“Why did you become a vegetarian?” The most annoying question you can ask me.


If there is a surefire way to annoy a vegetarian, it's to ask them, "Why did you become a vegetarian?" I am no exception. I become annoyed when asked but for a different reason - I don't have a "why." I do have a "how," but my “how” is as unromantic as it is unfathomable. So here goes nothing.

In December 2012, I was at a huge family dinner party celebrating my father's birthday. Everyone but my uncle was served the same meal. As my uncle was being served his meal, my father mysteriously remarked, "Look, Kostya, I remembered." This piqued my curiosity. "Why is your meal different? Remembered what?" I enquired, eyebrows aloft. "I have stopped eating meat," my uncle replied. This piqued my curiosity even more, so I spent the rest of the evening talking to him about this.

I wish I could tell you that he told me a story of unimaginable inspiration, so I emerged a new person. I don’t remember what he told me. I remained the same person. I just stopped eating red meat the following day - that much I remember.

Six months later, I stopped eating chicken. I remember the last time I ate it. I was sick, could barely eat anything and decided to cure myself with chicken broth. For some unfathomable reason eating chicken just felt wrong, so I haven't eaten chicken since.

Fast forward six more months. I stopped eating fish. I remember the last time I ate it too. It was my regular deliciously fried tilapia. But it just got stuck in my throat and wouldn't go down.

And then I stopped eating eggs. And then I started checking the packaging for ingredients like rennet (a common ingredient in cheese, made of stomachs of baby cows).

All of this happened for no earthly reason. See why I get annoyed when I'm asked why I became a vegetarian? I feel like I'm expected to tell an inspiring story about an apparition of a cute little piglet descending from a rainbow, poking its soft snout into my ear and whispering: “Eat beets, not meats.” Or about an old wrinkled shaman with shrewd, piercing eyes, who shook his fist in the air and roared, “You, Irina, you! Partake of the flesh of the beasts no more! For, they too, are living beings and must remain so. We are one kingdom under god. Do not partake in the murder that is meat-eating.” Alas, nothing of the sort happened.

So this is my uninspiring story. An awkward account of facts. I honestly don't know why I became a vegetarian. It just happened, naturally and gradually, and it feels right. Truth can be boring.

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The cover image is a postcard I found in Hiltl, a vegetarian restaurant in Zurich, which is by far the best vegetarian restaurant I’ve ever been to - and I’ve been to many, all over the world! If you are ever in Zurich, do drop by. The line in German "Letztlich steckt in jedem ein Vegetarier" means "Ultimately, there is a vegetarian in everyone."

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