Why are YOU vegetarian?

I had several reasons, and was considering them:

1. It seems wasteful to kill an animal for food, when you don't have to and several of said animals make food without dying: eggs and dairy

2. I saw the trucks of chickens heading into the Tyson Chicken processing plant. Those birds looked so sick that I couldn't bear the thought of eating that. They were miserable too, and they fall out of the trucks as they go, leaving roadkill chickens all over town. Yuck.

3. Diabetes runs in my family, and I am petrified of it. Vegetarianism reduces the risks by half or more.

4. Meat farming is doing horrible, horrible things for the environment. I can grow my own veggies organically.

But this was the kicker, mentioned by my bio professor:
It takes ten pounds of grain to make one pound of beef, and four to make a pound of chicken. I know too many families that are struggling to give their kids even one meal daily. After Dr. Raveil said that, my chicken sandwiches began to look like four malnourished kids that I knew personally, and my steaks like ten. Who could eat while being stared at by ten starving pairs of young eyes? I've gone hungry in my own early childhood, and so did my husband for a fair part of his. He gets sick without meat, but he knows how much to eat without getting sick and doesn't go further. I don't eat it at all. I can't.

 

I think theres a odd balance between the utilitarian nature of meat and the detremental effect excess has on ourselves and the enviroment.

Meat or meat based foods make more sense than hyper processed vegetables..well in reality meat is a hyper processed vegetable. The cost:benefit issue is what are you applying your energy and nutrient intake to? and for what cause. Taste and balance can easily be achieved with cheap and healthy vegetables...cognitive function can be fortified with seafood and physical development with land based animals.

when you start to replace say your fats from fish with fats from plants then you can run into limitations, the same goes with protein. The ends can justify the means but this reality need not affect all people. Our vocation really does determine our diet and our physical make up aflicts our ability to process our consumption

 

I was raised in a religion that believed in having a lacto ovo veggie diet. At some point my caregivers stopped trying to control me because they were too wrapped up in thier own problems with each other.

What a wonderful thing. I got to see more of the world, and decide for myself what I believed and would do and what I didn't and would not.

Around that time I read The Time Machine. I decided that I'd rather eat a human than an animal such as a cow, or pig. Why because humans are able to make choices and are responsible for the shit they do. Whereas animals mostly are innocent in so far as they live based on instinct.

So, I decided that I was not religious, would go to "worldly amusements" and wear "outward adornments" but I would not eat meat.

I've always said though, because I am very adventurous that I reserved the right to someday change my mind and sample eating anything and everything I have thus far eschewed.

Generally, when I've had meat slipped into a food, I do NOT like the texture.

Also, I once was given a hot dog by mistake and was sick for three days, vomiting so I could be allergic.

On a basic level it makes no sense to me to eat a cow who has eaten tons of grain that could feed people.

 

For me the #1 reason was the environmental impact followed by my love of animals and finally for the health benefits.

 

When I was a kid I hated the taste of meat. I would cry when my parents made me eat it. They are not bad people. They just didn't know how to feed a child on a vegetarian diet. It was the 80's! I first became a vegetarian because the taste of meat disgusted me. Then as I got older the environmental impact, animal rights, and the way meat is processed made sense to me. My nephew is now saying that he is a vegetarian and hates the taste of meat...lol

 

Sweet thread I wanted to start a thread about vegetarian ideology. Anyway here are my thoughts...
Because I believe in living your life naturally instead of common thought filtered through society. Also why I am considered a lacto ovo veg is because if everything serves a purpose who says some animals purpose could partly be to serve humans dairy & eggs...

 

1. Health. I was in pain pretty much 90% of the time that was entirely inexplicable & I read some shit about meat & dairy & refined sugar causing pain, so I decided to give it a go. Also wanted to just be HEALTHIER. [I'm still just "flexitarian" though]

2. I don't want the chemical bullshit that comes from eating meat. I can't afford the sort of meat where I get to visit the farm.

3. I'm a broke-ass college student and not eating meat is just ... cheaper. I can live for a week on $40!

While I CARE about the ecological/environmental/spiritual bits, that's not at all a factor in my choice. I'm doing this for purely selfish reasons. I don't believe that my not eating meat is going to save the world. And I don't like PETA

 

I watched the movie food Inc.

Meat has alot of gross things in it and i think generally most is prepared in a way that is really ridiculous, and also cruel as hell to the animals.

I feel a million times better physically, and mentally, eating only plants and fruits and nuts..hell, it seemed to work fine for the first few million years


oh and i read this
http://www.leftinthedark.org.uk/

 

I have never liked the taste of meat, it gives me stomach aches, and I would rather play with animals not eat them!

 

I am against all forms of souffrance in this world. If you ever seen a pork farm in Québec you would never eat meat again.

Also,
being free from the addiction of meat. (Meat is an addiction worst than crack) I have notice my health is much stronger. Plus, I have more clarity of thinking. Because like all addictive substances, your mind never 100% completely focus on its tasks but always has some part that worries about fulfilling its addiction.

 

Because eating dead animals is not necessary to be healthy.

 

For animal rights. I think it is wrong to exploit animals, especially to kill and eat them. Since all the necessary nutrients are available from vegetable-based sources, there is no reason to eat animals or their products.

The health benefits are a big bonus, but not the main reason for me.

 

as a means of diet restriction

 

I tried it for a month and felt so good I never went back. I'm healthier and feel better than I have in years.

 

I like keeping the harm toward sentient life minimal.

 

I first decided to become a vegetarian when I was around 11/12 because I adore animals.
It infuriates me when people label themselfs as "vegetarian" to lose weight or just because they don't like the taste of meat... Or when people claim to be vegetarian but then they eat seafood because they allegedly don't feel pain as much as say a cow. Sorry it just makes me angry.

 

I was a vegetarian until I realized it is a complete sham.

I grow most of my own food and it was not possible to grow enough food to substain yourself as a vegetarian because you can never produce more calories then you burn tilling, sowing, watering and harvesting your crops.

The only reason people can be a vegetarian or a vegan is because we live in an unnatural environment in which you purchase your food from a store that was grown elsewhere and trucked to your local supermarket and by living a sedentary lifestyle. It is an unnatural way to live and is a complete hypocrisy for those that want to live in tune with the earth. IMO a vegetarian or a vegan can never be considered a true hippie.

 

and exactly what is a "true hippie"?

[if it means i have to kill animals then i never want to be one]

 

Someone that lives in tune with the earth

 

like an animal - perhaps a deer, or an elephant?

they neither grow food, nor do they eat meat

human nature is somewhat different

we have the ability to grow food

we also have the ability - the nature, if you prefer - to organize into extraordinarily complex societies

so perhaps what you consider unnatural is in fact, for us, the most natural thing on earth?

all that said, the scenario of one person struggling to grow food alone is, in human terms, unnatural

perhaps the "true hippie" - or true human - would prefer to live with others, and farm communally?

in which case the work load would be spread to a point where no one need starve

or eat meat . . .