I voted “meat is delicious”, but I’m also one of those people whose bodies work better with an occasional pure-protein fix. When I was in college, and still on some days, I didn’t eat much meat–maybe once or twice a week. But that once or twice, I would get a sudden, overwhelming, and very specific urge to eat a lot of chicken or beef. It was stronger than thirst, and more rewarding to satisfy it. No amount of cottage cheese or tofu or beans-n-rice would quash it.
I’ve gone veggo off and on over the past few years, but I have to admit I was somehow doing it wrong,because I was vaguely hungry all the time. I don’t eat red meat (except maybe a nice char-broiled steak at a restaurant once or twice a year). I don’t like hamburger. Love cheese and other dairy products, love chicken (there’s enough chicken around, for crying out loud, and there are so many ways to prepare it), and adore fish and other seafood. Though fish and such is quite expensive, I make every effort to eat it at every opportunity because a) I’m not getting any younger, how many meals do I have in my life left? and b) someday there won’t BE any fish, and if there are, I won’t be able to afford to buy it.
I’ve known one vegan and two raging vegetarians. The vegan dropped out because she said all she seemed to eat was peanut butter sandwiches and she was sick all the time. One vegetarian was getting on in years and felt she was harming her health, so she dropped out. The other vegetarian is still ferociously anti-meat, but when he started out he gained a huge amount of weight as he took ‘no meat’ to mean ‘eat whole bags of potato chips and other junk food for every meal’. He learned to cook veggie and lost 70 lbs.
Other: moderation. ditching all meat for just vegetables is too extreme. plus i’m an omnivore.
i’d just like to point out that most of what you said does not apply to most of the human species today.
I chose ‘meat is delicious’ and ‘I think vegetarians are self righteous’, even though not all meat is delicious and most vegetarians aren’t (very) self righteous. I think most people would agree that many PETA members are self righteous assholes, they give the regular sane people that don’t eat meat a bad name. In part I eat meat because I was raised eating meat, though I was raised, (by example), that if you were an adult, it is normal to smoke all the time and that didn’t ‘take’. I get along fine with all my friends that don’t eat meat and they don’t harangue me about eating meat. So there’s mutual respect. I have tried to cut back lately for health reasons. But meat is still food.
If God didn’t want us to eat meat, he wouldn’t have made animals so tasty.
I was a vegetarian for over a decade, although progressively less so as time went on. I never disliked meat, I quite love it actually, and finally I got to the point where I did find myself eating meat on a regular basis. I was still thinking of each of those times as incidents, and as not counting because it was free-range meat or some such - and each time I’d feel kind of guilty too. At a certain point I thought ‘to hell with it’. I just don’t want to deny myself that occasional pleasure anymore.
My saying ‘I am no longer a vegetarian’, interestingly, has changed very little to what I eat, rather to how I feel about it. I still rarely buy meat because it is too expensive, and also because it just does not occur to me. I’ve cooked vegetarian meals for most of the time that I cooked my own meals, and when I make a pasta or a stir fry, or soup, or any number of other dishes, adding meat just rarely occurs to me. Also in restaurants, I often order the veggie options because it is often quite nice.
Other.
I have an enormous amount of respect for the food web, and our species’ place in it. (Which, incidentally, is not at the top. I’ve seen tigers.) I fully, wholeheartedly believe that humans evolved to be omnivores and not herbivores. * taps canine teeth * We have an omnivore’s dentition and digestive tract, so I don’t see anything unnatural about eating meat.
CAFOs are unholy and unnatural, and I would like to see them gone, but I’m also realistic about when that’ll happen. Prefer strongly to eat humanely-raised and naturally-fed critters. Have no issues with the idea of slaughtering my own food and look forward to the day when I can raise my own chickens.
Besides which, for me personally, I’ve gravitated naturally towards eating animal protein my entire life. Even as a little-bitty kid, all I wanted to eat was meat. (My parents have said that this is why I’m taller than both of them.) I was on Atkin’s before there was an Atkin’s diet, mofo. I just … don’t really crave carbs, once I outgrew my childhood sweet tooth. If I’m gonna eat just one food for dinner, it’s gonna be meat.
Also, shijinn, I’m confused. What about
doesn’t cover at least most of humanity? Two eyes and opposable thumbs ain’t exactly unusual. 
How so? Most humans I know have two eyes, opposable thumbs, can walk upright while talking and eating, a brain (well, this is debatable). My point is that we are who we are because our species eats meat.
Heh. I didn’t see Uncle’s post until I’d almost finished mine. He obviously didn’t see mine before he posted his. Simul-ninja ATTACK!!
The poll leaves out another reason which I suspect actually applies to many people: “someone else prepares the food in my house most of the time, and I just eat whatever that is, because I’d have to do it myself otherwise.”
edit: That doesn’t describe me currently…I am in fact vegan, but in the past I sort of went with the flow because it was easier, and I strongly suspect a lot of people do.
My father and brother, growing up, and largely to this day, are fish-atarians (they eat no meat except for fish). They don’t shun all dairy but we are lactose intolerant so it was never a huge part of our meals growing up (to this day, the idea of drinking a full glass of milk disgusts me). My brother is motivated by ethics and pretty much doesn’t stray. My father isn’t motivated by ethics and will take a nibble of a meat dish at a holiday meal for old times sake, like a bowl of chicken soup at Passover, or foie gras at a fancy restaurant. Actually, my father used to work with chickens on a kibbutz, and will happily tell you that chickens are stupid, disgusting animals that deserve to be raised in wire pens and then eaten!
My father was the primary cook in the house. When he was gone on, say, a business trip, my mom and I would have girl bonding time over steaks. 
So anyway, growing up I was fully exposed to various aspects of the not-eating-meat lifestyle, and I just never saw the point. Vegetarianism is not inherently more healthy than omnivorousness, nor is it inherently less healthy, but for me, it would be a hell of a lot of work keeping the proteins up and the white carbs down, which is the best way for me to feel good.
Some of the rhetoric from the extreme fringes of veganism is a turn-off but that’s not an element of my opinion. Idiots say stupid shit on every issue, that isn’t the fault of the (sane, respectful) majority of vegetarians.
I am a member of PETA:
People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.
I don’t think it’s wrong to raise and kill animals for human consumption. I do, however, think it’s wrong for the animals to be raised in inhumane (inanimal?) conditions, so I’m picky about what meat I will and won’t eat.
I like the taste of properly prepared meat, including but not limited to veal, lamb, etc. I often go for days without eating any meat, because I also like vegies, grains, etc.
This is along my lines of reasoning. It’s not only the killing of plants that is involved in raising vegetables for market. It also means the killing of insects that would otherwise infest the vegetables. Insects are a part of animal life, so vegetarians are killing animals in the production of vegetables anyway.
You cannot get away from killing. Would you be happy to allow roaches to overrun your house? Would you refuse to take antibiotics to fight an infection?
If the reason you are vegetarian is because you think killing is wrong, yet you have no hesitation in swatting a mosquito, you are being hypocritical.
None really apply. It needs a “Vegetarianism is not a healthy human diet.”
I agree with much of what purplehorseshoe says, with the amendment that I think the non-carnivore part of our diet is naturallly very small and that we’re not meant to force down 5-7 “servings” of fruits/vegetables a day.
Someone mentioned limiting red meat to reduce risk of colon cancer - that link has lately been shown to not exist. (What exactly is “red meat”? Has this phrase ever been defined?)
Having said that, I respect the type of vegetarians that eat for ethical reasons. I detest the factory farms (but must admit I still obtain my meat from grocery stores). I fear for their health though. I don’t think anyone should be lambasted for how they eat.
Meat is delicious. I think that we should be more judicious in the raising and consumption, though.
The problem that I would have with trying to be a vetgetarian is that it would be like being celibate, and that I would likely be consumed with thoughts of what I couldn’t have until I broke down and had it all in one sitting.
ah UncleRojelio, purplehorseshoe. i read the post as:
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.
I’m a bad person who finds meat delicious. I like it when my food has had a face and a name and I’ve never considered being a vegetarian.
I checked ‘because meat is delicious’ and ‘Vegetarians are self-righteous’, but the real reason I eat meat is for my digestion, body composition and general health.
I was vegetarian for almost a year. Lots of fresh vegetables, fruits and grain products. The starch-based diet gave me terrible gas, a thick roll of fat around my waist, skinny arms & legs and tits like a girl. I still eat fruit and vegetables every day, but I keep the grains to a minimum and avoid most root vegetables and beans. I’ve basically put meat, eggs, fish and cottage cheese in their place. Lifting weights and eating a high-protein diet gives me big shoulders, a slim waist and keeps me from farting all the time.
Another benefit of the high protein diet is that I don’t get a carbohydrate rush immediately after eating and the sluggish, lethargic insulin crash a few hours later. I’d forgotten that until I ate half a bowl of Halloween candy while waiting for trick or treaters this weekend. I don’t know if my diet has anything to do with managing bipolar disorder and depression, but I have noticeably fewer mood swings than when I ate a starch-based diet.