Meat just does not look like food to me. I have zero desire for it. I derive immense pleasure from cooking and eating good tasty vegetarian food. That’s pretty much it.
**Why are you a meat eater or a vegetarian/vegan? **
Those are the only choices I had.
One point on this - I am pretty convinced cats aren’t humane, even if they are humane for the cat they are horrible for local wildlife.
But dogs as pets, so long as they are the right dog (see my GD thread atm) are definitely humane* and you would struggle to convince me otherwise I think - but cause that sounds really interesting please please please start a GD thread when you have the time to try to!
*The right dogs LOVE people and LOVE being pets.
If I go more than a day or so without meat, I feel strange. Sort of spacy, sort of dizzy, I don’t know. So I eat meat.
Yeah, that whole clean water, safe food, medical care, safe shelter, and love thing is SO cruel, compared to living wild. :rolleyes:
I watched Food, Inc in 2009, and haven’t looked at my food the same way again. I became an ovo-lacto-pesca-vegetarian (still can’t decide about fish or crustaceans) for two years but the more I thought about it the more I felt that supporting the factory farming of animals on any level was what I really had an objection to.
So a year or so ago, I researched local farms and found a couple that were acceptable as far as providing meats, dairy and eggs, and I haven’t looked back. It’s limiting, as I eat vegan when I’m away from home save for a couple restaurants that use the same farms. Definitely no fast food.
One thing I’ve learned since checking labels for meat/dairy/egg products - that shit is in so many of our foods, and it seems unnecessary in many cases. It hasn’t been the easiest thing to do, IMO, but it’s worth taking myself out of animal factory farming.
I’ve been vegetarian for many years because that’s how I like to eat.
Ethics isn’t a factor. If I wanted a steak, I’d eat one.
I wouldn’t have much problem cutting fish and crustaceans out of my diet - I find sea bugs utterly repellent.
Lacto-ovo-vegetarian, for aesthetic reasons. I never liked meat as a kid, and when I became independent, I stopped eating it. As a personal challenge, I do stay rather strict, and won’t eat anything with gelatin, carmine, etc. And as a nice side effect, becoming vegetarian got me to branch out to a lot of cuisine I’d never been exposed to as a kid/teen, simply to get more variety in my diet: Indian, Thai, Turkish, and so on.
There’s no moral or ethical thing with my diet, and I don’t trumpet it nor try to convert others. When people do find out, it’s almost difficult to try to explain that I don’t really care if they eat meat. Half of those who find out think they’re pulling some kind of big prank by extravagantly eating meat in front of me (Oh, steak! Bet you miss this! Oh, it’s so rare that it’s mooing! MMMMMmmmm!), and it reflects poorly on them that they’re deliberately trying to be offensive, even if they’re not succeeding. To me, it’s like being with someone who’s eating cheesecake. Glad they like it, glad I’m not having some. The other half go overboard in trying to accommodate me (thinking they need to avoid eating meat around me, or thinking I can’t go to any restaurants with them), when it’s not really needed.
I eat meat because being a vegetarian for a year led to me feeling and looking like hell (I developed IBS, my period was badly affected, I lost muscle mass, my hair thinned, my acne flared up terribly). Ethics are all very well and good but my health comes first. If I could feel and look my best eating grass (or living off grains and eggs), well sure I would.
I wouldn’t say I’ve given it “deep thought,” but I’ve mulled over the decision. The general answer is: I was raised eating meat, I see no reason to change.
The somewhat deeper answer is that I believe that humans are naturally omnivores, and I see no reason to buck the trend.
That’s what I did for a while. My aunt keeps her own animals, which I really liked. You know where they come from, they aren’t factory farmed as objects that have no worth other than their price. They are real animals, they live a happy, respected life.
Simple Linctus, would that be an option you might consider? Look for meat that you do support?
One reason I think it’s good is that you are also supporting a farming life style (and by extension, the countryside) in a sustainable way. If enough people make that decision then the price of meat will go up hugely, and it might be a luxury, but at the same time perhaps we would be able to support local farmers (without unfair agricultural subsidies) who practice their honest trade in a sustainable way. When I think of the Welsh farmers I know, the hard work they put in, the beautiful land they farm, it doesn’t make me not want to eat lamb at all. I respect their work, and their respect for the land and their animals. They sustain our countryside and a good way of life. I don’t mind supporting that!
I eat meat because I need a decent amount of protein and I don’t tolerate soy well, or dairy, or eggs.
I have a freezer full of pastured cow and pig; I try to eat happy animals as much as I can.
I grew up cleaning up after and taking care of the animals that ended up in the freezer feeding us for the next year. I have absolutely no issues eating meat but I do support all efforts to ensure that they are treated humanely before they are slaughtered.
I have canine teeth, therefore I eat meat. To do otherwise would be inhuman.
After reading Fast Food Nation, I gave up meat for a couple of years. I didn’t miss eating it, but my family did. I didn’t know any other vegetarians and didn’t come up with a good diet, I basically replaced meat with junk food. I also got tired of defending myself all the time (crazy uncle asked if was a lesbian now). Finally, I’d lost so much weight it’s a wonder I didn’t scare little kids.
These days, I eat meat, but I also do stuff like buy cage-free eggs and don’t eat veal or foie gras. Someday, when I don’t have to feed my omnivorous family, I will very likely give vegetarianism another shot.
My answer was going to be simply “bacon,” but this is better.
I was raised as a lacto-vegetarian (the ovo business is more murky; we wouldn’t eat eggs straight up, but we’d basically ignore it if they were buried away in cakes or cookies or such things), by my South Indian Brahmin parents. I’ve been vegetarian my whole life. I’m very accustomed to it, and meat holds no appeal for me; indeed, on the occasions on which I have smelled or accidentally consumed some, I have found it quite offputting. No doubt, with training, I could get over that, but I have very little urge to. I’m comfortably set in my ways.
(I see now I was only supposed to respond if my choice was based on “deep ethical thought” rather than familiarity and inertia… Oh well)
My mouth contains cuspid teeth. My stomach contains enzymes that are of no use to an herbivore. Nature designed me to consume any available source of nutrients. To do otherwise is unnatural.
Love of nature includes the food chain. When wolves, bears, tigers, and sharks become vegetarians, I will think about it. Until then, I will eat meat, wear leather and fur, use animal-tested products, and hunt and fish.
I do, however believe that animals should be harvested humanely. After all, stress hormones spoil the flavor of the meat. 
I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 years. Basically, I am minimizing my violence in the world. There will always be violence for man to survive, I want the minimum.
I am against most military occupation, etc, but there is still a need for military strength and war, but lets make it the minimum.
I don’t think abortion is a good thing and should be avoided. Let’s minimize it. If it has to be done, so be it, but keep it at small numbers and rare. (No I am not judging, I wouldn’t pass judgment.)
Just by living we cause pain, why create more?
It’s a simple philisophy.