Halfheartedly vegetarian

Killing animals for food is ethically questionable. Most cheap meat these days comes from factory farming, which is especially cruel to and miserable for the animals. Whatever its ethics, farming animals for meat is worse for the environment than farming plants as food. You've probably known all that for years. I certainly have. I ate meat anyway, often and with few qualms.

Some months ago, the way I access and choose food drastically changed. A bit later, I reasoned as follows:

1. I probably eat too much.
2. Variety encourages appetite — the more food options, the more I eat in total.
3. Wheat products (or gluten — almost equivalent) are excluded in several popular diets, some of which might even be useful.
4. You can get proper nutrition sans wheat products.
5. If I forbid myself from eating wheat, I will have fewer options, and so eat less.

Thus I largely forbade myself from eating wheat.

Repeat steps 1 and 2. Replace "wheat" with "meat" in steps 4 and 5. Replace step 3 with:

3. Meat is ethically and environmentally bad.

Yum, rabbit food!

— Jobs Which Rode, seeing me fill a plate with vegetables and grains

The usual reasoning for vegetarianism is too distant and annoying to persuade me in practice. It only gets appealing once I reinforce it with my odd circumstances, from which the ethical advantage is a side benefit. The opposite circumstances could just as well preclude it. I know someone else who, out of acute pickiness, can only eat enough by frequently including meat.

Sith I chose it based more on personal health than ethics, I'm still only halfheartedly vegetarian. Fish is nutritious and less bad than other meat, so I still eat fish. If meat is the only high-protein option at a meal, and it's offered for free, I'll often take some.

People seeing me eat more vegetables and tofu than average, on many occasions, ask about it. This suggests people are curious about vegetarianism. I have also long heard people complain about vegetarians talking too much about being vegetarian. This suggests people want to ignore vegetarianism. The irony and contradiction amuses me.