However, like for most children in America, going to McDonald’s was a treat. I recall jumping for joy when my parents announced we’d be going there for Happy Meals.

Dinners at home consisted of Betty Crocker meat loaf, pork chops, chorizo, and miscellaneous Mexican dishes. My mother cooked with lard and used ground beef as much as possible. I was raised on meat. My mother would boil chicken gizzards (part of a chicken’s stomach) and we’d eat them together. One day, my father told me what they were and I cried. I was oblivious to what I was eating and I ate what was put in front me. I didn’t know what a vegetarian was and didn’t know it was an option.

As a teenager, I became increasingly sensitive to what I was eating. At the time, vegetarianism was something only hippies in the forest did and no one was talking about it. Frozen garden burgers and vanilla flavored soy milk didn’t exist. Soy milk was hard to find and even then, it was room temperature and tasted like, well, soy beans.

One day, home from school for one reason or another, I decided to cook up a steak for lunch. I ate it and it was good. Several hours later, I was stricken with the worst stomach discomfort and (rather embarrassing) diarrhea. At that moment, I held my fist up to the sky and proclaimed I’d never eat meat again! I was fifteen and because I was ignorant about vegetarianism, I didn’t realize this also included chicken and fish. Several years later, I gave up chicken, but there wasn’t a thunderous epiphany as there had been with beef. I continued to eat fish because I was convinced my brain needed it. I would eat fish but my sense of guilt was heightening. In my very early 20’s, I finally decided that if I was going to be vegetarian, I should go all the way. This meant no food with a face.

An ex-boyfriend used to tell me horror stories about the animal slaughter industry which only solidified my resolve. He was in college, which obviously meant he knew more about it than I did. I never questioned my decision, but as I got older, the more I learned about how animals are killed and processed, I knew that I could never go back. Slowly but surely, this also meant giving up animal by-products and leather (except in special circumstances).

At one point, I attempted going completely vegan. I discovered that just about everything we consume is an animal by-product in one form or another. Being vegan meant I couldn’t use film, which is made with gelatin. I’m a photographer – I couldn’t just give up film. I would have also had to give up sweets and muffins and omelets. This consciousness gave way to discoveries that most companies help destroy the planet. I was crushed. I realized that everything we buy and the companies we support, are all evil and they all suck. The further I delved into animal activism and consumer responsibility, the worse I felt. Even my cosmetics were tested on animals. If I didn’t eat animals, why would I support a company that tested on them? I finally came to the conclusion that I didn’t have the strength to go completely vegan. While it still causes me some amount of guilt, I have to let it go.

Being vegetarian has not come without consequence. It’s been a constant battle. For years, my family debated my choice and protested that animals were made to be eaten. My brother still jokes that broccoli feels pain when you pull it from the earth. Fifteen years later, my dad still tells me there’s corned beef in the fridge if I’m hungry. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve stood firm to my beliefs.

In the fifteen years that I’ve been vegetarian, things have gotten substantially easier. I can now buy many animal-free alternatives at lots of places. Companies like Garden Burger and Whole Foods Market make a variety of frozen meals and most restaurants now offer vegetarian options. There’s even a vegan drive-thru just a few miles from my apartment. There’s never been a better time to go meat-free.

As I’ve gotten older, however, I no longer lecture my friends and relatives about not eating meat. I understand that being a vegetarian is a very personal matter. If someone asks, I’ll tell about de-beaking machines, grinders, and assembly line slaughter houses that don’t always kill on the first try. I’ll tell them how cows are given feed made out of other cows, which is how Mad Cow Disease started. I’ll tell them about over crowded pens and how animals are forced to stand in their own feces unable to move. I’ll talk about painful milking machines and how animals are pumped full of drugs and sprayed with pesticides to keep them free of disease. I’m usually stopped before I can get to how penned animals are so stressed out, they actually go insane. Or how pigs, chickens, and cattle, are often dismembered and mutilated while still awake, without pain medication.

The meat industry is a modern day horror story and most people can’t stomach the awful truth. They’ll buy an aesthetically pleasing pound of beef and not realize how that cow suffered to get there. Most people believe that because we have opposable thumbs and intelligent speech, the Earth owes us. Most don’t quite grasp that we share this grand old globe with billions of other species. They close their eyes to inhumane food processing. The average consumer doesn’t look past the cellophane and often doesn’t care to.

I’m not sure if the choices I make at every meal does an ounce of good and I don’t expect to change the world. If not eating meat saves an animal or two, I’ve done well. In the end, I do it because it’s right for me.