Does anyone know the main reason why people become vegetarian? If it is animal cruelty, why do most vegetarians eat fish, do they regard their deaths for human consumption as not cruel?
flobadob Sat 02/08/08 00:03
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I actually have a lot of respect for proper vegetarians, who stick to their beliefs and don't eat meat at all. I couldn't do it - too fond of me bacon sarnies. ;-)
I have no respect at all for people who call themselves vegetarians but still eat fish and sometimes poultry. Get the message - you are NOT vegetarians. Or is it OK to eat meat as long as it comes from a creature that isn't cute and cuddly?
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was going to say the same thing as littleoldme!
vegetarians who say "but I eat fish.." get over yourselves, you're no more veggie than I am!
maybe you could be the kind of veggie that my friend's 6 yr old niece is. "I'll eat meat, but not the kind that gets stuck in your teeth". cute!
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wildwood??? what are you talking about at all. As a todler (age 2-3) I ate pastry, which may have had animal fat in, in those days I guess, no ingredients was on the packet in the 70's bakery. And I was too young to understand.
Today most pastry does not contain animal fats but vegetable oil. I wouldn't eat pastry now, it's greasy and doesn't appeal to my appetite.
People who eat fish are not vegetarians. But worse than than are the people who say "I'm almost vegetarian becasue I dont eat much red meat" while scoffing a packet of jelly babies full of beef geletine..
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I will also finish off by saying I don't often tell people I'm vegetarian because on every occasion of someone finding out it's guaranteed the usual idiot will jump in with.. Well do you eat chicken, well do you eat fish, I bet you eat pastry, I bet you eat cheese.. and then there is always the 'Well do you wear leather shoes" and such sh*t.. WTF ing idiot I always think. I've studdied food, ingredients and nutrition from as early as I could read, I'm an authority on the subject and you always get the idiot who refuses to believe like it's just not possible and therefore will do there best to prove you wrong.. Why? I can only think they are idiots.
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boogieboogie,
From one veggie to another~
Maybe we should have a Vegetarian category on AB,can you imagine how much fun(not) that would be? LOL
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JCL if you read it properly you would know that dairy is relatively new in China..
They have developed, progressed and are a healthy race and have come this far without dairy produced which I believe proves my point that humans don't need dairy produce to survive and be healthy..
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I stopped eating meat and fish in my teens due entirely to ethical reaons; that I considered the rearing and transportation methods to be cruel, not that I thought eating meat or use of animal products was wrong if done in a humane manner. Not eating meat was my protest against putting profit before animal welfare.
Vegetarins do not eat fish, people who eat fish may call themselves vegetarians, and any other name they want, but it still doesn't make them a vegetarian.
Until recently I was extremly healthy and my current ill health is certainly not due to a lack of meat and will not be cured by eating flesh.
Well unless the medical profession is telling fibs
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Hey!
My best mate is a vegan, has been for years now. She turned veggie at about 10, and then about 5 years ago went vegan.
We were both mad animal lovers at school and I always thought it was strange that she went on to study history and became a vegan, I went on to study animal care yet you wouldn't catch me saying no to a bacon sarnie!
At my college course, quite a few of the tutors where always trying to make us feel bad for studying animal care, but not being veggie, which I thought was very wrong, as only 1 of them was a veggie themselves!
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Religion?............I think all sikhs and buddhists are vegans......The latter seem slimmer on the diet.
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I believe that if you are a vegetarian because you just do not like meat then it is a different story as in this world not everyone likes or dislikes same things as food. But if you do not eat meat because of the fact that you do not like taking life of another living thing then I always ask those people that what do you do when you have infection of any sort. Do you take antibiotics, if you do then you are still killing a living thing, what about when you brush your teeth, you are still killing millions of lives. Even when you breathe, with every breath your body is killing so many lives that you can not even imagine. Even when you are walking and especially on the grass, or sand where you can not see what is under there, you might be killing insects there, few which you could see and few which are so tiny that you may never be able to see them with naked eye. Or go and ask any doctor or scientist about it.
Human have set of teeth to cut & chew meat and vegetables, why? Human have digestive system to digest both, why?
Terambulan – you are wrong that all Sikhs are vegans. Sikhs do eat meat.
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As I understand it - vegetarians do not eat meat - in other wordls anything with a face on it.
Some people claim to eat fish because it is caught naturally, as opposed to being farmed for food, and don;t eat meat because they feel that is reared in cruel conditions.
I would suggest that a vegetarian does not eat animal flesh, full stop, to eat anythng that has once lived a sentient life means you are not a vegetarian.
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Andy – I liked what you said, but the problem is that few scientists believe and I think it is true that even vegetables are living things. Trees breath we all know that, they shed their leaves before winter because otherwise water would freeze in the leaves and that would kill the tress. Must be many more reasons to believe in that that I am not aware of.
Now vegetarians are in trouble.
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Question Author
keyplus makes a very decent point there. For example every time you drive a car, especially at night, see how many insects die because of your journey. I know it is an extreme thing to point out but actually it's got a lot of merit in the whole argument of the killing of living things for our benefit.
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flobadob,
The point keyplus makes is dragged out every time, as if vegetarians can be belittled because they kill germs.
Why does a vegetarian have to justify their way of life, its not exactly a threat to meat eaters and I have never met a vegetarian who was in a position to impose their viewpoint on the rest of society. Its not like some damned religion where those who don't adhere to it, are threatened with a terrible fate. Vegetarians are not some amorphous mass either, where the behaviour and actions of one, can be the explanation for another.
When I see this argument (sic) so cleverly dragged out finger pointing, I want to respond by well if my lifestyle choices are so flawed, that I kill insects so why bother not eating meat, lets go the whole way and start killing humans and starting with the pompous self opinionated meat eaters!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Ruby – you have taken things other way. If you read my earlier post on 4th August at 10.07, I did say that there s nothing wrong in being a vegetarian if you just do not like meat. But when you say that you do not eat meat because you do not like taking a life then as a result that becomes a statement (knowingly or unknowingly) against the people who like eating meat. Then and only then the other points become valid about germs, and insects etc.
I do not want to change the subject of the question, however you may not be but majority people are vegetarian due to this misconception and on the basis of this mindset about killing a living thing. But unfortunately that becomes invalid when you look into it deeply.
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If we want to cure illness, then killing germs is a necessity; if we want to drive our cars, then killing insects along the road is unavoidable; treading on insects in the grass is unavoidable. We don't do that willinging, or because we want to eat their bodies. Becoming vegetarian because we don't wish to kill animals willingly, and eat their bodies is a different thing entirely. I don't see vegetarianism as invalid at all - and neither do I see it as a statement against people who eat meat. It's a personal choice that neither harms, nor interferes with anyone else. I'm not vegetarian, but I can understand why people choose that lifestyle. When I look at a chicken hanging in my butchers shop, I see the body of a dead animal that has been killed specifically for human consumption - and unlike insects that have been inadvertently killed, and whose remains serve no purpose to us, that's precisely what it is. If I thought deeply about it, I could very easily become vegetarian.
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