To be or not to be (a vegetarian), that is the question...

I had already read about the outrage over the transport of live cattle from Australia to Indonesia, but it wasn't until I heard a sound fragment (I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle the actual imaging), that it suddenly hit me: I want to be a vegetarian. The sounds of the struggling cow in such intense agony made me sick to my stomach and broke my heart - I cried like a little child for 30 minutes with Jochem on the phone and spent the rest of the day like a zombie at work and the evening in bed trying to blur the experience from my head by watching both Sex and the City movies in a row.

I come from a family with a Dutch father and a Spanish mother, so as a child I ate a lot of meat and fish and thought that it was the most normal thing in the world. As a teenager I heard about people who were vegetarians, but I knew that I liked it too much to stop. Only during my college years did vegetarianism started to seem like a real option for me. I started eating less and less meat and fish and I even tried being a vegetarian full-time for 2 months during the summer of 2009, including a 2-week holiday in Spain, which was NOT easy (the Spanish 'don't do' vegetarianism, it seems).

Over the last couple of years, I stopped eating meat and fish during the week and reserved it for the weekends or special occasions. I only bought organic and free-range products. When trying to imagine giving it up completely, though, it seemed like such a difficult choice, especially since Jochem has no intention to go there with me. I'd often wish that I had the strength to become a vegetarian and would read about these people who read something or saw something or heard something and decided right then and there never to eat animals again. I guess that hearing that sound fragment was my moment and I quit eating animals cold turkey (no pun intended).

Now, however (only 6 days in!), I'm having such a hard time imagining the realities of that choice. I know that there are lots of people who eat vegetarian most of the time but who sometimes eat meat and fish and make sure that it's the organic and free-range kind when they do. These people are called 'flextarians,' which really doesn't sound as cool as being a vegetarian. I'm probably being silly, but when I say that I am a vegetarian I feel so proud to be standing for something that I believe in (i.e. eating animals = murder) and I have such a bleak black and white view of the world that not going all the way in this seems like the lowest form of cowardice and weakness, especially considering the fact that I completely fell apart on Tuesday. It's all or nothing for me, it seems.

For me the most difficult part of becoming a vegetarian would be to combine it with my travels. I love food and I love trying new things - can you imagine going to Argentine and NOT having steak? I have a hard time picturing it... It feels so limiting and I hate that feeling. But then I remember that one of my favorite travel icons, Dutch traveler Floortje Dessing, traveled the world as a vegetarian and I feel silly again.

My friend Bianca said that I shouldn't deny myself certain kinds of food and that I should just try to be even more conscious of what I eat (she actually saw the footage and threw up afterwards, but is clearly not as affected by it as I am). Jochem suggested that I stop trying to figure everything out now and instead just take every day as it comes. For example, I could decide to only cook vegetarian food myself and not have any meat or fish in the house (cat food excluded) and try to eat vegetarian as often as possible. But when we have another dinner date I will not ask my friends to cook vegetarian for me and when in Argentina/Turkey/Scotland I will allow myself one plate of organic, free-range steak/köfte/haggis. Although this idea appeals to me, it also makes me feel like a fake.

What do YOU think?