Is Vegetarianism Trendy?

One of the girls was not eating them and was asked “Are you a vegetarian?” My ears perked up a little bit as soon as I overheard vegetarian. We live in Tulsa Oklahoma, which is a very advanced city for Oklahoma - nonetheless it is still in Oklahoma, the home of Sooner Football and Steak Fiends. It is always interesting for me to find other Veg Heads around my block.

So as I was waiting to hear her response I was starting to get Warm Fuzzies, expecting her to share the good news with her two friends and to tell them they were crazy to be eating the glazed shredded flesh of the once beaked, clawed and feathered animal. Her response was a little disappointing to me.

She said “I don’t eat meat - but I don’t call myself a vegetarian. Its just so trendy.”

Seriously? She has made, or is on the brink of making one of the absolute best life decisions one can make and she was feeling shame and embarrassment because she did not want to appear TRENDY. What the hell is that about? Like vegetarianism is a slap on bracelet or something that is going to go away and everyone who jumped on the bandwagon is going to look back at their “Vegetarian Phase” like a bad haircut from the 80’s?

I was just dissappointed that she did not want claim it because I knew it was an indemnification of the current social climate of Oklahoma: Vegetarians are weird. She purposely avoided the identification of veg because there are some many beef headed billies in Oklahoma that she has been trained since the time she first understood the word vegetarian that it was for weirdos, hippies and queers.

Well - my response to her is this: (which I contemplated offering at the restaurant, but I did not want to foster her opinion of Vegetarians as ‘weirdos’) I have been a vegetarian my entire life, vegetarianism is not a trendy thing that people do because they want to be cool, it is a lifestyle of compassion and vitality and we are not the ones who are crazy and weird - eating the rotting dead flesh of a slaughtered animal is weird.

Sure there may exist a current trend toward vegetarianism, but it is merely a trend in human advancement. Just like we trended toward running water, womans rights, and spoken language. Just as Mac is not a trend it is a lifestyle and so is Vegetarianism. Get on board and REP YO SET!