by Jennifer V.

I have officially been vegetarian for a year and seven months. The decision to transition to this diet was random and spontaneous, but one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. I chose to cut meat out of my diet because I simply wanted some sort of change. At the time, I was going through a lot of struggles and decided that I needed to make some sort of difference in the way I was living, so I started with my diet.

I know that changing  what I eat wasn’t going to affect my personal problems in any way, but it was still a small step that would get the ball rolling for me to make bigger steps. Since then, I have not gone back to being a carnivore, and at this point, I feel like I would never go back.

I’m actually so grateful to be living in this hipster of a city because the vegetarian options for food are endless. Every restaurant that I’ve gone to in Portland has had at least one vegetarian and even vegan and gluten-free options, and it is such a blessing. The bad thing about this is that I got so comfortable and confident that wherever I go there will be vegetarian-friendly food that I forget that this is only a norm in Portland. When I took a trip to Vegas a month ago, I went to a restaurant and was shocked to find that there were absolutely no vegetarian options whatsoever. For vegetarians and vegan, we’re lucky to live in Portland.

I’m not a die-hard, vegan and animal rights activist or anything but I do encourage people to transition to this diet if they can. No, you won’t magically have clear skin or lose 10 pounds in a day but you may (keyword here is “may”) reduce your chances of getting diabetes, lower your cholesterol, and overall feel “cleaner.”

If you are hesitant about making this change, maybe you should try it out for week or maybe even a month and see how you like it. Who knows? Maybe you’ll end up sticking to it and like me, feel like you made one of the best decisions of your life.