Vegetarian

Joe: Hey, Peter came to me today to let me know that he’s decided to become a
Vegetarian.
Kristin: Oh, really, that’s great.
Joe: Yeah, he told me he’s finally seen the light.
Kristin: Well, what helped him arrive at that decision?
Joe: Well, I mean his girlfriend’s been a vegetarian for about a year now and I’m
Sure she probably played a major role.
Kristin: Yeah, that makes sense.
Joe: He told me that he wanted to speak with me about it because I was an authority
On the subject.
Kristin: Well, you pretty much are. You’ve been one for many years now.
Joe: Yeah, but, as a rule I usually don’t bring up the topic of vegetarianism with
People. I mean…
Kristin: Yeah, I, I don’t like to either, actually.
Joe: Yeah, the way I figure it, if the person’s already a vegetarian, then it’s pretty
Much preachin’ to the choir.
Kristin: Um-hm.
Joe: They probably already know a lot of the facts that I would tell them, and,
Y’know, we probably share some of the same reasons for, as to why we actually
Became a vegetarian anyway.
Kristin: Right, right.
Joe: And if it’s a person who’s not a vegetarian and they’re not interested, it pretty
Much just goes in one ear and out the other. I mean if they’re not interested in
Hearing about it, they’re not gonna retain anything I’m telling ’em.
Kristin: Right, and for me, I just don’t like to feel like I’m preaching to someone either, y’know?
Joe: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point actually. But, uh, yeah he was startin’ to,
Y’know, um, ask me a whole bunch of questions about vegetarianism.
Kristin: Like what?
Joe: Well, he wanted to know how I actually, uh, became a vegetarian.
Kristin: Well, what’d you tell

him?
Joe: Well, I actually began to think back to when I was in college, uh. I first started
To learn about vegetarian by word of mouth. I had some friends who were
Vegetarians and, y’know, they would always tell me why they became a vegetarian.
And they’d also try and convince me to stop eating meat which, at that time, I just,
Y’know, wasn’t interested in at all.
Kristin: Mm-hm.
Joe: But, y’know, as I got older I became more curious. And, uh, I started to actually
Read some literature on my own. And it was probably at that point that I began to
Weigh the pros and cons of meat eating. I mean, there’s a lot of good reasons to
Go vegetarian. I mean…
Kristin: Yeah, yeah, there are.
Joe: Y’know, there are environmental reasons, um. There are also health reasons
Obviously. I mean it reduces the risk of heart problems and high blood pressure.
And…
Kristin: Right.
Joe: …y’know, as you know, high blood pressure runs in my family. So I, I’ve
Always needed to be careful about that.
Kristin: Right.
Joe: Um, another thing for me that really struck a chord was that I just didn’t think it
Was a practical approach to solving the issue of world hunger. I mean the land that’s
Being used to raise these animals could be put to so much better use if it was, uh, y’know, growing crops, uh, like, y’know, rice or wheat or soybeans or just some other
Vegetables.
Kristin: Now that’s a particular aspect of, of the, um, whole idea of going vegetarian
That I’d never even thought of before.
Joe: Yeah, y’know, that one is important to me. But, I, I think just as important to me
Was the fact that I felt that it was really inhumane to the animals. I had read, uh,
Some…
Kristin: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: …literature that talked about how these animals are treated and all the, uh,