Food for thought

For a while I've been toying with the idea of returning to vegetarianism. While a student, I gave up meat for the majority of my second year after having a bad reaction to some food. Living in digs meant I ate out more often, being too ignorant and lazy to cook for myself. A third academic year in Germany made it very difficult to keep this up, as I would again eat out with friends: not a problem, you'd imagine, but it was strangely challenging trying to obtain food without the merest trace of meat in it. Even ordering an "assuredly veggie" salad had me picking out random bits of pork from within it, much to my annoyance.

Recently, I've realised that my lifestyle has been largely unhealthy, despite my exercising and trying to keep my fast food intake down to negligible levels (since seeing Supersize Me). I have been having problems with illness, digestion, disrupted sleep patterns and keeping up my energy levels. I am able to (force myself to?) exercise well, but I tend to feel "flat" most of the time. The problem's solution appears to me to be "half a no-brainer". Why? On the one hand, I think I've the same reaction to meat again, as I had before, which has had a knock-on effect on my general wellbeing. On the other, I actually enjoy eating meat. So, in order to test my feelings about this, I watched Earthlings. I was quite frankly shocked and appalled at what was reported.

I am now convinced that a return to vegetarianism is of twofold benefit to me - not only on an altruistic level, but also on a nutritional one.

SiKee