A moment that changed me: I abandoned meat at 16 – and I learned to say no | Life and style

I became Pescatarian at the age of 16. At the time, I knew no other vegetarian or pescatarian in my family or peer group, but it seemed to be an obvious choice for me.

It was the 80s and ESB – whose spread would soon lead to a national crisis – had recently appeared in the United Kingdom. Emerging evidence and research has indicated that meat consumption could be harmful to a person’s health. This, added to the horrible odor that traveled the neighboring tannery in Yarm and a slaughterhouse just at the top of the road to Stockton-On-Es, was enough to convince me that to avoid meat was the right call.

It seems difficult to imagine now, but my decision was considered extremely strange by my loved ones, a certain sign of daring insurrection. Non-compliance was not something that was particularly appreciated in a lower middle class family in northeast England at the time. People would generally have preferred it if I did what I was told. Following my unfathomable food preferences, meals collected a quality of the Marmot day, dotted with endless and slightly hostile questions about what I would not eat or eat.

“Will you eat a little turkey at Christmas, surely?” The family would say.

“No, I won’t do it,” said.

“But Turkey East Christmas.”

“Turkey is poultry.”

“It looks like a fashion. Put meat on its plate.”

And so it went. But even when I was served meat, I ate around him. I stayed on my arms.

For me, make a decision on what I wanted to put in my body seemed perfectly reasonable and simple; After all, it was My body. I have often been asked if the renunciation of oneself was an effort to stay thin or to draw attention to me. Food preferences are a privilege of the fed property, so some felt that I was moralizing – it seemed that my personal choices aggravated others. I remember that friends have discussed if my supposed limitations in the kitchen would reduce my social attractiveness (“a man needs a woman who can cook meat”). Many thought that I had to be this dreaded thing among women: politically aware. And they were right – I was.

My pescatarism has led to greater activism when I informed myself of the greater health and environmental problems. I was quickly found Protestant against the external boots, waving a sign that insisted on “beauty without cruelty”. I read Linda McCartney’s interview in 1984 in Vegetarian Society magazine and I started listening to the Beatles just because George Harrison and Paul McCartney were vegetarians. I was not trying to threaten the moral identity of anyone. I just didn’t like the idea of ​​eating flesh.

I politely refused meat at least twice a day for years. Once my parents agreed that I was serious, I still had to convince the mothers of boyfriends, wait for the staff in restaurants, almost all those I met in Italy (where I spent a year at the beginning of the twenty) and absolutely all those I met in Botswana (where I spent two years in the middle of the twenties). When I went to university in 1987, vegetarians were made to sit at another table (“for ease”); Obviously, we were considered quirks. When I suffered a slipped disc, a doctor went so far as to suggest that the cause was the lack of meat in my diet.

With hindsight, I see how I was shaped by these challenges. I had grown up as a pleasure, excessively obedient, seeking the approval of others as a measure of my own self -esteem. I pretended to be the interest in the hobbies of others, I have committed my time too much and I took the blame for things that were not my responsibility in a constant quest to maintain peace and make everyone feel cheerful. Develop a preference for the way I wanted to live my life and protect my body taught me to establish limits. Often, he simply exchanged a lamb chop for a slice of halloumi, but it was an excellent practice for big things. Whenever breakfast, lunch and dinner were served, I improved to say no – something that women, especially, are not necessarily very good.

Learn to articulate what made me feel comfortable, valued and happy gave me confidence that lasted well in my adult life. Over the years, I had the courage to ask for promotions and salary increases; I asked people to leave and stay; I apologized and asked for apology; I found seats in many tables. Express expressing and talking about what you think takes the practice.

Being a pescatarian is now considered to be unusual. Even so, I am grateful for the baptism of fire that I endured as “bizarre”. These days, I celebrate any level of eccentricity or even obstruction – he keeps people interested and interesting.