To stop cruelty to animals
And it makes you loose a lot of weight!

It annoys me when people eat fish and claim they are veggies - fish have eyes and a smiley mouth! Pescatarian is the name for people who only eat fish.

Sorry to annoy you. But, in my journey, that's where I'm starting. Saying I'm a pescatarian is annoying to people. I'll only say it to people that get it.

I'm doing it purely for health reasons. I've watched all the same shows all of you have and Forks Over Knives was the final straw for me. It's mainly for health reasons though, has nothing to do with being nice to animals. However, I will say that it does just seem more friendly to the world to eat plants instead of animals. And, I do love animals. It's a dog eat dog world though. I think our treatment of animals is shameful and no one should support that. But, I'm not against eating animals that are raised ethically and properly. But, for health reasons, I am going to start with just eating fish, and then if it sticks, eventually get rid of that. It has to be a slow transition. This is all very new. I have no idea how to do this.

Well I think the idea of eating a dead body is repulsive now that I have been veg for a while, but that will really piss people off. I usually just say i don't like it and I love animals too much. If you can't visualize killing the animal and feeling good about then how can you eat it? I sure cant.

I was raised vegetarian. Ate a very modest amount of meat from age 11-22 just because it was easier than having people make comments (plus, my parents started fixing it and expected me to eat it). In early adulthood, I realized I was trying not to taste or think about any meat I was eating, or else it would gross me out. Very happily lacto ovo vegetarian since 1988. I don't usually go into all that --- just say I didn't eat it in childhood, so never developed a taste for it, which is true.

As I mentioned before, I try to avoid discussions about me being vegetarian, but on Friday night in the pub, a colleague asked me. This caused a couple of people around the table to tut and clearly display displeasure at me not eating meat or fish. I asked why there was so much venom directed at vegetarians and was told "because they always try to force it down your throat". These are people that have known me either 9 years or 9 months, and only now have they found out I'm vegetarian. Been really forcing it down their throats haven't I....

I've had nearly 30 years of this kind of judgmental crap. If it isn't being told that all the animals would die if we didn't farm them, it's being told that we have omnivorous teeth and therefore are meant to eat meat. Do they think I haven't heard this before? I've had nearly 3 decades to think of responses to prove them wrong even though they won't accept my arguments. Bunch of complete holes!

Being a part of these discussions I often found that the vegetarians often cant provide enough valid reasons for not eating meat and sometime try to force down their views to meat eaters.Also some orgs like PETA sometime goes overboard.So ALL that backfires and vegetarians are often ridiculed.

btw I am a vegetarian for last 15+ years :bigsmile:

I still haven't really figured out why I don't like eating meat. I think its partially taste and partially just can't bring myself to think about eating an animal. I always just tell people I don't like the taste though.

It's pretty much the same for me. I never lived the taste of meat and when the Mad Cow disease became a big problem my mom made us all eat vegetarian for a while and I didn't want to go back to the meat.

When people ask me why I don't eat meat and make up crazy reasons I just ask them why they don't eat their least favorite food everyday?

RIGHT ON!!!

I know what you mean about people's reaction to vegetarians. I recently purchased some Buffalo Jerky for my son at our local Farmer's Market. The reason for telling this guy that I was a vegetarian escapes me, but his response gave me a chuckle. He said, " Oh, you seem like a nice person anyway."

Actually, I've only had a few weird or off-putting reactions to my vegetarianism. Several years back, after a stay in Paris and the French countryside, a friend who lived in Paris told me to give up trying to find a vegetarian meal in that city--particularly late at night. I found one just find. Then there was the time that my little brother who just doesn't get why I would want to be a vegetarian even though he eats mostly a plant-based diet suggested that I order an entree in a restaurant because there really wasn't that much pork in it. But my late father's wife is a special case. She is a competent cook but she would like to be revered for her cooking. She's repeatedly prepared dishes with stealth meat and tried to get me to eat it. Fortunately, she lives a long way away! :huh:

Also, I think that my vegetarianism has its roots in the love for animals that my parents shared and also my agnostic research scientist father's sense that life most likely could not be recreated in conscious form.

I just tell them "baby I was born this way" LOL. My Mother became a vegetarian before I was born (as part of her religion) so that's how it began with our family. After trying to feed 4 growing kids on her own it became too much and she attempted to sneak meat into our diets. I was the youngest but I was the only one that wasn't going for it. I could stand the site of flesh on my plate. I knew it was some type of animal. There are only 4 of us in our fam that remained vegetarian but the other 3 eat seafood. I just can't do it. I was a rather sick child because of my lack of protein from not eating meat, poultry or fish. The vegetarian substitutes they have now were not a plentiful and accessible 30 years ago. After dealing with health issues I made the decision a few years ago to eat animal by products like eggs and cheese for the protein but I always get sick to my stomach if I don't disguise it with something else. The by-products are not that bad. I mean no animal has to die for me to consume milk but if you eat a hamburger..well let's just say...
"Elise" didn't make it. My plan, and my goal is to soon become vegan and do away with even the by-products. It's a process that I believe will be much healthier for me now that I am learning of the variety of protein based foods and I don’t have to live with the thought of animals. Kudos to all of you who have to endure what I have my entire. Like the side eyes you get when you refuse a holiday meal like Turkey on thanksgiving and the endless questions of "so what do you eat?? just eat vegetable? " or " I could never do it" or "why don't you just try this steak I think you'll like it??" the all too familiar hush from across the room of " she's fat ! How can she be a vegetarian" and the simple yet favorite " you don't know what you're missing". to that I think to myself " and you don't know what you're eating". The hormone induced flesh that is sold in this country can do more harm than good to so many people. All that to say it was not a choice as a child but it's all I have known and I thank God for it. He created everything for us ..even the animals for those who choose to slaughter them for food But nothing is like the beautiful fruits and colorful vegetables that grow from the earth and trees. He did it ALL for us. V for life!!

GMO's - Genetic Engineering.

I've been vegetarian since 2000 and never looked back. The reason was a combination of morals and just feeling disgust at the thought of eating another animal's muscles, veins, skin, etc. I think the most horrifying memory of eating meat was taking a bite of a chicken and seeing little red vein stripes in it. No. thank. you.

SAME FOR ME! Ew! Seeing the veins in chicken grossed me out os bad.

I don't like the way animals are kept/abused/treated, whatever word you wanna use....I don't think animals are ours to eat.

I don't see a difference in pigs, cats, rats, horses, birds etc....All living things feel pain and I don't think it should be at the hands of humans. What gives us the right to choose that it's ok to eat pig flesh but cat flesh is not? I don't want any part of it.

This exactly!

Ok so we have all been asked the following questions

'omg like what do you eat?'

'So why are you a vegetarian'

and my personal favourtite response from those who i tell about my vegetarianism
'dude i COULD NEVER be a vegetarian'.

Sometimes i answer with seriousness but other times i am really sarcastic when answering.


So what reasons do you give. personally i believe every animal and fishy have the right to a life. And if u can survive without then why not.

Great topic & post, my reasons and experiences have essentially been the same. I became a lacto-ovo vegetarian in December/2006 and before becoming a vegetarian I loved burgers, bacon & seafood, etc. but what changed was my love for my cat *sappy story ahead*... She (my cat) was very important to me, and I learned that there are cultures that actually do see felines as food. Besides being gross (which is a typical meat-eater opinion) it was really upsetting the idea that someone would see my beloved cat as food. That made me change my views on eating meat, especially when I always thought "If I had to kill an animal for food I couldn't do it/eat it." but I could eat someone else's slaughter? No. Also realizing what is the difference between a cow & a cat, why is one acceptable to eat and the other not? All of that made me stop being a hypocrite, and I stopped eating meat.

When I first became a vegetarian it was hard, and there were accidental slip-ups (i.e. eating gummi bears not realizing they were made w/gelatin = cruelty food), but 6 years later it's second nature. The most embarassing thing is being a long-term vegetarian w/a large frame (5'5 300+ lbs.) because then people assume you're lying and sneaking burgers lol. People have been more understanding than I would think though.

I agree with you completely tattoedtwin. Animals are abused and filled with abnormal chemicals. Also the flood of stress chemicals in their bodies probably affect the humans that eat them. Vegetarian for me. And it is a more sustainable diet in a 7 billion people world

^yup!

I was in the grocery store about a month ago and I was getting some things, and all of a sudden I became so grossed out/saddened by the fact that I was surrounded by cases and cases of meat. Dead animals. In freezers, in refrigerators, in tanks swimming ontop of each other. Why? Why do people think it's perfectly okay?