Life of a vegetarian

I have been a vegetarian for about 4 years now and I constantly get a lot of questions from many people who are curious about it. I really love being vegetarian and would recommend it to anyone! I am going to answer some of those for anyone who may be interested in becoming vegetarian. (Which is a diet consisting of everything EXCEPT for animal meat/meat by products) 

• "What is the difference between a vegan and a vegetarian diet?" -Basically a vegan diet cuts out ALL animal products such as meat, dairy, eggs, honey etc. A vegetarian diet still includes dairy, eggs, honey, the only thing being cut out is all meats.
• "What are the health benefits of a vegetarian diet?" -There are many health benefits to this diet. Some of those include, lowered blood pressure, lower risk of death relating to ischemic heart disease, better digestion, lowered cholesterol, and more. These are just a couple of benefits which more than likely will come with this diet if you are eating properly. 
• "What do you eat?" -As weird as this sounds, I get this question a lot which confuses me because it is not very different going from a "normal" diet to a vegetarian one. I eat a lot of quinoa which is like a type of rice only it is more healthy than rice. Veggie burgers are a girl's best friend let me tell you. The Quinoa burgers from Trader Joe's are AMAZING!  I also like to incorporate a lot of fresh fruits, nuts/seeds and veggies, as well as Tofu. (cooking it with teriyaki is the best just FYI) Another yummy go to of mine is a veggie sandwich with fresh tomato, spinach, cheese, cucumber and hummus as the spread! 
• "Why did you become vegetarian?" -This is the most common question that I get. I became vegetarian simply put because I could not stand the thought of eating another being's flesh any longer. Sounds gross, but it's the honest truth, and looking back I don't know how I ate meat for 15 years of my life. The livestock production industry is also very harmful to the environment. The animal food industry uses up 1/3 of the world's fresh water!! What mostly spurred me to make the change however was a speech given by Gary Yourofsky called, "The Greatest Speech You Will Ever Hear" on YouTube. I watched it one night after a friend showed it to me and boom! I was a vegetarian the next day. (It is that life changing if you have a heart) I will insert the speech below, please check it out!

             

 I hope you enjoyed and possibly learned something new! 
              xx- Maddie ​