I’m a fifth-level vegan … I don’t eat anything with a shadow.” (said by the character “Jesse” [Joshua Jackson] in “The Simpsons” episode “Lisa the Treehugger”)

My roommate is a vegetarian. Actually, she’s more of an onionarian. She mostly just eats onions and black pepper by the pound. It’s sometimes difficult to watch a person eat that way, get sick repeatedly and wonder why she always feels lethargic and ill.

I’ve had mixed feelings about vegetarianism since high school, when I first stopped eating red meat. Back then, it was mainly about health and weight control.

As I learned more about the meat industry, I eventually went vegetarian. I was what’s known as an ovo-lacto vegetarian, which means I still consumed eggs and dairy products, at least for a couple of years before abandoning vegetarianism.

Web sites that detail the horrors of factory farming really impacted my decision to eliminate meat from my diet. I thought that if I didn’t eat meat, I wouldn’t be contributing to the inhumane methods in which it’s raised and slaughtered. I maintained that lifestyle for a couple years and then came to some conclusions.

As a vegetarian living in the residence halls, I felt that it wasn’t possible for me to fulfill my dietary requirements. Given that I didn’t get the necessary nutrients, particularly iron (a major concern for female vegetarians) and protein, I felt weak and tired much of the time. I also seemed to get sick pretty easily.

Once I started eating meat again, I felt better almost immediately. I felt a new sense of energy and strength. My skin finally lost that pale, sickly cast. I reached the conclusion, simply from my own experience, that unless I could afford to shop at a place like Whole Foods and buy a ton of nutritional supplements, I was going to have to choose between my beliefs and my health.

I can just hear the keyboards clicking now, as angry vegetarians write in to correct me. Keep in mind, I’m not an expert on vegetarianism, and these are just conclusions and observations from my own experience.

An article in Tuesday’s Northern Star discussed possibilities for vegan provisions in the residence halls, and though the number of vegans may be growing, it seems unjustified to completely alter current food service contracts for a handful of people in each hall — one reason being that veganism is a choice, whereas special provisions for say, a diabetic, are a medical necessity.

Vegans, however, are a passionate bunch and probably consider their way of life completely necessary. What is a vegan (pronounced vee-gan), anyway? According to the Vegetarian Resource Group (www.vrg.org), “Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish or poultry. Vegans, in addition to being vegetarian, do not use other animal products and by-products such as eggs, dairy products, honey, leather, fur, silk, wool, cosmetics and soaps derived from animal products.”

Having been on both sides of the fence, I now find myself perched on top of it. On one hand, I think that man, as another animal, is meant to be part of the food chain. It seems wrong to deny our place in nature, as though we were above creation and know more about what’s good for us than whatever put us here.

If we were meant to consume meat as most other animals do, then we must admit we weren’t meant to produce it the way we do. Cows, pigs, chickens and other animals often are subjected to horrible torture, such as castration without anesthesia. They are pumped full of chemicals and hormones, force-fed and eventually killed. This is all according to PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (www.peta.org).

If the information wasn’t at least partially true, the meat industry would be suing the pants off PETA.

Anyone who reads about what really goes on in a factory farm will probably want to ditch their steak knife permanently.

Chickens crammed so tightly into cages that their feet grow around the bars. Veal calves chained in 22-inch wide stalls, often too sick or crippled to walk by the time they’re killed at about 16 weeks of age.

Keep in mind, though, that the source of this information is PETA, which some might say is a rather militant group. But you don’t hear any rebuttal from the meat industry to PETA’s claims, so how can you help but believe that there is some truth there?

I’m now caught between knowing it’s wrong to contribute to the torture of animals and wanting to have a balanced diet. Seems simple enough. But I haven’t trashed the steak knives yet.