What made you turn vegetarian?!

The documentary film Earthlings. It's essentially 90 mins of slaughterhouse footage, puppy mills, the circus, animal testing, and the fur industry. It was hard to get through but I'm definitely happier and healthier. I would be fine eating animals if they got to live on a nice farm and were killed swiftly before consumption, but such is not the case. Meat is filthy and toxic, unless you are wealthy enough to buy organic all the time. I've been off meat for 5 months now. I still eat the occasional seafood, but meat is out of the question.

i just watched that video, and now im gagging. omg thats so gross :S
i've been vegetarian for one week, and after that video i plan on being veggie for the rest of my life.

i didnt really have a reason for becoming vegetarian, i just thought that "the poor animals!" and everyone on Y!A that were vegs had said things like "best choice i ever made" and "i feel so happy and healthy", so i thought i would try it.
i think i would possibly go back to eating meat, IF the animals were treated fairly, and at least cared for properly before they were killed. and DEFINITELY not killed while they were still alive!!! who ever works in a slaughter house or anything to do with killing animals for the meat; how can they do that? its absolutely terrible. and disgusting. and sad. bad people :(

im definitely going to be showing some of my friends that video; maybe i'll get some more vegetarians out of it.

veggie ftw!

Earthlings. Someone posted it on another forum, and I had to watch. I'm sure not all abattoirs treat their animals as horrifically as some on there, but the fact is, I don't feel at all comfortable supporting the meat industry at all. I don't trust organic or free range to mean what is commonly believed. So for me, it's safer to abstain altogether.

I'm much happier being a vegetarian. I felt uneasy about eating meat/fish for years before making the change, so I'm relieved I've now done it.

In general, I've never really liked meat, the taste the look the smell, everything about it revolted me and not to mention I couldnt understand how i was eating these animals that i thought were so beautiful and innocent. I grew up around a bunch of insanely ignorant people (you know the kind that think women "belong" in the kitchen and anyone different from them is the devil?), and I was always made fun of for not eating meat, I actually remember how they would try to play pranks on me by putting meat in my food because that was funny to them for some reason, but anyway i digress lol... I'd wanted to be a vegetarian for a long time but i couldnt when i was a kid because i couldnt cook obviously and didnt have access to groceries, so whenever i tried i ended up almost starving and sometimes passing out, but after a while I was able to buy my own groceries and make my own food, and I feel so much better, both physically and mentally.
But the truth is, i don't judge people who eat meat, I dont agree with their beliefs obviously, but I was judged and made fun of and even pressured for being a vegetarian, and that feeling of people telling you you're a freak and what you're doing is wrong and how you alone cant "help the animals" it was just horrible, so I wouldnt do that to anyone else, so if people decide they want or dont want to eat meat, that's their choice, I wont judge them aslong as they dont judge me =)

Good luck with your vegetarianism! xoxo

For Animal welfare. For going and being Green. For overall Health.
I've watched "Meet your Meat" and other cruelty animal videos. I've read the benefits that you can bring to the earth living as a vegetarian and how much more healthier it is for you.
Try reading "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer and "The Kind Diet" by Alicia Silverstone. I also heard "Fast Food Nation" is really great as it informs you how much the fast food companies 'own' these factory meat farms.

I went veggo after reading Eating Animals by Jonathon Safran Foer. It's such a good read, and looks at SO many people's (and animal's) perspectives -from factory farmers to family farmers to environmentalists to people who find vegetarians socially awkward- I recommend it to all of you as a way of confirming your beliefs AND giving you more fodder when being interrogated about your diet.

Congrats to you by the way! I think you'll find you feel SO much better.

And thanks to Ray! I sometimes dream about roast pork - maybe I should just have some apple sauce and onion gravy. I loved reading your response.

I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian since 1967.

Got into yoga and as I read more and more about it - It just seemed to make more sense than what my parents and friends had shared with me. Health-wise and humanity-wise it just seemed right.

A funny tale.

After being a veg for about 15 years, I started having a dream about a meal my wife would make which consisted of a NY steak, mashed potatoes, corn and biscuits. The dream kept repeating itself for over a month.

I decided that if my body was craving something in that meal then I would try to solve the problem -

I tried all of the other items and the steak seemed to be the final item in the dream - I was not a happy camper to say the least -

I went into the grocery store and was really hesitate about buying a steak so I wandered up and down the various aisles - building up the courage (lol) to buy a steak - As I walked the different aisles I spotted A1 sauce and I recalled always having that on my steak - I bought it went home and had an omelet with some A1 sauce and the dream never returned.

That is a true story.

Friends sometimes are worried about eating meat around me when they find out that I am a veg - I just let them know that it doesn't bother me as to what they eat - It's their body and I only have enough brains to worry about my own.

Just remember that it is not a religion it's a delight!

Experience

First of all, I didn't feel the need to have a poor innocent animal cruelly taken care of and killed just so that I could eat it when I can my protein from other sources and things that taste like meat that are 100% vegetarian. Second of all, I don't really like meat anyway. My family doesn't necessarily buy meat all the time, but when they do, I just have a veggie burger or Morning Star Meal Starters Veggie Crumbles (delicious btw!) So that's why! Hope I helped! :)

I grew up on a small bio dynamic farm and we only ate the meat we produced there. My parents wouldn't allow us to eat meat, milk or eggs unless it was from our farm so that we knew the animals had had a good life and didn't have any factories, hormone/chemicals or over crowding to cope with in their life time.

When I left home I have kept up the same practice... although I also find for health reasons I feel better when I don't eat meat. As my family no longer owns the farm I just don't eat meat, but I do drink goat and sheep milk from a local farmer with ethical farming processes. I can't bring myself to eat commercially farmed meat/dairy products knowing how awfully the animals are treated.

Growing up I hated meat it was disgusting to me, the smell, the blood etc. But like others on here, I grew up with a family that ate meat and I really had no choice unless I wanted to starve. But my favorite foods would always be the sides like the rice and beans, potatoes, vegetables etc.

I have always loved animals. I save any animal on the street that I see are suffering and need help or medical attention. For example, Seagul, duck, cats, dogs, pigeons, yes even a mouse and a rat
I would not even kill an insect. They all have souls and little lives and families and we have no right to take that away from them. But for some reason, I just never equated my meat eating, even though it was rare, with the abuse of animals.

Anyway, I started teaching preschool in my early 20's (I''m 31 now), and i had a little rastafarian boy in my class named Kofi. He was a vegan and brought in his own lunches. I always admired that about him. One day during storytime I was reading a book about animals and I was telling the children to never hurt a living thing. Later that day during lunchtime, I was eating my lunch with the kids and I had fish, the little rastafarian boy named Kofi looked at me and said "Ms. Jackie why are you eating a fish when you just told us we shouldn't hurt or kill animals?" well that was all it took. That same day, I went home, watched all those PETA videos that I always avoided watching because "I hated seeing animals suffer". I cried and cried and I NEVER ate meat again. Or dairy.

I never liked meat (smelly, rubbery, gristly, veiny, fatty...). I either passed it across to my siblings, smothered it in tomato sauce (ketchup) or had to have it so well-done that it didn't resemble meat. As soon as I left home I stopped eating it. That was 32 years ago. Soon after that I became aware of the animal suffering side of meat production, which confirmed that I had made the right choice.

I went vegetarian when I was 11 on December 13 2008. I did it because I felt I was hypocritical to call my self an animal lover while contributing to their unnecessary death and the torture they go through. I feel great, as if I have done something that took effort but was pricless in the end.

I hate cooking with meat, always have. In fact, cooking meat deterred me from cooking at all! Late October last year I decided that I have a mind of my own and I can thrive on a non-meat filled diet. I cook every single day now. I love it! I've never been more excited about anything really.

put myself In an animals position, no chance against a human;( very bad tactics and scenarios when there is a need for bacon or burgers! I mean we can still eat that stuff vegan style !!

I'm vegetarian for about 2 months so far;)) gonna be vegan Soon

www.meat.org : its horrible. also its better for the environment.

smell of non veg

When fasting , to tame fleshly desires, I make a commitment to eat only vegetables. But, only for a committed period of time.

JML