To renounce my vegetarianism?

[nethunsreject]

I've been veggie all my life. My parents were hippies. Several reasons I want to eat meat occasionally:

1. I eat dairy, which is as bad as the meat industry.
2. I don't have a problem with animals being killed for food. I dislike intensive farming but, as I only want meat once a week, we can buy from the local farm which is high welfare.
3. I feel that life is short, I'm middle aged and I'll be dead one day. I'm blessed in living in modern western world where I have the chance to enjoy very many things.

Anyone gone this way too?

and sorry for the shittily timed X post too!

I'm a carnivore and I eat them all. Nice and juicy, pink inside.

You only eat meat? Now that is unusual.

It's ok!! I am just sensitive to a fault Goodnight Pyong....sleep tite!!!

And you!

Not really Rhonda, she's a lion with wifi :o

OP, I have been veggie for the last 30 years, and my DH has been veggie since birth. We have raised our dd as veggie because we don't have meat in the house, but I have always made it clear that it's her cipher of she wants to eat it outside. At the moment, she chooses not to, but if she changes her mind in the future, I really hope that she won't feel guilty about it.

I went veggie for ethical reasons as a teenager, but will admit that I don't feel that strongly about it now. I only stay veggie really out of habit. And because the sight and smell of meat make me feel physically ill!

My eldest flirted with vegetarianism from the age of about 11. I always supported her. She met her current partner 4 years ago and became vegan. She now struggles with eggs and dairy (not cheese though) and on the odd occassion she eats them in something, like the pavlova with fresh cream on Christmas Day, she feels quite ill.

Just ease yourself back into a full ominivore diet OP

"Higher welfare" meat has a better life than animals for ordinary meat. However, the end of their life is the same - the abattoirs are just as cruel. When that expose came out about cruelty in slaughterhouses a couple of years ago, one of them was an organic slaughterhouse. I'm staying vegetarian until there is CCTV in slaughterhouses.

If Last doesn't want those exclamation marks, can I have them, please?

Oooh! Thank you!!!

Hey!!!!! These! Are!!!! Great!!!!!!!!!!

Anybody!!! Else!!!!!!!! Want! A!! Couple!!!!??!!!!

No one gets it right entirely - even Lastgirlontheleft probably uses medication that was tested on animals

Dead right Dancing.

from the abuse of animals, to the exploitation of third world workers, to the rape of the planet, none of us in the west are uninvolved, whether we want to be or not.

"I'm staying vegetarian until there is CCTV in slaughterhouses."

Eat halal meat. Throats slashed in one motion, unconscious in seconds as blood gushes out. It's not a bad way to go if you're destined to be killed & eaten.

Then again, if you care so much about cows, you probably shouldn't eat them at all, even if they just drift off to sleep in a haze of love and happiness. Surely you will still be responsible for their death.

Then again, if everyone agreed with you and nobody ate meat, there would be far less cows in the world so you would be responsible for millions of them never being born.

So you can't win, really

I was veggie for many years. Then I developed ibs triggered mainly by lactose so had to give up dairy. I had no desire to be almost vegan and so I went back to meat, but try to eat high welfare meat whenever possible. I feel much better eating meat. I gave pcos and my blood sugar was all over the place when I was veggie. I suspect eating more protein has helped me.

I had no problem eating chicken or ham. My first steak gave me a three day stomach ache. I suspect my digestive system had no idea what to do with it!

euro - Have you tried eating yoghurt & cheese? People who are intolerant to lactose are usually fine with yoghurt and cheese because the fermentation necessary to the making of these products encourages bacteria to eat up most of the carbohydrate (lactose) in milk.

"I gave pcos and my blood sugar was all over the place when I was veggie. I suspect eating more protein has helped me. "

For sure. You must get your calories from somewhere, and I imagine that as a vegetarian yours were coming from carbohydrates (pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, etc) which our bodies treat as sugar.

Fuck it, go get a big Mac.

I'm getting more tolerant now so can manage small amounts of yoghurt but cows cheese still makes me feel awful. But this is around 15 years after diagnosis. By now I eat meat I have plenty of options. Eating out trying to avoid meat and dairy was a complete nightmare!

Huge sympathies. I don't know if life would be worth living if I couldn't eat meat OR dairy

I reached the same conclusion re.dairy as you have - that it seemed pointless to eat that and not meat.

It was this realisation that showed me the natural conclusion of vegetarianism was to go vegan. I feel now that I have been waiting to be vegan for nearly a decade and the change has made me so happy.

I think most vegetarians reach this point. Some will go vegan, some will become meat eaters. You will know what you want to do, and it's your choice alone.

Last, if that programme with the pigs is the one I think it's the reason I finally went veggie. It was horrific. I dislike meat anyway, it's like eating old shoes and smells of dirty nappies (to me, I know some people like it). It was always a battle when I was younger as my folks believed vegetarians were silly and unhealthy and made me eat meat. I could tolerate burgers and sausages but not after seeing the pigs on tv.

LastGirl, you realise that using just one exclamation mark is OK and is sufficient as a signal for a shouty sentence. In other words, WE HEAR WHAT YOU ARE WRITING!!!

Then again, if everyone agreed with you and nobody ate meat, there would be far less cows in the world so you would be responsible for millions of them never being born

Would it really be such a bad thing for cows not to be born in order to end up as food on the plates of people who eat too much anyway? I'd be ok with that.

I've been a vegan and a vegetarian for ethical reasons when younger. I started eating meat when I was trying to conceive as I figured human canine teeth and intestinal workings were a good indicator of what we were supposed to be eating for optimal health.

I still do eat meat. I did go down the organic route when pregnant and breastfeeding, but nowadays I go for either free-range or outdoor reared (pork mainly). If you shop around then it doesn't have to be outrageously expensive. For example I buy Waitrose Essential range sausages (which are £1.25 for 8 and outdoor reared) which the kids hoover up and can get two dinners (a roast and a noodle soup) out of one of Aldi's free-range chickens which typically costs less than a fiver. Lamb and beef are grassed raised (outdoors) but are pricey and not that popular with my kids (perhaps they're fussy).

One downside I've found is weight gain. Keep an eye on this. I was slim as a vegetarian, dangerously skinny as a vegan. However, this could just be middle aged spread and a penchant for cupcakes and be purely unrelated.

The question I asked myself was whether it was better for an animal to live a short but natural life (free range) or to never live at all? Their deaths will always be awful, you can't avoid that. That's the quandary really. I chose my human biology over the lives of the animals I now eat, but everyone has different standards and I do toy with returning to vegetarianism when I think too long on the slaughter. If I had to kill to eat then I would not eat meat. Hypocritical, but that's how it is for me.

I eat meat because I like it and enjoy it. I prefer organic and free-range products and care about how those animals were raised and slaughtered. However, they were bred for food and that's the sole reason for their existence.
I had an ex who dtopped eating meat because he was told by some charlatan that it will sort out health problems. It didn't but he became one of those insufferable bigoted morons who will make the lives of carnivores insufferable. We'd be sitting in a resty, me eating meat and him telling me with relish what a horrible person I am for eating corpses.
I personally don't care about anybody's choices. What I care about is the food mileage, killing endangered animals and bad living conditions of farm animals. I would say that many vegans have a much higher food mileage than me, tbh.

Sleep, actually weight gain is one reason I'm thinking to go back veggie.
I have been losing about half a pound a week....one week of (almost) no meat, I lost 1.5lb.

(I had a little bit on Xmas day because dad had pre planned his cooking).

"Would it really be such a bad thing for cows not to be born in order to end up as food on the plates of people who eat too much anyway?"

You can say that for any animal. Nobody's life is a bed of roses, including us humans'. Is the gazelle's life worth living if she'll end up as lion's food?

And anyway cows don't know they end up on someone's plate just like we don't really "know" (suffer) the fact that we'll end up as food for slugs, insects, and bacteria.