Question for vegetarians/vegans?!

It bothers me greatly to know that my diet is going to inadvertently kill something despite my best intentions. However, being a vegetarian and being a vegan is not about being perfect, and cruelty wise our diets are definitely more animal friendly than a omnivorous diet. The animals killed for our diet are mostly accidental, such as in accidents in threshers, and some are intentional, such as pesticides.

But as I stated before, its not about being perfect. Every time I take a step I kill some tiny life form or a flower, but does that mean I shouldn't walk? A vegetarian and a vegan are the kind of people who will step around that flower, not walk on it, in a metaphorical sense. Thanks for being respectful in your question, I know you are just searching out an answer even if it was asked a little pointedly.

Also, when you stated that we might be hiding from the problem, I don't think I do at all. I spend my money on local farms to help support them when I can, I volunteer at an animal shelter as it helps to clear my conscience of all the animals that were abused and slaughtered for my greed, I raise my own chickens for eggs, they are pets and won't be eaten when they stop giving eggs and they are happy and healthy. I adopt all of my animals from shelters as well, to help cut down on unnecessary euthanization of animals that can't find homes. That's just my two cents worth though.

I predict deer hunter saying his redundant "when I kill a 150 pound deer" argument.

Vegetarian

depends on who you are and where you live really. Where my parents are from, on the country side, cow's milk comes straight from the cow's teat (done manually by hand, they aren't chained to machines and injected with hormones), and the land was always there (nothing was killed for the process of cultivation) and the animals roam around freely. I suppose for the vegetarians/vegans taking one step towards helping the world is better than taking none at all. And a lot of them eat organic which isn't grown in such places that you are describing.

I myself am an omnivore

Yes it does bother me. However, there is a HUGE difference between directly contributing to animal cruelty and death (such as buying meat, dairy, and eggs, etc) and indirect casualties such as small animals who accidentally get killed in the harvesting of food. At the end of the day, omnivores are contributing to more death because they are consuming animal products and plant products.

some people ar vegetarians because meat makes them sick im just saying... anyways not eating meat did make me feel alot better because i eat alot more vegtables and fruits and protien shakes.(this is what im saying to make you want to be vegitarian)all the things you say are kind of true but by not eating meat it makes me feel like i am saving a cow or chicken ect. But animals arent killed growing other foods i mean i didnt know about it. But i mean i dont wear any shoes or coats that are made out of animals if thats what your talking about day to day life.

my opinion.

It's a valid point and it does bother me, yes a lot of animals are killed as "pests" when growing crops, I'm not sure if there is any humane solution though.

I'm not against eating meat, I'm just against eating meat for greed rather than need; nobody in the Western World actually needs to eat meat because we have massive agricultural resources.

I am a semi-vegetarian. I eat chicken and wild caught fish some but base my diet on vegetables and whole grains. I feel this is the healthiest diet.
Animals are mistreated and there is little we can do about it. The reason I don't eat a lot of meat has more to do with health. Farm animals have growth hormones, they are fed other dead sick animals and mad cow disease is so much like Alzheimer's, that is were it came from. Organic meat is supposed to be healthier but it is to expensive.

you need to eat SOMETHING. If you think everything is too cruel to eat, you will starve. You have to understand that in nature animals eat other animals, and it is not humane. In fact, being eaten alive is the way of the wild. You must understand that we are mammals with the same needs as other creatures.

If it bothers them, it isn't enough to prevent them from falsely boasting that they don't use, kill or exploit animals, and then insulting and criticizing those of us who are at least honest about it.

it bothers me how we view animals, i cant do much about it, our soceitywill change in time naturally anyway
but yes, it bothers me, thats why im a vegetarian
:-)

yes that is all true. hearding doesnt exist. they just plow fields while the cows eat

According to your statement, the very act of living causes death to another creature.
Under this assumption, a person would be killing MORE animals if they stayed omnivorous instead of going vegetarian or vegan.
Veganism isn't about perfection, but doing the least harm. A person does all he or she can do in order to cause the least amount of harm to people around him or her. One good step is going vegan, but as you pointed out there is more that you can do. I am a person who constantly reuses products, so anything that suffered in the production of, say, a single bottle is all that dies...that single bottle is what I use until it cannot be used further. This saves money, fuel, water, animals and other resources. Keep in mind that there are vegetarians and vegans who own their own gardens or buy from local sources (small-scale farming operations). These smaller scale farms usually keep costs down by avoiding large machines for harvesting, and it's those large machines that maim animals in the field.

Of course I know it and I don't like it. To minimize that, I obviously avoid eating meat (a huge amount of the biggest crops feed food animals) and when the farmer's markets are open, I go there. A number of the farmers have smallish patches and do stuff by hand. Basically, you have to do the best you can given your circumstances. I don't consider myself a murderer and I find murder pretty bad, especially in cases that aren't self-defense. However, about half of my tax dollars go to support the military, which obviously is responsible for killing lots of people. I can't really escape that if I want to be a responsible, law-abiding member of society, so I do the best I can by not going out and running people over with my car.

Course it bothers vegetarians & vegans, the problem however doesn't lie with a flaw in vegetarianism but more a flaw in harvesting methods.
You have to understand that any sort of human activity is going to be at the expense of another organisms life, its just how life works. Any resources we get or expansion is going to displace & kill other animals.
The point is to try lower our impact on the world & how better ot do that then to directly stop consuming animals, a simple dietary change one by one. + the age old point that vegetarians raise that to raise meat results in crop being used for feed which results in even more deaths than that of a vegan/vegetarian diet

EDIT****
Of course stopping eating meat would lower it, again another classic example of how 70 odd % of crop grown goes to animals, you telling me that if the world was vegetarian 30% land usage kills as much insects as 100% land usage?
As i said the problem lies within harvesting methods & the imperfect world that we live in where any activity is at the expense of another V&Vs try to lower this as much as possible by refusing to demand slaughtered animal. There is also the argument that the insects live freely unlike agricultral raised animals who are raised purely for slaughter/dairy/eggs.
Of course with vegetarian communities so spread out there is probably no local effect caused by X vegetarians living in area Y, but overall internationally there probably is & at the very least i'm not participating in the demand for slaughtered animals & remove myself from the chain

vegetarian
I await deerhunters rant of ''a death for a diet is a death for a diet''