Becoming Vegetarian: The Eating Patterns and Accounts of Newly Practicing Vegetarians

Abstract

Vegetarianism is a dynamic and fluid lifestyle that can be described as unique for each person who practices. Vegetarianism traditionally falls outside of the accepted eating patterns in Western nations; furthermore, the meat-free lifestyle can be classified as a form of positive deviance. Semistructured interviews were conducted with self-described vegetarians regarding eating patterns and motivations within the initial adoption of the lifestyle. Vegetarian vocabularies of motive were categorized according to established deviance theory referred to as accounts. This newly practicing, or developmental, stage of vegetarianism was more likely to fall on the less strict side of the vegetarian continuum for eating patterns and the motives had a propensity to be monothematic.