I really HATE animal cruelty but I just don't think I could be a vegetarian!?!

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If you don't want to be vegetarian, you can try cutting back on meat (something is better than nothing). Personally, while I think PETA information presents the extreme and not the norm, I am firmly against factory farming. It horrible on the animals, the workers, and finally, the consumer's health (hormone meat from animals on an unnatural diet).

A few ideas:

1. Buy organic meat. But know, while organic is very good, the label isn't perfect. USDA regulates the use of the term "organic" on food labels. Animal based foods labeled organic must be fed only organic feeds (which has at least 80 percent organic ingredients and does not contain slaughterhouse wastes, antibiotics, or genetically modified grains). The organic standards also provide some assurance about how the animals are housed and handled and specifically mandate that animals have some access to the outdoors, to exercise, and to bedding. The problem, however, is that the standards have not clearly mandated access to pasture. Thus, much organic milk (and other dairy products) comes from cows that are housed in enormous metal sheds and spend most of their days on cement floors, having no access to pastures.

2. On eggs.... free range is okay (but the label is seriously flawed). The term "free range" is most commonly used for poultry. Strangely, it can mean different things depending on whether it's applied to poultry raised for meat versus egg-laying poultry. When "free range" is used on poultry meat, USDA requires that the birds have some access to the outdoors. However, there are no standards for what type of outdoor area it must be, and therefore might be a small cement patio. Even more problematic is "free range" when it's used for eggs. USDA has failed to create any definition of "free range" for egg laying hens. Arguably, then, companies could label their eggs "free range" even without providing any outdoor access (and I suspect that's what some companies are doing).

If you can find a local farm, fresh farm eggs are the best way to go.

3. Lamb could be consider one of the "better" meats to buy from the store. Lambs are not generally an animal raised on a factory farm, so the meats most likely comes from a smaller farm. This doesn't guarantee anything, but lamb is more likely better off than the factory farm-raised cow.

4. Fish. There is some evidence that fish don't feel much pain when they are killed, but unless you buy wild-caught fish, they are still breed in factory farms. I know several people who eat fish as their only meat. I wouldn't say that is a terrible option... just depends on what makes you comfortable.

http://sustainableshepherdstown.us/uploa…

This is a really good article on how to avoid factory farm foods without abstaining from animal products completely. I pulled some of the above information from it... hope it helps.

Yeah, the animals are treated very badly in the meat industry.

Undercover investigations inside the meat industry have found workers punching, kicking, slaping and stomping on the heads of animals. The way they're killed is barbaric.

A meat diet kills more animals than any other diet, so becoming a vegetarian you'll be saving animals.

Its easy these days to become a vegetarian. More and more people each day cut meat out of their diets.

This website has information on vegetarianism - https://www.vegsoc.org/

Edit: If you eat fish you wont be a vegetarian because vegetarians dont eat fish.

You're young. You have so much to learn. Please don't listen to PETA.

http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
http://www.nokillnow.com/PETAIngridNewki…

I love the taste of meat too much to be a vegetarian. However, cutting back on meat is a healthier lifestyle. Just make sure you're getting enough protein!!!

I would worry more about "eating only fish." Some fishing methods are very damaging to the environment, while others are very eco-friendly. If you live in the USA, you really shouldn't worry too much about where the fish you're eating came from. Most fish in the US are farmed or safely caught. Most imported fish, however, are trolled or caught with other damaging methods.

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr…

Download one of these to put in your wallet when deciding what fish to eat!

If U don't want 2B a veggy, but hate animal cruelty, eat only meat, milk & eggs that have the ORGANIC label... they animals are raised outdoors, free range... but U won't find any of these at any fast food restaurants.

www.factoryfarming.com, kfccruelty.com, mccruelty.com

Stop reading animal rights websites. Just eat what you want and enjoy what life has to offer. You will be more relaxed and stress free.

Well first I wouldn't listen to a thing PETA has to say. Find unbiased sources to get information from.

That is a dilemma for many people including myself. Nature has designed and created many animals including human beings as meat eaters. I watch documentary about animals all the time and see lions, tigers, crocodiles chasing other animals in order to eat them. At first I felt happy to see the target animals escape successfully, but then I realized if the predators never caught anything they would all die of starvation. Now I just watch such chasing without taking sides, it's just nature. I also see animal lovers creating animal shelters for tigers, bears etc. but at the same time they are feeding these saved animals with meat of other animals.

It is beyond our own control to change our natural urge for nutrition. I will just try best to make sure animals don't suffer unnecessarily and they are slaughtered in the most humane ways.

Additional:
Maybe humans were not natural carnivores, but we've evolved into meat eaters over time. When I tried to be vegetarian, I felt myself craving for food especially meat so that I could not function and concentrate on my work because my body was lacking the nutrients it need. Some people can function well with a vegetarian diet and some cannot. If you feel you become weak or cannot concentrate on your daily work, maybe you should eat a little meat just to get yourself going. Nothing you can do with nature.

Hi there !!! I was 15 when I stopped eating meat ... Thanks to my father he took me to Meat Market where they cut any kind of chicken or goat infront of you yucks ... I vomitted there and decided not to eat meat anymore ... I useto think meat is grown by planting trees or where they put seeds and grow like Wheat, Rice etc.. LOL I was a kid that time now I am 36 and still NO Meat but eat Fish and Eggs which is very very high in Proteins. I am very healthy and on Face Book have lots of friends who follow me as I also hate animal cruelty... You are doing a good job by cutting down a lot.. I you want to be 100% meatless then go to supermarkets and look for 100% Veg Patties, Veg Hot Dogs, Veg Salami they all are made of 100% Veg but tastes very similar to real meat .. Once you start eating Veg Patties by Morning Star brand you will surely forget about real meat... So good luck to you and I am so proud of you at this age you decided not to eat Meat ... Thumbs Up !! & Good Luck to you ... Shaun ... 100% for my answer please ...

HI, take your time,
as you've said you buy your own food I have to assume you're not a child. Anyway if it doesn't say it's not tested it is, same with food; if it doesn't say free range etc it isn't.
I can't tell you what cosmetics to use as you are U.S and i'm UK but their are loads, and you don't have to spend anymore more money. Just take your time and look at one thing at a time, i.e toothpaste. Go look in a health food shop, look online and many supermarkets have cruelty free stuff much cheaper, you can get animal cruelty free books, there are loads of them, but most of this info is on the internet.
It's quite hard to be a veggie if you don't have anyone else around that is, but just pick one or two days a week to try. There's gonna be stuff you don't like just as being a meat eater. I'm a vegan and I never even thought I could be a veggie.
Just take your time, try different things, do it slowly.
You will find you spend a lot of time looking on the back on products in shops for info ; don't be surprised if you get mistaken for a shoplifter !! good luck.

Add on - wild sage, we are NOT natural omnivores, nor are we natural meat eaters or veggies, but this is a very long discussion needing a lot of beers.
Whatever anyone decides to do, and this question was about being a veggie; we have to find out where everything we eat comes from; whether we are a meateater or veggie.

Although I would not consider PETA the most reliable of sources on vegetarianism, going vegetarian (or vegan) is definitely the best way to prevent animal cruelty. Although there are many different reasons to go veg (health, religious, environmental, economical, human rights), ethics is a legitimate reason as well.

Princeton University professor and founder of the animal liberation movement, Peter Singer, believes that if alternative means of survival exist, one ought to choose the option that does not cause unnecessary harm to animals. Most Ethical Vegetarians argue that the same reasons exist against killing animals to eat as against killing humans to eat.

***Ethical Vegetarians also believe that killing an animal, like killing a human, can only be justified in extreme circumstances and that consuming a living creature for its enjoyable taste, convenience, or nutritional value is not sufficient cause. Another common view is that humans are morally conscious of their behavior in a way other animals are not, and therefore subject to higher standards.***

You can read more about ethical vegetarianism here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_e…

In addition, these resources might help you make your decision:
Starter sites: http://www.tryveg.com/cfi/toc/ http://www.veganoutreach.org/guide/
Nutrition: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vegetar…
List of animal ingredients: http://www.veganwolf.com/animal_ingredie…
Vegan/ Vegetarian restaurant finder:http://www.happycow.net/
Recipes: http://www.vegweb.com
Vegan Blog directory: http://www.veganblogs.com/
Just for fun: http://www.vegetus.org/
Cruelty free companies: http://www.gocrueltyfree.org/companies.p…

Just FYI - it's common for people to claim that vegetarianism is not the more ethical choice due to small animals like voles, mice and rabbits being killed during crop harvesting. This argument might be valid if many of these crops were not grown to feed farmed animals in the first place. For example 80% of corn grown in the U.S. is used to feed livestock: http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/cropma…
If someone were concerned about the plight of these small animals killed in combine harvesters, it would make more sense to be a vegetarian, as it involves the use of less crops in the long run.

Animal cruelty is unavoidable- even for hard core vegans, despite their boasting to the contrary.
If you want facts, the PETA website is not the place to look. Neither is yahoo answers.
If you don't want to be a vegetarian, then don't. It does nothing to "save" animals, regardless of what the vegetarians might claim.

i just want to point out that animal cruelty is not a permanent thing...it was proved a few times and other than that all processes are humane. anyone who thinks that animal cruelty is involved in all meat processing is a complete idiot. people need to suck it up and realize animals are barely ever treated inhumanely.

I'm in the same situation.. I hate animal cruelty, but me becoming a vegetarian is def not going to happen

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First and foremost, PETA lies. PETA doesn't care about animals. They want your money and will lie, pretend, fake anything to get you to sign up for their website, watch their videos, donate to their campaigns or buy a membership. Do not believe anything PETA has to say.

Here's a link to a group that DOES care for animals asking Ingrid Newkirk to resign. Take time to read it. I think you'll be shocked and the things PETA does.

http://www.nokillnow.com/PETAIngridNewki…

The simple, biological fact is that something is going to die so you can live. As the gazelle must die for the lion to live, other animals are going to die so humans can live. Actually, there's a good case to be made that more animals die in the fields under the heavy farming equipment to produce the veggies/grains that make up the vegetarian diet that would die if more people ate like you do, free range/grass fed beef and lamb. You should be proud of yourself. From the link:

"Animals of the field are killed by several factors, including:

1. Tractors and farm implements run over them.
2. Plows and cultivators destroy underground burrows and kill animals.
3. Removal of the crops (harvest) removes ground cover allowing animals on the surface to be killed by predators.
4. Application of pesticides.

So, every time the tractor goes through the field to plow, disc, cultivate, apply fertilizer and/or pesticide, harvest, etc., animals are killed. And, intensive agriculture such as corn and soybeans (products central to a vegan diet) kills far more animals of the field than would extensive agriculture like forage production, particularly if the forage was harvested by ruminant animals instead of machines. So perhaps fewer animals would be killed by producing beef, lamb, and dairy products for humans to eat instead of the vegan diet envisioned by Regan."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/9…

Obviously eating vegetarian is not "cruelty free". As for cosmetics, while some companies claim to not test on animals, their ingredients have been tested. The FDA simply doesn't let them put anything into products for sale to the public without proof they're safe. The individual company may not test; they pay someone else to test.

And lastly, here's a link to an animal rights site that shows you what things you use every day that are made from byproducts of animal slaughter. They're all around you, in your book bindings, the roads you drive on, the walls of your home, the furniture you set on. Truly, the only way to avoid using animals is to live in a cave and raise your own food. You're an animal, just like any other animal species. You have a natural place in nature. Don't be ashamed of it.

http://www.rense.com/general6/cow.htm

You realize PETA is all BULLSH**, right?
EVERYTHING on their website, all their videos and stuff, it's all a lie. ALL PROPAGANDA. Filmed a certain way ON PURPOSE to gain your sympathy.
NO BETTER THAN OUTRIGHT LYING.

There is no such thing as "non-animal tested", because by law EVERYTHING is tested to see if it's safe, and they test nothing on people before testing it on animals.

You can make up your own mind as to eating meat or not, that's up to you.
But DON'T do it because of someone ELSE'S opinions/information.
Make YOUR OWN opinions.
Tour a slaughterhouse and see how humane they are. Most, if not all, don't have time to be "cruel" to the animals they process. They have a quota of animals to get thru in so much time, and it's much quicker and more humane to just put the animal in the specific pen and kill it before it knows what's happening that anything else. Then it's just slice it up and divvy up the parts for specific processing.
All the PETA crap out there about how workers mess with animals and break legs and what-not before bothering to kill them is utter nonsense. Workers don't have time for that sort of thing -- they are doing a job like any other, getting paid to do it quickly and cleanly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZy3biFph…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCYs1CSsb…

Sure, sometimes there are accidents or mean people -- but those are specific instances, and specific people.

That's your choice. It's perfectly natural for humans to eat meat as we are natural omnivores. It is possible for humans to survive on a vegetarian diet if done properly, but it's perfectly fine to not be a vegetarian. I've thought about going vegetarian too but I don't think it's for me. Stay away from PETA- it isn't the most reliable site. In fact, most vegans and vegetarians dislike PETA, too. And keep eating free range eggs and meat. Some vegetarians will try to make you believe that all cows, pigs, etc. that are raised for meat are kept in cruel conditions inside tiny pens where they can't move at all, but that isn't true. My family has a lake cottage in a rural town, and everywhere you go in that town, there are farms all over the place with free range cows happily grazing in wide open fields and pigs happily rolling in the mud with ample room. Seriously, we'll be sitting outside with a book on a summer day and all of a sudden we'll hear MOOOOOO or OINK OINK OINK! My family knows many of these farmers and they don't mistreat their animals. These farms are not only kinder to the animals, but they are also owned by families rather than evil giant corporations Support farms like those buy only buying/eating free range meat when possible.