Why I Stop Being A Vegetarian Rhetorical Analysis

Less Conviction, More Meat
Just before the turn of the millennia, Laura Fraser, who had been a vegetarian for 15 years, decided to return to eating meat. In her essay, Why I Stopped Being a Vegetarian, she details her original convictions of the lifestyle and her new reasoning against continuing vegetarianism as a defense against those who endorse vegetarianism. She sets past actions and beliefs as her opposition, and then critiques her previous thoughts and behaviors. Rather than discrediting herself through this act, she actually boosts her current ethos and logos. This complex strategy effectively works to convince the audience because in essence Fraser debates her opposition and convinces them as to why the shift away from vegetarianism
For example, she makes the decision to be a vegetarian in college due to political pressure, but admits never completely fitting into the lifestyle. As a result, she never commits to going vegan; instead, she settles on pesco-ovo-lacto-vegetarianism, allowing her the freedom to eat dairy, eggs, and fish. Until she journeys to Italy, where she enjoyed pancetta, which she then unapologetically adds to her cheat list. Once she begins to stray away from her pseudo-beliefs, “it was a slippery slope from there” to completely abandoning vegetarianism. For her ethos, this shows that although she claims to be a vegetarian, she doesn’t follow any of the rules. Her example also show the illogic of belonging to a lifestyle that you can’t commit to. If a debater does not even believe in their own standpoint, what would make another person want to agree with
Fraser begins with discussing the health effects of being vegetarian. She reported stunningly low cholesterol levels when going in for a medical examination, but comments this could just be genetic and have had no correlation to her diet. Additionally, she wasn’t in the need of a lower cholesterol; she didn’t need to lose weight and reverse heart disease. Fraser implements this diet for no logical reason. Ultimately, she could care less about winning the metaphorical “low-cholesterol Olympics” (688). She simply liked not hearing she needed to lose weight, a reason that held little if any correlation to health. Additionally, the current Fraser alludes that she was actually further from being healthy than she thought. Although her cholesterol level stood at healthy levels, not eating meat was leaving her unsatisfied and left her constantly craving more carbohydrates. The logical thing to do would be to adhere to the nutritionist’s advice to “listen to your body.” Fraser uses pathos and ethos in this anecdote. She displays how her past-self’s emotional vanity led her astray and affected her health negatively. This lowers her past-self ethos considerably because it makes her appear self-destructive. Current-Fraser strategy to call upon a nutritionist boosts