Hello, my name is Jordy Byrd and I’m a vegetarian (crowd says: hi Jordy) It’s been about six months since my last piece of meat.

Now I realize this may seem extreme, but what I’m trying to draw is a good old fashion analogy. Please, don’t start throwing raw meat at me just yet. Just…listen. By no means am I comparing being a vegetarian to the disease and the addiction of alcoholism. Rather, I’m comparing two alternative lifestyles or subcultures if you will, that are both life changing and life encompassing.

When I first stopped eating meat I thought it would easy (give me time, I’m young and naive). I assumed it would be as easy as giving up a chicken strip or two, or simply passing on the bowl of chicken fettuccini. For me, I thought the life would be easy because the decision was easy. I knew that my change was long coming and deeply sanctified within the delectate workings of my mind and heart. What I was not prepared for, what I had no verbal or emotional defense to, was the response from others. From even some of my closest friends and family members my choice was met with criticism and judgment. I was so hurt and confused as to why my inability to eat or not eat something upset people. So long as I wasn’t forcing food…or rhetoric down other people’s throats, why did they care what I put in my mine? I just didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

Now that six months have passed, I’m getting used to defending myself. I’m getting used to justifying my life choices conversation after conversation, meal after meal. I’ll admit I’m not entirely harmonious, and sometimes this double standard (why must vegetarians explain why they don’t eat something, yet omnivores don’t have to explain why they do eat something?) makes me angry. But I’m growing patient, and each validation makes me more and more confident in my choice. I finally understand what makes people so uncomfortable. I think that in my decision not to eat meat, it makes people around me question their own eating behaviors. And this can be scary.

But my intention is never really to scare people. If I am to accomplish anything in my discussions about being a vegetarian, it’s this: I want people to understand that I have an active relationship with the food I buy, cook, and eat. I want people to know that food defines us. Far more than a necessity for survival, food binds us to one another as family members, ethnic beings, and cultural creatures. Food is our tradition. It is the centerpiece at our foremost initiations, to our rights of passage, to our ultimate exit from life. Most of all, food is joy. It is the purest pleasure of planting a seed and watching it grow, to sharing a meal, or perfecting a recipe.

Regardless of our individual tastes or desires, we are connected and affected to what we eat and how we choose to eat it. For me, being a vegetarian is simply reconnecting me to the food I want to eat, and the terms on which I want to eat it.

I never would have come to this conclusion without the Moscow Food Co-op. The Co-op, its values, and overall environment came at such an impressionable stage in my life…college. I am only too grateful to have been given the opportunity to write for you, and in doing so to learn more about myself. For once in my life, I feel accountable for the relationship between my hunger, my stomach, my hands, and my mouth. I cannot express the joy I receive from eating because I understand that yes, my food reflects my lifestyle, my attitudes and desires. I am my food and my food is me.