; 60% had eaten meat, poultry or seafood. Perhaps those surveyed thought a vegetarian is someone who, from time to time, eats vegetables as a side dish--say, alongside a prime rib.
Maggie Ellinger-Locke, 19, of the St. Louis, Mo., suburb of University City, has been a vegetarian for eight years and went vegan at 15. Since then she has not worn leather or wool products or slept under a down comforter. She has not used cups or utensils that have touched meat. "It felt like we were keeping kosher," says Maggie's mother Linda, who isn't Jewish. At high school Maggie was ridiculed, even shoved to the ground, by teen boys who apparently found her eating habits threatening. She found a happy ending, of sorts, enrolling at Antioch College, where she majors in ecofeminism. "Here," she says, "the people on the defensive are the ones who eat meat."
More of this article from here.
2 comments:
aaaaiii? i shop like that too =)
me = no vegetarian. i love veg, but am a creature of convenience XD so i just head to the nearest mamak and eat whatever i get to buy *which will explain why i'm getting fat XD*
lol.
you are not getting fat wo.
you are the first senior i met, and the last (if dont count Amy and LiXuan) for this semester.
so from the beginning to now, what i have seen is, you are not getting fat~~
:D :D
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