Please share your reasons for going vegetarian or vegan. I am curious.

My reason:

I love animals and feel that they are not ours to eat. I don't want to cause needless suffering of any creature. I want to eliminate meat and animal products from my diet because I am putting animals first.

Please share your reasons................................

I don't like meat

I am a sparce meat consumer because I'm beyond disgusted with the state of the meat industry and can't stomach most meat products knowing (or not knowing) where it comes from and knowing what's in it. My father is a strict vegetarian for the same reasons.

I guess I know too much.

I've been a vegetarian since I was 14 becasue something just snapped in my head and I decided that consuming muscle tissue and other parts of animals is vile. Biology class dissections and comparative anatomy classes had a lot to do with this I think.

Now the more I learn I think the vegan diet is ideal both from and ethical and health/chronic disease prevention standpoint. I still let a little dairy and eggs slip in, but I keep working towards reducing animal products.

I'm also disgusted with the meat industry, as well as the effect it has on our environment. I have a serious problem with consuming animals that have been tortured in the name of greed. Most people refuse to notice probably because A- Ethically raised animals cost more, and B- it's just easier not to notice.

I have recently added seafood back to my diet twice a week, though it's carefully chosen so it's wild caught from clean waters and environmentally friendly.

The movie Fast Food Nation is an eye opener when it comes to meat!

I choose the diet and lifestyle that makes the most sense for me, the animals, the environment and overall harmony of all life on our planet.

I don't choose to needlessly consume the misery of other creatures via their flesh or secretions.

I live vegan.

I am disgusted, repulsed and saddened mentally, emotionally, logically and Spiritually at the very thought of consuming animal products.

I don't understand the disconnect that occurs in people that allows them to love a pet and then eat it's brother.

I don't believe that it is ethical to ever eat animals or their products when there are so many other options, for those of us living in the USA especially.

I choose to be nourished with plant based foods only for the benefit of all living creatures.

We became vegetarians 25 years ago, when I was pregnant with our first child. My DH is in the medical field, and the medical journals were sounding warning bells about all of the hormones, DDT, and other nasties that were contained in animal products. I love animals and the thought of eating them is repulsive. And finally, it is a stewardship issue - living lower on the food chain - consuming grain products rather than meat means that I have a smaller ecological footprint on the planet and I am leaving 9/10ths of the grain available for others in need. (1lb of meat=10lb of grain) It may be a small drop in a very large bucket, but if everyone did their part to eliminate world hunger ...

I find meat to be pretty disgusting. The only way I used to be able to eat it before is if I didn't have to prepare it. I think the more I learn about the meat industry the more disgusted I become, not only because of their treatment of animals, but also because of what they add to the animals and the meat before it gets to the grocery store.

I still eat eggs, but only cage free organic ones and I try and use organic dairy products whenever possible. For me, it's mostly a health issue more than anything else.

A few reasons for me -

1. The animal loving ones from above apply but mainly its because I grew up on a small farm as a kid and my mum used to name (and still does) the cows and calves. Each year a baby calf was named after me and each year I got heart broken to see that calf being sold for slaughter.

2. I could never stand to touch, look at or eat from animal/poultry/fish bones either. YUCK!

3. My mum is also vegetarian...but not my dad or 6 siblings. Now I just hate the taste and smell of meat.

I wish I could say it's about ethical & environmental reasons, but that wasn't why I went vegetarian. I just never cared much for meat, so cutting it out wasn't that big of a deal.

me too marms, but having been a non-meat eater for a year now, and talking to other vegetarians, i don't think i could ever go back to meat. The look of it disgusts me... i'd feel like a cannibal. Also the smell of it... just everything :S *shrugs*

I was in Madrid last week and protesters stood outside the main McDonalds (it's absolutely huge... never seen anything like it before in my life) and they held posters and stuff of what the company does to the animals... i can tell you that the place emptied rather raplidly. It's amazing what a bit of facts and imagery can do

We're taking the plunge of veggies...This is going to be a ramble since it's the first time I've put down my thoughts in writing.

It's not that my husband and I have ethical issues with raising and killing animals for food. I've grown up working on and living near farms my entire life. I've gutted my own fish, harvested my own eggs, milked cows, and watched chickens be slaughtered. It really doesn't bother me.

However, that doesn't bother me because the animals are treated with respect throughout their lives. This all started with me buying eggs from a local farm. The 1000 chickens on the farm, though confined to a barn over night, are never kept in cages, are fed an all, natural fresh diet of feed that the owners grind themselves daily, and have a decent amount of pasture to run on during the day. They aren't factoried, or confined, or any of the other evil things that people do the chickens. I started only buying me eggs from there, even though it's an $2 a dozen. I hate the idea of chickens being tortured just so I can have my eggs, and I have an alternative.

That, naturally, lead me to examine our meat eating habits. We don't eat beef or pork in our house. I don't particularly like either, and I have a strict "If you couldn't kill it yourself, you shouldn't eat it." I could never slaughter a cow or a pig, so I don't eat them. However, that still leaves the chicken/turkey issue. The above mentioned farm also sells meat chicken, but it's $20 for a chicken. Since we go through 2-3 whole chickens in my house a week, I can't go from $15 a week to $60 a week. No where locally sells Certified Humane chicken, and ordering it online for $7 a pound is out of the question.

So, now, I'm also worrying about milk and cheese. I'm currently looking into Oberweis and how they treat their animals. If that doesn't turn out well, my kids will be drinking rice milk and never touching cheese again!

My personal long term solution is to move to a farm. That way I'd know how my animals are raised and slaughtered. Like I said, I have no moral how do you do about them actually dying and being eaten, but this animal isn't a thing. It's giving its life for my sustenance, so it deserves a large amount of respect.

Thanks everyone for responding. I enjoyed reading the results.

Hi MugCanDoIt...

I have to admit, my journey to vegan-ism is regrettably not start with animal rights.

I had my gallbladder removed several months ago and could not handle eating high fatty dairy or meat afterwards, so I gradually eliminated dairy. I began to think of a vegan diet after finding I was having a difficult time eating meat on occasion after surgery (even though in most instances it was very low fat meat).

I had begun to consider going vegan for health reasons and then I noticed in my local library, an updated version of Singer's classic "Animal Liberation," and the hipster book "Vegan Freak" by bob & jenna torres.

After reading those books (in addition to others) on the meat industry and how it's affecting our health, it was a no-brainer to go vegan entirely. (I had already been a vegetarian for a time in high school and college so becoming vegan was not that difficult; plus I live on the West Coast, which makes it easier for a vegan/vegetarian to go shopping/eat out).