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I didn't grow up eating meat - I was a vegetarian until I was 18.

During my teenage years, I rebelled and ate everything under the sun, but when I was 18 or 19, I became vegetarian-focused and got disgusted by meat.

I became a vegetarian at 15. I was always an animal lover and, as a teenager, became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of eating meat. It was then that I started to research vegetarianism.

I've been a vegetarian since I was about 12 years old. When I became a vegetarian, I got my mom and dad to become vegetarian, and my brother became a vegetarian.

My parents have been incredibly supportive from perhaps the first real independent decision I made to become a vegetarian at 11, which was certainly not consistent with their diet at the time.

In high school I became a vegetarian more times than I can now remember, most often as an effort to claim some identity in a world of people whose identities seemed to come effortlessly.

To be honest, I was the world's worst vegetarian. You see - I didn't really like vegetables very much. I'd spent most of my childhood terrified of them - horrid bland mushy things. It's only as an adult I realise that part of the problem is my mother's cooking - she hates using salt and has a tendency to overboil things. Thanks, Mum.

I didn't actually know what a vegetarian was until I was 13 years old. I know in this day and age it's hard to believe that, but I think because I grew up on a farm, I wasn't indulged in magazines, newspapers, Internet, television. And so, for some reason, I was never exposed to what a vegetarian was.