The other day I found myself with free time and decided to start reading through some of my issues of Time that I have been neglecting. An issue with a rather inquisitive looking pug caught my eye. The headline was “What Animals Think – New science reveals they’re smarter than we realized.” I decided to bite (but not into any animals). The article had some very interesting statistics and facts. First off, roughly half of vegetarians list moral concerns as the main reason for giving up meat. Personally, at first I didn’t really have one reason that overpowered another, but now, I really think what keeps me from slipping up, other than a profound lack of craving for meat, is the idea that an animal had to suffer for those meaty morsels.

Even animal welfare policies begin with the premise that animals are sentient beings that are capable of feeling and perception and must be treated accordingly. More interesting, only 3 percent of the U.S. population is comprised of vegetarians. This number seems shockingly small to me. I seem to discover, at least at the rate of one a week, that acquaintances are also vegetarian.

Even more interesting is the fact that there are three times as many ex-vegetarians as practicing ones. I can almost understand this third point. While I am a month and a half strong in my quest, I have to say that I am not doing living as a vegetarian because it is easy. At the same time though, I really expected it to be harder. I wanted to have trials and tribulations to lament over, but so far no such luck.

So many of my friends can say that they were a vegetarian for a month . a year . two years. I cannot imagine at this point, so soon after beginning this, just throwing it away and eating a Big Mac. Stand strong, you estimated 450 vegetarian ETSU students!

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