What if Someone Asks Me Why I'm a Vegetarian All the Sudden?

So I was thinking, what do I say when someone asks me why I'm suddenly a vegetarian? Nobody has asked me that yet. Well, except for Pete. She said, "Why don't you eat [meat] anymore?" and I said, "Because it's gross," and she said, "Oh." But someone who has already been 7 years old might need more of an answer than that so I've been thinking.

It started as kind of a personal challenge. And it really was all-of-the-sudden in that I didn't say to myself awhile ago, "I'm going to stop eating animals in early March." But I had thought about it here and there. Mostly I thought, "What will I eat if I don't eat meat?" or "My family won't give up meat so how can I?" But then I talked to Meme who said that I don't have to eat meat just because Husbandguy does and a couple weeks later I stopped. And my reason was simply to see if I could do it. That's how I quit smoking too, but that was harder.

The more I think about it, though, the more reasons I find for why this is a very good thing. First of all, I feel better. We talked about this a couple of days ago. Remember? It's nice to feel clear-headed most of the time instead of muddle-headed all of the time. Also, I can have carrots and peanut butter for a snack (I could before, but now I justify the peanut butter as needed protein and feel better about it). Another reason is that I was always worried about undercooked meats and stuff. HG will testify that it was especially tricky to cook chicken for me; if it was even slightly almost pink looking, it grossed me out and I couldn't eat it because I didn't want to be poisoned. Hamburgers were the same way. I did like my steaks cooked medium, but if they bled when I cut them, I couldn't eat them. Also, when you're eating that stuff, sometimes you take a bite and get a chunk of something, gristle, bone, goo, whatever, and there's no way to know for sure what it is and that always grossed me out too and made me have to stop eating whatever it was. And now I don't have to worry about that, really. Vegetables don't have bones. Some have goo, but I just don't eat those vegetables.

Randomly, I have learned a few of things that probably won't interest you, but here they are anyway.

• You can't really replace the meat in sloppy joes with lentils unless everyone is on board with that because it's hard to pretend like they're not lentils. It's good if you like that kind of thing, but not if you're HG ("It would be good as a side dish," he said). Plus, it's kind of wet and might make the bun soggy, but it's tasty if you mix in some rice.
• I don't like eggplant. Not yet. I'll keep trying.
• HG and I thought a good name for tofu bacon would be tofakon, but I don't know anything about tofu or whether you can make it look like bacon so I'm not inventing that today.
• I hadn't planned on giving up fish, but I really don't like fish and so have given it up along with all the other animals. But not eggs and milk because I'd really miss ice cream.

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Oh, by the way, I am disappointed in the lack of response to my poetry challenge from the other day. Mommy T is my only taker so far (Yay Mommy T!). You don't have to commit to a daily poem, but come on! You can try to write a little, can't you?