When our meal was served on a recent international flight my neighbor, a young man, asked me with a touch of surprise:
— Are you vegetarian?
— Yes, I am.
— Do you feel that meat is dirty?
— Not at all, but I do not want to cause harm through eating.
— But all animals eat each other. This is natural.
— It might well be, but I don’t eat them.
— If one of these animals would be here, he might eat you!
–Sure, but that does not seem a sufficient reason for me to eat him. As George Bernard Shaw said, ‟Animals are my friends and I don’t eat my friends.”
— Oh, animals are your friends.
— Yes, they are.
— That’s interesting.