They say college changes people. I agree. Still, I would have never guessed that college would completely change my diet preferences. After five years of eating “grass” as my friends loved to joke, I gave up my vegetarian diet and chowed down on my first Hopdoddy’s classic burger–can you say Instagram moment? It’s been a year since the transformation, yet questions about my diet never stopped: they simply changed. Questions range from “why were you a vegetarian?” to “why did you stop being a vegetarian?” So here I am to ease the anxious ponderers and give, not one, but 20 personal reasons for choosing steaks instead of veggies.

1. Having to answer the question: “Where do you get your protein?”

2. Having to answer the question: “So what do you eat, grass?”

3. Sometimes feeling like I ate grass.

4. Having to explain what soy is to people.

5. Never knowing exactly what soy is.

6. Going to cookouts. I’ll have a hamburger, hold the meat?

2.25.11 Buttermilk Fried Chicken-35

Photo by Olivia Wong

7. Going to BBQ restaurants. Is barbequing vegetables a thing?

8. Never having burgers.

9. Pretending to like veggie burgers.

10. Never having chicken.

11. Never having Chick-Fil-A.

12. Having to awkwardly decline meals with meat in them. I’m sure that steak is amazing but…

13. Having an Italian grandmother. Nope, I still cannot have the brisket, Mimi.

bbq pork butt

Photo by Luis Ramirez

14. People believing I’d eat meat if I was drunk enough.

15. Being asked if I was a member of PETA. I still don’t know what the acronym stands for?

16. Being jokingly told that I couldn’t eat animal crackers. Haha. This has gone too far.

17. Having to pick meat out of restaurant meals. I told you to HOLD the bacon.

18. Not eating bacon.

19. Okay I still hate bacon, but not having the option bugged me.

20. Staring at a stranger who’s eating a burger and thinking to myself, “why am I a vegetarian?”

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