Vegetarian...

[Julie Andrews]

Angie, grazing cows produce a lot more waste than if you were to grow soy beans on the same amount of land.

I was a lacto-ova vegetarian too CanadaLovesFree. Now, I still refuse to eat pork and pork products (like gelatin). I'm allergic to seafood- so not interested in it really.

If I had paid attention to nutrition I could have kept it up, but I really wasn't eating properly back then. I was working full time and going to school and living on my own with no functioning fridge. (I had issues with my landlord about that.)

I find that when I do eat meat now, I have to mentally dis-associate from it. If I think of the chicken running around I CAN'T eat it.

[CanadaLovesFree]

Do you think the lion thinks about the Gazelle's feelings?

Personally I hate waste. At least mostly everything on the animal gets used.

So many people do eat meat I'd rather see it on the grocery store shelf then people going out hunting Deer and other animals that have to do the repopulating themselves, instead of us breeding them for the purpose of eating them.

I'm all about the meat. We eat some form of meat every night.

True... generally the entire animal is used.

The issue: how the animal was treated while alive, and how it was slaughtered.


Many kinds of animals here...find out the truth:
http://www.all-creatures.org/anex/index.html
including: horses, cats, dogs, racoons

Some animal testing, some slaughter for food, some abused and mutilated for fun (people are sick.)


Other issues/reasons why animal free is good:
http://www.britishmeat.com/49.htm
Key points:

1. Conservation of Fossil fuel. It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of beef protein; 35 calories for 1 calorie of pork; 22 calories for 1 of poultry; but just 1 calorie of fossil fuel for 1 calorie of soybeans. By eating plant foods instead of animal foods, I help conserve our non-renewable sources of energy.
   
2. Water Conservation. It takes 3 to 15 times as much water to produce animal protein as it does plant protein. As a vegetarian I contribute to water conservation.

to produce meat take an emendous amount of energy. not only is the vegetable matter grown and harvested, then it is fed out again, and the "harvesting" occurs again.
Forests are cut down in order to provide pasture for livestock. Ever heard of methane problems produced by cows? And other waste products by animals (waste...)

[CanadaLovesFree]

Angie, grazing cows produce a lot more waste than if you were to grow soy beans on the same amount of land.

I was a lacto-ova vegetarian too CanadaLovesFree. Now, I still refuse to eat pork and pork products (like gelatin). I'm allergic to seafood- so not interested in it really.

If I had paid attention to nutrition I could have kept it up, but I really wasn't eating properly back then. I was working full time and going to school and living on my own with no functioning fridge. (I had issues with my landlord about that.)

I find that when I do eat meat now, I have to mentally dis-associate from it. If I think of the chicken running around I CAN'T eat it.

It's when you imagine yourself in the place of the animal that reality kicks in. In one of the links in the reply I just wrote, there is a cow hanging upside down with its head hanging by a thread--the flesh on the back of its neck (it's under cattle--check this out everyone...).

Gelatin can come from cattle too. Agar is an alternative.

Quite frankly...I do not understand eating a chicken but not a cow.... If anything...Kill one cow and feed a village. One life of suffering. Kill chicken...you don't get as much.

Any cutting back is great!

[Julie Andrews]

CanadaLovesFree, My Dad was a public health inspector- I got to see the whole process with my own two eyes. From baby animals on the farm, to the slaughter house.... It was quite an education. At least he enforced humane conditions as far as possible.

Unfortunately, I can still remember blood spattering on my shoes!

[Nat]

Are you a vegetarian?
No
I've considered it/Wish I was
I like meat too much... don't think I could do it
Yes-Vegan (don't even use animal products; no milk, eggs, leather etc)
Yes-Just No red meat (still fish, milk eggs, use leather etc)
Sometimes




I'm vegetarian. But you do not have a category for me. I do not eat any flesh--any flesh--(even geletian.. :S Starburst have this in it :S...so do marshmellows!) Chickens, fish, shrimp are alive just as much as Betsy the cow! I will not eat anything that contains them, even broths.
I eat eggs only in things...think breads or cake.
I will eat dairy...but prefer soy products (soy milk is what I have) The only soy cheese I have found has rennet..which perturbs me!
I also don't buy leather.
Generally, call myself lacto-ovo vegetarian, stating the above stipulations. There is no category for this...although it tends to be the most common vegetarian.
Other forms (as Rayangirl notes) of "proper vegetarian"(although some vegans would not consider these "proper"):

• ovo vegetarian (eggs)
• lacto vegetarian (dairy)
• lacto-ovo vegetarian (eggs and dairy)
• strict vegetarian (no animal products in diet)
• vegan (lifestyle term to imply avoidance of animal products in all aspect of life)

Then others:

• pesco vegetarian (will eat seafood/fish)
• polo vegetarian (will eat poultry)
• semi-vegetarian (will not eat red meat)
• and then those cutting back on animal products for various reasons

I was going to break down my options into all the categories like vegan, lacto, lacto-ovo, but didn't know if that would make things too complicated.... I figured there would be posts with explainations to go along with choices . I'm finding it very interesting to read all the responses and see the results.

[CanadaLovesFree]

I was going to break down my options into all the categories like vegan, lacto, lacto-ovo, but didn't know if that would make things too complicated.... I figured there would be posts with explainations to go along with choices . I'm finding it very interesting to read all the responses and see the results.

hehe

guess there is also fruitarian!!!

[jelyanne]

I'm vegan but since I found out I was pregnant I decided to start eating some meat so I'm not on a bunch of vitamins. I hate it because meat is so gross but I want my baby to be healthy!

[ilovemykids]

Ooo! How exciting!
Congratulations jelyanne!
How far are you? If I may ask.

[ilovemykids]

I was reading THIS in the news and thought of this thread.

[Scooter]

I'm gonna put my foot in this one real deep, right up to the hips, I just know it. Here goes...

I eat, therefore I am.

Yes, I eat meat, because I have canine teeth and I'm an omnivore like every other human, and my body needs it.

Nothing living can escape having to eat another living thing to survive.

Underscore that statement.

Vegans say that meat eaters are wrong to assume its OK to kill and eat 'dumb animals'. What about plants? How can anyone say for certain that a plant doesn't experience discomfort on the cellular level at least, if not within the awareness of higher intellect? They are certainly aware of their surroundings. Studies have actually shown that trees being cut down emit stress chemicals and signals of distress.

As silly as that sounds, the point I make is that nothing alive can continue to be alive without depending on the suffering of other living things. Plant or animal. Hell, even plants thrive on... decomposing dead things. The food chain is inescapable. Disturb it, remove a step in the chain, and the chain collapses, everything along the line dies of starvation... including vegetarians and meat eaters. Omnivores trumped that situation by being able to utilize an alternative source of food.

Want to live without causing suffering to anything? Can't. You'll just have to give up and die. Not many of us are willing to just up and stop living for an ideal, though.

The trouble is waste. We invented agriculture and livestock farming to make our lives less endangered from food scarcity, less likely to end badly from food chain disruption and drought. But commerce is married to agriculture and farming. We don't produce only what we need, we overproduce. That overproduction is even screwing the environment, with pesticides and fertilizers. We consume more calories in one meal than our ancestors, living harder lives, would have consumed in an entire day. And we think nothing of tipping half-eaten food into the trash. Why? Because we live overcomfortable lives.

I am adamant that there are few greater sins in my mind than wasting good food, vegetable or meat. Even though I eat meat, I find it reprehensible if an animals' life is taken but the meat is not used, going unsold or uneaten. Wasting a life for nothing, human or animal, is wrong.

And by the way, commercially produced meats are probably not that healthy anyhow, being laced with preservatives and antibiotics. I'll agree that slaughterhouse methods are probably rather cruel. But unless someone is able to practise conservational hunting, is an expert marksman to make the animal's death immediate, and can ensure that no part of the animal is wasted, the supermarket is our only choice. I had venison (deer meat) once, given to me by a friend, and store-bought meat is like styrofoam in comparison.

And as for the vegan parents who killed their baby? Thankfully not all vegetarians are as dub as those goofs. I just can't even begin to formulate words suitably vicious enough to direct at those reprobates. Their self-centred ideas cost their son his life in a gruesome, painful way.

Just my humble opinion.

[ilovemykids]

That was quite a post...

[bcteagirl]

Very good post. A lot of my family are farmers, and some are ranchers. In reference to an earlier post about it being a waste (or misuse at least) of viable land... I have heard that argument a lot. What they do not seem to realize is that ranchers will farm on any land that is *farm worthy*, and land which *not* good for farmland is what is used for ranching. (Exceptions of course in the rainforest etc, and that is a real tragedy I agree, here I am talking about Canadian farms).

[cndlady]

I eat fish and poultry. I don't eat red meat not because I think one life is less important than the other but because I am allergic to red meat..it makes me so violently ill I will land in the hospital for days.
My family down south are farmers and their animals are well tended and not abused (these animals are their lively hood). I live in the north so we were taught to hunt and fish from a very young age. We were also taught not to kill anything that you weren't going to eat.
I come from a large family that was single income so my dad hunted to help feed us. You couldn't grow enough vegetables up here on the rocks to feed a family of 8 and the moose, deer and fish were free.
I don't believe that a person who eats meat is bad. I also don't believe that hunters are bad either...when hunting and trapping of animals declined there was a mass amount of sick animals who had to be culled to prevent spreading disease to the rest of the animal population. Better to be hunted for food than to be killed to prevent the spread of disease.

[jelyanne]

Ooo! How exciting!
Congratulations jelyanne!
How far are you? If I may ask.

Thanks! I'm 14 weeks