The World Of Tzu Chi December 2019 (Vol.117)

17 TZU CHI 117 towards her unconventional lifestyle choice, but her grandmother was perplexed by her sudden refusal of homemade chicken dishes. “My late grandmother couldn’t understand why I turned to vegetarianism as I used to eat a lot of chicken meat. I would stay with my grandmother sometimes and she always cooked chicken dishes for me, so she found it hard to accept when I asked her to stop cooking chicken and cook something else instead. She would scoop some chicken onto my plate despite my constant reminders that I don’t eat meat and I would pass the meat to my brother when she’s not looking. But over time, she came to understand after I explained to her that I don’t eat chicken out of sympathy for animals. She would ladle the gravy onto my plate instead,” she chuckled in fond remembrance of her grandmother, who was worried that she lacked proper nutrition upon witnessing her drastic weight loss from relying on salads for subsistence. The doting grandmother was only reassured upon learning that her granddaughter supplemented her diet with multivitamins to ensure complete nutrient intake. After identifying as a vegetarian, Dr Jasmine found herself in some awkward social situations amongst her circle of friends who were unfamiliar with vegetarianism, but she stayed true to her decision and took the opportunity to introduce them to the lifestyle, eventually gaining their acceptance. “When I first started on a vegetarian diet, my friends would sometimes forget I’m a vegetarian, so they would take me to eateries that do not Dr Jasmine E. Khairat, a senior lecturer at Universiti Malaya with research interests in microbiology, felt uneasy sacrificing live chickens for her experiments and turned to vegetarianism to ease her conscience. [Photograph by Boon Wui Kong]