Eating Healthy

Emily Clements, Age 13, Australia

As soon as we had access to the Internet, I was on it like a flash. Millions of sites from around the world on every different subject you could imagine-it was expensive, but I was on it every day! My main interests were kids' sites, chatlines, competitions, and, of course, animal websites.

I have always loved animals from the moment I was born! My two sisters and I grew up with pets, and we continue to love them as a family. As a young child, I loved most of all to go to zoos and animal parks, even though now I realize that they can be cruel to the animals. I still want to be a vet when I "grow up." The thing that strikes me about ALL creatures is that they're so beautiful and intelligent--especially companion animals such as dogs, cats and horses. So naturally, because of my love of animals, I looked up animal websites, perhaps in the hope of finding some pictures and interesting facts. Oh, I found them all right, but they weren't at all what I expected.

I almost regret that I found animal cruelty websites now because they continue to haunt me for a long time after I read them. However, there is the aspect that they help me to take action. The first and most horrible one I have read was a page on "factory farming." It was unlike anything I had ever heard of before.

Up till then, I had been naive in thinking that farms were picturesque landscapes where animals roamed in paddocks and grazed in sunny meadows. Of course, reality is never so good. I wonder how many people realize that the pork chops they ate last night came from a pig that had lived its short life in a cramped, dark pen, cruelly dosed with steroids, hormones and antibiotics? The things that people will do to save money in the farming business are shocking. What sort of world do we live in? Then the merciless slaughter ... it was all too much. I was sure I could not eat another piece of meat without feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt.

In the next few weeks, I hoped the feeling would go away, but it didn't. I continued to see evidence of animal abuse. At least twice a month we would pass a sheep truck on the road: it would be cramped full of terrified animals, some with their limbs hanging out the side of the truck. I learned they were headed for a long tough sea journey to the Middle East for slaughter; apparently as many as 5% would die on the way. I hoped others, especially my parents, would have the same views as me. They didn't.

When I told my parents I wanted to stop eating meat I was surprised at their laid-back reaction. After about a week of me leaving my meat on the side of the plate, the conflict began. They couldn't seem to understand that I actually meant what I said: I was now a vegetarian. You can't blame them really, with the scarce amounts of vegetarians around when they were my age, they found it hard to believe it was different now. Mum and I would argue and argue. Were humans meant to eat meat? Were animals meant to be eaten? Was there such a thing as a healthy vegetarian? Was this some sort of weight-loss diet I was attempting? Of course, I was very angry, furious even. Dad told me to write out a list of things that I would need to eat instead, which I had already done. Like any parents, Mum and Dad were worried about my health. I didn't appreciate it!

One day I came home to find the fridge well stocked with a million soy products and every sort of tofu you could possibly imagine! Finally my parents were accepting that I would eat differently from them, and maybe they would even try some of my new foods!

It's still hard for my parents to come to terms with vegetarianism, especially when so many of their friends have very twisted views about this subject. I'm lucky--in my generation, vegetarians are mostly accepted and different foods are widely available. So far, I have found my diet interesting, healthy, AND cruelty free, and I'm determined to make it last!