Vegetarians - why?

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

I hate to interrupt this lovely flame war, but there are several reasons why I am a vegetarian:

1. (Most important) I was born and raised one. I've never eaten meat in my life. Converting to eating meat would be a long, unpleasant process that I really have no desire to put myself through. Just ask a mother who has introduced meat to her child's diet how unpleasant it really is.

2. Meat has never appealed to me, since, due to my upbringing, I just can't see it as food; only as dead animals.

3. Environmental reasons.

4. Health reasons.

5. Since I'm a big wuss, I feel incapable of killing an animal. Therefore, I would feel like a hypocrite if I ate one after letting someone else do the dirty work for me.

I'm not a preachy vegetarian, I really don't care what anyone else eats. But I do get angry when people learn that I'm a vegetarian, assume that I'm going to be preachy, and then start preemptively yelling at me about how they can eat whatever they want. (It's happened before, numerous times.) No one said you couldn't, dude. I'm leaving you alone, so kindly show me the same courtesy.

 

[Homo Carnivorous]

Converting to eating meat would be a long, unpleasant process that I really have no desire to put myself through

Out of curiosity, what do you think would happen?

 

[JasonKaotic]

It's got nothing to do with copying the animals. It's to do with ethics. Other animals don't farm because they don't have the ability to. We shouldn't because it's wrong. So it's nothing to do with copying. I believe that animals should have the chance to live instead of being stuck in a small area of grass their entire lives, to be dragged away and shot or decapitated or however the particular abbatoir does it before ANY of them get ANY chance to live their whole lives. Entire species of animals imprisoned and butchered. The fact that you're assuming I want to stop farming just to copy other animals proves you haven't listened to anything I've said.

Firstly, animals do farm. Termite mounds devote large areas to cultivating fungus using collected plant matter. Ants keep flocks of aphids to "milk" for the sweet liquid they excrete. Farming is certainly not unique to humans.

Secondly, if keeping animals in pain, torturing them for their entire lives produced better tasting meat, I would buy nothing but Extra Cruelty Brand steak. But it doesn't work that way. Content, well-fed, painlessly killed animals produce the best meat, so that is generally the way the meat industry works.

Every last living thing on this planet thrives on the death of other living things. It is as plain and simple as that. You can justify and compartmentalize however you want. You can rate some deaths as more or less important than others, if you want. But none of that changes the simple fact that life depends on death. I revel in that, I kill everything I can, because sooner or later something is going to kill me.

Fungus is a plant. It has no emotion, feeling or thought. Which is why I'm a vegetarian, not starved. Ants don't keep every single living aphid in these farms, and they don't slaugher them quarterway through their life.

If you'd read my other posts, how they're killed isn't my point. As I said in my original post, would you rather every single human rounded up into small areas of grass and never again be able to live out anything close to their whole lifespan, to be taken to abbatoirs and slaughtered, or every now and then have one picked off from their home, with the majority of the population continuing as normal? These are lives, not resources to be used up. Living creatures with feelings and emotions. And it's not that we don't torture then and keep them in pain anyway, animal testing exists. Human superiority is what I'm against, not the taste of meat.

Yes, everything does thrive on the death of other living things. I really, really can't be bothered to go through every single thing I went through with that other guy for the fifth time, so just read the other things I've said for my response to that. And rating deaths as more or less important is what I'm against. It's what people like YOU do. And it's not the fault of the cows or pigs or anything else you get meat from that you're going to die someday. If that's your view on things, why don't you go out and kill everyone because someday one of them will probably start some kind of new holocaust?

 

[Lokithrsourcerer]

I hate to interrupt this lovely flame war, but there are several reasons why I am a vegetarian:

1. (Most important) I was born and raised one. I've never eaten meat in my life. Converting to eating meat would be a long, unpleasant process that I really have no desire to put myself through. Just ask a mother who has introduced meat to her child's diet how unpleasant it really is.

2. Meat has never appealed to me, since, due to my upbringing, I just can't see it as food; only as dead animals.

3. Environmental reasons.

4. Health reasons.

5. Since I'm a big wuss, I feel incapable of killing an animal. Therefore, I would feel like a hypocrite if I ate one after letting someone else do the dirty work for me.

I'm not a preachy vegetarian, I really don't care what anyone else eats. But I do get angry when people learn that I'm a vegetarian, assume that I'm going to be preachy, and then start preemptively yelling at me about how they can eat whatever they want. (It's happened before, numerous times.) No one said you couldn't, dude. I'm leaving you alone, so kindly show me the same courtesy.

thats fair enough m8 all my pro-meat "preachy-ness" is for counter attacks only. I have a lot of vegi and vegan friends and in all my days i've only ever "attacked" one person. a very good friend of mine who's extreme vegan diet was actually having negative effects on his health. these days (especially since he had a kid) he eats dairy and fish and as a result has been in much better health

 

[Sabinfrost]

Personally I'm not one way or another, I love vegetarian and non-vegetarian food.

I was with a vegetarian for a while, and became one for the sake of convenience, so I suppose that can answer part of the OPs question.

Do I think it is morally wrong to eat animals? I think it is morally questionable at the least, but having worked in the meat industry I understand that by buying the salad instead of the cheeseburger at McDonalds I'm making little difference.

Until there is a widespread shift in the way society thinks, being a vegetarian is great on paper and that is about it. You compromise your convenience and health without rigorous attention to diet or supplements for the sake of some piece of mind, which I have due to the fact I'm socially accepted eating meat.

 

[psyks]

You're really an amateur. A patronising amateur that's just learnt what the word "straw-man" means and is in the practice of disregarding sources. What's wrong with you? "no cow has ever stood up", of course they haven't, because they're cows and can't talk. Of course I'm citing "mercyforanimals" because who else is going to put that information out there? You're confusing the persuasion of the source and the validity of the material.
Secondly, I'm not dodging any issue. Animals die for a lot of reasons. Yes, perhaps we have to protect our crops, but killing and torturing animals for meat is just a fucking frivolous waste of life. How inflated is your ego that you would put an animal through the torture you saw in those videos, just so you can eat what you want, you selfish ass? Once again, I accept that not all animals have terrible living conditions, but a huge majority of them do. I believe that factory farming in the US counts for around 98% of all meat produced.

Again, I have an interest in reducing the number of animals that are kept in cages and tortured. So, I stopped eating meat and therefore stopped supporting that industry. You may claim to have a sense of perspective, but you're clearly lacking in humility by placing yourself firmly above every other living creature.

The meat I've eaten has NOT come from tortured animals. You can contradict that all you like, but I use something called DISCRETION! I know where my meat comes from and I don't tar all with the same brush.

Also, lol at your:

"torturing animals for meat"

*insult me a few times based on slanderous assumptions*

"Once again, I accept that not all animals have terrible living conditions, but a huge majority of them do. I believe factory farming in the US counts for around 98% of all meat produced"

Such a lame attempt though a series of gross exaggerations and semantic links attempting to paint an extreme and illegal infraction as indicative of ALL OF a global and segmented industry.

"You may claim to have a sense of perspective, but you're clearly lacking in humility by placing yourself firmly above every other living creature."

You are an extremist. You take humility to the extreme beyond all logic and reason, losing sight of why humility is even a virtue.

Wow, that's a lot of long words you used there buddy, did you bust out the thesaurus to write that one? The reason I'm not going through proper source citations is because I'm arguing with you on the internet, not writing a dissertation. You know exactly where your meat comes from do you? That's great. It seems strange that you haven't mentioned that up till now. If you're so big on source validity, it would seem prudent to practice what you preach because I'm frankly not inclined to take your word for it.
I was wrong by the way. Based on census data from the US department of agriculture, 99% of all meat is factory farmed, and even that's based on data from 2004. If you think factory farming is ok, then that's really your choice. If you're ok with torturing animals, then that's fin. you may even "lol" if it does you pleasure. There's no way you'll ever convince me to join you and I will always look upon your kind with disdain. Not that you require my respect, obviously, being entirely consumed with ego and gluttony. This isn't just an animal rights issue because it also reflects on the individual that would be ambivalent towards the torture of animals for food.
I was talking with a tea party member the other day and she reacted exactly the same way you are. She accused me of insulting her whilst calling me things like "filthy communist", she turned every accusation of racism back on me and then she ignored what I was posting and just focused on dissecting insignificant lines of my argument. So, after delighting in patronising me and my very reasonable beliefs, accusing me of disregarding animal life and then ultimately failing to discuss anything I brought up, I conclude that this is all cognitive dissonance. I know how it feels, believe me. I used to eat meat and I regret every bite of it. So, after hearing arguments from people like dr. Gary Francione, I changed and I feel amazing for it.

Now, I frankly don't give a shit what you do. I thought we might have something in common, but it seem as thought we're from different planets. Apparently it's acceptable for you to passively take part in a frivolous expense of pain and waste of life if you want something for yourself, and then call me the extremist for trying to escape from that sordid industry.

 

[Abengoshis]

Quorn tastes nicer than real meat. That's my reason. I'm not a vegetarian, but I eat a lot of vegetarian food. When I've run out of Quorn I'll eat whatever meat I have though, and if I go to a restaurant I always get the meat ones out of habit.

Plants? Meh
Meat? Meh
Fungus? Yes please!

 

[KorLeonis]

It's got nothing to do with copying the animals. It's to do with ethics. Other animals don't farm because they don't have the ability to. We shouldn't because it's wrong. So it's nothing to do with copying. I believe that animals should have the chance to live instead of being stuck in a small area of grass their entire lives, to be dragged away and shot or decapitated or however the particular abbatoir does it before ANY of them get ANY chance to live their whole lives. Entire species of animals imprisoned and butchered. The fact that you're assuming I want to stop farming just to copy other animals proves you haven't listened to anything I've said.

Firstly, animals do farm. Termite mounds devote large areas to cultivating fungus using collected plant matter. Ants keep flocks of aphids to "milk" for the sweet liquid they excrete. Farming is certainly not unique to humans.

Secondly, if keeping animals in pain, torturing them for their entire lives produced better tasting meat, I would buy nothing but Extra Cruelty Brand steak. But it doesn't work that way. Content, well-fed, painlessly killed animals produce the best meat, so that is generally the way the meat industry works.

Every last living thing on this planet thrives on the death of other living things. It is as plain and simple as that. You can justify and compartmentalize however you want. You can rate some deaths as more or less important than others, if you want. But none of that changes the simple fact that life depends on death. I revel in that, I kill everything I can, because sooner or later something is going to kill me.

Fungus is a plant. It has no emotion, feeling or thought. Which is why I'm a vegetarian, not starved. Ants don't keep every single living aphid in these farms, and they don't slaugher them quarterway through their life.

If you'd read my other posts, how they're killed isn't my point. As I said in my original post, would you rather every single human rounded up into small areas of grass and never again be able to live out anything close to their whole lifespan, to be taken to abbatoirs and slaughtered, or every now and then have one picked off from their home, with the majority of the population continuing as normal? These are lives, not resources to be used up. Living creatures with feelings and emotions. And it's not that we don't torture then and keep them in pain anyway, animal testing exists. Human superiority is what I'm against, not the taste of meat.

Yes, everything does thrive on the death of other living things. I really, really can't be bothered to go through every single thing I went through with that other guy for the fifth time, so just read the other things I've said for my response to that. And rating deaths as more or less important is what I'm against. It's what people like YOU do. And it's not the fault of the cows or pigs or anything else you get meat from that you're going to die someday. If that's your view on things, why don't you go out and kill everyone because someday one of them will probably start some kind of new holocaust?

If the humans let themselves be rounded up and slaughtered, then that is what they deserve. If the cows don't deserve it, let them revolt and fight back, which is what most humans would do in their place. There is no human superiority, because no life is superior. We are all just dying chunks of meat.

Some meat-eaters would posit that humans are superior and deserve to kill animals however they want. You would seem to claim that cows and pigs etc are equal to us, and deserve better treatment, but I bet you don't go out of your way to let insects and vermin have free roam. A plant is just as alive as anything else, but no one pleads that we stop the mistreatment of corn. Everyone draws a line somewhere, I simply say there is no line, no life is significant especially on a universal scale.

Not that I have anything against a good murderin' spree, but if I did set out to murder everyone, I wouldn't get very far before being gunned down. Its merely self-interest that keeps my killing confined to deer, birds, livestock and whatever darts out in front of my car.

 

[Sabinfrost]

So glad I only skim read this thread looking at some of the arguments happening.

Here is my two cents, each to their own, let individuals make individual choices, don't ridicule others beliefs. Justified or unjustified, lets agree to disagree.

 

[Sabinfrost]

Any opinion I have would be immediately shot down. So there's no point. I'm a vegan, that's my "problem" I suppose.

There is nothing wrong with being a vegan. If you believe it improves you life, you're welcome to your opinions and choices, as long as you don't push them on others, not that I'm claiming you do.

 

[Doomdiver]

I'm a vegetarian. My reasoning is that since science in the modern day is geared towards stopping suffering and making life easier I should embrace it. And in my personal opinion that should not be limited to humans. Science has given us knowlege of what we need for a healthy life and a variety of meat substitutes. If I can reduce the suffering for animals by stopping eating meat and therefore reducing demand for it, and I can still live a healthy lifestyle, then in my eyes that is what I should do (and for all those who say it's not possible to live a healthy lifestyle and be veggie I'm perfectly fine thank you).

I hear the "It's only natural" argument a lot however this means nothing to me. The medicine that will most likely one day save your life isn't natural. Does that mean you won't take it?

As for the argument that it limits your diet, yes, it might do but not as much as many people seem to think. At university from my personal experience it's the vegetarians, not the meat eaters, that have a greater variety in their diets. I enjoy this food, I live healthily and there will always be something new and interesting I haven't tried yet. That's enough variety for me.

Sorry if that came across a bit preachy (not intended that way) but I'm more used to giving this point of view in defence when being preached at by a meat eater than when someone is genuinely asking me my view. Unless being told that I am wrong in being vegetarian I will never intend to preach about it.

 

[TheAceTheOne]

I know someone who's reason for being a vegetarian is, as she put it, politeness: She doesn't particularly like meat, and when she went over to her friends' houses, they would prepare meat for her. So, she became a vegetarian to avoid making her friends waste food. At least, that's what I remember her saying.

My opinion: I really could care less about what someone eats. If they prefer tacos to nachos, plants to meat, hot dogs to bratwurst, then that's their choice. In many cases, I accommodate for such preferences, when possible. But that won't stop me from eating meat in the presence of a vegetarian. Or tacos in front of someone who likes nachos... you get the point.

 

[Homo Carnivorous]

Any opinion I have would be immediately shot down.

Not if you come bearing facts. I have no problems at all with people who chose a veg*n lifestyle. what I have a problem with is the static noise like the PCRM echochamber provides. Had they just been promoting a vegan diet, power to them, but these people dont stop there. They slither their way into advisory positions and will lobby and try anything to force their ideologies and habbits down the throat of everybody. With succes too.

One thing is trying to convince someone to your point of view another is to use violence by proxy which is what happens if it turns into law and you refuse to comply. Then its battering time. Ofcourse veg*ns being ever so peaceful can take comfort in the fact that just like the killing their farming causes, they wont have to look, deal or take responsability for it.

 

[JasonKaotic]

If the humans let themselves be rounded up and slaughtered, then that is what they deserve. If the cows don't deserve it, let them revolt and fight back, which is what most humans would do in their place. There is no human superiority, because no life is superior. We are all just dying chunks of meat.

Some meat-eaters would posit that humans are superior and deserve to kill animals however they want. You would seem to claim that cows and pigs etc are equal to us, and deserve better treatment, but I bet you don't go out of your way to let insects and vermin have free roam. A plant is just as alive as anything else, but no one pleads that we stop the mistreatment of corn. Everyone draws a line somewhere, I simply say there is no line, no life is significant especially on a universal scale.

Not that I have anything against a good murderin' spree, but if I did set out to murder everyone, I wouldn't get very far before being gunned down. Its merely self-interest that keeps my killing confined to deer, birds, livestock and whatever darts out in front of my car.

Cows don't have the ability to fight back. Their intelligence isn't high enough to realise they can (but as I said in an earlier post, intelligence doesn't make them lesser). Humans would fight back, but only because they have the ability to, as well as more means of doing so.
I have nothing against insects or animals people call vermin. If I see an insect crawling up my wall, I leave it be. I'm a bit scared of spiders, but I wouldn't kill them. And animals most people see as vermin I don't have a problem with at all. And plants are indeed alive, but differently. Plants are incapable of emotions, feeling or thought, so no life is really being wasted when we take them. Nor are they in any kind of distress when we do so. They do exactly what they would if they were in the wild when we farm them, and no difference is made at all to their state of mind (seeing as they have no mind).
I threw in that last bit because I thought you were backing human superiority (sorry 'bout that). I just don't see farming animals any different to farming humans. If humans were farmed there would be mass riots and all that, but people accept animal farming as normal and acceptable. Both are just as alive as each other.

 

[EvilPicnic]

I was a vegetarian for a couple of years, for ethical reasons (to do with the treatment of the animals etc.) I'm not anymore because actually, I really like steak. But I now try to look very carefully at the sourcing of meat and related products, and there are still some types of meat I avoid completely.

 

[Liudeius]

I never said you have to eat meat now but it was stated that humans were not biologically adapted to eat meat and that is blatantly false. Maybe you should go back and read the comment that started this whole argument and it will make a little more sense to you.

You should go back and re-read that comment too. Humans evolved from primates, we evolved from herbivores. The OC wasn't saying that humans can't eat meat, he was saying that humans have evolved to be capable of eating meat while initially we were herbivores and therefore are no where near as adapted as carnivores are to eat meat.

 

[Liudeius]

what sciuentific research is that? Dont tell me. PCRM studies? yeah thats what I thought too. F#%& PCRM. They are not medical professionals or real researchers they are animal rights activists parading as and abusing science.

What these kinds of studies show time and time again is that;

1.Most of the meat is processed. meaning, its more likely to be Mcdonalds patty or balogna than fresh cut sirloin
2.Vegetarians are more likely to be non smokers and physically active.
3.chicken counts as "vegetarian" in many of the studies.
4.The amount of wheat wheat flour and sugar eaten is not considered.
5.Only balony is concidered and that makes these kinds of trials....well

balogna?!

Do one at a crossfit center which would represent active (majority) meat eaters. get back to me.

I have no clue what PCRM is, but if you would get your information on studies directly from scientific journals rather than biased sources that are either trying to prove meat is good or meat is bad, you will have a far clearer view point.

Clearly this argument will be going no where though because I don't feel like spending a few hours scouring abstracts to get enough studies for a conclusive proof, so fine. You can be right, meat is "not bad" for you.

 

[Canid117]

I never said you have to eat meat now but it was stated that humans were not biologically adapted to eat meat and that is blatantly false. Maybe you should go back and read the comment that started this whole argument and it will make a little more sense to you.

You should go back and re-read that comment too. Humans evolved from primates, we evolved from herbivores. The OC wasn't saying that humans can't eat meat, he was saying that humans have evolved to be capable of eating meat while initially we were herbivores and therefore are no where near as adapted as carnivores are to eat meat.

A) Just because a species ancestors did not posses an adaptation does not mean that the adaptation is invalid and unusable and B) even if that were the case, the ancestor species of humans have all been omnivores since before they became exclusively bipedal.