Please to Meat You

A week ago, I strolled into the Cabot House servery, surveyed my culinary options, and loaded my tray with the kind of scrumptious feast only HUDS can provide: bulgar wheat pilaf, whole wheat spaghetti drenched in creamy parmesan pesto, roasted summer squash, and a small piece of chicken française.

One of these things is not like the others. In fact, for over two years before that fateful day, one of these things never would have found its way onto my plate at all.

That’s because, on December 31, 2010, I resolved to fight against my carnivorous nature and become a vegetarian. It struck many of my friends—and all of my family—as odd that I, an avid eater, a girl who lives from meal to meal, had given up the most delicious and nutritious food known to man. Perhaps that was what inspired everyone with whom I shared the news to ask some variation of a short but not so simple question: “Why?”

Why, indeed? Of course, I felt compelled to provide a clever, or at least thoughtful, answer. I needed the world to understand that my motivation for swearing off steak stemmed from something profound.

So I settled on an explanation: An everyday action like ordering a grilled portabella sandwich over a tender veal cutlet, I said, acted as a wake-up call. It reminded me that I am constantly required to choose between my own desires and some greater cause—that I’m capable of making ethical decisions and should always be on the lookout to do what’s right.

I listened to myself wax eloquent about my herbivorous habits and watched my acquaintances nod in sage approval. Molly Roberts, paragon of meatless morality. Wasn’t it pretty to think so? But the truth—well, the truth was harder to stomach than poorly prepared tempeh.

Though it pains me to admit it, I went vegetarian for one reason and one reason alone: Unrequited love. I will not waste time or space regaling readers with tales of my high school romances (or lack thereof). I forswore meat to charm my crush, who had made the transition months before. Suffice it to say, I did not succeed in winning his heart.

Now that I’ve completed the 360-degree trajectory to vegetarianism and back again, I once more face the dreaded, “Why?” And once more, I struggle to reply. First, symmetry: A boy turned me vegetarian, and a pact—whose details I will not disclose—with another spurred me to head back to what I used to call the dark side. But this young man did not dictate my decision; he only inspired me to consider the soundness of my logic. It turned out that logic wasn’t very sound at all.

What was keeping me a vegetarian? A deep-seated conviction that killing animals violated some abstract code of decency? Not really. A belief that I could single-handedly save the environment by boycotting industrial agriculture? If only it were so. A hope that cutting fatty foods from my diet would improve my health? Possible, but I tend to carbo-load even more with other options off the table. The single thing keeping me a vegetarian, I realized, was nothing more than habit: Munching on tofu had become as reliable a part of my daily routine as showering and brushing my teeth.

Am I worse person now for having thrown vegetarianism to the wayside? I’d like to think that, in the end, it matters less what I do or do not eat and more that I understand why I do or do not eat it. College, many claim, offers an opportunity for personal transformation. We leave our old lives behind and, as we prepare for new ones, we change. It seems there’s no better time, then, to reevaluate our choices. Some may still fit neatly into our lives. But others may have fallen out of sync with who we are today.

Or maybe I’m just rationalizing. Maybe this time is no different than the last. Maybe I just really like a guy who likes a good burger.

Molly L. Roberts ’16, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Cabot House. Her column appears on alternate Mondays. Follow her on Twitter at @mollylroberts.