If you are a vegetarian (or vegan), why did you go that path?

I've not known many vegetarians or vegans, and I've been curious as to why they go that path. Is it a moral/ethical thing, or do you just not like meat? Not trying to start a flame war or anything, I'm just asking out of my own personal curiosity.

I did it for a number of reasons. Spiritual, ethical, and environmental. Health benefits were just a perk and had nothing to do with the overall decision. I never "didn't like" meat - and it still sounds DAMNED GOOD - I'm just not interested in eating it. I don't get cravings or anything.

Someone else will probably flesh out some of the reasons I mentioned above. I'm going to bed! :)

That cracked me up.

:hi:

Ha - I didn't even do that on purpose!

Ah well... it's late. As soon as the dogs are done with their business and want back inside we're all going to bed. :)

I just don't see how I could expect another being to suffer and die for my wants, so I do everything within my power to prevent that. That ethical veganism has positive effects on my health and reduces my ecological impact enormously are really great bonuses, but ultimately I'm vegan because I love animals and don't have any desire to eat them, wear them, or otherwise contribute to their suffering.

video here on DU.

The way the animals were treated in that video was just awful.

(the state with the most factory farms). I saw up close how these facilities damage the environment, rural communities and economies, how they abuse workers, and how they are indescribably cruel to animals. I also watched good Iowans work to keep these nightmares out of their communities, only to have the meat industry lobby the state legislature to block county boards from making rural zoning decisions. It was originally the environmental and political stuff that got me to give up meat. I simply refused to give my money to such a corrupt industry. Once I had stopped eating meat for those reasons, I began to pay more attention to the animal cruelty issues, and I was shocked at what I learned.

A friend introduced me to the Christian Vegetarian Association, which became a great support group for me and strengthened my philosophical and ethical underpinnings. The founder of the CVA has become a close friend and mentor.

So, my reasons for being veg*n are fairly complex and numerous. Any one of my reasons would be enough, but with what I've seen, I have plenty of reasons to choose from.

I'm very nearly vegetarian now. I haven't eaten beef in months, and eat chicken maybe once or twice a month. I do like to BBQ though so with the warm weather I'm likely to eat more.

And my reason for this dietary shift is mainly for similar reasons you state. I read "Omnivore's Dilemma" and learned about the industrial meat food chain and that turned me off for ecological and animal cruelty reasons. Actually I'm turned off the whole industrial food chain not just meat but we're focused on meat on this thread.

So my question to you is have you considered still including meat on occasion from farms that raise the meat in sustainable humane ways? Like grass feed cows etc...?

That's where I go when I eat meat. Just curious not being argumentative.

But I finally came to the conclusion that no way of slaughtering an animal is humane. I also learned that I simly don't need to eat meat. I don't miss it at all, and I can always find some alternative. So, I just stopped eating it altogether.

I also wear no clothing made from animal products, use vegan makeup, in general try to live a vegan life.

I do live with three cats and, unlike some vegans, I don't believe cats can be healthy without meat. One of my cats is on a prescription diet, and doing well on it (he has lower urinary tract disease. I nearly lost him to a blockage a year ago. The vet then put him on the Purina diet for flutd, and he hasn't had another infection or blockage since. I'm not going to argue with that kind of success!). The other two eat cat food made with organically raised meat--Pet Promise cat food. This is the best I can do in caring for felines. I'm seriously considering not getting more cats after these have crossed the bridge, but getting herbivore pets, maybe rabbits. My dog is vegan--more vegan than me.

So, my home is not fully vegan, but I do the best I can.

Why do people sometimes type "veg*n"? Is it a joke I missed? :shrug:

without typing both. There are many different labels in between as well.

That makes sense.

I have a lot of meetings over lunch, in restaurants. When possible I eat vegan meals in these settings, but when that's not possible--or I don't know whether a food contains eggs, etc--I choose vegetarian options.

One of my frustrations here is that the Illinois Conference of my church (I'm a pastor) offers vegetarian but never vegan options at meetings. In Iowa, there were always vegan options. I can't figure out why those "rural hicks" in Iowa (that's the general attitude here) were creative enough to come up with vegan meals, but their more sophisticated cousins can't have a single meal without meat and/or dairy.

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. - Leo Tolstoy

...as a left-wing, tree hugging, animal lover, the thought of eating meat just became increasingly repulsive. I really could no longer justify killing a life for my own appetite.

I wouldn't eat them so how could I justify eating another animal?

I realized later I was just too lazy to learn to like meat, so I stayed with it for 40+ years afterward. Lacto-ovo type - love me some eggs and dairy! :9

But seriously, I always hated meat, stopped eating it when I was 20, then slowly got into several philosophical reasons including macrobiotics, which is not totally vegan or vegetarian.

When I look into the eyes of a cow/pig/chicken, etc. I know I can't eat them in good conscious any more than I could eat my dog or cat. It's my own personal feelings. Since then, I've learned about the other health related issues, not to mention the horrors of the meat industry. So I have a lot of reasons at this point. My children were brought up veggie too. So far, my 8 yr old son is the only one who eats meat sometimes. It was his choice and I respect that (though it is only out of the house and with his father).

(almost half my life now! :wow: )

Back then it was an animal rights related decision. I wanted to go to vet school, and had the sense that it would be pretty perverse to save some animals while eating others. Also i learned a bit about factory farms and was completely repulsed.

I still feel that way but now i'm an ecologist, so i find the ecological reasons more compelling -- the huge number of people that can be fed by a veggie diet versus a meat diet on the same amount of land. It's a huge component of one's "ecofootprint," which i'm always trying to lower. In fact, that would be a very interesting OP! I'll post a link. :hi:

Then I got so sick of fake meat that I couldn't keep doing it. Seriously, I was losing my appetite to the point that I was worried that instead of losing weight normally, I'd end up starving myself or eating too much of the wrong things and not getting the right nutrition.

and has been since she was 13 - now she's 24. We always thought it would be a nice idea, but didn't start until the other daughter, a carnivore, moved out. It's also less expensive, better for the planet, and better for our health.

harming them. In time, it grew beyond that. The more I learned, the more it seemed like eating meat was based solely in the self and the "want" of something no matter how unnecessary and destructive.

In addition, before I had gone vegetarian, I got my trainer and sports nutritionist certifications. It's my passion, so I read a LOT of nutritional studies and research papers about nutrition, supplementation, etc. I'm overwhelmingly convinced that meat and dairy are the worst fuel we can be using to keep our bodies running.

That's the most simple, un"flamey" way I can put it.

I'm vegan, btw.

I visited a factory chicken farm and it changed me, forever. Everyone who eats meat should have to spend time in chicken, pig and cow factories, it is just embarrassing what our society lets happen every day. I've been a vegetarian since that night at the chicken plant, about 1994? I ate meat again after my accident, I was in hospitals for months and wasn't in control of my food and it took a while to recover enough to realize I needed to switch back.

But now I've read a lot about what it does to the environment. And like 7 pounds of grain are grown for each pound of meat, while kids are starving to death, one every few seconds. It's crazy how we live.

I have been a vegetarian for 34 years.
Here's a picture of two of my friends. The cow I raised from birth. She's 17 years old now. Her best friend is my 22 year old horse. They go every where together. They have the same emotions we do. They love each other.
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To answer the OP. I have been vegetarian most of my life since my early teens. I had concern for the environment and I love animals. I upset myself gardening once, when I disturbed some black ants, they were upset too, so I went inside the house and got them a girl scout cookie. Now, if I see a pork loin in the grocery, my mind shows me the whole living pig, I can’t even fathom eating it. It bothers me to see meat in the market; I try to avoid the meat section. Imagine seeing a human hand for sale at the butchers.

Once in a while, on my less sensitive days, I will cook meat for my husband, he is mostly a vegetarian, but likes some humanly raised meat once in a while.

I love that they love each other :loveya: I can't wait to someday have a cow or two of my own.

Growing up in rural Kentucky, we ate a lot of meat, and meat was in almost every dish. My mom was a fairly adventurous cook though, so we also ate a lot of vegetables and I got to experience relatively exotic cuisines at home and when we went out, especially compared to my friends, so I already liked most veggies and was an pretty open-minded eater.

Later, in college I was on the stress, drugs, and poverty diet™ while putting myself through school and living almost exclusively on cheap food and caffeine. So basically I was barely eating meat at first for economic reasons. I ate simple, cheap foods like beans and rice and pasta, and veggies. I also lost a decent amount of weight between this and not having a car/riding my bike everywhere, but I digress.

I was working in restaurants at the time, partially for the possibility to work evenings (FT work and school) but also for the free/discount meals. The semi-final straw for me was two-fold: the restaurant I worked for was very good and almost everything was made from scratch, so I got the opportunity to do all sorts of things such as making sausage, or chicken stock (from chicken spines! yum!) to cleaning chicken parts, etc. I also got involved in an environmental group (SEAC) where I met a few vegetarians, something I was not really even aware existed at the time.

As I was barely eating meat myself, I started getting grossed out by preparing meat at work, like almost feeling physically ill a few times from the smell/texture of it, and from conversations with my veggie friends (who did not push anything on me - I asked them about it when I found out they were vegetarians), I decided that it was for me.

From around 19-26 I was pretty hardcore in that I was nigh-vegan (I still occasionally ate ice cream, but not very often), and would not get preachy to anyone, but also was very adamant about my diet, and resented when people would try to trick me into eating meat - which sadly happens more than I want to think about.

I fell off the wagon for a couple of years when I was living with a guy who was an amazing cook, and had been given 5 pounds of deer meat by another hunter friend. I gave the meet to my roomie, and ended up eating some of it, mainly out of curiosity, but then started eating meat again, mostly out of convenience as at the time many restaurants did not have many options beyond grilled cheese.

Then a few years ago, my wife and I read "Fast Food Nation" on vacation and we both decided to go veggie (again, for me) and have not looked back. We flirted with veganism, for which I am glad as we now know a lot more about various ingredients to avoid, but are not vegan.

All told, it's for a variety of reasons. It started off economically and physically, but as I have been an animal lover all my life, that played a part as well, and now it is also backed up by decisions based on sustainability and resources as well. I don't miss it, and have to say that compared to the late 80's/early 90's the options at restaurants and groceries are A LOT better, both in variety and taste. I don't often eat the "meat substitutes", but having them available makes things a lot easier for sure, and some are really good, like the vegan faux ribs. Hell, what I missed most about meat was never the meat as much as the styles of preparation, so things like this are a nice treat for me, but not really necessary either.

EDIT:
(sorry to add to an already long post)
Also, my family has had a variety of what I call diet-inflicted illnesses, and while I don't consider that my primary reason, I have felt far healthier without meat, and my overall "health stats" have improved greatly.

My family is omnivorous, and the thought occurred to me that my not eating those leftovers in the fridge would not bring that particular pig or cow back to life. I got violently ill the first time, and the second time (which was just yesterday, by the way), I had such bad heartburn I wasn't at all sure it wasn't a heart attack.

So I'm vegetarian for all the reasons listed above by others, moral, ethical, and health. After less than a year of eating vegetarian (initially because I watched the DVD "Meet Your Meat"), my body won't have it any other way.

many issues - all important. 20+ years.

which added up over time. No one reason is key or was sufficient:

*I'm an eco-leftist. It's the only responsible global ecological food-system strategy.

*I summered on my grandparent's dairy farm and when I was 12 it clicked that shawarma (Arabic cuisine: BBQed spiced lamb or goat) was Beth, my goat who kinda disappeared over the winter.

*Grew out of my opposition to hunting, a belief based in the fact that I live on the edge of a state forest constantly being poached.

*I never liked the taste of meat...I liked the stuff that went on it or it went in/on. I can put BBQ sauce or ketchup on anything. Pizza is better with roasted peppers and olives than sausage and pepperoni. Vegetarian chili is better than greasy meat chili.

*During a video in class on cultural customs, I saw a cat skinned alive.

*It's a really kickass weight-loss/health strategy.

*You won't believe me but veg*ns are better in bed and dammit I wanted better partners. We're an exclusive club, we don't tend to date fleshies.

And not just because I throw off the average. :rofl:

:evilgrin:

You should come out here and convince me.

after the 2005 season, i decided to go vegetarian to cut some calories (cyclists tend to gain 10-15, maybe 20 lbs in the off-season).

then it sorta morphed into an ecological footprint thing.

it was never about "those poor animals." i raised swine for 4-H--got my 10 year award, actually. i've always supported the small farmer, factory farms are a different story.
anyway.

in that order....

:hi:

I started giving up meat when I was four. I stopped eating pork and sausages except for rare occassions. As I got older the list of stuff I didn't want to eat kept getting bigger.

Rather than fight with me my parents would let me have a peanut butter sandwhich when they had chops or steaks. We were poor, and it wasn't worth wasting money to feed me expensive meat I didn't want.

When I got to college I met some vegetarians and discovered, hey, there are people who live without ever eating meat. I jumped at the idea and never looked back. I became a vegetarian first, and then when I developed a dairy alergy I became vegan.

As an adult there are many reasons I could say I remain a vegan. Ethical and environmental reasons are on the top of that list. But the ultimate reason is because I wanted to.

Even before being veg, I was a Shelleyan, so to speak. When I obtained a copy of Shelley's Prose or The Trumpet of a Prophecy, Shelley's essays really laid out the case beautifully in both "Essay on the Vegetable System of Diet" and "A Vindication of the Natural Diet".



In the spiritual component directly from the Bible, at the beginning man and woman were created as vegan.

Like the Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo wrote in "Our Daily Bread" (as translated by James Wright):

I probably felt some sort of vague spiritual mumbo-jumbo which I can't quite recall the details of and I wanted to piss off and/or confuse my parents/adults/squares/etc. I continued to to it mainly for environmental reasons (maybe 15 years). Now I'm married to a meat eater and have become a part time carnivore myself...