Why I am a vegetarian
I do not usually go around announcing that I am a vegetarian. I really only tell people if it comes up or if they ask. It is by no means because I am ashamed. It is just that I don't want to be known of in that manner. I don't want to be referred to as "my vegetarian friend".
First off, I want to say that if you (the reader) were referred to this website by me because of an inquiry about my vegetarianism, do not be offended. It is not that often that someone talks to me about being a vegetarian, so when people ask why I became one it is hard for me to verbalize my motivations in a way that doesn't convince them that I am a bumbling idiot. I figured that if I put my convictions in print, then it will be much easier to make people understand.
I remember the exact moment that I decided not to eat meat. It was 1995 and I was in 6th grade at Shrewsbury Middle School up in Massachusetts. I was eating lunch in the cafeteria one day (a turkey sandwich) and I was having a good time talking to friends. I had finished half my sandwich and was about to start the other half when all of a sudden it just struck me that I didn't want to eat meat. It might sound stupid or childish but it just happened and I couldn't really explain it. I dropped that half of my turkey sandwich and never ate meat again. That's how it happened in a nutshell.
As far as my reasons for not eating meat (and there are many), here are the main ones in no particular order...
| I love animals, and I think that any lifestyle that doesn't encourage the death of animals is much better than one that does. |
| A vegetarian diet is by far more healthy than a meat based one. |
| All of the farmland and food that is wasted on fattening cattle could be used to grow grains and vegetables to feed the millions of starving people in the world. In other words, feeding cattle and then eating them is a very inefficient and wasteful way to produce food. |
| I believe that if we as the human race are able now to survive without consuming meat, we would all be much better off that way. |
| There are many recent scientific studies which have shown that the human body wasn't designed to eat meat. All other meat eating animals have sharp teeth and a short intestinal tract. Why we even began to eat meat in the first place is not entirely known. It is my theory that we started to eat meat because of the innate intelligence of our species. We saw other animals killing and eating meat, so we learn to imitate them. The ADA (American Dietetic Association) tells us that "most of mankind for most of human history has lived on vegetarian or near-vegetarian diets." ("near-vegetarian" means extremely rarely, often by eating eggs.) |
| If you put me in a room with a cow and an axe, I know that I would not be able to kill it. I believe that ethically, to let someone else do your dirty work (animal slaughter) is by very nature hypocritical. |
These are by far not the only reasons, I may add to this part of the page in the future.
Some people think that this decision had something to do with religion. Well...it didn't. Although I am a Roman Catholic, this had nothing to do with my decision. The Catholic church is much to conservative to advocate vegetarianism :) My decision was purely an ethical and moral one.
Some (just some) of the people that I meet are perplexed by my decision not to eat meat and they offer these counter-points...
| Humans have been eating meat for almost a million years, meat is just part of the food chain that we are on top of, why change things around now, it's not natural? |
Yes, it's true that humans have been living off meat for a long time but also, they really didn't have a choice. In the cold winter months, they really couldn't live off of plants so they had to hunt animals to survive. If this were the situation today, I would be all for meat. But the simple truth is, with today's technology and advanced farming techniques we are not only ABLE to live without meat, it is so much healthier that it is almost silly to continue eating meat.
| If the human species stopped the consumption of meat products, we would disrupt the whole ecosystem. |
Most of the animals on our planet lived fine before humans evolved and I am sure that they would be just as well off if we stepped out of the meat eating market.
In conclusion, I am not a tree-hugger, I am not a hippie, and I am not a animal rights zealot. I just believe in being accountable for all of my actions both conscious and unconscious. I don't really care if you are a vegetarian, vegan, carnivore. I don't judge people that way. Just try to understand why I chose not to eat meat.