NVeg here…and I honestly don’t think I could EVER become a vegetarian. Nothing wrong with choosing that lifestyle, I just couldn’t ever do it. I love meat wayyy too much. I might survive a week or two doing it but then I’d wind up caving in.
And please, don’t turn this into a debate. : p I don’t want anyone knocking anyone’s personal choice, I just want to know your answer to what applies to you per the thread’s title, that’s all.
I’ve been vegan for a year, vegetarian for two and the one time I missed meat in recent memory was when I was doing physical labor in the woods for a few months (meaning a lot of energy expenditure + limited access to vegan food) . One night after a long workday I found myself with a terrible craving for the sausage spaghetti everyone else was having. Figuring I was just hungry for protein (or hungry in general), I had another plate of my tofu spaghetti and was fine.
Actually, lately I’ve been having nightmares about eating meat. In the dream I’d gobble down a plate of unidentifiable fried food that’d taste delicious, but afterward someone will tell me that it was chicken or chicken-fried beef. I’d wake up feeling incredible disgust and guilt.
ETA: I thought it’d be interesting to note that McDonald’s used to be, by far, my favorite restaurant. I’d go through periods of eating 2 burgers for breakfast and 2 more for lunch… weeks on end. If I were ever to eat meat again, I’d splurge not on some fancy-ass steak but on a triple-helping of Filet-o-Fish sandwiches. Mmmmm.
What I REALLY miss is frozen yogurt and ice cream. The soy stuff just isn’t the same – they’re kinda gross, actually, even though I love regular soymilk – and the hemp and hazelnut milk ones are a lot better, but it’s hard to find them in the flavors I like (namely coffee). But then simply thinking about the milk in regular ice cream brings a slight revulsion and the craving subsides.
Would preferring to eat hydroponic, in vitro meat make you a vegetarian? I eat meat, but would prefer the hydroponic stuff when it becomes available since it’ll be more sustainable and more morally acceptable.
Until that happens, no I don’t think I could become a vegetarian.
Non-vegetarian here:
Never. I find vegetarians to be obnoxious and rude. Whenever we host something and a vegetarian shows up, they always say, “Oh I can’t eat that” and then stare at the host like it’s their fault.
Imho, I will (and have done in the past) do my best to choke down whatever was laid in front of me to avoid insulting my hosts, and then thanking them for the wonderful evening.
Being a vegetarian is no excuse for being rude.
Nowadays, I espouse on being a “meatatarian” and shove their BS back into their faces.
I don’t think I could give up sliced ham sandwiches.
But I’ve pretty much stopped eating beef and chicken. I can’t cook and don’t like the taste of sliced beef and chicken lunchmeat. So I only eat them on the odd month I go to a restaurant. I did used to eat an Arby’s roast beef sandwich every day, but when the local ones closed I found I couldn’t duplicate the taste at home.
I gave up bacon, sausage and eggs a few years ago when my cholesterol and triglycerides rose, to avoid the need for pills.
I never did eat much sea food in a year.
I’m halfway to vegetarian already; just don’t pursue meat very much, and love veggies. We already use/eat a lot of “vegetarian” foods like TVP, tofu, edamame, etc., and rarely cook meat at home; I buy turkey deli meat, and once in a while we might buy chicken or ground beef for a casserole or soup/stew. But I live in a very meat-and-potatoes area, and it’s hard to be vegetarian around here. (As some veggie friends described their dining-out experiences around here: "Yeah, uh, I’ll have the toast and a baked potato . . . " Salads and veggies at most local non-chain places suck. Think iceberg lettuce and limp canned or frozen veg. Yuck.) I just don’t care enough to be that vigilant.
But if my meat supply were cut off or something, I’d be perfectly fine. I could live without it.
For sure I wouldn’t ever go vegan, though. Way too much work, and I love my eggs & cheese.
It sure isn’t, and I’m sorry that the vegetarians you’ve met have been rude. But they’re not all that way, I promise. Please don’t paint them all with the same brush.
Nope. I love BBQ too much to ever give it up. But I have no problem with eating a largely vegetarian diet for weeks at a time. It’s good for you. If I was forced by my environment into a vegetarian diet, I would handle it just fine.
My problem isn’t with vegetarianism. It’s with vegetarians. Vegans especially. Buncha sanctimonious assholes, the lot of them.
I’ve already warned a couple of my senior debaters that if they qualify for Nationals this year, they had better be prepared to eat meat. Lots and lots of meat. I’m not wasting a minute of our time looking for a vegetarian restaurant in Kansas City. No, we are eating BBQ every meal.
I would have a really hard time giving up seafood. And I eat WAY too much dairy to consider veganism.
Other than that, I don’t think it would be that bad. The fish thing is the major thing keeping me from trying it out… well, other than my husband being about as close to an obligate carnivore as humans get. 
Like Scarlett67 said, I hope you’ll believe me when I say we’re not all like that. If someone does behave like that, yes, please do shove their BS right back at 'em. They’re just idiots that make the rest of us look bad / even crazier than we actually are.
What the hell are they doing at a dinner with food they know they can’t eat, anyway? If it’s a potluck, they should be contributing their own stuff. If it’s a friendly get-together that you’re hosting, they should’ve let you know beforehand or dealt with feeding some other way. That behavior isn’t just rude, it’s retarded.
Nobody owes us our special diets, but unfortunately there is somewhat of an overlap between “vegetarians” and “spoiled, self-righteous asswad princesses that think the world was made for them”.
I go out of my way to ensure I don’t drag dining groups into “vegan hell” with me, either eating before/after on my own or bringing a sandwich or something along to outside events. I insist that the group not change their dining plans on my account, though most will try very hard to fit me in.
At restaurants, it can initially be awkward with new people as everyone else is eating their pizzas or whatnot and I’m eating my salad (or, more commonly, sipping on water), but that goes away after one or two outings and both sides are perfectly happy and no one bitches. It’s not at all a big deal if – big IF – everyone acts like an adult.
To be fair, I’ve gotten a lot of obnoxious behavior from meateaters too. I make it a point to never bring up veganism unless someone asks me about it, but then right after I explain to them why I’m vegan they act as though it’s a game of some sort and start taunting me about “Just one piece of meat! The animal’s dead already! C’mon! Why do you hate food?!?” :rolleyes: Immaturity and generalized idiocy is hardly limited by diet.
I think you have every right to do that. It’s a sacrifice we accept as part of our lifestyle, and anybody who demands special accommodation is just being selfish. That said, I hope you were able to convey that without rubbing it in their face. Believe me, we get enough flak that you don’t have to add to it.
I was a vegetarian for many years when I was younger.
These days I could give up chicken easy, but you can pry my steak from my cold, dead hands.
If I had to kill the animals providing the meat myself, yes. Otherwise no. And I could never be vegan - I love cheese waaaaaaaaay too much.
Rarely do I feel like I HAVE TO HAVE meat (the way I have to have sugar or potatoes or dairy sometimes), but it’s hard to imagine going the rest of my life without it.
I could be a vegetarian (though I loooooove seafood, and that would be difficult, I know I would have occasional sushi lapses and no I don’t think you can call yourself a vegetarian if you regularly eat fish, fish is meat, which is why I say lapses) but I couldn’t do the vegan thing. I like dairy, especially cheese, too much.
I’d rather not lock myself into eating or not eating particular things except for whatever I want at the time, though. Which amounts to not much meat. And I adore tofu. Yum.
I’m a vegetarian for twelve years now. Don’t miss meat; part of why I don’t eat it is I don’t really like much of it (certainly not anything I could afford for myself at this point), and the one time I had a crazy cheesesteak craving, my other reasons for being a vegetarian were still stronger.
I don’t think I’d miss meat that much. My husband could never do it, and our oldest daughter couldn’t because she’s allergic to most plant proteins. No tofu or beans for her. (That was my first reaction when her allergies expanded–“but what if she wants to become a vegetarian?”)
That said, I’m going to go make turkey sandwiches for dinner. Mmmm, cranberry sauce.
Ovo-lacto (dairy and egg-eating) vegetarian here. I only miss eating meat when I go to a restaurant and they’ve got boring choices for veg-eaters. Regular people cooking food get a pass but people who hide meat in food they insist is veg (yes, I’ve had it happen, and I never push vegetarianism) suck.
Restaurants - well, if they’re not specialists in seafood/steaks, I’d like to see a little more creativity. Yet I see so many portobello mushroom “burgers” that squirt juices everywhere when bitten into, or vegetable wraps that constantly drip watery fluids, inevitably splashing out of a puddle on the plate and onto my shirt, or soak right through the wrap and make it fall apart. That just tells me the chef doesn’t know vegetable cooking that well.
I make awesome food for my guests, including plenty of meat-containing dishes. My eating habits are only my thing.
I tried for a few months many years ago-couldn’t do it. I’m a carnivore, plain and simple.
Amusing story about an attempted mass conversion that failed rather badly.
I was at a metric century(100K) bike ride that was sponsored by an organization that promotes a vegan lifestyle for athletes.
The ride was advertised as featuring food stops at local organic farms and a vegan meal after the ride.
The food stops were and weren’t great.
Fresh fruit just picked a few minutes before-fantastic!
No calorie dense foods for cyclist who are riding 62 or 105 miles that day-not good.
Since most cyclists carry back up foods it was not a huge problem but annoying.
The post ride meal was another story.
They had underestimated the number of riders and ran out of food which maybe was a good thing as the meal consisted of:
Yellow soup-unknown contents and tasteless.
Grey stew-unknown contents and tasteless.
Apparently spices and herbs are non-vegan.
Green salad-only greens and a little oil for dressing-again tasteless.
Warm water-apparently ice is non-vegan.
Along with the fact the riders were limited to a single small serving.
All in all, not a good advertisment of a vegan lifestyle.
Nah, the girls involved have taken it quite well. They’ve already decided that if they qualify, they’re going to work their way back into omnivoredom gradually, so the BBQ onslaught doesn’t kill them! 
I’m all for accommodating vegetarians whenever possible. There are plenty of them that do it for religious or health reasons, not just to be trendy. Those people I respect. The “I’m superior because I don’t eat meat” assholes, OTOH…
Broad brush before, and I apologize to all the decent veggies I wrongly slandered. I raise a BBQ pork rib in salute.
How stupid! My husband is a letter carrier and one of his coworkers (former now, the guy transferred to another office) is a vegan and an ultramarathoner. They definitely exist, that group should have done more research.