Vegetarians/Vegans only! What made you choose this diet?!
Vegetarians/Vegans only! What made you choose this diet?
I am not vegetarian or vegan but just curious why you would give up meat, eg allergy, don't like taste, feel eating meat is cruel etc
Additional Details4 weeks ago
Not just meat of course, I mean all animal products
Answers:
4 weeks ago
Not just meat of course, I mean all animal products
Actually, I became a vegetarian on a whim for a New Year's resolution four years ago. I didn't really have a reason, I just wanted to try it and see if I could do it. I was already losing my taste for red meat, but chicken was hard to give up. I did it gradually.
Now, I have different reasons. Yes, animal cruelty is one of them but only because I learned about it AFTER the fact. Animal cruelty and similar things is just why I've STAYED vegetarian; not the reason I became one. I figure, "Why go back to eating meat if I enjoy the substitutes and it's not harming animals or supporting an industry that is harmful to animals or the earth?"
Most people don't realize that if everyone in the world was a vegetarian, we would solve world hunger. We waste so many resources feeding animals and then butchering them that we could be feeding ourselves if we all just became vegetarians. That, and there's less of a health risk (I and other vegetarians seldomly get sick, worry about our cholesterol levels, worry about e. coli and other poultry/meat related issues attached to eating an animal).
Yeah...basically, being a vegetarian is a healthy option for me and I've been doing it for four years and I love it. I'm not vegan...that'd be too hard for me personally, but as a dancer, it is a great diet for me. I can eat vegetarian deli meat- four slices and only 70 calories and 14 grams of protein! That's as much protein as several ounces of chicken.
So there you have it. It works for me. :) Once you give up meat entirely...after several months...fake meat will taste like real meat. But don't try fake meat RIGHT AFTER you give up meat...it'll taste gross, at least it did for me. It's all about the brands you buy, too. Some brands are just nasty.
I'm vegan.
Because our bodies are not suited to digest meat..and I saw how defensive the people around me were when I first brought up the idea of eliminating meat from my diet.
Growing up I was never real comfortable with eating animals...finding blood veins in my chicken breasts ect. I'd see the veins in my wrists and think''wow something has to be wrong with this.''
young and ignorant I guess - it's hard to break the comforts of your childhood or the things you're bred to be known as truths.. but I was motivated to humble myself and explore my naivety since I saw how many problems and/or extra trouble we have to go through because we feast on flesh.
i like the fact that im not ingesting anything that was or could be alive. i wouldnt eat my dog or cat so whats the difference between eating a pig or cow? or even my pet gold fish?
The first thing I stopped eating was meat in middle school, when I realized that one could easily live without it. I loathed unnecessary killing, suffering, and pain so I didn't want to contribute to it. I also noted to myself to never buy noticeably leather items (like coats), though I didn't think at the time to check shoes, backs of jeans, etc.
About a year and a half ago, I very slowly started replacing the dairy and eggs in my diet, partly to accommodate a friend who often ate at my house, and partly because I was curious why vegans avoided such things. The more I learned about the dairy and egg industries through my own research, the more uncomfortable I became with supporting them, so eventually I set a deadline and stopped that, too. (Somewhere along the line I had also changed to vegan toiletries after using my old ones up, and began making sure the clothes and other things I bought were vegan.)
If we changed to a system where the cows had free space, were never eaten, very well treated, gave milk willingly, etc. (like in many villages in old India) then I might not be vegan and would eat dairy without feeling it to be against my beliefs - but more likely I would still be vegan and then share the milk with people who need it more than I do.
I found that I didn't like the body I was in, and some of my heroes like Jerry Garcia also had that problem. One of my friends is pretty skinny and also vegetarian, and showed me a thing or two.
Three years later, I'm still pretty fat, but at least better off than I was, or might be by now if I had the same diet, or if I ate even more meat or junk.
If you want to fight obesity and diabetes you ought to start somewhere. The real cause most of the time, is our system is too full of crap, and meat is one thing you simply don't have to ingest if you don't want to. Like smoking, there are just some things you don't have to die from.
I gave it up because my friends were doin it. Then, since I didn't really miss it i figured what the hell--veg meals are way easier in many ways. Then, I became a mother and started really thinkin about what goes into our bodies and how to avoid cancer and raise a healthy child. Then I started taking yoga. Then I became morally against eating meat. Then I started doing research. Then I met a beef industry employee on AMTRAK. Then I read "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. Some years later, I started eating raw foods. Now I feel better than I ever have in my life and wouldn't dream of eating meat. Why bother? It's so much better this way.
When I was 12 there was a butcher shop with live chickens across the street from my Doctors office and I would see the blood pouring into the streets. When I was 14 I cracked an egg and red stuff was inside of it (I guess it was blood). When I was 16 a chicken form the butcher shop ran out (with it's head chopped off) and a car ran over it; that's when I became a vegetarian. I'm 18 now and I plan to stay a vegetarian.
The meat industry is gross and dirty. I once thought that if I could ever find a local, humane ranch that let animals run free and be happy before slaughtering them I might go back to meat, but the reality is, unless I could look an animal in the eye and take its life myself I don't want anyone else doing it for me. And I couldn't do that, so...
I read a lot of evidence that we were not meant to be meat-eaters. That's what convinced me to make the change initially. I don't like f-ing with Mother Nature. I'm also not meant to suckle off a cow. I'm cool with eggs, though, theoretically. I just make sure I buy them from humane farms.