I'm a vegetarian bacause I don't like meat and don't trust the stuff they put in animals. I encourage someone who likes meat to eat it! Please take my hamburger at lunch so it doesn't go to waste!

Why do so many people condemn eating meat? Being a vegatarian is my choice, as is being a relaxed Buddhist, or not wanting kids, or anything else! I'm %100 for animal research. So what's the big deal with my fellow veggie-lovers?

And PETA. What the hell? They kill most of the animals they take in, and what's with that getting milk from milking-mothers?

Please, feel free to dicuss anything related to any of this! I'm really curious.

The ASPCA is a much better organization than PETA, in my opinion. The ASPCA is an animal welfare group, meaning that they work toward ending all cruel practices in all animal industries (including the livestock/meat industry). They also have a four-star rating on Charity Navigator (80%+ of their budget goes directly into their programs).

Animal rights organizations (like PETA) are opposed to all forms of animal use ("exploitation"), including the ownership of pets.

Also, don't assume that you're the only enlightened one, here. Most vegetarians get along with everyone else just fine. Most people who rant on and on about how vegetarians are always so judgmental and so on and so forth have usually met very few of them, or have been blatantly hostile toward them first. I'm sure there are a few vegetarians that need to get off their high horses, but there are always a few of them in every group of people.

PETA really hurts more than helps their cause. These days it seems more like they're looking for attention than actually trying to accomplish anything.

I'm all for prevention of animal cruelty, but I'd rather join the other PETA--People Eating Tasty Animals. Mmmmmm, pork...

I was a vegetarian for a year and whenever I would turn down meat or something that someone offered me, like gravy, and stuff like that, I would get lectured about how animals are here for us to eat.
Alright. All I said was "No thank you, I don't eat any meat" not "No I won't eat that! Eating animals is terrible! Nobody should eat that! Stop eating meat", so I don't understand why every person who found out would lecture me about how dumb I was being.
Seriously people.
It's my own choice, I wasn't forcing it onto anyone, so they shouldn't force eating meat back onto me.

Anwyays, I started eating meat again because I live in a small town and there's basically nothing I can buy to eat that would support my diet and give me all the nutrients I needed.

I agree with PETA that animals should not be tortured before death, but I do not agree with their portrayal of this torture.

Not every slaughterhouse leaves pigs to rot slowly; most are paralyzed and then beheaded.

I don't like the fanatics. They're too eager to support their cause that the cause itself becomes twisted and warped. Once, I read somewhere that a PETA member wearing a faux-fur coat was attacked by other PETA members with red spray paint because they thought the fur was real.

Seriously?

And another thing about PETA: Aren't plants and most things everyone eats alive as well? Or are plants and such just there so you can laugh at 'em and use them?

Seriously, though, it's not nice to be mean to animals. They feel pain, too. How would you feel if someone hurt you? But that doesn't mean that all animals are hurt by people. It doesn't mean all people hurt animals.

Not that I don't support PETA. The concept is nice; some of their ideas aren't really.

Because there are many valid reasons to oppose people eating meat.
Environmental, cruelty issues, food distribution/world starvation seem like main issues.
Some people mention health and I would only include this as people who eat too much meat.

How would world starvation and food distribution be problems? I'd agree for the other two, but I eat meat myself.

I don't think it's cruel, the way animals are stunned before being killed in the US. Then again, not every country kills like the U.S.

Originally Posted by finalitycarrot

How would world starvation and food distribution be problems?

I think what was meant by world starvation is that it takes a lot more produce to feed an animal until it's big enough to eat than if the humans just ate the produce rather than raising livestock for food. It takes more energy, land, etc.

I've heard that there are a lot of problems with distribution of food though, not just having enough. It's not guaranteed that if we had enough that it would get to the people who need it. Sometimes the food will go to certain countries who need it and will sit in a storage center somewhere and rot because there's no good way to distribute it. Of course, I'm sure that doesn't always happen.

I'm not sure exactly what's meant by eating meat causing problems for food distribution.

Let me go find some sources so that I can be sure I'm not misremembering things though.

Edit: Here's a source of the kind of information that the world starvation argument comes from:
http://ocw.jhsph.edu/courses/nutriti...awrenceOCW.pdf

And here's one about food distribution problems, although I don't think it's the specific country or situation I originally learned about in school: http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/...=feb1508/edit3

To give a general idea: Country with starvation issues sends grain to another country which they feed to animals raised for meat.

I'm a veggie simply because I don't feel like eating meat. Ever since I was a baby, I just didn't really eat meat for whatever reason, and my parents didn't force it on me. Sure, I'd eat meat if someday I decided I wanted too. Heck, if I'm hungry and there's nothing else around, I'd love a hot dog! Fish sticks, how yummy! But that's just how I roll, I don't care if someone else is eating meat, or if someone isn't eating meat. Just be chill and do what you feel like, as long as it doesn't hurt someone else. That's what I say. (By someone else, I mean person. The animal's already dead, so if your going to eat it, lovely. It's not going to waste now.)

I don't like the idea of eating meat and it makes me uncomfortable knowing what I do about factory farming, Basically my belief is I am against killing sentient animals so yes I am going to feel disturbed if someone next to me is eating pig flesh.
If they eating meat from a less evolved animal such as a fish or a chicken, I am only concerned if the animal was responsibly/sustainably hunted and or humanly killed.

I try overall to be polite about it and tolerate other people's viewpoints of being omnivores. So I don't scream "Meat is murder!" when I see someone eating a hamburger. My approach to veg*nism is to inform people and let them choose. I won't force veg*nism on anyone, however I have no quells about informing.
See I feel if you choose to eat meat you should make an informed choice. Educate yourself about what goes on a bit...instead of...slaughterhouses and factory farms are scarey, so I won't look because I don't want my appetite for my burger spoiled.
Basically I feel like if you are going to support cruelty, you do not deserve to be "protected" and not have your sensitivies sp? upset because you only want to see a neatly packaged piece of flesh.

Claudia, why you write "veg*nism" instead of "veganism"? xD

I eat meat because it's got some elements you can't find anywhere else [or not that easily anyway] and because the animal's already dead and leaving it would just let someone else buy it or let it rot without any use.

Apart from the delicious flavor, that is. The fake flavouring will never be as good >.>'

PETA is an extreme group. Groups like that are terrible groups no matter what their cause. I'm a vegetarian and it does not bother me if someone eats meat, I just don't support animal abuse or needlessly killing animals. To me it just seems like a waste of time and effort to raise animals just to kill them. Plus there's so many hormones and things like that used and it's just gross. Before anyone says anything about plants and hormones, I buy only organic.

Animal research is kind of a necessary evil. The average person does not know what really goes on in labs and just goes off of what the media tells them which in some cases is really distorted. A lot of people also don't realize that there are very strict guide lines in place that testing labs have to follow. I've worked in a few animal testing labs and while what they do in some testing isn't pretty, it really does benefit both people and animals in the long run.

I hate those people who have no idea what they're talking about and just go off of what PETA or some other crazy group tells them.

@ Mystic: Not all animals are pumped with hormones. At one point, my family raised chickens, and they weren't pumped with anything. ^^ Just the food that they ate.

And, organic doesn't mean no hormones or chemicals - it just means that the use of chemicals is much more restricted than chemical farming. Although, it is much better for the environment, so that does do good for the Earth. :3 The only way that you can be 100% sure that there are no chemicals in your vegetables is to grow them yourself (which is great fun x) <3).

Yeah, I'm starting to grow my own veggies for that reason. Stuff in food just grosses me out unless I know for sure what's in it. I'm a bit weird in that aspect. In most commercial farms there are hormones used. I forgot to add that I don't mind people hunting or fishing for their own food or even raising it as long as it doesn't go to waste. I just prefer not to eat meat anyway. It just grosses me out.

PETA - people eating tasty animals. xD

I am not a vegitarian/vegan, but I say go for it to whoever is thinking about it. I am also for helping animals, but I think PETA takes it wayyy too far.

I also am a vegitarian, and my main reason is that animals are sentient beings and can feel pain. But there are also political reasons behind my choice. The grain fed to livestock could be put to much better use feeding people. Cows are perfectly capable of finding their own food. >.> And remember the spinach scare a few years back? That was caused by cows that contaminated the soil.
Livestock should live their days out in the wild, where if they run fast enough, they can avoid being killed for food. XP
We are humans. We can be above that.

Personally I am not a vegetarian - but I also only eat meat once or twice a week (if even that often)

I think as American we generally eat way too much meat.

My fiance is a vegetarian - but it's not because he cares about animals. He's a vegetarian because he cares about the environment and he does not want to supposr the current factory farming methods that are used when raising meat.

We buy our meat from a local farmers market where the animals are raised antibiotic free and free range. Also - the cows are grass fed, you know . . . grass, that stuff cows are supposed to eat! It's amazing the flavor difference - grass fed free range meats tastes so much better than conventional meats.

As far as PETA goes - I hate them, and I think they are assholes.

The problem with so called "happy meat" is that if everyone really did buy it, there would not be enough meat to feed the demand. So unfortunately "happy meat" is only a partial solution.
In order for factory farming to be elinimated, the world population needs to eat less meat.
I really do not see any other way around this.
If we were not so overpopulated, it would be easier to go back to family farms for raising animals for meat. THAT problem is not finding a solution any time soon because baby limits are imposing on peoples' personal freedom and whatnot.

That said, I think that people who can obtain humanely raised meat should do so.
In this area, humanely raised meat is a real possibility. Chickens can easily be raised and the only reason I can see for people not supporting the humanely raised meat around this area is not being able to afford it.

And I do have "heart" for what I call the fighting middle class. People who live between poverty and the rest of society being at the bottom of the middle class.
It can hard with issues like this because I come off being elitist towards a group I stand up for OR I come off supporting cruelty.
Or I am doing nether of these, and telling them to go veg*n because they can't afford humanely raised meat, well then I feel bad forcing my beliefs on them...So just can't win.

I'm vegetarian but I don't preach at others who eat meat.

I do believe in animal rights and I vote and contact my political representatives accordingly when it comes to issues I view as important.

Other than that, I generally only talk about my own beliefs and why I don't eat meat if someone asks me about it. My biggest problem is with factory farming and, yeah, I really would like to completely get rid of it.

PETA is one of the many organizations in the world that started off on a good idea and then went way out of hand. And, even though I consider myself a 'person who's for the ethical treatment of animals' I don't support PETA because of its shifty organizations.

I love meat, but I can go without if I have to. Honestly, I care about animal welfare, but I also know that I'm poor and anemic and I need the protein. And, like many of you have said, I agree with most of their policies but not their methods. And I don't agree with sea kittens. I'm sorry, but fish are the thing I feel LEAST guilty about eating. Making them into kitty of the sea doesn't change that.

Also, cows wouldn't be around if we didn't breed them for food. So we actually wouldn't be saving them from anything.

Ugh... The Sea Kitten thing... that was just.. painful.

Though, a few things in response to your post -

Cows were around before we started breeding them ourselves. Granted, humans have taken over the world at this point, so "cows in the wild" would be something mostly unheard of, though we do take a certain amount of responsibility for keeping animals from going extinct lately.

And - I was anemic while pregnant with my first daughter and just after having her. But that was the only time in my life that I was anemic and I've been a vegetarian since I turned 18. You don't need to eat meat to live a healthy life, there's iron and protein in other sources as well.

I could very easily become a vegetarian but i have problems keeping some veggies down. The only animals i eat are Cows and Chickens so its not like i'd be missing out on much. And the only reason i'd even consider becoming a Vegetarian isnt because i love animals, its because i hate plants (Except Trees, love those!). As far as PETA, let me ask you this:

Why do they usually complain about more fur than leather? Biker Gangs wear leather, and they dont want to pick fights with biker gangs.

Personally, I don't think anyone can condemn people for eating meat, when bears, like humans, are omnivores who's bodies are designed to eat both meat and plants.
They don't condemn the bears, they can't condemn people.
And before anyone goes 'Bears can't help it they aren't sentient!'. Humans aren't much smarter than they are. In fact i'd say the average human is less intelligent than they are.

PETA needs to dive under a tractor, end of story.

I, for one, however, am AGAINST animal research. I'm against it because it takes them even longer to see the effect on humans than if they actually tested on humans. I would love to see a company take aborted fetuses, that are just going to get tossed into a dumpster and left to rot, and test their products on them.

I'm not saying they should try to force abortions on people, or pay them for abortions, but there's a lot more in it for people, and a lot faster, if they take the ones that are already there, they don't even have to make a big deal of it, and send it off somewhere to be used for the good of humanity.

I also support cloning.

PETA takes things a little too far in my opinion. Freaking out over Obama swatting a fly?!?! COME ON! I'm pretty sure the average person steps on several bugs a day without even knowing it. Whether you mean to or not your still killing living things...
ALSO, they really bashed on the game "Cooking Mama" because of the consumption of meat and animal by-products. They blew it way out of proportion too, showing blood and guts coming out of cracked eggs and having you pluck and kill a turkey by chopping it's head off. Blood doesn't come out of eggs? well anyway, If you haven't seen it, check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8H9D1vhwP0
Its actually quite funny...