Making the choice to go vegetarian/vegan comes along with questions to follow. The following are all too familiar and become routine to answer with every veggie burger restaurant order that leads to the beloved conversation.

1. Do you miss meat?

If I really “missed” meat, I would be eating it right now. There are various different reasons that someone will decide to go vegan or vegetarian so the answer to the question is no. We make this lifestyle choice because we no longer want or desire to eat meat for whatever the reason may be (and it isn’t always or solely to “save the animals").

2. You CAN'T eat that.

I can eat whatever I want. If I wanted to eat that slab of meat, I would, but I don’t. It is a choice that nobody is forcing upon me. I physically am able to eat a piece of meat if I had the inclination, which I don’t.

3. Can you just take a break?

This is probably my favorite question of them all, and my response without going on “eat your vegetables” rant is that it doesn’t work like that. Becoming a vegan or vegetarian for most isn’t just a special diet to lose weight or for a temporary label. We don’t criticize the way that you carnivores choose to eat, so if it seems so easy for us to just take a break from this “diet,” then maybe try taking a break from eating meat!

4. Where do you get your protein?

The most commonly asked question to those who don’t eat meat. Just because we don’t eat chicken, steak and other animals, it doesn't mean that we don’t get protein. For vegetarians, eggs, milk and other dairy products contain plenty of protein and for both vegetarians and vegans beans, nuts, grains, soy and plant products, seeds and vegetables supply us with everything we need.

5. How can you not like bacon?

Yes, bacon smells good. Bacon is meat. More specifically, bacon is pig fat. I do not want to eat the insides of a pig so nope, I don’t like bacon!

6. What do you eat?

The other food groups. You know, the ones that weren’t living breathing beings. You would be surprised how many other food products are out there other than meat! And no, we don't just eat pasta and salad all the time (although I'm always down for a good salad).

7. Why?

This broad question has an infinite variety of answers. It can be difficult to answer this question for some in simple terms. I know that I struggle with answering this question without fearing the judgment I’ll receive in my answer. This is my personal response to why I am a vegetarian and why I believe in the ethical treatment of animals.

From childhood, I have always had an appreciation and love for animals, but it wasn’t until recently that I became a vegetarian. In my last year of high school and this age where I am now questioning, researching and realizing more I decided to make this change. Once I really thought about what I was eating, the meat off the bones of animals, I realized that I no longer wanted to do this.

Once I learned of some of the meat industry horrors, I don’t want to risk putting unsafe meat into my body or not knowing where it’s coming from. If there are other ways to survive healthily where you don’t have to take a life or cause pain and suffering on an animal, why wouldn’t you do it? If you don’t have to wear a jacket lined with the skin of a rabbit or lamb, why wear it?

Would people will still be willing to watch a circus where the performers are humans, who are whipped until they perform a certain way or kept in confinement of their own feces? If scientists could research further to do experiments on something other than a breathing, emotion, and pain-feeling animal, why wouldn’t you try? There is always another way, you just have to try a little harder and that’s what the American dream is. Businessmen, women, and entrepreneurs — whatever their dream is — must be worked at. We all talk about working together to make a change whether it’s foreign relations, the environment, world peace etc. Working by doing is what will make any change, so this is the good change that I work at.