Why AREN'T You Vegetarian?

[sdfsdf]

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Factory farms suck.

this is standard in the industry.
never see daylight.
in a cage so small can't even turn around.
many chickens die while in their cage, and are left in there for days or weeks to rot with their cage mates.


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yes factory farms are cruel, but factory farms are only a small part of why modern society is [censored] up. if you boycotted every product that should be boycotted for moral reasons then you would be dead. the more efficient society is the more oppressive (to animals and humans) it will become, and as long as efficiency is the "goal" of society things will get worse. IMO political activism is useless and only global violent revolt will be able to change anything, but of course that wont happen, so its best to just stop trying to change things politically and do what you want.

[JuntMonkey]

On the taste thing - once you start eating really healthy, you acquire a taste. A brown rice/carrot/soy cheese casserole with salad no dressing on the side can become a taste sensation.

[agent_fish]

Here is a link to a thread I started about the same topic. I eat meat, but a girl I wanted to bang is a vegetarian. It also got lots of replies. Also, I x-posted in SMP , and the replies were more in depth than, "LOL, vegetables are teh ghey." Not that I don't enjoy those posts.

[AlexM]

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A vegetarian diet is...more...animal-friendly than a meat-filled diet.

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How is preventing animals from ever being born more friendly? The most animal friendly option is to eat meat, but make sure the animal it comes from lives a good life before it's eaten.

[john voight]

hmmm could it possibly be b/c I don't give a [censored] about animals?

[BigSoonerFan]

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because not eating meat is against the norm. you are the one deviating from the norm, so you are the one who is supposed to say why

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That's what the flat-earthers said centuries ago.

[jamzfive]

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I honestly want to know.

Everyone expects me to have plenty of outstanding reasons for why I am a vegetarian, but no one ever feels the need to defend their choice to eat meat.

Is it just because you like the taste of meat? Because otherwise, all reasonable logic seems to say that a vegetarian diet makes perfect sense. A vegetarian diet is generally cheaper, healthier, and more environmentally- and animal-friendly than a meat-filled diet.

[/ QUOTE ]

For me, meat and meaty sauces (gravy, stews, etc.) give a hard-to-describe sense of fullness and satisfaction I can't get just from vegetables or grains. This goes beyond just taste - I actually feel sated.

See this and related links for biological/chemical reasons.

jb

[lgas]

http://www.safenow.org/

The 7th illustration from the bottom of the page explains it pretty clearly.

[Fedorfan]

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i eat meat because it tastes good.

fwiw, i find factory farms where animals dont see daylight disturbing.

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I agree. Ate vegetarian for nearly 4 years, and found it to difficult to eat a diet that i felt could be considered even remotely healthy.

I have read a bit on the issue, and it does bother me in believing that the quality of meat we consume is no where near as good as it could or should be.

[Jdanz]

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Are you suggesting some inherent guilt? If you are, I think you're way off base.

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no, of course not. I have no idea why ppl behave in the way I described, but I have had people react to finding out I am a vegetarian in this manner far too often for it just to be coincidence. again I have no idea why people feel the need to defend themselves this way, but many do. reasonably sure it's not out of any kind of guilt.

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I eat meat.

I don't think that meat eating people feel guilty about eating meat, but as another poster alluded to, they feel insulted.

When a person makes a decision to deviate from such an established norm as eating meat for a moral reason it is hard to see this as less than an indirect moral judgement on those who continue to eat meat.

Quite frankly it is an indictment of a meat eating life style to eat as a vegetarian for moral reasons, this leads to a somewhat unavoidable tension. This can be added to greatly by the prostelatizing nature of some vegetarians.

However, as before, even a completely accepting vegetarian is obliquely insulting the meat eating public as either

A) acting purposefully immorally in a selfish manner
or
B) not "smart" enough to realize that they are even acting immorally

Really there is nothing to do but agree to disagree, but this can be quite insulting to people in either of the two possible meat eating categories

A) the there is nothing immoral camp
or
B) the pick your battles camp (alternately the meat is too tasty camp)

So naturally we get into fights all the time. I think pretty much every stance is reasonable other than calling the other side stupid.

It's completely reasonable to think we needn't worry about animals there is no moral reason that we should, or alternately that all life is worth respecting. These are by definition beliefs and have no concrete justification, however if you ascribe to one set the other side might very well piss you off.

Me I think it is probably immoral what we do to animals, but am in the pick my battles + meat tastes good camp, however I do have tremendous resepect for people who do believe differently and are willing to accept the costs of living a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle.

Like in pretty much everything I feel like a lot of different beliefs are completely reasonable given a different outlook and following your own personal moral code is really the only guide you can have. Hence cred to veggies, and no hate towards meat eaters.

Cliff Notes: If people don't eat meat for moral reasons this is an oblique insult to those who do eat meat as immoral. This causes a lot of controversy which is somewhat unavoidable when people hold differing moral beliefs on the right way to act, as they naturally make the implicit statement that people who act differently are immoral and wrong.