Why did you stop eating meat?

Me toooooooooooo

I try to eat the meat, but if i have a bad experience i wont eat it for a long time!

i stopped in college.. a friend of mine was vegetarian and i thought if he could do it so could i! i was vegetarian for less than a year before i went vegan... i was having issues w eating cheese or drinking milk etc if i wasn't eating the cow as i have always been motivated by moral/ethical reasons.

i did not have much support at all when i started. my parents thought it was a fad and that i couldn't stay healthy. i have now been vegan for almost 10 years and have never been MORE AWARE about what goes into/onto my body!

I quit meat about 6 years ago and lasted a few months. Then I got preggo and all I craved was cheeseburgers from Friendly's. Now that I'm done with the kiddos I'm actually only eating beef and pork on the rare occasion. Mostly it is chicken or turkey - because they are better for me and because they don't have the same fillers that other meats have.

My kids don't eat red meat - never have. Not sure why but I don't push them too.

We get turkey dogs and veggie burgers. I have a regular burger once in awhile b/c my hubby still eats red meat. Or I'll make beef stew with half the beef cut into tiny chunks. I don't usually miss it. The thought of what's in hamburgers kind of creeps me out and i have a hard time eating them - bologna and hot dogs too.

I'm a pescetarian (still eat fish, but only very sparingly). I guess my story is that I moved to austin, tx into a huge shared living home called the treehouse (14 people lived there at the time). I shared a studio at the top of the house with two girls, one a veggie and one a vegan... so it became easy for me and now I'm glad. The initial reason i wanted to was when I read the book "Eat to Live" by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, which I recommend to everyone! I guess, technically it's a diet book, but it goes way beyond that... it gives all kinds of statistics about how America is eating itself to death and the main point was that meat causes the most serious diseases that Americans die from... heart disease and cancer.

So now I feel much healthier, I feel great... I lost 20 pounds very easily right after I gave up meat. I recommend vegetarianism to everyone.

I sat behind a girl in 10th grade Chemistry class, she was a vegetarian, and I wanted to impress her. That was in 1993, and I don't even remember her name.

After that it kind of made sense for me. I couldn't think of myself slaughtering animals, so what right do I have to do it. I think everyone who wants to eat chicken should have to grab a hatchet once a year and chop of a head. Pig, lamb, awl though the skull.
I also feel a lot better and healthier knowing that I won't get all those cow chemicals in me, mad cow, etc.

I do eat fish now (after 2005), I got a fishing license and tried to go catch one. I just suck at it.

We are too far removed from our food.

I felt guilty eating animals, plain and simple.

I'd been trying to go veg for a few months, but was struggling giving up chicken and was about to just forget the whole thing. Then I was in a hotel suite with a friend and our kids. She was in another room watching the news and the story about the ASPCA slaughterhouse footage came on. I didn't see it, but she kindly described what she saw in horrific detail and that was it for me. I can't even think about eating meat again without my stomach turning at the idea.

She, of course, still eats it. lol

A £2 vegetarian recipe book bought on impulse about nine years ago stopped me eating meat. After looking through it before the week's food shopping trip I decided to see if I could go the week without meat, not too difficult as wasn't eating much meat by then anyway, only a small amount of white meat, fish and bacon.

Literally never ate meat or meat products again from that point on ... I bought the ingredients for some of those recipes and they turned out so tasty yet simple enough for me to make that I didn't want to go back to eating as before. Also, about three weeks into eating these new veggie meals noticed I had so much more energy, my skin was clearer and I felt so much fitter in general; could only be due to the huge increase in my intake of fruit and veg etc. as nothing else had changed.

Always been aware of the ethical arguments - the factory farming and environmental issues surrounding meat and dairy production - and these became more important to me as I found out more, to the point where I've now given up dairy products too. Loving my new diet and how much healthier it's made me.

I am a semi-vegetarian. I do not eat red meat or pork. I enjoy chicken, turkey and all seafood. I can remember as a child having steaks and burgers and just getting the worst stomach aches after. I think it is more of a digestion issue. I haven't touched it since and don't miss it. I love animals so its not a moral/ethical issue.

I no longer wanted to eat animals, simple as that.

It can be hard to stick to at first but once your friends and family see that you are serious about oging veggie or vegan, they will start respecting you. Just make sure you research. Been vegan for over 6 years and raising my two kids that way!

It was a texture thing for me! For some reason the texture of meat grosses me out. I honestly don't have any other reasons! It started about 8 years ago and I still can't get myself to like it. I don't think I could ever become vegan though.. I love eggs & cheese wayyy too much!!

There are arguments both ways, and definately a lot of "vegetarian propoganda" out there but...

I feel guilty to eating commercially produced meat. That sounds really snobby, but I think of it like this - hunters and farmers who raise and butcher their own livestock don't bother me because the animals live a normal natural life. They live outside, graze and roam or do whatever they do, and when it's their time to go... well... that's the circle of life. But giant slaughterhouses full of thousands of sick cows, chickens living in cages stacked 20 deep, pigs being dipped into boiling water to remove their hair while they try to swim out.... NOT natural! Not humane! Not anything I want a part of.

I respect life, and I respect that it's natural to hunt and fish and eat what you catch. I just can't support a life of fear and cruelty that ends in an even more cruel death. It sounds very cheesey and hippie-dippy, but that is really how I feel.

That being said.. even after a year I miss chicken strips, and occasionally bbq. And eating out can be hard when your options are a dry iceburg lettuce salad or fried breaded vegetable items. Truly, I don't eat fast food more than 2 times a month because I went veg. It's just too unhealthy!

I recommend to anyone watching "Food, Inc.". Also, I liked "Super Size Me"- its not about being vegetarian, but it does make good points about how unnatural the commercial meat industry is! I fully support the free range, organic, and human farms and ranches out there!!!

I am not a vegetarian, but I don't eat any red meat... I eat chicken, turkey, fish and shrimp. I stopped eating red meat about two years ago and honestly I don't miss it!

I have always had a soft spot for animals and just couldn't turn my head anymore, I figured if i couldn't go out and hunt and kill it myself because I couldn't stomach the thought then I shouldn't be eating it. I think a lot more people would be veggies if they had to go out and kill there own food.

I hunt, and there is nothing more organic than game from the Maine woods.

But I have sworn off Dairy for the health reasons.