When I had just turned ten years old, I announced to my parents that I wanted to turn vegetarian. I don't remember specifically what triggered my desire to abolish meat but the overall decision was out of compassion. I had always been an animal lover, in fact back then I wanted to be a vet like my paternal uncle. My maternal auntie's vegetarianism had always fascinated me - she'd not eaten meat since she was a teenager, making her well ahead of her time. But even in the early 2000s when I made the change, vegetarianism was not (at least, amongst those who I knew) a commonly understood concept. I remember consistently having to justify my decision to befuddled people: "I just think I can live a healthy diet without having to kill animals." Eating this way was different (and on the whole more difficult) back then - over the past fifteen years I have seen supermarket options multiply considerably, foods are labelled much less ambiguously, and to be vegetarian (aside from eating in very high-end restaurants or certain country pubs) is so incredibly easy now. Had I opted to go vegan at ten years old I think my parents would have been in despair due to the lack of mainstream available knowledge and produce, but these days it's so much easier to do. It's something I've always come back to thinking about, but equally never thought I'd do. So I suppose the real question is what changed my mind, and why is going vegan so important to me after all this time?
