about vegetarians?

[iwastooearlytobeayummymummy]

Now if you a vegan, respect to you and your choice. You have obviously considered the whole food chain as it works in the UK and set out your stall.

If you don't like the taste and texture of meat, or can't afford it, well, fair enough.

If for religious reasons your diet is a manifestation of your belief, I understand.

But if you don't eat meat because you don't like the idea of eating baby animals,but you continue to use dairy products then I just need to know why? Are you ignorant or just sentimental?

'Young' was clearly an erroneous assumption.

I should have said 'green' or 'unsophisticated.'

Hi Spider

So not green, and really quite common

But methinks you mean my debating skills.(or lack there of)

Haven't read the whole thread but in general I detest the argument that anybody who does something has to do everything. Ie people who recycle should also give up their cars and chop firewood instead of using gas etc.

If we follow those arguments to their logical conclusion, then nobody should do anything based upon beliefs or principles unless they can lead an entirely blameless and perfect life.

Going veggie is generally a good thing on it's own. It doesn't have to be backed up by radical views on diet or animal rights.

It's so boring hearing 'hypocrite' from people who prefer to do feck all themselves, and make themselves feel better by trying to pick holes in the logic of others.

Hi OP
To try and answer your question directly, for me personally I don't eat meat because I cannot get my head around the fact that it is dead (and would be rotting if it wasn't preserved!) flesh of another animal that I am putting in my mouth, but I don't know whether that is just because I have always been veggie so it would feel very alien to me to try it when I have always been very aware of what it actually is. Lots of my friends cannot eat chicken on the bone because it reminds them that it is meat, which is bizarre to me that they can just switch off what it is as long as it doesn't 'look' like what it really is!

So that's why I don't eat ethically sourced and produced meat myself. I do buy ethically sourced and produced meat for my OH, I just cannot get my head around eating anything that is dead personally.

It's not as much to do with sentimentality towards the dead animal really as it is the eating of the dead thing that is at the core of it for me!

I am however very bothered with how the animals are kept and treated before and during their death, and it is for this reason that I feel guilty for eating dairy because I know that parts of the dairy industry involves suffering and death by animals. But I go back to the fact that not everyone is perfect and I do as much as I feel I am able to at this time. My parents have both recently become vegan after 30 years of being veg because they decided to make that commitment, and I may well decide to do that in the future. But I won't feel pressured to do it for fear of being called a hypocrite, I'll do it for myself and if my conscience makes me feel like I should make that next step.

They are just my reasons anyway, and may be because as I say I have never eaten meat so I may be a bit unusual! Other veggies may have their own reason for not eating meat while continuing to eat dairy.

OP - you may consider yourself to be the least judgemental person I could meet, but your posts come over as exceedingly judgemental - and rudely so. And instead of apologising for this, you congratulate yourself by saying that you have 'touched a nerve.'

Look at how you have divided up the vegetarians - they either don't like the taste or texture of meat, or are vegetarian for religious reasons (both of which you deign to approve of), or they are sentimentalists who don't want to eat baby animals!! That is a hugely sweeping generalisation.

Then you ask whether those who still eat dairy are ignorant or sentimental - how can you not see how rude and judgemental this is?

Blonde

Your post is just what I've been asking for and I now understand more about your motivation.

I have not heard a veggie explain it like that before and it makes sense to me, so. genuinely Thank you

Morris

Thanks to for your view, sounds a fair comment to me

iwastooearly

Meat is just gross to me. I was raised vegetarian like blodewithbump and have never onve thought of dead flesh as food. I have no interest in eating veal or any other kind of meat.

I can consume dairy and eggs because they are animal by products not animal flesh. I have already explianed that i am aware I am contributing to intensive farming methods and animal cruelty. I do not consider that hypocritical because I do not preach my choices, they are mine, and everyone else makes their own choices. I do as much, or as little, as I feel appropriate for me.

DS does not eat meat because I do not want him to. The thought of eating dead flesh repulses me and I do not want my precious perfect baby to consume it. He's perfectly healthy and not deprived.

Eric - ooh you are the first other forever veggie I have ever met other than my brother! That's so weird you saying that about your DS, that's exactly how I feel about putting meat in my baby's mouth. I feel like I would be putting something rancid and horrible in her pure little mouth! It's nice to find someone who thinks the same as I have had a LOT of dodgy looks when I have mentioned to my friends that she will be brought up veggie

"If I go anywhere like a barbeque, I often eat the sad"

freudian slip? See even you veggies know what your doing, by denying yourself summer bbq meat, is depressing.

I don't care what people eat. There are some vegetarians though who make a big deal of it. Boasting about how much more ethical they are than others while wearing leather shoes and drinking milk. I think those have to accept being laughed at a bit.

Also I'd say they were the reason you see some hostility to vegetarians.

If someone just eats vegetables for whatever reason I wouldn't give it any thought normally.

Btw since it's been mentioned I would say that vegetables rot too. A lot of the things that seem better/worse about vegetables are just what we've become used to.

Blonde {fistbump}
I have three brothers and a half brother who were all raised veggie. All strapping lads! I have a lot of veggie mates so nobody bats an eyelid. Even my muslim, carnivorous In Laws don't say anything about it....

I get the OP's question, its not abut judging or questioning dietary preferences.

She is asking specifically; if your motivation for not eating meat is that you don't want animals to die for your food, how do you square that with eating dairy products when that process also involves animals dying for your food"?

I think its an interesting question, although I would expect that generally the motivation for becoming a vegetarian is a little more complex for most. It is certainly true though that some vegetarians (along with many meat eaters) do not understand the process involved in modern dairy farming practices.

agree onager, don't see why it's worn as a badge of honour or why others get upset/angry about other diet choices.
As I've said before, my only problem with veggies is that when you have them over for dinner your expected to make a veggie dish but when you go to theirs the assumption is that once again it's their diet that takes preference and they don't have to make you a meat dish in return.
like this

apart from that I don't care what anyone eats.

Loved the YouTube link, mayorquimby

I think it's a fair enough question and I do think there is quite a lot of ignorance about the diary industry, etc, as the very first few posts to the thread show.

But - I do think there are ways and ways of asking questions!

It's an interesting topic and it might not have kicked off quite so much if the question had been posed out of genuine interest instead of blatant provocation.

I'm sure many veggies get a bit sick of having to defend their choices and probably often feel got at, which is why lots of people leapt on the defensive. There have been some good responses too, though - I do admit that this is something I have wondered about myself, and it is good to hear what others think.

Not veggie and not relevent to the OP but just had to say that I quite like quorn. For me it's a taste/texture thing. I like lean roast beef or chicken but I really don't like minced beef due to texture, however I like a spag bol or cottage pie if made with quorn mince.

I was brought up a carnivore in a very meaty family. When I was 16 or so, I watched my dad make confit de canard and it repulsed me so much I stopped eating meat. It was a very visual reminder of what eating meat entails.

I wasn't a very healthy vegetarian in my teens - lots of cheese, no vegetable protein really. In my 20s I became a lot healthier and reduced my dairy intake to almost nothing (as well as my wheat and sugar intake) and was the healthiest I've ever been.

When I was 30 I fell pregnant and craved stodge - bread, butter, cheese. Basically all the things I hadn't eaten for the previous 3 or 4 years. Since having DS 3 years ago, I have continued to eat a relatively healthy vegetarian diet, although my (organic) dairy intake bothers me but more on health grounds - I worry about the breast cancer links with too much dairy, and I will look to cutting down again after this pregnancy (so sometime next year). But it's harder now that I have children to cook for - as another poster said, I don't want to be cooking several meals (DH is vegetarian and DS eats some fish too, mainly outside the home).

I know about the cruelty inherent in the dairy industry but at the moment I cannot prioritise veganism as I think I'd be doing myself and my family a disservice by not balancing our diet carefully enough. But we'll see how things pan out over the next few years - I certainly wouldn't rule out veganism again.

How about my diet: I eat a very little organic chicken or turkey.

I eat no dairy even organic 'cos I'm intolerant to it.

I eat lots of organic fresh veggies and fruit.

I don't think that morals come into it 'cos good organic farming needs animals. If they don't get eaten they die eventually any way. better that they have a happy life first.

Vegans can live on processed crap like anyone they're not nec. healthier.

5dollar

thanks for that post.

I realise some people will have thought me rude, but by phrasing the AIBU that way I have had some honest and enlightening answers, about an issue that has puzzled me for some time.

It also makes a change from the 'orrible in-law AIBUs.

Oh well that makes the rudeness fine, then.

Congratulations OP, you have offended both myself and my DH who are vegetarians.

We do not eat meat, because we love animals and do not want to see them die.

We are neither ignorant or sentimental.

I think it is unreasonable and kind of fundamentalist for a vegan to look down their nose at a vegetarian, or for a vegetarian to judge that person they know who doesn't eat red meat but still eats fish, or for the pescatarian to judge the meat eaters, or whatever.

People who feel they are people "of principle" really like to use people whose principles are just a little softer, weaker or less fundamentalist than their own as an indication of their own virtuous character.

Vegans, get off the back of vegetarians and start harassing people outside McDonalds, or go bomb the local butcher shop or something. It's like watching Scousers and Manchester people fight. You are more alike (compared to the rest of the world) than you'll admit.