Are you a vegetarian, a vegan, or a pescetarian, if so why?

Not anymore

I eat nothing that casts a shadow. Luckily there is no direct sunlight in any self-respecting kebab house. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm 😀

My wife and kids are vegetarian, which makes me one too most of the time.

My wife started when she was 13 because she didn’t want to eat any animals (and it annoyed her mum).

TBH Since I’ve cut down on meat I’ve felt a lot healthier.

I never used to eat much meat, but now I’m almost Veggie.. c’ept Fish.

I don’t like meat. It makes me pooey.

Harry enjoying his occasional meat-based treat yesterday:

I am a vegan* I dont know if anyone has told you this but killing things is not nice so I dont do it – please lets not say plants are alive and have to play BS bingo so early in a thread. I also think factory/industrial farming is inherently cruel.
IME many meat eaters would not actually kill a live animal to eat it which is the only part of meat eating I find hypocritical tbh.

*PS when people ask me in the real world I always lean in really close and say have I never told you about when I found Jesus – you get some interesting looks and responses to that.

Don’t like meat, simple as.

IME many meat eaters would not actually kill a live animal to eat it which is the only part of meat eating I find hypocritical tbh.

I could do if required, but the ones I kill are usually just for fun/hobby on a weekend with mates. I dont possess the skills/knowledge to skin em and cut em up and cook em properly. Thats what supermarket food is for!

Most meat eaters would kill if they had to…but that’s been taken out of the food eating part of life nowadays and tbh, it’s a road that’s not going to be travelled back down until the apocalypse comes.

The only thing is, they’d eat a lot less meat – and appreciate it more when they did.

but i dislike factory farming & the amount of energy & fossil fuels used to feed and maintain livestock.

I am a part time vegitarian though which seems annoy EVERYONE

My wife and kids are vegetarian, which makes me one too most of the time.

TBH Since I’ve cut down on meat I’ve felt a lot healthier.

same here, i eat meat once or twice a month. I’m fairly fortunate to have a lot of local producers of meat, game and fish so when I do rend flesh I can be sure of its provenance.

I’m an occasional meat eater with a massive guilt complex about it. 🙂

I have tried only eating Raw stuff (fish included) that lasted about 4 months but it got terribly boorish when people would ask why I did it (purely health thing I was on at the time)
I’ve a family friend whose a farmer and on occasion when he scrubs out a pig I’ll have some chops and he also has cattle which I’ll very occasionally have a few steaks, he’s a subsistance organic farmer BTW.
MrsBikeBouy’s a veggie (although she too eats fish) and I guess it’s because we both have a similar attitude to farming/animal welfare yadda yadda.
But I’m not going t preach to anyone, eat what you enjoys my motto.

many meat eaters would not actually kill a live animal

I would. I’d happily tear some poor, innocent furry ickle creature limb-from-limb with my bare hands, rip its guts out with a hunting knife, and roast it over an open spit if I had too. In fact, if someone could offer that as a weekend mini-break……? 😀

Have previously dabbled in vegetarianism and have been out with vegans – doesn’t really bother me to eat like that so of the food is great and I’ve never really like the idea of the way animals are killed for food on an industrial scale however at the end of the day homo sapiens are omnivorous, its evidenced in both our teeth, as we have both canines and molars and the enamel is too thin for a purely herbaceous diet, and in our digestive track by the lack of enzymes required for a herbivore diet.

MrsBikeBouy’s a veggie (although she too eats fish)

What are her reasons for eating fish but not other animals, is it purely a health thing?

I’m a veggie and have been for many years. It’s an ethical animal rights thing for me. I don’t think that I’m someone particularly prone to anthropromorphism but as a pet owner I recognise the ability of animals to experience emotions (pleasure, fear etc.) to some degree and of course pain and can’t abide the horrific mass slaughter process when eating meat is no longer necessary. Many food species, pigs in particular, seem rather more ‘aware’ than cats and dogs so I also get wound up with meat eaters who are up in arms at the Chinese eating cats, French eating horses etc.

There are some interesting humanitatian reasons too such as world food shortages (apparently it takes something like 8lbs of grain/vegetable matter to produce a pound of beef).

Like many things though it’s up to the individual to chose their own way.

Not veggie but I am considering cutting down my meat consumption a lot. For starters it’s too expensive and cheap meat doesn’t taste of much. And I always feel healthier/fresher after having a veggie meal, probably all mental but if it feels better then it is 🙂

IME many meat eaters would not actually kill a live animal to eat it which is the only part of meat eating I find hypocritical tbh.

As a confirmed killer and meat eater I admire vegans and deride supermarket only meat eaters. There is nothing that irritates me more than people telling me how cruel it is to shoot a deer or a bunny but will still happily eat a lamb chop.

Nobody needs to eat meat, therefore eating meat is only for pleasure, therefore you are complicit in killing for pleasure if you eat meat.

If you are happy to accept this, or even like it (as I do) then eat meat. If you cannot accept this then have the courage of your convictions and become a vegan.

So called Vegetarians are the worst of the lot, moralising hypocrites. Either no meat or meat there is no middle ground. (unless you just don’t like the taste, or want to cut down for health reasons, or think that meat is bad for the environment etc but are happy for animals to die for your leather goods or whatever than that’s fine too.)

i don’t get the idea of someone not eating a pig or cow that has been reared for the purpose of eating and killed quickly, but who will happily eat a fish that has come from the sea (a source which can’t be farmed, only harvested) and has suffocated to death.

i’ve killed fish and chickens before for my consumption. fish are easy. chickens are a bit more difficult but a lot more entertaining (when using an axe). gutting them is a shitty job though.

my GF is vegetarian. as such i don’t often eat meat at home. i’d eat a lot more if i found a butcher that sells proper bacon and sausages instead of shitty american streaky bacon full of fat and thin enough to read a newspaper through or wurst sausages containing nothing but a paste like substance.

if i’ve been out on a big ride i’ll make a point of eating a bit of meat for its protien value.

but in general i don’t eat much meat. i don’t know if i’m any healthier for it, but i don’t see the point in forking out (<< see what i did there?) for something i don’t need on a daily basis. it does now mean that when i do fancy a bit of flesh i won’t buy it from the supermarket, but from a small butcher where the meat is of a better quality.

oh, but i will eat a burger from McD’s occasionally. their beef comes from local farms…. so we’re told.

On the ‘not killing animals’ thing, what astounds me is the wanton slaughter of wildlife to produce vegetables and cereal crops. Pigeons, Gulls, crows, rabbits, rats mice, are slaughtered – by often very inhumane means – in their thousands (if not millions) on a daily basis. Otherwise their population would expand at an alarming rate and destroy all those lovely vegetables and grains before we could eat them. I know this population expansion is largely down to factory farming vegetables and grain for human food. But still, lots of wild animal die, trapped, poisoned, shot, etc. for our grain – is than not as cruel as eating meat? discuss.

moralising hypocrites

I know plenty who do no moralising about it whatsoever. The only moralising I’ve seen so far is from you.

world food shortages

since the year 2000 more people have had over nutrition than malnutrition

http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm

Damn right Supertramp. I saw a drama/documentary on it recently. It was horrific!!

No

Why do veggies / vegans always feel the need to preach about it, like they’re saving the world? Its the same with religious types. I understand your reasons, but I happen to like meat. I don’t tend to dwell on the process’s that got it from animal form to plate form, in much the same way as I don’t think about where my petrol comes from.
I cant afford to buy the organic cuts of beef where the animal is humanely killed after being indulged in fine wines and an evening with Penelope Keith, before being given an overdose of morphine and having its throat slit by a Merkur blade. So I’ll make do with whatever is cheapest in Tesco’s.
Once I win the lottery be assured that I’ll get the beef thats been treated in such a lovely way, it actually thanks you for eating it, as its had a quite frankly lovely life.

I know plenty who do no moralising about it whatsoever. The only moralising I’ve seen so far is from you.

Yes, but I’m not a hypocrite, and I have been moralised by many a veggy. Is your retort not moralising? Pot kettle?

As I said I admire vegans, I respect them. I think it takes real courage to stand up for what you believe in,and I think they have made a real difference. Its woolly pick and mix morals that pee me off. Vegetarianism for so called animal cruelty reasons is just trying to make yourself feel better but ignoring the actual real problem.

On the ‘not killing animals’ thing, what astounds me is the wanton slaughter of wildlife to produce vegetables and cereal crops. Pigeons, Gulls, crows, rabbits, rats mice, are slaughtered – by often very inhumane means – in their thousands (if not millions) on a daily basis. Otherwise their population would expand at an alarming rate and destroy all those lovely vegetables and grains before we could eat them. I know this population expansion is largely down to factory farming vegetables and grain for human food. But still, lots of wild animal die, trapped, poisoned, shot, etc. for our grain – is than not as cruel as eating meat? discuss.

Never considered this, but its an interesting one.

bigyin – read my last post, it is possible that as many animals die in the production of vegetable based foods as in meat based foods. And they die in some horrible and fairly unregulated ways! But this is something most ‘preachers’ seem entirely ignorant of.

toys19 + 1

I’ve recently started dating a lass who is Vegan and for her it seems to be that whe doesn’t want a part in what she perceives to be a cruel practice. I don’t agree that it is cruel, or at least that it is less cruel than what happens in nature, but we are all free to make our own minds up about things like that.

As a result of this though, I did start to do some digging around (mostly to better understand what she can and can’t eat/use) and to be honest the fallacious arguments that are posted on the Vegan sites that I have seen are themselves enough to convince me that that community isn’t one that I care to be part of.

I’ve found after being vegetarian, that now Im a meat eater I still dont eat much meat. I only eat fish or chicken when I do. Red meat isnt really healthy.

I like vegans/veganism, it seems like an educated way to eat. You have to actually put some thought into what your eating. Rather than some greedy meat eater who just consumes any sort of shite they want to.

I have been moralised by many a veggy

You poor thing…

Is your retort not moralising?

No. Just pointing out to you that you’re making a massive over-generalisation, not that it was somehow immoral. Hope that helped.

bigyinn – I find it’s the exact opposite, when I state I’m veggie I normally get abuse from the non-veggies.

a massive over-generalisation

No I wasn’t, I specifically singled out vegetarians who don’t eat meat for “killing is cruel” reasons, that is not a generalisation as I excluded those who don’t eat meat for other reasons. It seems (although I knew this already DD) that you cannot read, and have no grasp of basic logic.

I was a vegetarian for a good few years, labouring under the misapprehension that it was healthier.

the fallacious arguments that are posted on the Vegan sites that I have seen are themselves enough to convince me that that community isn’t one that I care to be part of.

I think that as long as we accept that on either side, there are those who would seek to deride the choices and opinions of others (mostly to make themselves feel better about their choices), and that they should be ignored while people make their own choices based on facts (and feelings of course). Ignorance is no excuse though.

bigyinn – I find it’s the exact opposite, when I state I’m veggie I normally get abuse from the non-veggies idiots.

Sorted that for you.

I think vegans are ok to give out a bit of stick to meat eaters, afterall they have the moral high ground.

It seems (although I knew this already DD) that you cannot read, and have no grasp of basic logic.

Ah right, it’s funny you know, you said something a bit personal just like this the other day. You can take it back if you want, though I doubt you will. Be nasty if you must – I will not be joining in your game.