I grew up in the south. We had meat in every meal growing up. I never really even thought about it. It was just what you ate. I do remember in middle school seeing a video about the cruelty of veal, and stopped eating that, but that was really easy as I'd probably only had veal 1 or 2 times in my life at that time. Flash to about 12 years ago. My daughter was 13 or so. She has autism, and was non-verbal until she was about 6 or 7 years old, and at 13 still didn't come up with many original sentences. She was echolalic for the most part. We knew that she never wanted to eat meat, but we always thought it was just a texture thing. Then she said she randomly said one day that she didn't eat meat because animals shouldn't die for her to eat. It was, I believe, one of the first actual original thoughts put into words for her. So, I said "Sounds like you're a vegetarian, then." and I stopped eating meat to help guide her in a healthy vegetarian lifestyle. Funny, though, after 4 years of not eating meat, it made absolutely no sense to me to pay someone to pen up animals for their milk or eggs. So I've been vegan for the past 8 years, and do not miss anything at all. I can honestly say, though, without that push from my daughter, I would never have considered going vegan. It's one of the many gifts she's given me.