being vegetarian

[Nemo]

they do the same with cows don't they?

That's my point, so it doesnt really matter if you dont eat them or not because they're being killed anyway, pretty much defeating the point of you not eating them.

Just forget it.

[Wig44.]

Not really related to this thread but people who claim to be a vegetarian but still eat chicken etc are not vegetarians lol.

Here are some reasons I can think off the top of my head why some people choose to be veggies hehe

For health reasons -
Excessive meat eating is linked to cancer and circulatory system diseases. Give me some studies to prove this. If you look at the methodology you will not find a single fair study proving a link.
Meat is high in cholesterol and can be bad for you, especially in the quantities eaten in the US. Cholesterol eaten doesn't affect blood serum cholesterol levels.
Most cases of food poisoning are from animal products; factory farms, slaughterhouses, and meat packing plants are extremely unsanitary places. Cook your food.
Vegetarians usually have less weight problems, lower rates of cancer, and live longer. The Ornish diet (low fat vegetarian) is proven to reverse heart disease. No, this isn't true. Weight is dictated mostly by calories in/calories out anyway.
Meat takes a very long time to be digested. This is a good thing? You know, satiety to stop people grazing on lots of small meals per day like herbivores, or over eating.

For ethical/ philosophical reasons -
The cruelty of the meat industry is inexcusable. There are isolated cases of cruelty. Buy free range like most people for peace of mind.
Animals are not ours to eat, and should not be raised for slaughter. Go tell the other predators on earth.
We deny animals their natural rights. ...I believe in animals having good lives, but killing them for food is not denying them natural rights. The rights that vegetarians talk about are completely unnatural and man made, natural rights don't exist. But I understand what they mean
Some people believe it is wrong to kill and eat animals Their opinion, more meat for me.
They object to the way animals are treated in factory farms and in the slaughterhouses. UK livestock is treated well.
The animals are often given drugs to make them grow bigger and produce more meat; this is not healthy to animals or humans. Not in the UK.
Animals have feelings and a personality just like us!! So we should be the only predator on the planet to not kill prey.
They think eating meat is morally wrong. Their opinion.

For environmental reasons -
Meat production destroys endangered rain forests, produces lots of methane (a greenhouse gas) and water pollution in the form of sewage. The greenhouse effect is overstated. We are not warming up. Water vapour is far, far more prevalent as a 'greenhouse gas' in the atmosphere anyway.
Livestock raising produces more greenhouse gases than all the cars in the world. Raising vegetarian food uses much less water. See above for the GHG. Agriculture erodes topsoil. Eating only vegetables will not make you healty either and grains are one of the major factors in disease today..Also check the picture below
Half of all water used in the US is used to raise livestock. Check the picture below
It takes many pounds of vegetarian food to produce one pound of meat. Check the picture below
In the US over half of all the food grown goes to livestock production. Picture below
Meat eating creates around half of the world's pollution, traffic only causes 11%. Pollution isn't affecting global temperatures.
Meat production is wasteful to water resources, land resources, and food itself. Lol. Check the picture below.

For political reasons -
If resources were diverted from meat production; there could be enough food to feed everyone on the earth. No there wouldn't be. Read the vegetarian myth.
Meat production is wasteful; it takes many pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. Just lol again. The picture below.
A fairer distribution of food and resources in the world is possible if the food fed to farm animals was used to feed people instead. Much of the food grown in the world goes to feeding livestock. Sigh.

For religious reasons -
Some religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and the Seventh Day Adventists encourage people to become vegetarian. Their choice.
Eating meat creates bad karma. What the **** is this? Why did you put this point on here?
Seventh Day Adventists are among the healthiest people in the world today. No. They. Aren't.

For psychological reasons -
Some people find meat unappealing. Fair enough.
Because they become aware of what they are eating and what disease it could hold. Also, they realize how messed up it is to eat a living thing. This one is ridiculous. Meat is sterile. The animal would die if it was not so! Any contamination after it is dead are easily killed by cooking. It isn't messed up to eat a living thing, go look at nature..?

Peer pressured to (not common, it usually pushes the person to go the other way)


To moral of the story is probably learn to cook Lexi, stand your ground and don't eat the meat your mother gives you, she's bound to accept it sooner or later.

A load of ********. Especially the bit about seventh day adventists! I've edited my opinion into the quote.
As for you saying that raising livestock is wasteful... look at what a cow alone is used for (This is the picture I mentioned about 7 times):

As you can see, livestock is not wasted. Do you drink milk/consume dairy products?

[Special]

i like kfc too much

[Marbian]

I'll never kill to eat, but i'll shop to eat. i wouldnt pay for someoen to kill something for me, i'll only buy stuff that's already dead.

I love animals to bits, i wanted to be a vet but i couldn't, i would never put a animal down, even if it's for the best.

[Shoe]

But one cow will feed a bunch of people, whilst you'd have to kill multiple fish. Surely killing less is better? For example, if someone gave you the choice of killing 1 person or 10 people to save your family, which would you choose? I couldnt care really about the animal population because afaik, we've got that covered, but it seems to me you have your ideals mixed up.

But i don't think your mum is being selfish, i think you are. Mums have a lot to do and a lot to worry about, if you can't even be bothered to learn to make one meal, why should she be bothered to learn and make 2 different meals everytime breakfast/lunch/dinner time? Kids go through phases all the time and she probably realises that (especially since you obviously havent got your ideals straightened out) and so is simply trying to help you out of it, and in this case shes doing it by being a tad forceful.

So basically, either realise why you're doing this or learn to cook.


I myself however could never become a vegetarian, love meat far too much and hate most vegetables. I'd simply starve and die D:

NaughtyNemo i completely agree with everything you have said here.

Cows will be killed no matter how many people refuse to eat them.

Just a few questions:
Do you eat Pork?
Do you eat Bacon?
Do you eat Quarn?

I think you need to figure out why you are really doing this as the fact of feeling bad for killing a cow doesnt really sit well with me tbh. I just think its the circle of life and has been like that for as long as anyone knows. Its not as if the animals are killed inhumanely and they do not suffer. Also when they get old as everything does... they will die, rather than this and them have to be 'disposed' of why not kill them early to eat them and they will be used for a purpose... I also think you need meet to get these nutrients your mum talks about as you cannot get some from anywhere else and if you can you cannot get a sufficient amount of them.

I think your sticking with being a vegi a lot to prove something to your mum as (from what i have read) you do not tend to put up much of a fight about not eating the meat and you also have not made much of an attempt to cook for yourself. You need to sit down with your mum and explain all the facts and reasons which support why you decided to become a vegi, you should also try and find meals plans for what you can eat to sufficiently replace what you now do not eat as meat.

As you can see i could never be a vegi and tbh i do not agree with it either but that is just my opinion.

[flatface]

A load of ********. Especially the bit about seventh day adventists! I've edited my opinion into the quote.
As for you saying that raising livestock is wasteful... look at what a cow alone is used for (This is the picture I mentioned about 7 times):

As you can see, livestock is not wasted. Do you drink milk/consume dairy products?

i'm going be totally honest and say I don't really care about your opinion (not meaning to be rude), I didn't write that so if you want studies or research evidence you're gonna have to find it yourself... i'm sure theres lots of it though

[Eoin247]

With regards to that picture. Yes it's possible to make that stuff from cows, but since the demand for meat is far greater than most of these products, a lot of the cow is indeed in the end wasted.

How often have you used your beef bones for something else for example?

That's a very interesting picture though. Never knew pasta had blood in it and most vegitarians eat loads of pasta.

[RedStratocas]

its a shame a lot of the vegetarians on this thread are failing their argument. cause there really are some really legitimate reasons to be a vegetarian, as i am one myself. i think the problem with lots of vegetarians is they take the pretentious route of their argument and talk about why eating meat is wrong instead of logic.

now i grew up eating meat but stopped in college. i still eat meat on occasion, mostly at family gatherings and whatnot but i never eat meat by my own free will. my problem with meat isnt humanity, i really dont care about the animals so much as i do how they are raised nowadays. the western diet has changed significantly in the past 100 years, people aren't eating real food anymore, we eat mostly stuff like corn syrup. and because of that, we even feed animals differently. instead of pigs and cows eating grass, which would make their meat healthy, when they are raised for mass production they are fed grains and corn, which makes them fat and incredibly unhealthy. the health of the food we consume has an effect on our own health. on top of that, the preservatives and chemicals we have to put in meat to ship them just lessens their nutritional value. farm animals raised 100 years ago were far healthier to eat than the farm animals we raise today. also, the mass production of meat is killing us. meat is supposed to make up only a fraction of our diet, around a quarter. even that is a charitable ratio for what we were eating before meat was mass-produced; meat used to be a luxury. evolution had gotten used to our diet of mostly veggies and grains, but it hasnt come close to catching up with the radical change in the way we eat over the past century. its not a coincidence that the rise of consumption-related diseases rose with the rise of mass produce.


anyway, i wont go through every argument on this thread but ill point out the one argument thats really irking me: the whole "the animal is already dead you're not saving it from being killed" argument. people who don't eat meat DO make a dent in the meat industry's business, and the amount of animals they kill. even if only 1% of the population is veggie, that's 1% that arent buying any meat at all, thus the meat isnt being produced. maybe one person by his or herself deciding not to eat meat wont stop an animal from being killed, but collectively it certainly does. this argument is like saying "since the odds of an election coming down to a single vote are almost non-existent, there's no point in voting because it wont make a difference." yet people still vote? everyone knows they cant make a difference by themselves, its the idea of a collective goal.

[Wig44.]

With regards to that picture. Yes it's possible to make that stuff from cows, but since the demand for meat is far greater than most of these products, a lot of the cow is indeed in the end wasted.

How often have you used your beef bones for something else for example?

That's a very interesting picture though. Never knew pasta had blood in it and most vegitarians eat loads of pasta.

No the cow is not 'indeed wasted'. Demand for meat does not top demand for everything else a cow can be used for. And the bones usually go to a broth.

@Flatface: Well don't copy and paste crap about how MORALLY WRONG it is to eat meat (it's subjective), or post how unhealthy it is when you obviously don't have any understanding of biochemistry at all..

@RedStratocas: Actually I think you'll find we are on the carnivorous side of omnivorous. Just look at the human digestive system, we have small guts and huge energy requirements. We evolved on meat - the nutrients in meat (and by this I mean the fat and organs too) are what caused the massive growth in brain size and intelligence. Digsites older than 20,000 years ago (pre-neolithic) show we ate a mostly animal diet and the inuit, plains indian, masaai and various other tribes are living testaments to being the healthiest people in the world on a 90%-100% animal food diet. The japanese consume lots of pork and are even told they should continue increasing fat intake because of rates of ischaemic stroke in the japanese people.

I don't mind if people don't want to be a vegetarian because they don't like the idea of killing for food, but when claims are made that meat eating is unhealthy and that it is wrong when other people kill animals I do mind.

[flatface]

No the cow is not 'indeed wasted'. Demand for meat does not top demand for everything else a cow can be used for. And the bones usually go to a broth.

@Flatface: Well don't copy and paste crap about how MORALLY WRONG it is to eat meat (it's subjective), or post how unhealthy it is when you obviously don't have any understanding of biochemistry at all..

@RedStratocas: Actually I think you'll find we are on the carnivorous side of omnivorous. Just look at the human digestive system, we have small guts and huge energy requirements. We evolved on meat - the nutrients in meat (and by this I mean the fat and organs too) are what caused the massive growth in brain size and intelligence. Digsites older than 20,000 years ago (pre-neolithic) show we ate a mostly animal diet and the inuit, plains indian, masaai and various other tribes are living testaments to being the healthiest people in the world on a 90%-100% animal food diet. The japanese consume lots of pork and are even told they should continue increasing fat intake because of rates of ischaemic stroke in the japanese people.

I don't mind if people don't want to be a vegetarian because they don't like the idea of killing for food, but when claims are made that meat eating is unhealthy and that it is wrong when other people kill animals I do mind.

I'll post what I want thanks :S what give you the right to say what I can and can't post. I never said what I posted was true, I said that some people choose to to become vegetarians because that's what they believe, you don't need a true understanding of a certain subjects (e.g. biochemistry :S lol) to form believe on it, whether those believes are right or wrong is another story