# Why aren't you vegetarian? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 2, 2010, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198 "2010-11-02T12:48:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![jlzania](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jlzania](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jlzania)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/61 "2010-11-02T19:12:55Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > nm. too easy. Not anyone, **anything**. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/62 "2010-11-02T19:13:43Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > There are various reasons for becoming a vegetarian. One of the reasons is that it’s immoral to eat animals. Taking a life is bad, m’kay? But plants are alive too. So if taking life is bad, then it’s equally bad to take the life of a plant as it is to take the life of an animal because ‘life’ is ‘life’. Plants fight, and hunt, and kill just like animals do. It’s just slower and not so obvious. So it’s really just a matter of where you draw the line. Eating only plants that don’t have to be killed seems too limited to me, so I’d be taking lives anyway. Someone once told me that hundreds of animals die just to make one plate of salad. It never occurred to me or i guess moral reason vegetarians that farmers have to kill tons of animals just to protect their crops, and not ugly ones like cows and chickens either but the cute ones like bunnies and mice. That’s without even counting insects as animals, in which case one plate of salad is down right genocide. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/63 "2010-11-02T19:22:31Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Someone once told me that hundreds of animals die just to make one plate of salad. It never occurred to me or i guess moral reason vegetarians that farmers have to kill tons of animals just to protect their crops, and not ugly ones like cows and chickens either but the cute ones like bunnies and mice. That’s without even counting insects as animals, in which case one plate of salad is down right genocide. I’m really sceptical about claims like these. Besides, it’s an unusual meat-eater who doesn’t eat veg too. Cows are cute! Not that that’s a reason not to farm them, but they are lovely animals. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/64 "2010-11-02T19:26:41Z")
Humans are omnivores. I embrace the carnivore side of my diet. That doesn’t mean that I don’t give a shit how animals are treated. I do. I buy organic when I can. I buy free-range, cage-free chickens and eggs. I try to buy beef from farms that treat their animals humanely. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/65 "2010-11-02T19:26:45Z")
You missed mine- there’s no real reason not to include meat as part of a balanced diet. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/66 "2010-11-02T19:28:47Z")
Why don’t you watch basketball? [ul] [li]I’m a racist jerk[/li][li]At school people laughed at how bad I played, and I’ve never got over it[/li][li]I’m too poor to afford tickets or a TV set[/li][li]It’s all too fast for a slow-brained simpleton like me[/li][li]I can’t read, and therefore couldn’t read the question (or this response)[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/67 "2010-11-02T19:38:31Z")
> [@shijinn](#): > > … > i’m assuming most of us aren’t hunters, and have not hunted a kill for food. it is my opinion that we are using our evolved gifts for anything and everything else other than hunting for food. most of us anyway. Well, that’s fine, but my point - and probably **Uncle** ’s, since we wound up saying almost the same thing - was that even though I currently sit behind a computer monitor for 8 hours per day, if, say, the zombie apocalypse were to happen tomorrow and I had to revert to hunter-gatherer mode to survive and continue to eat, I would still be in posession of 100% of the “evolved gifts” that allowed our ancestors to hunt and kill meat and thus, survive and continue to eat. Also, while I’m thinking of them, I’m pretty sure our ancestors didn’t eat tofu. I’m not going to go into whether or not it’s healthy, but whenever militant vegetarians and vegans start to wax poetic about eating all-natural food I always think, “What’s natural about tofu-based cheese substitute?” ---
**Author:** ![jlzania](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jlzania](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jlzania)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/68 "2010-11-02T19:43:28Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Someone once told me that hundreds of animals die just to make one plate of salad. It never occurred to me or i guess moral reason vegetarians that farmers have to kill tons of animals just to protect their crops, and not ugly ones like cows and chickens either but the cute ones like bunnies and mice. That’s without even counting insects as animals, in which case one plate of salad is down right genocide. Animals are killed during crop harvesting. Ask anyone that’s driven a wheat combine. Voles,rabbits, snakes, fawns and ground nesting birds, to name a few. > [@](#): > > The research, by Steven Davis, a professor of animal science at Oregon State University, adds a new perspective to a millennia-old debate: Is it right for people to kill animals in order to feed themselves? > > Davis turns that question on its head. How many animals must die, he asks, in order for people to feed themselves? > > To address the question, Davis applies a principle used by moral philosophers to measure the least amount of harm an action might cause, called the Least Harm Principle. > > Davis’s research focuses on the work of Tom Regan, a philosophy professor from North Carolina State University and founder of the contemporary animal rights movement. Regan argues that the least harm would be done to animals if people were to adopt a vegan diet - that is, a diet based only on plants, with no meat, eggs, or milk products. > > What goes unaccounted for in Regan’s vegan conclusion, according to Davis, is the number of animals who are inadvertently killed during crop production and harvest. > > “Vegan diets are not bloodless diets,” Davis said. “Millions of animals die every year to provide products used in vegan diets.” > > “Over the years that I have been studying animal rights theories, I have never found anyone who has considered the deaths of - or, the ‘harm’ to - animals of the field,” Davis said. “This, it seems to me, is a serious omission.” > > Davis has found evidence that suggests that the unseen losses of field animals are very high. One study documented that a single operation, mowing alfalfa, caused a 50 percent reduction in the gray-tailed vole population. Mortality rates increase with every pass of the tractor to plow, plant, and harvest. Additions of herbicides and pesticides cause additional harm to animals of the field. > > In contrast, grazing ruminants such as cattle produce food and require fewer entries into the fields with tractors and other equipment. In grazed pastures, according to Davis, less wildlife is lost to the mower blades, and more find stable habitat in untilled fields. And no-till agriculture also helps stabilize soil and reduce run-off into streams. > > “Pasture-forage production, with herbivores harvesting the forage, would be the ultimate in ‘no-till’ agriculture,” Davis said. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/69 "2010-11-02T19:57:30Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Must resist urge to make joke connection to not eating meat… _leans across previous posters to give **Leaffan** his well-deserved thump_ ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/70 "2010-11-02T20:21:47Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > … say, the zombie apocalypse were to happen tomorrow and I had to revert to hunter-gatherer mode to survive and continue to eat … I’m pretty sure our ancestors didn’t eat tofu. … “What’s natural about tofu-based cheese substitute?” i would strongly suggest against hunting zombies for food.. 😛 while i’m pretty sure my ancestors ate tofu, i’ll chime in and say i’m baffled by all the meat substitute some vegetarians eat. which apparently many do, judging by the few so called vegetarian food places i’ve seen. vegetables (and tofu) are delicious. however, a diet consisting of mainly tofu or beans pretending to be meat is just .. unnatural. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/71 "2010-11-02T20:24:25Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Why don’t you watch basketball? > > [ul] > [li]I’m a racist jerk[/li][li]At school people laughed at how bad I played, and I’ve never got over it[/li][li]I’m too poor to afford tickets or a TV set[/li][li]It’s all too fast for a slow-brained simpleton like me[/li][li]I can’t read, and therefore couldn’t read the question (or this response)[/li][/ul] I know, right? This might be the stupidest poll I’ve ever seen\*, and this is coming from someone who created a poll about whether or not your voicemail greeting is asinine. \*All Skald hypotheticals excluded. ---
**Author:** ![Velma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/85e7bf/32.png) [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/72 "2010-11-02T20:30:52Z")
I would say our family food choices in general come from health and planet considerations, and that does involve eating considerably less meat than the average person. We eat red meat rarely (ha) maybe once a month or so, usually at a meal not prepared at home. Sometimes in the summer we want real beef burgers or steaks to grill but red meat is not a staple. We eat a lot of chicken and turkey, I try to buy organic and local when it is possible, I pay attention to where our eggs and dairy come from, but I do buy regular stuff when getting the good stuff isn’t available. We share a garden with my sister in the summer. We eat vegetarian meals quite often, just because I don’t center my cooking around meat all the time. I don’t think about how to specifically make veggie meals, they just often are that way. I didn’t really think about how many of our meals are vegetarian until I had a friend ask for vegetarian recipies and I realized I make quite a few. Almost every week we will have potato and spinach pie, veggie pizzas, or pasta with meatless sauce (sometimes all of these.) But I will make those same recipies with meat too, it just depends on what we have around. ---
**Author:** ![tingbudong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tingbudong/32/520_2.png) [@tingbudong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tingbudong)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/73 "2010-11-02T20:38:48Z")
Many vegetarians are unbelievably smug. Vegetarian debates rank second only to Mac vs. PC on Tingbudong’s “shoot-yourself-in-the-face” index. That said, I employ a meat-lite diet and go with local flesh when I can because I do agree that eating lower on the food chain/locally is probably better for the environment. Being an omnivore also allows me the ability to easily chow down on most things offered to me when I’m traveling without having to awkwardly explain that I don’t eat meat. Personally, I can’t stand traveling abroad with vegetarians, especially the more militant ones…to the point that I will go _way_ out of my way not to dine with them. There was a fairly hard-core vegetarian in my jeep group that wandered across Mongolia. I thought she was going to die…although she didn’t seem to have a problem with the [airag](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airag). ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/74 "2010-11-02T20:40:47Z")
> [@jlzania](#): > > Animals are killed during crop harvesting. > Ask anyone that’s driven a wheat combine. > Voles,rabbits, snakes, fawns and ground nesting birds, to name a few. > > > [@](#): > > > > In contrast, grazing ruminants such as cattle produce food and require fewer entries into the fields with tractors and other equipment. In grazed pastures, according to Davis, less wildlife is lost to the mower blades, and more find stable habitat in untilled fields. And no-till agriculture also helps stabilize soil and reduce run-off into streams. > > > > “Pasture-forage production, with herbivores harvesting the forage, would be the ultimate in ‘no-till’ agriculture,” Davis said. This would be a pretty powerful critique if pasture-forage production was actually practiced on an industrial scale. Pasture-forage production is about as far from the modern industrial factory farming processes as can be. For a quick snapshot of the environmental costs of the actual industrial meat production processes see [here.](http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/aug97/livestock.hrs.html) ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/75 "2010-11-02T21:02:29Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > I know, right? This might be the stupidest poll I’ve ever seen\*, and this is coming from someone who created a poll about whether or not your voicemail greeting is asinine. > > \*All Skald hypotheticals excluded. Nice exclusion. 😃 Is the ‘why are you a vegetarian?’ equally stupid? Of course some animals are killed during the growing of crops - and they’re killed due to milk production, too. Is anyone _really_ arguing that the average vegetarian diet kills more ickle animals than the average meat-eater’s diet, which includes veggies unless they’re really unhealthy? ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/76 "2010-11-02T21:05:05Z")
The ‘veggies’ in that post was referring to vegetables, not vegetarians; I did not intend to suggest that the average meat-eater eats human beings as long as they’re healthy. I’ve heard they prefer the really chubby ones. (This is the Dope - you never know what someone’s going to be pedantic about). ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/77 "2010-11-02T21:50:43Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > Is the ‘why are you a vegetarian?’ equally stupid? Well, it could do with an “other” option, but basically it covers the main reasons that people give for being vegetarian. This thread OTOH, has no “other” and most of the options are either an admission of “I’m a jerk”, in one form or another, or don’t even make sense as responses to the question. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/78 "2010-11-02T22:20:01Z")
I am just chiming in with an “other” answer: Supposedly animals who eat plants are more palatable and healthy than animals who are carnivorous. I am omnivorous because if I get eaten by something, I want to taste as bad as possible. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/79 "2010-11-02T22:35:18Z")
I must remember that for the next time I’m forced to share space with a militant vegan. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198/80 "2010-11-02T22:36:58Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Well, it could do with an “other” option, but basically it covers the main reasons that people give for being vegetarian. > > This thread OTOH, has no “other” and most of the options are either an admission of “I’m a jerk”, in one form or another, or don’t even make sense as responses to the question. Thanks for the critique. BTW perhaps you should see a doctor and have him write you a prescription for “sense of humor.” I’m quite amused at the level of seriousness with which this has been taken. Were the options for “I like my food to have had a name and a face” and “I have a moral objection to killing plants” too subtle for you? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-vegetarian/559198.md?page=5)