Straight Talk For Teens By Teens

Vegetarian gets respect by giving it

Dear Straight Talk:  I’m 14 and a vegetarian and I find it very difficult to get people to respect that I don’t eat meat. Everywhere I go it seems that meat is being served. How do I handle this?—Disgusted vegetarian

Dear Disgusted: Cool as a cucumber. In other words, no fair trampling on the Thanksgiving turkey. Two teens who share your situation say it best:

From Brittney, 16: I, too, am a vegetarian and dealing with carnivores can sometimes be a pain. When people give you a hard time, I recommend ignoring it. As far as going places and having to deal with meat everywhere, you have to understand that it’s other peoples’ choice to eat meat. The best way to get someone to accept that you’re a vegetarian is by accepting that they eat meat.

From Ashley, 16: I’m a vegetarian, too, and it can be difficult for me to not make comments about meat because I’ve done a lot of research on the meat industry and slaughterhouses and it’s hard for me to accept people who support things like that. But, eventually I realized that I needed to respect their opinions as much as they needed to respect mine. Now when somebody bugs me, I say, “I’m not antagonizing you for your beliefs, don’t antagonize me for mine.”