A poll for people who are vegetarians, have been vegetarians, or have seriously considered becoming vegetarians.
What would you say is/was your primary reason?
For me it was an animal welfare thing. Not really against animals being used for food, more against the practices that commonly go along with that. It was really a combination of reasons, but I think that was the biggest.
I’m not a vegetarian but I’m sometimes mistaken for one because I don’t feel a need to eat meat at every meal. Somehow, there’s a bunch of people out there who if they see you eating just one meal without meat somehow conclude you’re a vegetarian.
I’m not a vegetarian because I’m allergic to far too many of the legumes, as well as other vegetables, which would make a vegetarian diet extremely difficult if not impossible for long term health. I am fully convinced of the health and economic benefits of eating a more plant-based diet.
I said “other”. My main reason is that I think the idea of eating animals is gross and sad. I don’t think it’s morally wrong in itself to eat meat, but I do think it’s wrong how the animals are treated.
I’m a vegetarian because I won’t eat anything that I’m not willing to kill.
I spent quite a few of my formative years as a rural/farm kid, so we did sometimes kill what we raised for food; mostly poultry. We had goats for milk and yoghurt but never ate them. Although we were very poor at times, so meat was an occasional thing, probably once a week or less. I think there were probably months where we ate no meat at all. Except for fish, which we caught ourselves.
I do eat meat, but very little. Mostly because I don’t enjoy the taste and texture very much, and don’t like how I feel after eating a large meat-based meal. And, I really enjoy most legumes and vegetables. I think it’s healthier to eat more vegetables, legumes and grains and not a whole lot of meat, overall. And finally because I have been to processing plants and factory farms and really don’t like to support that practice. There’s a butcher here who sells free-range, grass-fed beef, pasture-raised chickens and turkeys. I buy from him sometimes.
My default when eating out is to choose a vegetarian option. It wouldn’t be a big deal if I could never eat meat again in my life; I wouldn’t miss it that much. I voted “other” in the poll.
I’m a meat-eater now, but that’s mainly because my other half, the cook, eats meat. I was a vegetarian as a teen for religious reasons, which is the one I chose. If I were alone nowadays I’d probably default to vegetarianism just because meat’s expensive and I am better at cooking veggies. I’d have the occasional steak, though, so it wouldn’t be complete.
I wished I could be a vegetarian since I was a teenager, but then somebody would grill up a big ole steak plus I was just too lazy.
It was actually an episode of Hell’s Kitchen that did it for me on May 1, 2008. Long story short, Chef Ramsey made the chefs think that they’d have to kill their own chicken. He let loose a bunch of chickens in their dorm and said to catch them and get to the kitchen. Cue the suspense and when he brought the knife down to cut the chicken’s head off…he landed the knife in front of the chicken and said “Not these ones, you tools! Put them back in their cages!!” That did it right there. The following day I Google-d “how to be a vegetarian” and haven’t looked back.
My husband (boyfriend at the time) became one shortly after we got together. He watched a video on YouTube of a slaughterhouse and that did it for him. I take no responsibility, I didn’t want his friends to be all “You became a vegetarian because your girlfriend made you!” I actually said “I give you two weeks then you’ll be at The Keg.” But he stuck with it and neither of us has any desire for meat or meat products.
We’re “lacto-ovo” vegetarians because we can’t afford to be Vegan plus I lose weight too easily and I would get very sick if I restricted my diet any more.
I have very weird blood, and too much iron makes me physically ill.
Meat is a major source of iron. 1/2 pound of it makes me vomit.
I always thought it was sad that animals were killed for food, and felt guilty for eating them. Then one day when I was 14 it suddenly dawned on me, epiphany style, that I didn’t need to eat them. It had literally never occurred to me before that I had that choice. I didn’t know any vegetarians at the time and the concept was unfamiliar to me. Once I made the decision I met several other vegetarians (and realized that some of the people I already knew were vegetarians without my having known it) and that even my family doctor, who I’d been seeing since I was 6 or 7 years old, was a vegetarian! So I had people I could talk to and get support from, which was good because my mom just made fun of me and said it was a fad that I’d outgrow soon.
I remember once being out to lunch with her and some other staff from her office (it was summer and I was working for her as a secretary, so I was part of the staff lunch) and she suggested the hamburger on the menu to me. I reminded her that I didn’t eat meat. She rolled her eyes and told the others “Oh yeah, I forgot, this week she’s a vegetarian!” I said “Mom, I’ve been a vegetarian for over a year now.”
She finally did stop making fun of me and come to accept that I really did mean it when I said I wasn’t going to eat meat anymore.
I still feel bad for the animals that are killed for food. Mostly for the way they are treated during their lifetimes. I wish my husband was a vegetarian, but at least he doesn’t mind eating vegetarian at home. He never brings meat into the house and satisfies himself with having meat on occasion when we eat out (very rarely, on those occasions, he will have leftovers and bring those home, but that is the only time there is meat in the house).
I’m quite happy to reap the health and environmental benefits of my vegetarian diet, but honestly, it’s just that I love animals too much and I have an overactive emotional attachment to them that makes me not eat them. If it was proven that eating a vegetarian diet was actually unhealthy I’d still do it.
For me, it was a few of the reasons above. I didn’t vote because you could only choose one.
ETA: I had heard all of the various arguments from a few vegan friends in high school (graduated 1998), but I only switched 2 years ago when I read Jonathon Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals.
I chose other because, back when I was strict vegetarian, it had nothing to do with morality or health and everything to do with a dislike of handling meat. I don’t like the way it feels, I don’t like the way it smells when I’m browning it (though it smells ok when you add a sauce or seasoning) and it’s really inconvenient. I wash my hands every time I begin cooking and afterward, but if I handle meat, I also wash my hands whenever I touch it, then I have to handle the cutting board and the knife I used to chop it up, which squicks me out.
We still eat primarily vegetarian in my house, though I now make meat on a fairly regular basis for my kids. They’ll eat non-meat sources of protein, but sometimes it’s easier to get them to eat chicken or fish than it is to get them to eat beans or lentils, and they can only eat so many eggs before growing extremely tired of them.
Won’t somebody please think of the baby carrots?
I was a vegetarian because I felt it was wrong to eat animals. I suppose you may consider me immoral now by my own standards, but I make a helluva barbecue.
I’m a vegetarian because I find meat to be really gross. I have an aversion to it.
I’ve been a vegetarian for 17 years (since I was 14) and my mother STILL has this attitude. “I hope it’s just a phase!”
Uh, a 17 year phase?
I became a vegetarian a little over 15 years ago, when I was 10 and a half. My family moved to a small agricultural town, and I saw a real live cow for the first time. I wasn’t a huge meat eater as a kid, so I saw the cow and just kind of thought “Hmm, I really don’t like hamburgers so much that I want you to die for them.” (Beef jerky was another matter; I was totally-vegetarian-except-for-beef-jerky for about 6 months). What was true for the cow was true for other animals, and I’ve been an ovo-lacto vegetarian ever since.
It was really hard as a kid - none of my family members were vegetarians, and I didn’t know any vegetarians, and the farm kids at my school (most of whom were already pre-disposed to dislike the weird new kid) threw chicken wings at me and tried to sneak meat into my food when I wasn’t looking.
These days, while I still don’t really know any vegetarians, my family (including the in-laws) is all very supportive and great about making me a separate but equally yummy entree.
I voted “other” because my reasons don’t really fit with the choices, or at least I would need to choose more than one. In addition to vegetarian, I also buy a lot more organic and local for environmental reasons. I don’t agree with factory farming, but am OK with animals as a limited, sustainable food source. As long as the animal lived a life close to natural, such as pastured fed and raised, I’m kinda OK with raising food animals that way. I have occasionally eaten meat since becoming a vegetarian, in a couple of cases where my friend hunted and killed the animal himself, and another friend who can name the farmer, give the address of the farm the animal came from, and has been to the farm and met the farming family.
Since I’m not into hunting and can’t really afford the “I met the farmer” meat, I eat vegetarian and tell people I’m vegetarian, since that’s pretty much the case except for a couple of meals a year.
Basically, it’s mainly ethical. I’ve phased out meat from my diet since I was a child. And just a few years ago gave up meat altogether, at first I felt very uneasy eating animals because well, I just have this empathy and to know that something sentient has been killed just so I can stuff my face made me uncomfortable, also I read about the emotional intelligence of animals and respected that, I don’t think they’re as stupid as we reckon and it does disturb me to think I’m eating something which was playful or I don’t know, was aware.
Now aswell, I realise that meat is everywhere, factory farming is hurting, it’s unhealthy and mainly cruel and it does bother me how much meat humans consume and how much meat is available buy. I don’t think it’s necessary to have so much meat available to us. I don’t believe meat is so important to our diet, there are great alternatives out there and my health is fine since giving up meat and I also don’t miss it atall. If it was the last option and I was starving with no other choice, I would have to eat it of course but I just hope we rethink the meat industry.
A bit convoluted but it’s emotive and fuzzy and difficult to explain when it is emotionally based.
To me, it really is worth it leading a plant based diet, or at least if you don’t want to to that just cut down on meat and be concious of where your meat is from.
But hey “vegetarians don’t have a sense of humour” 
Nellie McKay - Mother of Pearl - YouTube