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"I blame the supermarket. It was a few days before Christmas and I was grocery shopping with my Mom at  Stew Leonard&amp;#039;s \u2014 the Six Flags of grocery stores. (People in furry costumes included) The adventurous store is strategically set up is set up like a maze, so you&amp;#039;re forced to walk through every single section before you checkout.  As I came around from the fruit aisle into the butcher area, something caught the corner of my eye. For the first time, it wasn&amp;#039;t the singing Chiquita banana or the mothers&amp;#039; screaming at their crying children. To be blunt, it was the dead animals hanging from the ceiling. I watched, frightened, as butchers chopped into the massive slabs of what had once been pigs, cows and turkeys. I had seen this before, but it never hit me this hard. How can I be eating that? I&amp;#039;d love to attribute my vegetarianism to animals&amp;#039; rights or moral reasons. Instead, it was with this very sight that I quit meat \u2014 cold Tofurky. It wasn&amp;#039;t easy at first. I knew very few vegetarians. My family figured it was a phase, and tried to talk to me out of it. It&amp;#039;s been six years and my Grandma still offers me chicken parmigiana.  I started off with the basics. I replaced my turkey sandwiches at lunch with peanut butter and jelly ones. I switched chicken dinners to mac and cheese al dente. This menu lasted me about a week and a half. I found myself still hungry and dissatisfied with the foods I was eating. Though, at the same time, I was no longer craving grilled chicken or cheeseburgers. I liked the way I felt as a vegetarian, but I still needed a change. The next week, I went shopping at  Trader Joe&amp;#039;s for the first time. Instantly, I was opened up into a new world of fresh vegetables, flavorful rice, nuts, cheeses and even the former enemy, tofu. Within the next few years, I discovered creative meatless dishes of all sorts. (I highly recommend Dr. Praeger&amp;#039;s Garden Burgers or anything by MorningStar) I became willing to spend more money and time on finding the foods I liked.  Going Veggie isn&amp;#039;t necessarily a healthy option for everyone. Trying new foods is really what made it work for me. If I were to live off of solely the meatless items I ate as a carnivore, I&amp;#039;d be so unhealthy. I recommend discovering new foods \u2014 there&amp;#039;s so much out there. And no, I&amp;#039;ve never actually eaten Tofurky.   So tell me, have you ever tried to go vegetarian? Would you do it? Why or why not? Peas out, Michelle Toglia Web Intern "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/life/a10973/daily-kiss-kicking-meat/>