Vegetarianism?!
Vegetarianism?
I was vegetarian for eight years. Whenever I mentioned this to somebody, eg for dietary requirements, I would be asked to justify myself. I didn't ask meat eaters to justify their reasons for eating meat so why should a vegetarian have to explain their decision?
PS: I now eat meat again, my reasons are personal and I've never been asked to justify my reasons, and quite rightly so.
I would like to hear other people's opinions.
Answers:
Because most people are ignorant. They have been fed misinformation by their families, friends, the media (look at the number of meat ads on commercials), and even some doctors. Meat-eating has, wrongly, been accepted as the default way and the only healthy way to eat. It requires a lot of education from school age to change this perception. The good news is that it is changing, especially in cities.
There is nothing in meat that cannot be obtained in a vegetarian diet. There is Vit B12 in dairy products. As for vegans, they do have to take a B12 supplement.
To whoever says meat-eating is necessary, all I can say is:
500 million people in India can't be all that wrong!
meat eaters rule we were born to do this to survive to not eat meat is to ignore what we are .
we are all animals carnivores
Brussel sprouts rule!!!
Well as a vegetarian, I would be interested to know why you became one and why you went back to meat. That would be for my own interest. I like to know how people tick. Also, I do get hassle from people about being vegetarian, the impression I get is that they feel threatened but I never try to convert people although I am happy to have a discussion about why I think they shouldn't eat meat, eg, health, environment, animal welfare.
When people keep asking "Why", just tell them - "Because I want to. Is it really any of your buisness?"
When people come around with the annoying question: "Well, what DO you eat? Just salad?" Tell them - "Picture thanksgiving dinner. Now take away the turkey. Is there anything left to eat?"
When I meet a vegetarian person, I like to know the reason they chose this life style to feed my brain. I never asked someone to justify but simply to make me more knowledgeable. I am a very curious person. Once I almost became a vegetarian because of someone's explanations. I don't eat a lot a meat anyway, but I like it regularly. Choices are ours to make and the consequences ours to live with.
Of course no one asks why you eat meat. Eating meat is NORMAL. There's nothing wrong with being vegetarian, but it is still considered unusual and different people do it for different reasons. Some think it is wrong to eat animals, others choose to be vegetarian for health reasons, and others just think meat is gross. It is a subject that people find interesting because it is not something they come across on a regular basis.
You shouldn't have to justify your choices to anyone. But frankly it is hard to get enough protein in your body by strictly eating vegetables, it can be done but it can also be very dangerous as a lot of green leaf vegetables digest much slower if eaten every day it can back your system up and cause you to become impacted. A little red meat will not hurt you on occasion and is recommended in most cases. Primarily turkey is the most healthy of all meats, it has the most nutrients and the least amount of negative fats and colestoral.
It's a form of social bigotry. I only eat meat if I would kill the animal myself. Most people have their heads buried in the sand and believe stuff they are fed by their parents, teachers, friends the media and pr companies. It's a form of social compliance. If you want to be vegetarian for your own reasons, be one, and if someone challenges you, ask them if they are prepared to kill what they want to eat.
On a more jovial note, I'm especially fond of beating cheese to death. Not those little edams though - especially at this time of year, everybody loves the baby cheeses.
I have vegetarian friends and whenever I learned for the first time that someone I know was vegetarian, I express interest--but I never ask them to justify their reasons.
I never ask people to justify their reasons for being meat-eaters, in fact, I never ask them about it at all. Meat-eating is too common and usual in this world, compared to vegetarianism. I suppose that's the price people have to pay for "going against the flow" --which is sad, really. Peace.
It's because it's not the norm, I don't think they are ignorant just curious. I used to be a veggie but my bf converted me, lol. I didn't have much integrity did I! anyway. I think that being a veggie is better than being a meat eater, look at all the crap that is put into animals to make them big, the processed meat you can not trust, then there is cjd. I don't think we were made to eat meat, we just evolved that way. All the other carniverous animals in the world can kill an animal on it's own, for example, a shark has rather large teeth, so does a lion and a dog and whatever else. But we need implements to do it. We used to have a appendix for something but we don't need it anymore, it's all about evolution. But the answer is, because they do not understand it!
We are natural meat eaters - that is why. Also Hitler was a vegetrian - so that makes people doubly suspicious of Vegetarians.
I was a vegetarian for some years and I found that it messed up my periods - some months the flow was hardly visible - other months it was like a tsunami with huge blood clots left on the towel. I often had to stay at home because I kept leaking blood. so I decided to revert back to meat eating. Since then I've been more regular.
thanks
As someone who has always enjoyed vegetarian food, specially as an accompaniment to meat, I see no reason why anyone would want to ask the question of you.
What I do find interesting is that there are people who go into traditional restaurants, and insist that there must be a vegetarian option. Does anyone know which Vegetarian Restaurant I can go to in the UK that has a meat option?
Vegetarianism, belief in and practice of eating foods obtained exclusively from the vegetable kingdom, and hence of abstaining from meat and other animal foods. Nonvegetable food is usually considered by vegetarians to include fowl and fish, but practice varies.
[Vegetarianism] has been practised monastically by Trappists since 1666
Vegetarianism is an ancient custom. It has long existed among certain Hindu and Buddhist sects that consider all animal life sacred, and it was advocated zealously by numerous philosophers and writers of ancient Greece and Rome. In the Roman Catholic Church, it has been practised monastically by Trappists since 1666, and among Protestants more recently by Seventh-Day Adventists. As an active Western movement, it originated in 1809 near Manchester, among members of the Bible Christian Church. In 1847 the Vegetarian Society, a nonreligious organization, was founded. The movement spread to continental Europe and the United States (1850), and, in 1908, the International Vegetarian Union was founded. Today the union holds congresses every two years in different countries
II VEGETARIAN ARGUMENTS
Although vegetarianism originated as a religious or ethical practice, it has also gained acceptance among many for aesthetic, nutritional, and economic reasons. Humanitarian vegetarians refuse meat because they believe that the killing of animals is unnecessary or cruel, or that such a practice can conceivably lead to a disregard for human life; the trades that the slaughter of animals supports, such as butchering, are considered degrading. People who adhere to vegetarianism for health reasons believe that meat is harmful to the human body and that a purely vegetable diet is more nutritious. Some vegetarians reject meat eating because of the poor conditions in which livestock may be kept. Others argue that eating meat is a waste of precious resources when there are so many people in the world who are starving (meat is much more expensive to produce than grain). Because a meatless diet might result in a protein deficiency, vegetarians need to satisfy their protein needs with corn and seeds of legumes.
III DIETARY STRICTNESS
The strictness of diet also varies among vegetarians. Purist vegetarians, known as vegans, reject all foods that are derived from animals, including dairy products such as eggs, milk, cheese, and butter. Other vegetarians abstain only from foods whose production involves the destruction of living animals. Moderate practitioners allow themselves to eat foods that can be obtained without what they believe to be unnecessary suffering or pain, for example, net-caught fish. Most vegetarians, preferring food in its most natural state, oppose the use of both agricultural chemicals and of food processing or canning.
To David Dickerman, please do not advise anyone on such topics if you are not knowledgeable as to what meat is. In India fish is their number one source of food, which is meat. So perhaps you should do a little research before speaking of things which you have no knowledge of. In fact fish head is a delicacy they enjoy a great deal of, brains and all, nothing but the scales and bones are wasted.
some people think vegetarians are hippy freaks. i think vegetarians are just people who care about wats happening to our planet and to those animals. meat eaters think they "cant" give up meat because its "so good". someone should tell them about all the health risks meat brings. when i became vegetarian, my veggie friend asked why but she was just wondering wat changed my mind and was totally supportive. i never ask people why they eat meat unless they ask me why i dont eat meat.
Many meat eaters are misinformed of the facts. They do not know that you can live a healthy life by not eating any animal products. They have it in their heads that humans need to eat meat in order to live. This simply is not the case.
I agree with what others have said. America consists more of meat eaters than vegetarians, so I guess majority rules. However this is sad since some meaters believe that vegetarians are not healthy, yet they consistently order meals from McDonalds and other such restaraunts that have had more than enough proof of being unhealthy.
So I guess the next time you hear or run into someone making you feel as though you should justify yourself, maybe you should politely turn the question around and ask them to justify why they insist on eating junk food like McDonalds(or insert numerous other food chains.)
If they don't eat fast food, you could ask them to explain why they subject themselves to french fries which were proven to create a toxic poison when deep fried. Or you could ask why they consume numerous products that contain aspertame or splenda which were both proven toxic.
How bout soda or pop as you might call it which was proven to cause stomach cancer.
How bout diet soda that has the same ingredients as paint thinner?
I could go on here because we haven't even begun to tap into the environmental issues, animal cruelty, antibiotics, pesticides, pus, tumors, meat coloration to make it red at the supermarket....
Ask them to justify their medical problems or overweight issues which are undoubtedly caused by their diet.
The truth is, whether you are a meat eater or vegetarian we should all be questioning what we eat because we are all being subjected to unhealthy foods produced by mega manufacturers that do not care about what is in your body, only what is in your wallet.
I am a meat eater, and I don't have a problem with vegetarianism at all. I don't ask my few veggie friends why they don't eat meat. It's a personal choice and I respect that.
because, unfortunately, we are raised in a meat-eating society that tells us it is abnormal not to eat meat. when you tell people you don't eat meat, they like to argue with you about how vegetarians supposedly get malnourished and what your motives are for being one because it is not considered "normal". no one should ever have to justify their diet. what works for you works for you & what you eat doesnt affect other people.
if you mean my opinion on people being vegetarian then
i have been one for ...3..no 5..........a long time and a lot of people ask me the same thing there always like "why are you vegetarian"
i just say because i am! they make it seem like its a crime to be different, to be vegetarian or something!!!! i think that it shouldn't matter because its just what you eat and ya its kind of a personal opinion.(except when your in a family of complete meat lovers)
you are what you are and eat what YOU want, no explenations are needed, unless to the wiffey and kids, as to why. but everybody else (unless they pay your rent) come last.
p.s sorry to hear you eat meat agian, and by the way my reasons: ANIMAL CRUELTY
because more people are meat eating than not. i hate getting asked why i became i vegetarian. it is so true that in our world being a vegetarian means ur a hippie or something. sterotyping.
im veg and many times i stayed with non-vegis but i never changed. the things are personal.
You must mix with some weird people! No one has ever asked me to justify myself - I'm not vegetarian but I only meat if I know where it was grown and how it died - not mass produced abattoir stuff! So when we eat out etc I always ask for a vegetarian meal and no one has ever questioned this. I have seen people (in restaurants) become very apologetic when I ask them, for instance, if they have meat free hot plates but they have never questioned my right to want this!
I think everyone should mind their own business. I've eaten mean for the past 19 years and I am now deciding not to. I would like to try to be vegan and see what the outcomes are. You shouldn't have to justify why or why not you eat meat. Just because you eat mean doesn't mean "you rule". and Just because you DONT eat meat doesn't mean "you rule". I think it's a matter of your beliefs. We all don't have the same religion and we leave that alone. so why bother with what other people eat. Don't worry... i got your back! :)
I was a vegetarian for two decades and I noticed the same thing. Even now, people still ask me for justification when I tell them about it, though I've been back on meat for a couple of years.
I think that there are a variety of different reasons:
1. it's outside the norm, particularly in America
2. people who've eaten meat for three meals a day their entire lives are often genuinely baffled by what the Hell vegetarians eat (the 'so, what do you eat? do you eat....? questions)
3. a lot of Americans associate vegetarianism with hippies, or PETA and other extreme groups, so they assume that you are going to try to convert them and take the offensive
4. subconscious guilt, many animal lovers feel that they ought to but don't have the discipline and so come across as a little defensive because they, consciously or not, think that you are judging them
5.some folks, mostly older folks, just think it's faddy and you ought to grow out of the phase soon or should have grown out of it long ago at your age
6. and of course, there's always a bunch who think it's just plain wrong, unamerican, unnatural, etc.
I'm pretty easy going, only lost my temper twice in two decades of 'why's' but it can be trying.
I share my view if asked, i never preach.
If pushed, i defend myself, its simple.
Some meateaters like to wind up people they don't understand.Its a common negative human trait....several perfect examples of it in this forum.....i guess they were bullied at school or something.
It does surprise me that people are so narrow minded that they can't see other people's point of view.
Often Veggies get accused of ramming their beliefs down other peoples throats. You've only got to look at this forum to realise that some meateaters do exactly the same.
What many meateaters do not realise is that many veggies/vegans are that way because of moral reasons. We genuinely believe its the right thing to do. So while they think its easy to attack us, and just a sport for many of them, it cuts to the heart of my moral beliefs and core values, so i'm bound to get wound up by their insults.
I think meateaters ask us to justify our position because they cannot justify theirs. Attack is their form of defence, or burying their heads in the sand.
I was a veggie for years, and just got bored with it. I wasnt and am still not, moralistic. i think if you want to eat meat, do so.. if you dont.. dont!
BUT
if you live outside of london, then getting half decent veggie food is a chore.
most places seem to think veggies like musroom stroganoff, risotto, baked peppers and lasagne! thats the 'usual' role call on a menu.
I got bored with the veggie food i was eating, as i was still cooking meat for my family.
roast chicken counter at tesco was my downfall, one rather stressed day..
I did feel guilty then, but dont now!
Because being a vegetarian is still seen by many as being unnatural, I would recommend that any vegetarian that is asked to justify why they are vegetarian to just sy something along the lines of "Because that's how I live my life"