SERIOUS opinions please...

[Mrs RicheyJames]

I'm seriously considering going veggie.

I LOVE the taste of meat, I really do and I'll prolly end up missing it so much. It's more an ethical thing. I've been watching the F word, and I think it's having the opposite effect on me than intended. Although it's (sort of) comforting to be aware that the animals are killed humanly. It's still not without *some* suffering which I find very uneasy viewing.

Take yesterday's F word. A farmer gave Gordon two more lambs to replace one which had been eaten by what they think was a large cat. At thirteen weeks, they are separated from their mothers. They sounded so distressed. What gives us the right to do that? It really upset me. What's their fate? To end up on our plates! Doesn't it make me a hypocrite to not want to know of the slaughter part, but still be happy to literally chew the fat?

I have no problems with hubby eating meat, nor would I wean Malachi on a veggie diet. I'm just struggling with this myself at the moment.

I've cross posted this as I want as many varied opinions at possible.

[markfiend]

I'm vegetarian, and have been for the best part of 20 years. My reasons are pretty much to do with the squeamishness about killing animals that you mention.

I would never "proselytise" vegetarianism though, it's your choice when it comes down to it. But I think that if you're considering it like this, you probably already know what you want to do, no?

[Mrs RicheyJames]

Yeah. I think I already have....

[_emma_]

Those soya steaks taste exactly the same as meat when properly spiced.

[psichonaut]

i'm italian and we make the "mediterranean diet"...pasta, meat, vegetables and fruit and it's good.
i don't think that eating meat i made a murder...all the meat on my plate comes from farms and those animals live just to be eat...that's all

[streamline]

Rightly or wrongly I do not think of the animals suffering.
I just eat it because I like it and human's are designed to eat meat (although I understand and respect the arguments for vegetarianism I do not follow them).

As Mark said, it does sound as though you have made a decision already. One thing I would like to add is that if in the future you decide to eat meat again, don't be too hard on yourself. Some people view it as being a failure of some sort, and it isn't, it is only a different choice.

<<end of ramble>>

[Mrs RicheyJames]

i don't think that eating meat i made a murder...all the meat on my plate comes from farms and those animals live just to be eat...that's all

I respect your opinion (bloody hell I must be getting old) but that's exactly what I'm struggling with. They are living, breathing animals with mums and dads........

[SomeKindOfStranger]

I have to say, I see nothing wrong in farming animals for food or clothing. We are carnivores and if we were as wild as other animals we would be tearing our prey limb-to-limb with our bare teeth/hands. Farmings just our way of compensating for having small teeth and no claws!
I think this is one of those things thats down to each individual. Best to go with what you feel happy with it - you can always revert back again if you miss the taste!

[Pista]

I have a slightly different look on this.
It's been tabled loads of times & I firmly believe that if everyone became a vegetarian (extreme, I know) then there would be no need to breed the animals in the first place, as there would be no value.
This would mean (worst case) species could become rare & even extinct as a result.
Personally, I enjoy eating meat but I don't persecute vegetarians (unless they try ramming their ideals down my throat. Then they can go fcuk 'emselves ).
Yeah, they have mums & dad, but if there was another creature up one link on the food chain, then humans would probably be farmed for food right?
If you look back in time, then humans have always hunted anyhow. But as times changed, the population went berserk & the need for farming became an absolute must to satisfy the demand.

But it sounds like you have decided & that's fine. I bet you'll still hanker for bacon when you smell it cooking though

[psichonaut]

i don't think that eating meat i made a murder...all the meat on my plate comes from farms and those animals live just to be eat...that's all

I respect your opinion (bloody hell I must be getting old) but that's exactly what I'm struggling with. They are living, breathing animals with mums and dads........

i never eat my cat or my dog....farms exsist just for that...after fire is the best idea of ancient men
you have the answer yet

[psichonaut]

I have a slightly different look on this.
It's been tabled loads of times & I firmly believe that if everyone became a vegetarian (extreme, I know) then there would be no need to breed the animals in the first place, as there would be no value.
This would mean (worst case) species could become rare & even extinct as a result.
Personally, I enjoy eating meat but I don't persecute vegetarians (unless they try ramming their ideals down my throat. Then they can go fcuk 'emselves ).
Yeah, they have mums & dad, but if there was another creature up one link on the food chain, then humans would probably be farmed for food right?
If you look back in time, then humans have always hunted anyhow. But as times changed, the population went berserk & the need for farming became an absolute must to satisfy the demand.

But it sounds like you have decided & that's fine. I bet you'll still hanker for bacon when you smell it cooking though

totally agree....
in nature the strongest eat the others...balance of animal life is based on this law and before humans all was going well

[itnAklipse]

"killed humanely" haha, well whatever catchphrase keeps the consumers happy :F There is NOTHING "humane" about the way the animals are kept, except in perhaps on very few places, and even then they are still being GROWN TO BE KILLED. Is that nice? You choose.
On the other hand, i don't look very kindly upon people who insist on going hunting for ethical reasons because their hunting only kills more animals, which is not necessary either cause the stores are, for better or worse, full of meat enoug hfor everybody and even if hunting would ideally be a better way to get meat, there's an excess of it and hunting only adds to killing, completely needlessly.

i've lessened my meat consumption to barest minimum without stopping it altogether lately. Ethical issues aside, the amount of garbage that's in meat from the stores today is astounding, i mean chemicals and such and considering that they feed the animals whatever crap, not what they're supposed to eat naturally, like they feed cows whatever is left from the waste that can't be put in the food for humans...especially pork is a purely industrial product these days.
i don't have problems with concept of eating meat, but i have problems with the concept of industrialized growing animals for killing.

That said, i don't miss meat and it seems i feel better these days than when i did eat more of it.

i think a balanced diet can be reached by many ways, and meat is just one thing, it can be left out or it can not be left out. But what's certainly harmful to you is the way the animals are kept, fed and treated and grown, and what's certainly harmful to nature and the animals themselves is industry.

Btw, did you know meat is so high in the dietary pyramid because of lobbying? No kidding. When they revised it, the leading doctor in developing it stepped down cause she wouldn't have her (i seem to recall it was a woman) name associated with something that has little to do with science/good health but all to do with commercial interests.

Actually i think i'm much more against the whole f'n thing than this message manages to convey. i tried to appear levelheaded but i'm a fanatic and levelheadedness is not in my interests.

[James Blast]

Well I'm rather disturbed by this touchy~feely incarnation of Mrs.RJ WTF's going on!?

[mh]

I'm not a veggie but have several friends who are. Sometimes you don't even know until you happen to go for a meal with them, which is cool. Sometimes people think I am one cos I don't always choose to eat meat.

I respect people when their vegetarianism is not one of those things that they define their lives by. If it's the right thing to do for you, it's the right thing, but only you will be able to say that for sure.

[Petseri]

@MrsRJ: do you wear leather?

[Badlander]

They are living, breathing animals with mums and dads........

Sure, but they're not humans either. Animals do have feelings, but not human feelings. So that "mum and dad" thing sounds a bit weird. Do animals need a human-kind-of-family to be happy ? When I look at my cat and how cool he seems to be, I don't think so. What you do to animals, you don't do to humans, and vice versa.
Still, as living beings, they do have some dignity which should always be respected. It doesn't mean you can't kill them and eat them if they're part of the food chain (which btw some of them are). Eating meat is natural to human beings, while shameless commercial exploitation of living animals isn't quite so.

[Tidal]

I think nothing's wrong with eating meat as long as there's no unneccesary suffering involved. In nature all carnivores kill herbivores without remorse. Hell do they care? Do they make the suffering as small as possible? No. That's nature.

But I'm not a lion or something, I do care about animal feelings to a certain degree, but the animals we are eating would be killed just the same if they were in the wild. Humans just kill much more efficiently and in larger quantities. And they happen to care about other species...

[markfiend]

the amount of garbage that's in meat from the stores today is astounding, i mean chemicals and such and considering that they feed the animals whatever crap, not what they're supposed to eat naturally, like they feed cows whatever is left from the waste that can't be put in the food for humans...especially pork is a purely industrial product these days.

That's a good point actually. I agree with the rest of your post, but this bit in particular.

[stefan moermans]

respect the animal before you eat is. Don't take it just for granted. Would'nt xwant to miss my meat or chicken or fish but as already mentionned by Pista I'm not exagerating with it (unless sometimes ).

Respect and no waste do it for me.

Accept for that : if you're a vegie fine by me. Won't change the way I feel/think about you.

[DeWinter]

I have to say, I see nothing wrong in farming animals for food or clothing. We are carnivores and if we were as wild as other animals we would be tearing our prey limb-to-limb with our bare teeth/hands. Farmings just our way of compensating for having small teeth and no claws!

If we were meant to eat meat, surely we would have said claws and fangs? Instead we have very similair teeth and nails to chimpanzees, who aren't carniverous, as opposed to whacking great fangs and claws like the baboon.
Also our digestive system takes a ridiculous amount of time to digest meat as opposed to fruit and grain, put all that together and maybe we aren't actually designed for it. I suspect if you knew the amount of undigested meat rotting away in your colon you might start to wonder if it's such a good idea! Nobody can convince me the increasing amount of meat we eat and the increase in cancer aren't connected.

[itnAklipse]

There's no evidence that we are carnivours, actually a lot of evidence is au contraire. We are, however, omnivours, when need be we can eat meat, but it actually starts putrefying in our intestines cause they're so long introducing toxins in our bodily system (true, our system can handle them up to an extent, but there's no saying it can handle all of them).

There's also no evidence of us being as wild as other animals, which might suggest that in that regard we have little in common with certain other animals. Huamsn, as other animals, are a species of their own and you can't say if we were as wild as others...since we simply are not. No use conjecturing. Strictly academic.

God what nitwits have opinions and dare to express them these days.

[Quiff Boy]

aye, what itnAklipse and De Winter said.

i dont trust that part of the food chain and i wouldnt want that cr*p in me.

[_emma_]

Are we -as humans - meant to eat meat or not is one thing, do we - as humans again - have a thinking brain and the ability to feel empathy is another. It is a fact that a human being can live till old age in good health without eating meat. Another fact is that all of the veggies I know claim that they actually feel a lot better (physically) without meat.
Then again, your becoming a veggie won't change a thing. Animals shall still suffer and be killed, and the planet Earth is on its way to destruction anyway. And I'll still be hesitating whether pulling weeds from between edible plants is a good thing to do or not, not to mention the insects that I kill by chance while doing it. It's all very difficult, far too difficult for our human thinking brains.

[markfiend]

The human dentition is largely evolved to cope with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that our ancestors have been following since the split with the Chimpanzee / Bonobo line ~6 million years ago. We (or at least our H. erectus ancestors) started using fire at least 800 thousand years ago, and tools much earlier than that.

Tool-use, cooking and other food-preparation methods have certainly been around long enough to have an effect evolutionarily speaking on or teeth and digestive systems.

Farming has only been around for about 10000 years, which, while long enough for some evolutionary effects (I've mentioned lactose tolerance in this context before) isn't really how we've evolved to eat; the sedentary lifestyle that's largely come about in the last 200 years, even less so.

Um. Not really sure where I'm going with this

[Mrs RicheyJames]

@MrsRJ: do you wear leather?

Yes and atm I still eat meat!!

one step at a time please eh?