Your Reasons?

[Macrina]

What are the reasons for your decision to go veggie?

 

[Macrina]

For me, I was repulsed by the idea of eating flesh when I was very young, as soon as I learned what meat was. So it's sort of a cross between distate and animal rights. I don't believe it's a moral wrong to eat meat, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

The reasons why I've stayed vegetarian all these years include health, environmental, economic, and human concerns as well.

I became a vegan upon learning about how even "cage-free" chickens are treated, and how drinking milk supports the veal industry.

But after the cooking I've been doing, I think I might as well say I'm in it for the tasty food!

 

[Stacey]

Economic, Environmental, Health reasons - In that order

 

[Tigress_86]

- animal rights and welfare
- environmental and economic concerns
- food allergies
- health and nutrition

Despite having food allergies, my concern has foremost been with the well-being of other species and the environment.

 

[belladonic-haze]

Other namely: environmental, animal rights, animal welfare....all three weigh the same in my book of veggies

 

[starelda]

Well I've never ever liked red meat. As a kid, I remember being told by my mum that I couldn't leave the table until I'd eaten more of my dinner...she'd turn her back and start washing up and then I'd start stuffing sausages or whatever it was in my pocket, hide it under other foods or feed it to the dog. Just anything besides eating it!

So really that left me with chicken and fish. But last year I started looking at the chicken on my plate and found myself repulsed by it. Just thinking that I was chewing on something that was once a walking, breathing, living thing made me feel sick. I began to feel it was wrong after all killing another human is wrong...you're taikng a life that's not yours to take and I couldn't see how killing a chicken was different.

So yeah, that's what started it but over time other reasons such as environmental concerns, animal welfare, health have started to play a part.

 

[Wormie]

Mostly it's taste, but in the last few years any porcine meats (ie comes from pigs) make me physically sick - to eat or even to smell - the smell of bacon cooking makes me nauseous... luckily my housemates are understanding of this and don't do it often or tell me so I can stay away. I am also allergic to eggs... have been since I was a baby.

 

[Serenpidity24]

Hi Everyone,

-change in the way my body was responding to meats and other foods (lots of allergies all of a sudden)
-health reasons
-Giving credit where credit is due: loving pressure from a persistent and wise loved one (lol) --they were totally right (LOL)

 

[Windmill]

Nutrition. I'm a veggie as often as I can, (although I'll sometimes eat fish.... or meat if its served to me) because of the fat, protein etc etc in the meat. Taste doesn't concern me, though the less you eat the worse it tastes, and the animal rights doesn't concern me either, I feel no guilt eating it. But nutirition wise its terrible.

 

[mini_mim]

I picked animal rights and welfare, and other, which is that I'm just plain squeamish lol! The idea of eating dead flesh is just icky to me!

 

[ian90]

I love meat and I still eat it when I'm offered it (my house does communal cooking) but I've decided not to buy it anymore.

I don't think animals are people and God commands mankind to kill them for food in the bible so I have no ethical or moral objections to the consumption of meat. Eating meat is essential for people like eskimos where it's their only source of food, but with the amount of meat-free protein available to me it's not actually neccesary for me to do so. When I realised I didn't have to eat meat to maintain a healthy lifestyle the only thing stopping me becoming a veggie was visceral enjoyment and convienience.

I realised this when I asked myself "if I had to kill every animal I ate would I still eat as much meat?" I probably would not eat that much meat, maybe turkey at Christmas and other occaisons but not as much. I was happy to eat all the animals I wanted though if other people killed them, so I think I was holding double standards there.

I've seen animals have their throats cut in front of me and I'm not squeamish but still, I prefer the idea of live cows to dead ones and I know that the animals reared for our consumption are not treated with the respect they deserve in modern slaughterhouses.

The reason I have decided not to buy meat is the same reason I buy fair-trade. I do not believe modern meat production is environmentally sustainable. Certain countries eat an excess of meat (I think Americans eat something like 40 times more meat then Indians) and I think it's important that I support the idea that food should be grown for the intention of feeding starving humans rather then feeding animals which are being bred for the well fed. I think it's possible that by supporting the meat industry I'm supporting an injust one.

I still eat red fish - Jesus caught fish and I know better then to judge his actions as wrong, but this is purely for health reasons as I go running every day and I'm trying to get fitter and stronger. I've been a semi-veggie for a week now and it's going OK.

 

[Kimberlyann]

I don't want my body to be a graveyard for dead animals. I've been a vegetarian for around 6 months. Mostly for health reasons. I was also getting disgusted handling raw meat. I always had to use gloves. I can not stand blood. Besides the Bible tell us not to eat the fat or blood. I was having a hard time avoiding both. You can't get kosher around where I live. There are reasons God forbids eating blood. Life is in the blood and also that is where disease is. Also a lifetime of toxins are stored in the animals fat. If we ate according to the Biblical guidelines it would be OK. But it was too hard for me so I just gave up meat altogether.

 

[arunma]

I probably have the lamest reason for being a vegetarian. I was raised vegetarian (Hindu parents), and now it's just become a habit. I don't believe that there's anything wrong or sinful about eating meat. But since I've never eaten meat before, I just don't have any desire for it.

 

[Macrina]

I probably have the lamest reason for being a vegetarian. I was raised vegetarian (Hindu parents), and now it's just become a habit. I don't believe that there's anything wrong or sinful about eating meat. But since I've never eaten meat before, I just don't have any desire for it.

That's fine. I don't believe there's anything wrong or sinful about eating meat, either. I just choose not to. *shrug*

 

[Scandia]

In America we ruin our food by all the sodium nitrate,bht and other meat additives. I stopped eating the foods that were making me ill.

 

[WoundedImmortal]

I stopped eating meat when I was just 10 years old, and I am the only vegetarian in my entire family-both sides. For me, it didn't have anything to do with animal rights. At the time, I didn't have much of an understanding of that. All I knew was when I ate meat, I became physically ill. Most of the times I would literally vomit after eating a hamburger. Dairy products did me in too. I wasn’t the one rejecting the meat, my body was. But still...my parents forced meat on me. Vegetarian diets were in their eyes, unorthodox and unhealthy. There was a time when I stopped eating completely because I knew that the food they were feeding me would make me sick. I tried to hide it by spiting out food in a napkin when no one was looking, but everyone knew I'd stopped eating. I knew and accepted that it was the meat and dairy that made me ill, but it was my parents that would not.

At ten years old I researched vegetarian diet alternatives and health benefits, borrowed a vegetarian cookbook from one of the teachers. i presented the information to my parents-they thought it was a phase at first, but were relieved that I would eat if they bought me this food. I learned to cook on my own and prepared my own meals because my mother constantly complained about having to make something separate. I'm 22 now, and they are still waiting for the "phase" to end

 

[hippiechild]

I can't eat meat. It disgusts me and saddens me. I stopped eating meat for the animals' welfare/rights and now I continue it for health benefits and because I just can't!

Also, I don't believe it's sinful to eat meat, but I do believe the way many animals are killed each day is sinful and disrespectful to God's creation. My family likes to hunt, but eats all of what they kill, which is okay with me. I would rather them eat that and gives thanks and glory to God for His creation than eat something killed with no moral or respect for the creature or it's Creator.

 

[holysee]

I don't eat animal products for various reasons-

I started of being veggie because I was against unnecessary killing. I don't need meat or fish to life a healthy life so why kill something just for the sake of it.

After some years I read the book "Animal Liberation" which I have a number of serious problems with. However it did raise the question of suffering. Much unnecessary suffering is inflicted upon animals to produce meat, milk, eggs and other animal products. I'm against unnecessary suffering too so out went all the other animal products, none of which are essential for my health.

Secondary reasons for my decision would be the environmental impact of, say cattle production and the sheer wastefulness of using land to grow food that ends up in pigs bellies when children starve to death.

 

[Pogue]

Most of those reasons, and quite a few others. My parents (and my father's parents, for the last 20 years or so) were veggies before they met, so it made sense that they'd raise all 6 of their children in the same way. As a result, I've never eaten meat or fish, but I think that if I hadn't been raised in that way, I'd still have turned veggie at around the age of 11. I guess my primary concern is for animal welfare, but I also take into account the human welfare issues and the health benefits

 

[Dawn Marie]

I'm not a full out vegetarian, but I don't eat meat often, and usually when I do... it's only chicken or fish.

It's got to do with taste, animal welfare AND nutrition for me. Unfortunately with the way my family eat it is not possible for me to cut out chicken or fish. My brother is actually a chicken farmer and fisherman, so... yeah.