Roommate Respect

When I first submitted my housing application, I noticed the application included personal traits such as sleep preference, "night visitor" preference, and noise preference and did not think too much of it. I mean, as far as getting along with others, that's really the only criteria one needs, right? So wrong. I did not think that my vegetarianism would inspire as much opposition from others (ie: my roommate) as it did last night.

First of all, I am an extremely respectful person and rarely judge others based on personal beliefs or preferences - it's their business, not mine. Needless to say, I was a little shocked when I was eating tofu for dinner last night and my roommate verbally assaulted me with accusations about how eating tofu is lame, how it's not "real" protein and how I should just eat meat. I don't think I should felt compulsive enough in the situation to have to defend my own beliefs about killing animals or justify whatever it was I felt like eating. No one should criticize people for how they choose to eat. Unlike the article on Punk Food, I am not a strict vegetarian to separate myself from others and stick it to the man, I am passionate about animal rights and I feel every life has value. This argument caused my roommate to bring up an off-topic point about keeping people on life-support or not based on the right to live and whether I thought that was right or wrong, but I was just like 'Well, I'm definitely not about to eat comatose people either..." The whole situation was pretty unbelievable. I mean, I don't hold people accountable for their dietary choices - it's up to them. I don't enforce my view points on others and I definitely don't think I should have to justify my own just because they're not necessarily the same as everyone else's.

Anyway, when I read the article about Punk Food, I was really struck by raw foodist beliefs of keeping everything organic, uncooked, unprocessed. As cool of an ideal (and not to mention extremely healthful) as that would be to uphold, I doubt I could stick to the rigidity it would require. Also, I wouldn't want to view my food choices as a means of pure protest. My vegetarian decisions are, I guess, protesting animal cruelty, but to base my life around the way I eat would really make me crazy.