Jess C., Colorado State University
At 10 years old, I remember looking down at my lunch tray at Reed Elementary School and rethinking the food I was about to consume. I saw the hot dog before me and for the first time in a while, I really considered what this product consisted of. Factory-farmed, cruelly tortured, sustained inhumanely, and then brutally slaughtered animals, I realized, went into a lot of what I put into my body. This hit me, and it hit me hard. And so I vowed to go vegetarian, casting all animal flesh out of my proverbial “lunch tray.” This lasted on and off for around a month. I gave up, a defeated 4th grader.
It wasn’t until two years later that I actually did my research, watched several documentaries, read up on factory farming, and made the informed and firm life choice to completely switch to vegetarianism. I told my mom that I, Jess, at age 12, was trying again. And it stuck! I have yet to eat meat or wear animal by-products since taking that vow. I’m very proud of myself, for now, at almost age 20, I can still call myself a proud vegetarian.
I am, so far, the only vegetarian voice on the College Critic, and I have something to quite proudly declare: MY place of higher education, Colorado State University, has just been voted #7 in Peta2’s Top Ten Most Vegan-Friendly Colleges of 2010! I’m thrilled. You can see the blurb about CSU and why we’re a rockin’ vegan place to be here. Continue reading
