Happy Vegetarian Awareness Month!

Oct. 1 was World Vegetarian Day and kicked off Vegetarian Awareness Month. Hooray! And, no this does not mean to simply be “aware of vegetarians.” It serves as a time for vegetarians to celebrate their awesomeness and to endorse the benefits of practicing vegetarianism.

The North American Vegetarian Society, a nonprofit organization support network primarily for vegetarians, established the day and awareness month in 1977. The celebration was then endorsed a year later by the International Vegetarian Union.

It has been nearly impossible to find events around Austin to commemorate Vegetarian Awareness Month, but there is one special event coming up in November: the 2008 Lone Star Vegetarian Chili Cook-Off on Nov. 9 at the Austin Farmer’s Market. Vegetarius will update you with more information later.

Maybe it’s because of Austin’s large vegetarian/vegan community that there doesn’t seem to be much celebration this month, but there are plenty of other ways to observe being or going vegetarian.

Visit: World Vegetarian Day for suggestions. They are pretty cheesy, but ideas nonetheless.

The biggest challenge posed, though, goes to NON-VEGETARIANS: We’re already into October, but for the rest of the month, try to limiting meat intake day by day and then for at least one week, only eat vegetarian. Can you meat-lovers do it?