Yeah, my sister went through the same kind of thing. And I dig vegetables and meat alternatives as well, and I'm not the kind of person that lets people who eat fish and chicken get away with calling themselves vegetarians. That's bullshit. I just dig variety and balance. How old are you anyway?

I'm in the same boat. It really sucks when it comes to things like spaghetti and lasagna because I LOVE italian.. but there's always meat in it. Lasagna is worse though because I have to dismantle it and THEN take out the meat before I can eat it.

haha

:wavey:

ooh. me too

meat is ****ing delicious. its not murder. its just delicious. the end.

Same here!
My mom uses bacon to flavour some things.
Which is an unmistakeable taste, but it hardly adds the flavour she says it adds.
I used to eat meat, I'd know the difference.
Still, she does it everytime.

Is killing a mosquito, murder ?

Owned.

I have a dream to one day quit eating beef but that's only a dream, thats because I think its overrated.... I mean it has small amount of flavor per its effects it had on the body.

When it comes to Meat being Murder.... I think every person that eats meat needs to kill what they eat at least once. You'll appreciate it more. It hurts me to watch someone throw away unfinished meat. Its a waste of a life.

I grew up only eating deer at home and usually only pork that was in the house was the 2 pigs we killed every year.We didn't have beef in the house still my parents got a divorce when I was 17.

I killed my first deer when I was 10, I remember when I killed it, I watched it die, breath hard and watch it eyes stop quivering, I remember it because it hurt me as a kid that I had did that. After that I was covered in it warm blood and had its testicles put around my neck on a rope to celebrate my first kill. It is my families lifestyle and it saved us a lot of money by not having to buy beef and I always thought hunting has gave me a better understanding of the world.

Pigs were the worse, the saying bleed like a stuck pig is a underrated saying. Especially because we raised them... I made a mistake of naming one junior after me. Gees when my dad slit his throat it broke me.

Rabbits sucked too.... Straight up Hammer.

I guess What I was getting at is to eat meat something has to die.... I think people need to experience the death and see what is caused from their want of meat before they eat it. People would throw less away and not take it for granted.

What I don't get... is people bitching about other people eating meat. Do You bitch at a lion for killing the zebra? or the crocodile that eats the baby monkey? Its Life. I don't give Vegans sh*t when they get the Vaginas all over them from not eating meat. They shouldnt get mad if I am eating some cube steak.

Like Conan was saying I think Industrial meat is a little much, I dont think we are suppose to eat as much meat as we do but its just so damn good and filling. I mean I am not sure if Cave Men were able to kill enough to eat meat for every meal.

I feel like being a vegetarian... Today was my first day, will keep you updated.

Really?

Arghhhhhh!

You have my respect for this sir.

I don't need to eat meat to live, I'm privilegedto not have to eat it to survive. If I were in a situation where I did need to eat meat to survive, I would have to force myself to do so, but I'd do it. ****, you all have to admit in an extreme situation where you'd be forced to human flesh to live, you all would.

...with some exceptions (say, Eskimos), most tribes received the majority of their sustenance from things other than meat. That being stated, I can't think of any society (excepting the highly stratified) wherein vegetarianism was ever practiced.

Anyways, I concur. Hunting is fun and it's an important experience, especially for males. It's weird that there are people who call themselves men but have not even gutted a fish.

Fo' shizzle!

I noticed that I don't like beef/chicken/fish/eggs/pigs/deer/bird/frog... much... and when I do eat meat I rarely enjoy it. It sometimes make my stomach upset. Plus, I've been finding the smell of meat horrendous.
...and I'm starting all anew. Having a drastically different diet can help with my new lifestyle.

I think their genitalia nullifies this.....

That's ****ing stupid to say.

Oh my god, I haven't gutted a fish! WHERE DID MY TESTICLES GO?!

Good luck! =D

it's even sadder that there are boys who define manhood based on arbitrary experiences and stereotypes from the past as opposed to personal development for the future.

How can males live in a house instead of a cave and call themselves men!
Shame!

I join the community facepalm.

I have. After the initial nausea it's easy really!

:) I wrote a new essay, just for this thread, mojo!

Erica’s “Why I’m a Vegan” essay:

I have been a vegan for over 10 years and an ovo-lacto vegetarian for 10 years before that, primarily because I don’t want people to hurt animals and take away their one chance to live. Being vegan means I avoid eating and using animal products, and I try to treat all animals, including humans, kindly.

I became vegetarian and then vegan for emotional reasons. I cared for pet parakeets when I was a child and considered them my friends. I began to feel uncomfortable eating their close relatives. My circle of concern and the value I place on other species’ lives widened and widened. Just as I love living, I want non-human animals to have the chance to live as long and full of lives as they can, unharmed by me or other people.

Gradually, long after becoming vegetarian, I learned that plant-based diets have health and environmental benefits, too.

Many people may be unaware that well-planned vegetarian and vegan diets are healthful and can be superior to diets that include animal products such as meats, especially red meats, as is described in the American Dietetic Association 2009 Position Paper on Vegetarian Diets (Vegetarian Diets).

Many people may also be unaware that plant-based diets benefit the environment (and people) by reducing the global warming gas emissions, fresh water usage, pollution, and topsoil destruction caused by animal agriculture (please see “Livestock’s Long Shadow” (2006) by the United Nations, FAO, ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/A0701E/A0701E00.pdf).

Several of you made the argument that eating meat is “natural” and thus morally acceptable because humans are omnivores (able to eat plants and animals). This argument has never been a convincing one to me.

People can choose all sorts of behaviors that are “natural,” but just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. For example, infanticide, eating “pet” animals, and cannibalism are all natural. However, my ability to digest flesh does not decide for me whether I eat a cow, milk, eggs...or you, for that matter. Humans naturally have the ability to make ethical choices. I can decide...naturally...not to eat any animals.

Some people argue that vegan diets aren’t “natural” because vegans need vitamin B-12 supplements. Vegans do need vitamin B-12, which occurs in nature in bacteria, the source of all the vitamin B-12 in animal products. Luckily, humans discovered methods for synthesizing vitamin B-12 cheaply in large quantities, just like humans have discovered methods for making many other "unnatural" things we use: cars, refrigerators, computers, and vaccines, to name a few.

A small bottle of vitamin B-12 providing a 28-year supply costs only $4. If you feel veganism is unnatural because you need to eat vitamin B-12, then to be consistent you should avoid all “unnatural” things, like vaccines. I choose not to ignore the benefits of being vegan and vaccinated. And I not only survive, but flourish. If veganism weren’t natural, then I wouldn’t be alive on earth, part of nature, right now.

I view the eating of animals as a cultural practice that continues among wealthy humans in developed nations for two reasons only: people like the taste of the animals and are encouraged to treat animals as if their feelings and experiences of life do not matter, as if their lives have no value except as a commodity. Meat-eating cultures make it hard for people to learn about the benefits of plant-based diets. The only benefit that I can see from having a meat-eating diet is that it would give me a chance to eat Urban Hatemonger. (That was a test to see if he is reading.)

As others have stated in this thread, killing non-human animals and eating their flesh is not murder in a legal sense, yet I do feel that killing animals is murder in an ethical sense. I feel it is wrong to kill beings who have feelings and an experience of life. When I look into the eyes of animals, I see them looking out at me. However that experience of sentience (awareness) feels for them, I do not want to end their one chance to have what I value so much: the feeling of being alive.

My aunt had a laspo apso. A cute little dog.

It got really old, though, and had growths on it. Its time was near.

So my dad, believing in the "Of Mice and Men" and "Old Yeller" philosophy, accepted that he had to put it down for her.

So he took it outside and (we live in the country-ish) dug a grave for it, got it all ready. Then he wrapped his pistol in a towel so it wouldn't be too loud for the neighbors, aimed it at the head....and shot it in the ear. It moved its head.

Then it was moving around. He was trying to aim through the rag. Shot it in the face, but not a good one. Finally had to just get rid of the towel, but then the dog was moving all over, but looking at him for help, too.

He shot it like 9 times in the face before it died. Man! That sucked.

I would agree, actually participating in the processes that keep you alive is very important. I've never hunted but I've fished and farmed, and hunting is definitely on my bucket list.

Are crabs and lobster not allowed for vegetarians?

So...Ever swatted a mosquito?

no, but I ate chocolate cover ants before

Good goddess! What a horrible death for the dog, MAStudent. And that must have been awful for all of you, too, since your dad had hoped to quickly and painlessly kill the dog so he or she didn't die slowly from tumors and possibly painful cancer.

How did your dad react? Did he wish then that he had taken the dog to the vet who could have quickly and painlessly ethanized her by lethal injection, or perhaps have recommended letting nature take its course? Death by old age is not always painful.

Hi #9! I doubt anyone who called herself a vegetarian would eat any animal, including crabs and lobsters.

ProggyMan, I brush mosquitoes away...gently. :D

I see your underlying question as a very important one: how do we go about deciding what value another being's life has to us? This question is important for how we treat not just non-human animals but also humans, and people can't even decide on an answer for that! For example, some people feel killing humans in war is acceptable, even innocent bystanders who are "collateral damage."

My decisions about when to kill any animal are affected by my perception of whether it is a threat to me and whether there is a way to get away without either of us being harmed. If a man were standing in front of me, planning to gun me down, and I as a police officer drew my gun, I hope I would try to maim the man rather than shoot to kill. This goes for an attacking human and an attacking tiger and an attacking mosquito.

My full answer about mosquitoes is that if I am outside, I brush them away and run away a little. If one is biting me, the damage/possible infection with West Nile Virus is already done, and I brush the plump, blood-engorged mosquito away. Sometimes, if a mosquito is hovering near me at bedtime indoors, I do try to kill it because I fear that it will bite me in my sleep, though I transport live flies and spiders outside of my home to release them since they are no significant threat to me.

Heh heh...as a child I used to go into a strange store with a friend at a mall and stare at a jar of chocolate covered ants because we were so perplexed and disturbed and disgusted.

Oddly, the thought of eating ants seemed weird but I turned right around during most of my childhood and ate cows or pigs without thinking much about them at all...until I started looking closely in the butcher's case or at someone's dead leg that I held in my hand. Culture is a strong force that puts blinders on people, I feel.

I liked that answer. This mosquito issue has been intriguing me for months now, maybe cause I live in a milieu rich with them. I never kill an insect if I'm outside in the woods, cause I'm a coward and prefer the animals, non-vengeful. However, I do kill the mosquitoes at home if they got me angry enough to make me chase them, but if I'm tired I just sleep with whole body under the sheet (I feel asphyxiated at first, at least I'm not hearing mosquitoes panning from ear to ear).

It sounds like your attitude toward mosquitoes is similar to mine. The sound of a mosquito's buzzing as you lie in the bed in the dark, knowing you are stalked, is always annoying. You can hear it getting closer and closer...and for me this usually leads to a bright-light, middle-of-the-night pursuit of the mosquito, which usually hides as soon as I turn the lights on.

I suppose in Lebanon with the warmth and water you would get a lot of mosquitoes. Iowa is this way in summer; Minnesota even worse--there people say the mosquito is the state bird!

How we deal with animals people may see as nuisances is something I've thought about, too, Number9. For example, deer and ants. I'll talk about ants. A couple years ago in an old home I noticed some ants coming in under a door. Such cute little ants! I escorted them outside and tried to block the hole.

Well, when the next morning, around 1000 ants were crawling all over the kitchen floor. When 10 are cute, 1000 starts to feel scary...like an invasion. I don't fault them for searching for water or sweet things. But I also don't want them in my home.

Oh and about that question, I think having a Christian up-bringing, I always approached "not eating meat" in the fasting way. As Christians stop eating meat, but keep eating fish, as it's the poor people's food (or something like that).
Thank you for your answers btw...

Yes, Number9, meat has two definitions: (1) flesh from any animal; (2) lamb, pork, and beef. So, even in schools here in Iowa the public school lunches sometimes offer "fish on Friday" since there are apparently still a lot of Christians who feel they shouldn't eat "meat" on Friday (using definition 2).

When I used to tell servers in restaurants that I don't eat meat, some would sometimes say, "Oh! Do you eat fish or chicken?" Now I explain I'm vegan and I don't eat any flesh, eggs, milk, cheese, gelatin, broth, or fats from animals. I find I have to be very specific because people may not think of cheese as "dairy," or know that gelatin comes from pigs' skins. I do feel more and more people know what vegan means in terms of diet so it is much easier to be vegan now than when I went vegan 10 years ago!

I'm happy to answer questions about veggie issues! :)

I seen my uncle kill a cow like that one time... They tied it to a telephone pole and shot it with a .38 pistol behind the ear. It just wouldn't die.... He Unloaded and Loaded the pistol once before it finally gave out.

Ive seen deer die in seconds from one buckshot pellet hitting it in the throat but that Cow with 5 to 6 close range pistol shots to the head was something terrible.

We had a dog once named Bush.... that I dont know what happened but wondered back up to the house one day after about a week of being gone. Someone had shot him in the face.... The dog was missing half his jaw. It looked like some sick **** called our dog up and shot him in the face. The dog lived for like a year and half before he went missing again and we never seen him. The dog always frightened everyone who came over and never seen it before. It looked like a Zombie Dog from a movie.... But he was just as playful as a normal dog.

I don't know what I was getting out with these stories but it always kinda let me know a Will to live is something powerful. The most amazing thing I seen was a Deer that pretty much gutted from a rifle but ran about 150 yards with out any of its vital organs.

It wasn't the first or last time he had to kill a dog he loved.

In the country, dogs encounter things like porcupines

http://blackramfarm.files.wordpress....orcupine-1.jpg

that they try to bite and get the quills stuck all inside their mouth and head

http://therealsouthkorea.files.wordp...cupine2_sm.jpg

wild hogs that rip them up/ gut with their tusks. Boars/ hogs are smarter than dogs, and up to 800 pounds or so

http://www.bigtusks.com/a-images/Boar2b.jpg

or bad people that try to poison them.

You could pay a vet a lot to kill them, but you might as well do it yourself. It is usually quick and as painless as possible to shoot an animal in the head, this time it just went wrong. The vet can make mistakes, too, you would just never know about it.

ya Ive seen hunting dogs get hogs cornered and the mess it makes.... Hogs are a force to be reckoned with. I think they are one of the animals people underestimate how dangerous they are. They are a pain in the ass to kill as well since they got that shoulder blade that is pretty much bullet proof for small calibers. Those tusk plus weight.... make them bulldozers with knives on the front.

We don't have porcupines here in the south.... So i never seen their destruction but damn that pic says it all.

I wouldn't say its painless considering usually the people shot their in head don't live to tell you whether it hurt or not.

We didnt have money for the vet that was one the big reasons, plus it is just the way its done when you live on a dirt road an hour away from anything... I guess thats what would be considered country. My dads saying was a shotgun shell costs a hell of alot less then a ride to the vet and the 50 bucks it would it cost to put it down. Considering how many animals we had it makes plenty sense to me. I just hated having to do it... It was my animal my dad made it a point to make me do it.

We had a 150 chickens and I think 10 turkeys at one time... I remember one day coming home from school with my dad to finding an entire pack of dogs, 7 of them, pretty much the whole communities dogs around us had got into the chicken Coup and killed every last one of them. They didnt eat them, they were running around and just killing them and moving on the to the next. My dad walked up put a concrete block over the hole they, went inside grab 2 shotguns one for me and one for him, I already knew what we were going to do. We killed everyone of them in that coup. We called the community to come get their dogs or we were going to bury them our selves.

Every person that came and got their dead dog didn't say a word but they knew that it was the rules where we lived that must be done, because once they got the taste of blood they would kill every chicken in the community. I buried 3 Dogs and 150 chickens and 9 turkeys that day. 1 Turkey Lived... We had him for like 5 years after that... That was the most bad ass turkey that every lived, it took like 6 months for his feathers to come back from where the dogs got of hold on him and would attack anyone who went into the coup with him.

What do (some) Vegetarians have against Milk and Honey, since death isn't invovled in obtaining them?

Should Vegetarians own guitars that have bone nuts; andd/or Mother of Pearl and/or Abalone inlays?

Do Vegetarians eat mushrooms, because fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants?

Should Vegans kill off carnivores like lions, tigers, and bears to stop the cycle of violence in the animal kingdom?

Should Vegetarians own pets? Since cats eat mice, and dogs eat can dog food which contain animal meat.

Could Vegetarians eat chocolate covered ants since an ant isn't technically "animal meat"?

Since most vegetarians have a beef against using animal by products like milk and honey, and Jello gelatin and pudding pops; should vegetarians drink water? Since animals drink water, it is only inevidable they have to urgently pass the water via urination aka yellow liquid animal by-product. The water in the urine re-enters the bio-sphere when it evaporates into the air then into rain clouds or filters through the ground and eventually ends into river. No matter where it goes the animal by-product ends up in our drinking water.

Should Vegans use expressions like "dumb as a fox" or "a snake in the grass," ?? Since such expressions demeans and belittles the animal (or reptile) in the phrase by stereotyping them just to belittle the human as they draw an anaologous trait of thus said animal or reptile - something like that. :confused:

"Ask a Vegan"
 

Hi Neapolitan! Thank you for your questions. I really am happy to answer them. :)

Eating dairy products does support the killing of cows. Unfortunately, dairy cows are inseminated (usually artificially) every year in order for them to maintain a milk supply. Thus they give birth every year. The male calves are either killed right away or after around 6 weeks to be eaten as "veal" because it isn't lucrative to raise male "dairy" calves for meat.

Also, although dairy cows normally would live 20 years, farmers usually kill them at around 6 years of age because their milk supply dwindles below the profitable level.

Honey bees, when raised in large populations by people, tend to out-compete non-captive pollinators, which I've read may harm ecosystem species diversity. Bee keepers do kill bees in the process of handling them.

Vegans probably usually feel the negative side of bee-keeping is less important than the negative side of raising large domestic animals to kill. As a vegan, though, I avoid honey because I don't know the full effects of the honey industry on bees and ecosystems. Sometimes I eat some bread that has a little honey in it because often it is hard to find bread without honey.

Ideally, no, since harvesting sealife harms ocean ecosystems...although I'm not sure of the exact origin of decorative mother of pearl. I assume it is a byproduct of the shellfish industry. Ideally there would be substitutes for use in instruments. Or people would just use shells that wash up on the beach!

A related issue I face is with my violin bow: it has horse hair. I very much doubt people harvest long hairs from *living* horses. I need to investigate the little-known, potential horrors of the horse hair trade.

Yes, vegetarians eat mushrooms, because fungi have no brains and thus would be expected to have little sentience or awareness of existence, since the mind as we know it is associated with, if not the same as, the brain.

You are right that fungi are more closely related to animals. They have a weird fleshy taste to me, though I like to eat mushrooms, Neapolitan. They look so alien to me....all those brown spores and gills!

No, because it wouldn't be right to hurt their chance to live. I feel vegetarians are concerned only with human actions and do not hope to end hunting done by animals who have no choice. I do wish the natural world were different than it is, though, because it is horrendously cruel...even though there are amazingly wonderful aspects, too.

A very good question and not easy to answer. My view: yes, vegetarians may care for certain pets and certainly strays, but not make pets out of wild-caught animals or animals who really shouldn't be captive because they don't enjoy it. I wouldn't own a pet where I had to kill another animal to feed her or him, though. I actually know a vegetarian who feeds her dogs steaks, probably reasoning that this is healthiest for the dogs...though I wonder why she ignores what is best for the cows.

While dogs can be vegetarian, cats do require a fatty acid found only in flesh, if I recall correctly...although I should think people could synthesize this component to make veggie cat food. I feel feeding renderized animal parts to cats is probably not healthy for cats and definitely is not good for the livestock animals! I used to own a cat, but wouldn't now because I would feel guilty and sad about supporting the killing of one animal (cows) to feed another (cats). I loved my cat very much, though. The bond of friendship I felt with her helped me feel more empathy for other animals. This is one of the nicest aspects of caring for a pet.

Since an ant is an animal, I think few vegetarians would seek to eat chocolate-covered ants. Most would probably feel that since ants live such short lives anyway that eating them is low on the list of serious harms people cause animals. People bashing baby piglets to death (common practice) concerns me more. I do try to avoid stepping on ants. One thing about being vegan is that you realize you cannot stop or end all killing of animals, but you try to reduce it.

:) Yes, water is fine. Water is not produced by intentional killing of animals and other living beings, but by their own life processes. Drinking water will not kill aniimals...usually...although freshwater depletion due to human use is a severe problem in many places of the world. Look at the Yangtze River in China...running dry much of the year. So, our use of freshwater does certainly impact other animals and should be considered.

I support free speech but myself do not put people down by saying they are like various non-human animals for the exact reasons you give, Neapolitan. Also, instead of "Kill two birds with one stone" I say "Find two berries in one bush." :)

Vegangelica, you are such an altruistic nutter ;) I'm not sure whether I think it's admirable or crazy. Maybe a bit of both!

Altruistic nutter?

Wow. As much as I think you're great/amazing/lovely. You're also crazy. :(

My dog eats biscuits, but I regularly feed her (i don't wanna say this) Pigs ears, which she adores. She will often get fed some good meat from the butchers and such, only sometimes though.

Also, my dog goes out into my garden, picks up little animals, kills them and brings them home. What would a vegetarian do in this situation? It's only natural instinct to kill, as carnivores. I don't understand the statement bolded, if every animal had to walk on egg shells, being considerate. I'm estimating that nothing would exist. Isn't Vegan really unhealthy as you aren't getting the right amount of Vitamins/Minerals. My old Biology teacher told me Vegans were nuts, she didn't know how they could do it. I believe her words were "It's basically damaging".

In nature when animals kill animals how do you feel? If you'd feel uncomfortable feeding your cat something that it would find else where if it was in the wild?

Your hearts completely in the right place, but I'm afraid I now think you're nuts. No joke. :D

Even if it was possible to feed my cat vegetarian food I wouldn't.

I'd much rather it lived on fresh meat or freshly caught fish than some slop that's had god knows what added to it just to prove a point.