[nekokami]

I'm a demi-vegetarian: for the most part I eat vegetable products, dairy and eggs, and very occasionally (once a month or less) small amounts of chicken or seafood. I've been doing this since I was 16, which is (counts on fingers) 27 years now. It's a personal choice, and I don't try to convince others to make the same choice, even other members of my family. But I will describe my reasons and respond to some comments from this thread.

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Hmmm, sorry, I can't accept that being vegetarian is a more moral choice than not.

I think it's exactly that kind of statement that can give vegetarians a bad name. It's every individual's right to choose their own life-style, but to claim the moral high ground because of your choice

Everyone has a right to choose their own life-style, but there can still be implications to that choice, and in some cases, we may want to look at those implications from a moral point of view. However, I agree that "claiming the moral high ground" doesn't help in discussions like these.

I do wonder when people leap to defend a meat-heavy diet. Sometimes people I know sound very defensive about eating meat, as if they feel guilty about it but don't want to admit it. I don't think this is helpful to either side of the discussion.

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

the other thing which drives me crazy is when at a restaurant you ask if something is vegetarian and they say "oh, you're vegetarian ! but you eat chicken, right ? no ? really ? what about fish ? surely you eat fish ?" how is that vegetarian if you eat chicken ???

I used to get this on airplanes a lot (when I used to travel for work). 30,000 feet in the air isn't a good place to find out that someone has forgotten to pack your meal and assumes you'll be happy with chicken.

Of course, that was back in the days when airlines actually fed passengers.

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

once i discovered gelatine in *yoghurt* for god's sake !

There are brands of yogurt I no longer buy for this reason. It's very annoying.

Originally Posted by Xiaopanda

Have you SEEN the Youth in Asia!?!?!?

I have two of the Youth of Asia living in my house. Dratted teenagers!

They aren't vegetarians, either. The older one keeps making noises about wanting to become one, but can't stick with it. I don't ask or expect my kids to become vegetarians. They know my reasons for doing so and they know what steps I take to stay healthy. It's a personal decision that I don't make for other people.

Originally Posted by Xiaopanda

I wanna ask, too...If your vegitarian, ARE you taking supliments, and do you know where the supliments are sourced from?

I take a multivitamin made from vegetable food concentrates.

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Ok, let's ask you then, what about wool? No animal was harmed in producing that. Or milk? A cow, goat or horse will always give milk if they have young, more than enough to share with us humans.

Unfortunately, the dairy industry is inextricably tied to the veal industry, as there must be calves for cows to produce milk, but male calves are slaughtered early for veal because they won't bear milk later. I haven't worked through the ethical issues on this one. (There is also the problem that hard cheeses contain rennet, an enzyme that is normally obtained from the stomachs of calves.)

Wool is similar. The males tend to be slaughtered young for lamb meat. (They fight otherwise.) Same with chicken eggs, and then there are the issues of milk cows and egg-laying chickens being kept indoors in crowded conditions and fed hormones and antibiotics. I try to buy organic milk and cage-free organic eggs when possible. I try to get my honey from people I know who don't electrocute the drones or deprive the bees of all their honey, giving them only sugar water instead. I also avoid white sugar, which is purified using bone charcoal.

I'm still trying to decide how I feel about silk. "Slub" silk can be harvested without killing the silkworms, but that's not most of what's out there.

Here are the reasons I avoid eating meat:

1 - Eating lower on the food chain is less resource-intensive. We use resources to raise grain and vegetables. When we feed these to animals, the animals process them into food for themselves, and this process is inherently inefficient. The production of meat uses more water, land, petrochemicals, etc. than production of a similar quantity of vegetable protein. In the case of beef, the ratio is at least 18:1. For chicken, it's much lower, only 3:1. If all six billion humans in the world ate a typical US or western European diet, centered around large portions of meat, we'd need multiple Earths to supply that much food. On the other hand, there'd be enough food for a balanced diet for everyone with low or no meat consumption. My reasoning here is that I should try to live in a way that would be sustainable if everyone lived that way, as much as possible. (I think that makes me a Kantian. )

2 - Eating lower on the food chain also avoids accumulated toxins, such as pesticides, heavy metals, and biocontaminants like viruses (e.g. "mad cow").

3 - A meat-heavy diet is not healthy, although small portions of meat with a diet centered more on vegetables and some grains can be very healthy.

4 - I used to eat quite a bit of seafood, but I've been reading scientific articles about the state of the oceans and fish stocks, and I've nearly stopped eating seafood altogether. My current exception is mussels, which can be farm-raised in an environmentally sustainable way.

5 - If I were hungry enough, or my family were starving, I'm sure I could bring myself to kill and butcher a cow (or deer or whatever). But we're not that hungry. I live in a time and place where I have alternative sources of protein. I'd rather not be responsible for killing animals if I don't have to.

However, to make life easier when eating with a family of non-vegetarians, I've stopped worrying about chicken stock as an ingredient. So I guess I'm a pragmatist after all.