Category: vegetarianism

‘Confessions’ of a vegetarian

On By PriyaIn vegetarianismLeave a comment
For the past two years or so, everyone of my friends and family members know that I was a vegetarian. Yes, you’ve read correctly. I used the past tense. I was a vegetarian. I do owe an explanation as to why I reverted to non-vegetarian diet because many of my closest friends still don’t know.
I converted to vegetarian diet mainly because of health reasons. And for the same health reasons I’ve converted back to non-vegetarian. My being vegetarian did help me a lot. It helped me to control my cravings for chicken and fish. I used to only eat chicken and fish to a small extent, and that too only those that were home-cooked. I don’t like mutton, neither am I a fan of other meat varieties. Therefore, it wasn’t really a big leap for me to convert to veg. The journey was alright, although I did have some difficulties finding for food. I was still eating egg, and that saved me a little. 
Still, I had some surprised non-veg friends and family members. They got used to me eating only veg. It helped me spiritually to a certain extent as well, as I am a spiritual person as well. 
After a while, starting this year, I had started to experience iron deficiency. Moreover, my periods were becoming very irregular. I had no other reason to fall back on, except for the iron deficiency. Therefore, I had to revert to non-veg. It was not an abrupt reversion. It was slow, starting with fish, and then chicken made at home.
I feel good right now, because the difficulty of finding veg food for me is gone. My family and friends are happy. I am also not craving for chicken or fish whenever I go out. I wasn’t fussy when I was a veg. Neither am I now. I go out without worrying whether I will get veg food. I am alright with either kind. And that is what I want to be like. Dependent on nothing.

Drosophila!!

On By PriyaIn life sciences, vegetarianismLeave a comment

The drosophila genetics lab was really informative and exciting, highlighting on a lot of information on clinical research methodology. I have put here some pictures of the drosophila flies. The one with a lot of flies is the one with the wildtype genome. The other is a mutant, which has curly vestigal wings. I got to see mutant flies with wrinkled wings, dumpy wings and so on. The male and female flies were also clearly spotted. The male is usually small and has only three black stripes at the tips. Whereas the female is larger and has more than three black stripes. Pretty interesting characteristics! And the flies are not dead here, they were only paralyzed. I hope the process was reversible! Gosh, so poor things… They look so cute under the microscope. But the hairy body looks so gross!

My attempt at becoming a vegetarian is turning out to be successful! So far, its only been less than a week, but I’m already feeling its not so difficult afterall. I now feel really happy at being a vegetarian and showing my love towards animals, I don’t feel guilty anymore. I guess it only works when you really feel for it. I love animals but I’m not showing this in action, in my everyday life. I’m being a contradiction onto myself if I am a non-vegetarian.
But at the same time, I should ensure that I don’t feel a complex and look down on people eating meat. This is bad, and I feel most of the vegetarians are like this. There will be a time in some people’s lives when they realise and become aware of the cruelty they indirectly inflict on animals, just for the sake of those few seconds of taste.