Tell Us Why YOU Went Vegetarian

[yakherder]

There are many things that went into my decision, and for simplicity I tend to respond to this question in the same manner as the joker responds to questions about his scar. I give a different answer each time

I don't really get emotional over any issue. Yeah, something might make me tear up once in a blue moon for a few seconds, but ultimately almost every decision I make is either rational or based on some intuitive process that I'm not even aware is happening. Going vegetarian was the same. If I had to pick one reason that stands out, it would be the relationship between the moose hunting I did in Alaska as a kid and a combat experience I had in the Navy (I saw more combat in the Navy than I have in the Army, go figure), and how I tied them together in a way that made it difficult to continue rationalizing death as being different between humans and animals. When I would hunt the moose, especially when bow hunting which I enjoyed, the strategy was pretty simple. Put an arrow/bullet through it's lungs (since it's vitals were much more difficult to hit), and then casually follow the blood trail until I came across a moose with collapsed lungs. Years later I had a similar experience where I saw a person die in the same manner (I won't go into the details, I've mentioned it a couple times on veggieboards). I didn't go vegetarian right away, I just sort of put the experience in storage and pushed it aside for a few years. But one day I was thinking about it and a few other of my various reasons, and I suddenly found it difficult to rationalize human life and animal life differently.

I am still ready and willing to kill either human or animal if I believe I have a good reason, and I suppose that opinion might not be popular among other vegetarians. But with alternate sources of food readily available, I just don't see any circumstances, at least not in my own life, in which meat consumption provides me with any benefit that I could use to justify the suffering that it causes.

 

[mlp]

There are many things that went into my decision, and for simplicity I tend to respond to this question in the same manner as the joker responds to questions about his scar. I give a different answer each time

I don't really get emotional over any issue. Yeah, something might make me tear up once in a blue moon for a few seconds, but ultimately almost every decision I make is either rational or based on some intuitive process that I'm not even aware is happening. Going vegetarian was the same. If I had to pick one reason that stands out, it would be the relationship between the moose hunting I did in Alaska as a kid and a combat experience I had in the Navy (I saw more combat in the Navy than I have in the Army, go figure), and how I tied them together in a way that made it difficult to continue rationalizing death as being different between humans and animals. When I would hunt the moose, especially when bow hunting which I enjoyed, the strategy was pretty simple. Put an arrow/bullet through it's lungs (since it's vitals were much more difficult to hit), and then casually follow the blood trail until I came across a moose with collapsed lungs. Years later I had a similar experience where I saw a person die in the same manner (I won't go into the details, I've mentioned it a couple times on veggieboards). I didn't go vegetarian right away, I just sort of put the experience in storage and pushed it aside for a few years. But one day I was thinking about it and a few other of my various reasons, and I suddenly found it difficult to rationalize human life and animal life differently.

I am still ready and willing to kill either human or animal if I believe I have a good reason, and I suppose that opinion might not be popular among other vegetarians. But with alternate sources of food readily available, I just don't see any circumstances, at least not in my own life, in which meat consumption provides me with any benefit that I could use to justify the suffering that it causes.

Your posts are always interesting and often give me pause to think.

 

[cornsail]

I was raised that way, then I went vegan for the animals.

It was the same for me.

Your posts are always interesting and often give me pause to think.

I concur.

 

[Incognito]

I went vegetarian after watching Food Inc. A lot of the scenes were upsetting on an emotional and a practical level (what was this garbage I was putting into my body?!?!), so I promptly stopped eating meat after watching the film. I will never go back to the meat-eating side again. After all, why murder millions of animals when it is perfectly possible to live a healthy life, arguably healthier life, without their presence in your diet?

 

[FortyTwo]

At first I didn't know what I was even doing. I just randomly decided that the chicken I was eating was composed of muscles and tendons and all sorts of other icky stuff. I had never eaten any red meat before that point in time and somehow held pigs and cows on a pedestal, and I guess I brought chickens, turkeys, and fish up there that day too. I bawled my eyes out and only ate chicken once after that. I was eleven.

Of course, even though I thought I was a vegetarian, it took me slightly less than two years to do some research and figure out that animals were in friggin' everything. I started going crazy and cutting out every single thing from my diet that might have some small ingredient that might be derived from animals. Eventually I decided that it was hypocritical to obsess over that stuff when I still ate eggs and milk, and so I went vegan after a delightful trip to Farm Sanctuary.

I'm still freaked out that I managed to figure it out at age eleven. Hell, I didn't even really figure it out, per se - I had no idea why I was even going except for a simple "ew". It was like I was setting myself up subconsciously to discover the actual ethical dilemma behind the animal industry.

 

[mlp]

I am in awe of all of those who came to the realization at such young ages and acted on it.

 

[FortyTwo]

I am in awe of all of those who came to the realization at such young ages and acted on it.

I'm very happy that I did, regardless of whatever weird reason I had back then. It opened the door to so many new realizations!

 

[Renee1]

I had a cooking job at a remote fishing village. It was the worst two weeks of my life. My bosses were terrifying people - as ignorant as you can possibly imagine. I was incredibly homesick. In the afternoons when I was not working, I would sit in my tiny cabin. It had a giant picture window that looked out onto a view like this:

The dichotomy of the beauty of the place I was and the people I was stuck with was dissonant. One afternoon, I started to watch the ants on the window sill. There was one ant in particular that drew me in. The ant was attempting to carry a dead termite back to his colony. It was clearly too heavy for the ant, as he would get a grip on the termite and then try to walk, but lose his grip. Yet he kept on trying. At that moment I realized I could never eat another sentient creature again and I haven't. About 9 months after that I was vegan. (I also only lasted two weeks at the fishing lodge. The owners wouldn't take me back to the road, so the staff arranged for my rescue.)

 

[Moll Flanders]

I went veggie at age 17 because I read a book that made me think about how close humans are to non-human animals. I went vegan at age 30 as I had always wanted to do it as I knew a plant-based diet was supposed to be healthy and then I did some research and the information about the cows and their calves made me an instant vegan.

I am in awe of all of those who came to the realization at such young ages and acted on it.

Same here.

 

[danakscully64]

Because Jonathan Taylor Thomas was one.

 

[Second Summer]

Because of the allure of vegan punk rock girls Well, maybe that's not the entire story ...

 

[SummerRain]

I went vegetarian at 11 because I'd always thought it was wrong to hurt animals, and therefore to kill and eat them. I think at 11 I felt grown up enough to tell my mum I wanted to be a vegetarian.

I think I stayed vegetarian, and later went vegan, because I learned a lot about animal rights and was able to put reason to what I felt as a kid.

 

[MrsSchu2u]

Lots of thought about why I was forcing myself to eat something I hated mostly. My health. The health of my family. The desire to live a more peaceful life.

 

[Josh James xVx]

I did it for all the hot scene poon.

No, wait. That's stupid.

Someone showed me "Meet Your Meat". She was a hot scene chick. I didn't do it for her, though. I did it because my heart was broken by what I saw. I hate her now anyway. Wouldn't spare a drop of **** if she were on fire.

 

[Kittendumpling]

It feels embarrassing to say, but my initial motivation to become vegetarian was because I fell in love with one. Suffice to say, the relationship didn't stick, but the lifestyle did, and being vegetarian has made me happier than he ever did.

 

[thefadedone]

It feels embarrassing to say, but my initial motivation to become vegetarian was because I fell in love with one. Suffice to say, the relationship didn't stick, but the lifestyle did, and being vegetarian has made me happier than he ever did.

You shouldn't be embarrassed about that at all. You should be proud that you stuck with it despite the break up.

 

[peacefulveglady]

Doing it for health reasons and for the environment and I'll come back when I am not half asleep to post more.

 

[K-II]

It just sort of happened. I don't feel like bothering to take the steps between 'meat' and 'meal'. Although in the culinary sense I don't really eat many vegetables either... more grain based stuff and fruit.

EDIT: I'm aware it doesn't refer to vegetables in the culinary sense though, it just sounds weird.

 

[peacefulveglady]

I just came back here to post that I am going to Vegetarian because of health reasons and for the environmental and other issues but most of all now is that I keep on getting sick. There is not to many things out there I can eat and we want to get me on a diet that I can enjoy foods without being sick.

 

[Chryssie]

I came to the vegetarian lifestyle really late compared to a lot of you. I grew up on farms so I had no illusions where my meat came from and while growing up andfor many years had no issues with meat eating. Several years ago preparing meat started to bother me... it just became so gross.... and I said "I could be a vegetarian with no trouble." My husband and I stopped eating red meat and pretty much only ate chicken for a while. For some reason, I don't remember now, Jeremy (husband) was doing research online and suggested we "go vegetarian." And we did! Then we decided to try vegan almost immediately. This was in August of 2007 and I haven't touched meat since.