can't eat the meat
when I was 12, we were shown at school footage of how pigs and cows are slaughtered (If I remember rightly, it was in a Geography class. which is odd). Cue every girl in the room turning veggie overnight, including me.

A week later, whilst the other girls had lapsed, I'd stopped getting chronic tummy ache, cold sweats and was sleeping better. Turns out I can't eat the meats. I gave up chicken the next week, and my well-being improved hugely. My brother, ever the wit, called me a cow.

I can still eat fish and seafood*, which is just as well as they're my favourite, but I do miss salami. I hate bacon, always have, but salami... I'll sneak a bit when the boyfriend isn't looking, but I pay for it later.

I'm 28 in a couple of weeks, never lapsed in 14 years, and I think for a half-veggie I'm pretty easy going. Except for mushrooms, which are still the sweaty tramp's testicles of satan.

I'll add this: being vegetarian in no way excuses anyone preparing you the following for a christmas meal - grated carrot and cabbage, mixed with chopped nuts and egg, baked, with a mushroom gravy. It was very hard not to retch.

*I had an allergic raction to some antibiotics over new year, and found the trigger for vomiting violently was seafood. For ages just the thought of it could make me retch, and I'm still fighting it now. Very weird.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Fri 2 Mar 2007, 8:42, Reply)