My food choices are not typically influenced by social norms, but the social norms do not make it easy either. Being a vegetarian, I am often the “odd one out” when I am out with my friends and even at home sometimes. Typically this is not a big deal as my mother and younger sister are vegetarians too, but we (and other vegetarians/vegans in general) find trouble when it comes time for cookouts in summer. Social norm dictates that everyone eats meat – beit burgers, hotdogs, ribs, steak, etc. – as a way of celebration and “fitting in” (social eating). I suppose in California and other “high-health” states where there is more people living the veggie-lifestyle would not be as odd (there are even pure-veggie restaurants!), but here in Pennsylvania (where pork and sauerkraut is a tradition on New Year’s for almost EVERYONE), and down south in my native state of North Carolina (lots of meat and TONS of gravy), I just have to accept I’m the odd one out.

Two issues that I can connect are obesity/general health and environmental issues. Please note that I am not calling meat-eaters bad or “sway them”- there is nothing wrong with eating meat. Many people who fail to understand vegetable-based lifestyles work tend to look down on them and sometimes will eat even MORE in the process of “showing them up”. Needless to say that there tends to be overeating at cookouts and overeating leads to weight-gain. Too much of one food group is bad as well for one’s health. In order for the meat demand to be met, the livestock are often fed massively unhealthy diets in order to bulk them up; the amount of land used for the livestock’s food alone is astonishing. The pollution to the air and water is alarming as well – the planet is not getting bigger, but the population is so we need efficiency. The “new norm” should be one of eating more balanced diets and spending time focusing on the people with rather than the food itself.