Vegetarians - why?

[Wintermoot]

Why not?

because it,s unhealthy, unlike what most vegan,s tell you you DON,T get all of your neccesary vitamin,s/minerals from vegetables.
OT
it,s a fad don,t worry about it.

 

[Fanta Grape]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.267351-Vegan-Myths#10216591

Read that

 

[jawakiller]

Because animals.

Or because they dislike the taste.

Not one, myself, but totally understand the most popular reasoning.

I mean, I'm apparently in the minority in that I find chocolate ice cream absolutely disgusting and terrible.

There is a specially hot place for you.
Probably Hawaii but what the hell, right?

OT: I don't understand how someone could decline a set of pork ribs... Holy shit, who I wouldn't kill for a piece of that. As everybody knows, meat is comparable to sex....

I have no idea where I was going with that. Are we talking vegan as non-meat eater (only chicken n shit ) or flat out we-don't-eat-no-goddamn-anything-but-our-vegis type? Cuz it depends.

 

[TheFloBros]

It's rather healthy. That's why I do it. Also I'm diabetic, so I'm just trying to eat healthy and stay alive.

 

[Chased]

I am not arguing the health value of meat, I never said it was particularly healthy. But nonetheless, we have the ability to eat meat. Natural carnivores don't cook their meet cause they don't need to, we do.

We also have the ability to eat lead paint.

 

[DarkRyter]

Because plants fucking suck.

That's why.

 

[SpireOfFire]

my species did not fight, scratch, claw, and kill to the top of the food chain to eat a damn salad.

 

[Scarecrow]

Let me put it in the words of my friend, who is a vegetarian.

"If I eat meat, the smallest bit, my stomach will rip itself apart and I'll die in the most brutal pain you could imagine"

I think that's a fair reason.

 

[SoranMBane]

Because I don't need to eat meat and doing so was beginning to grate on my conscience a bit. It really doesn't get any more complicated than that, and the only thing that I regret about the decision is the amount of unnecessary flak I get from assholes who assume that I feel superior to them for not eating meat, which I don't. Honestly, I think it would help vegetarian/meat-eater relations a lot if everyone would stop being so goddamn defensive and just eat their fucking food. :/

 

[SilentCom]

Because animals.

Or because they dislike the taste.

Not one, myself, but totally understand the most popular reasoning.

I mean, I'm apparently in the minority in that I find chocolate ice cream absolutely disgusting and terrible.

I'm not really a fan on chocolate icecream either, I don't hate it but I'd much prefer a different flavor.

OT: There are many reasons why people don't eat meat. Like you said, some people don't want to be associated with eating meat because of "animal cruelty"; some people may not like the taste, or some people may just find the concept of devouring the flesh of dead creatures to be disgusting.

Btw, I'm not a vegetarian, meat is too tasty for me to not eat.

 

[BonsaiK]

This is something that I have never been able to fully understand; the reasons some people have for being vegetarians.

So I would just like to ask, to any vegetarian escapists here, why? What are your reasons for it?

I don't necessarily have a problem with it - though I do kinda hate to see people give up meat for the sole reason of animal cruelty and that pandora's box (so please don't open it unless you feel it's much more relevant, this is more for me to explore people's opinions rather than debate).

I've been vegetarian on and off for years. I eat red meat maybe once a year. Nothing to do with animal cruelty.

The reasons why I'm (kind of) vegetarian: firstly, there's health. How many obese vegetarians do you know? How many vegetarians with heart disease do you know? I rest my case.

Then there's money. In case you haven't noticed, meat products are pretty expensive for what you get. And so they should be - the amount of time, expense and infrastructure that goes into raising animals for slaughter is a lot more than that for harvesting vegetables. Meat products go through about twice as many steps as plant-based products between existing on a farm somewhere and getting onto your plate. Someone has to pay for all that.

Also, convenience - vegetables are easier to prepare and cook with, easier to store, easier to clean off your plates afterward, and so forth.

Another reason is that one of my ex-girlfriends was a vegetarian, and it's true what Jules says in Pulp Fiction about going out with a vegetarian (0:57):


Of course, I'm no longer with her (thank fuck) but here's the thing - once your body stops eating red meat, especially beef, it's really hard to go back. You can't just pick up where you left off - your body just isn't acclimatised to it, and you really start to notice how heavily it sits in your stomach and how long it takes to digest. I still like the taste of beef but my stomach just doesn't like digesting it.

Also, there's a lot less preservatives and chemicals in vegetables. At the very worst you'll have some residue from the pesticide, and if you live somewhere like the US you'll have genetically modified whatever in there. That's nothing compared to what goes in your meat. Research it if you want, but trust me, you'd probably rather not know.

So there you go, a bunch of really good reasons and I didn't mention animal cruelty once.

 

[ezeroast]

We live longer.

If i had to stop eating meat i would definitely not want to live longer

 

[SiNCry]

because some people forget that we are hunters, always have been always will be.

i weep for humanity

 

[Gaiseric]

I've never been able to have a decent conversation with a vegetarian so this thread and its posts are filling in a lot of info.

The only vegetarians I've meet were...unpleasant.

 

[kokoska]

well on strictly philosophical terms i think there is a strong case to be made that it is unethical to cause unnecessary suffering to something capable of feeling pain. most people, Americans at least, are well able to eat substitute protein diets if the choose, and so the choice to eat (and therefore assume responsibility for killing) an animal is an unnecessary one. you could suggest that animals don't feel pain, but that's a little silly; if it has nerve endings (hint: livestock has nerve endings) it is capable of pain. therefore to eat meat despite alternatives is unethical.

the funny thing is, i still eat meat daily because its so goddamn hard not too. it tastes good and its everywhere. meat may be murder, but shit, i'm only human.

 

[Bags159]

well on strictly philosophical terms i think there is a strong case to be made that it is unethical to cause unnecessary suffering to something capable of feeling pain. most people, Americans at least, are well able to eat substitute protein diets if the choose, and so the choice to eat (and therefore assume responsibility for killing) an animal is an unnecessary one. you could suggest that animals don't feel pain, but that's a little silly; if it has nerve endings (hint: livestock has nerve endings) it is capable of pain. therefore to eat meat despite alternatives is unethical.

the funny thing is, i still eat meat daily because its so goddamn hard not too. it tastes good and its everywhere. meat may be murder, but shit, i'm only human.

You do realize that everyone has a different code of ethics, right? There's no universal code of ethics.

We live longer.

If i had to stop eating meat i would definitely not want to live longer

Oh, and this. What's the point of living a few years longer if I have to eat rabbit food instead of meat? (Barring of course, something very important happening in a few extra years)

Meat is delicious, we can eat it, so I don't see why we shouldn't. However, I respect the right of others to not eat meat. It is annoying when vegetarians try to come off as taking the moral high ground, though.

 

[AlexNora]

everyones saying meat meat but id like to argue FISH! fish is really tasty and fishtarians (my word for vegetarian that eat fish) are more health then vegans. i could imagine a world without red meat but fish I must have especially sushi

 

[Dys]

People are vegetarians because they have some naive misconception that they are saving animals by not eating them.

This is something that I have never been able to fully understand; the reasons some people have for being vegetarians.

So I would just like to ask, to any vegetarian escapists here, why? What are your reasons for it?

I don't necessarily have a problem with it - though I do kinda hate to see people give up meat for the sole reason of animal cruelty and that pandora's box (so please don't open it unless you feel it's much more relevant, this is more for me to explore people's opinions rather than debate).

I go one step further; I'm a vegan. Don't eat any dairy products, either.

Why? Because adopting a vegan diet has my cholesterol level at about 125 with equally matched HDL and LDL cholesterol levels. I challenge any non-vegan to make that claim. With heart disease as the #1 killer in the US and with virtually NO heart disease at cholesterol levels under 150 it seems like a no-brainer to eat a plant based diet.

For me it's more about health reasons than it is animal rights. I think animals are fine to eat as a food source... I just don't think they're the healthiest food source for us. In an era where we can eat a plant based diet and take some supplemental B12 to fill in the gaps eating animal protein with all its accompanying saturated fat and cholesterol doesn't make sense.

It also keeps my wife and I slender. I dropped about 20lbs without trying when I adopted a vegan diet. It's important to eat a *healthy* vegan diet, mind you. Dr. Fuhrman, Dr. McDougall, and Dr. Dean Ornish (all can be Google'd) all have variations on a vegan diet that I find very healthful.

And apparently there are less stupid reasons as well. Though I am inclined to ask, do you always refuse to eat animal product or is it more of a "my diet is generally vegan" scenario?

 

[Dimitriov]

I knew a guy who got sick when he ate meat once but other than that I don't have anything for "Why" other than some people just choose to. I love meat myself.

Human's aren't biologically designed to eat meat.

My canine teeth and biological need for large amounts of protein disagree with you.

Our canine teeth are not the same teeth that canine's have. They only share a similarity within the name. Canine's have large mouths in addition to razor sharp teeth that we fail to posses.

Which is why cooking our food is so helpful.

Natural carnivores do not cook their meat, likewise humans do not usually consume unprocessed, raw meat because we do not naturally find it appetizing. Since many have grown up eating cooked meat from a young age, its found to be perfectly acceptable from a social standpoint, but our bodies are not biologically created to ingest other animals. We have the ability to eat just about anything, but it does not mean that our physical body is tailored to that style of consumption. A true carnivore sees say a deer for example and salivates at the sight of it because its body is telling itself that it sees fuel. Humans do not salivate at the sight of whole animals; carnivores do because they see fuel that they need to survive. The majority of nutrients in meat lies within blood which again most humans do not consume.Meat also contains large amounts of fats are that lead to clogging our arteries. A misconception is that meat contains vital proteins that we are not receiving, but if eating a balanced diet, one should already be eating more than enough protein through grains, beans, fruits, and vegetables. Consuming too much protein can cause serious kidney issues that can't be immediately foreseen until later in life.

For the record with six billion of us we cover quite a diverse range of genetics and there are many small differences from person to person. The Inuit peoples of the arctic circle lived almost exclusively on meat for example, and many people who have traditionally lived at high altitudes (the Andes or the Himalayans) have developed blood cells that carry more oxygen.

To address one of your points I do salivate sometimes when I see deer or sheep or rabbits and I am hungry, I think they look pretty darn edible. I also have no problem with the sight of blood or meat, and I prefer my steaks blue. Also meat served carpaccio is awesome!

Not saying that I am a carnivore, obviously not, I eat lots of fruit and vegetables and consider myself a happy omnivore. Which is what we are, although some of us may lean more one way or the other.

 

[spacecowboy86]

Because animals.

Or because they dislike the taste.

Not one, myself, but totally understand the most popular reasoning.

I mean, I'm apparently in the minority in that I find chocolate ice cream absolutely disgusting and terrible.

burn him!!! he must not be human!...(but in all seriousness I have friends that are the same way, I just think thats crazy)

OT: I had a girlfriend that was a vegetarian once. Her reason was simply because she thought meat was all around disgusting. I never understood it, but its probably the same reason I don't eat Haggis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis]. bleeehhhh!