Growing up, I always ate meat. I never knew anything about the way animals are treated or that I was eating them. So I grew up a little (okay a lot) and I discovered a lot of things: a new kind of music and basically a new way of life. Another thing I discovered is that some people don’t eat meat. I wondered why. I thought “are they allergic or something?” I didn't know so I let it be.
A few months later, I got the Goldfinger CD, Open Your Eyes. I listened to it and I liked it. While listening to it, I was reading the booklet. It had all the normal stuff in it but, I found a letter from lead singer/lead guitarist, John Feldmann. In his letter, he talks about being a vegetarian, why you should become one and animal rights. After I read his letter I thought, “Wow! I should do some research on this.” I went to the library and got some books on animal rights, vegetarianism, and the slaughterhouse. After I read the books, I decided that eating animals is wrong. I went back to John's letter again and I saw that there was a video on the CD entitled “Free Me.” I watched it. It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen. I had been thinking about going vegetarian but after watching the video, I immediately declared that I was a vegetarian.
I don’t think anyone really took my vegetarianism seriously. My mom said that I would have to eat meat, (why I don't know) but soon she gave in. She hasn't fixed meat for dinner in about 2 months. My mom’s not a vegetarian, but she's really supportive. She is really my only sense of support. Everyone says “whatever” and I can take that. I'm not expecting anyone to be like “oh you’re my hero” or anything like that.
My least favorite thing to do is going out to eat because we don’t have any vegetarian restaurants in my town. We just have a lot of steak houses and they aren't known for their vegetables. So, needless to say, we don’t go out to eat that much.
On my road to vegetarianism, I've learned a lot and I'm still learning. Vegetarianism for me is a life-time commitment, like marriage, or a promise. So I promise to never eat an animal again.
