Reasons you became vegan/vegetarian?

Question

Is there anything that really influenced you to be vegan/vegetarian.One for me is that I hate steak .

Answer 1

ok get ready to be ripped up one side and down the other on yahoo answers. Every time I see a question or answer similar to the one you posed, every Ted Nugent mini me gets on the Yahoo answers and tries to prove to you that their view is correct by insulting you into the ground. I too agree with you, because I thought about my pets having distinctly unique personalities and what is the difference between them and food, couldn't find one.

Answer 2

Numerous reasons. Although a few of the folks who answered apparently think you will die without meat, it is actually quite simple to get complete protein and all the nourishment a body needs being a vegetarian and even vegan. The two main reasons are:

1) the factories that raise and slaughter animals for food treat the animals extremely poorly, cutting the beaks off of chickens, cramming them into pens with a higher level of ammonia in the air than the FDA finds safe for humans to work in, not killing the animals in a humane (I know, that's a judgment call, some would say any killing of animals isn't humane, but if it is going to be done it should be done in a quick and painless way). Even chickens that are raised "Free Range" only means that of thousands of chickens there needs to be someplace that they can go outside which is often only a few square foot area; it does not mean that the chickens were raised on grass outdoors.

2) Global warming. The amount of energy and land needed in the production of animal food vs. non-animal food is amazing. If you live a vegetarian lifestyle, you will contribute to less deterioration of the ozone layer than you would if you traded in your Hummer for a hybrid "energy efficient" car.

Answer 3

OMG where will I START?!
1. There is no reason why I should kill take another animal's life just to sustain my own.
2. You EAT the hormones and pesticides in the animals.
3. Those animals die alone, scared and terrified. They live in horrible conditions and I see no reason to promote that.
4. The toxins in a fish can be up to nine million times as concentrated as the water that they live in.
5. In every bite, the typical beef/pork hot dog contains 7 cancer causing pesticides - I don't want that in me.
6. Salmonella sickens over a million people in the US alone, and over 500 people die from it.
7. The animal protein in meat can cause us to excrete calcium through our urine, raising our risk of osteoporosis
8. Too much protein can strain the kidneys and lead to kidney disease.
9. 80-90% of dietry pesticides come from eating animal products.
10. Meat is laden with saturated fat.
11. The risk of developing hear disease among meat eaters is 50% higher than vegetarians.
12. Vegetarians live about 6-10 years longer than meat eaters
13. Eating meat raises your cholesterol
And being vegetarian is just a healthier, more humane option than eating other animals. Pigs are smarter than dogs and have the capacity to think more logically than a three year old child does - yet we don't eat our pet dogs and we don't eat babies, do we? Why is it wrong to eat humans, but it's ok to breed animals in filthy conditions? Is it because they're dumber than us? I mean, what about mentally retarded people - no one eats them!
Yeah, so I'm really proud to be vege.

Answer 4

Yes, my best friend died of stomach cancer when I was 16 was the main reason, but I have problems with my stomach also and I must say the no meat thing has helped tremendously. Plus, I'm an animal lover, definately an added bonus.

Answer 5

It sounds silly really, but I really never thought about it until I went to Japan and ate calamari; I've always thought octopi are so neat and I felt really guilty about it. That's pretty much where it began, then it immediately lead on to everything else. Strange beginning maybe, but I've been a vegetarian for a few years now :).

Answer 6

Yes, when I was litte we raised pigs from when they were a couple weeks old to about 6 months, I got very attached to them and then we had to butcher them. I was absolutely heartbroken, so I stopped eating pork. We also raised cows, and chickens and had to get rid of them also, it was always very hard for me to see the animals go. So I decided I wasn't going to eat animals because they have feelings just like we do and to me it's the most disgusting thing to eat anything that used to have a heartbeat.

Answer 7

A practical application of Ahinsã seen in Hinduism is vegetarianism - as it fosters the sentiment of respect for other living creatures. The most ancient Hindu scriptures curbed the practice of killing animals by imposing strict ritualistic regulations which are very difficult to ordinarily meet. Those who were following the spiritual path and wanted to attain God were prohibited altogether from killing animals and consuming animal flesh because such consumption hinders spiritual progress. Hindu scriptures say that killing animals and consuming their flesh leads to violence in our thoughts and behavior. It spoils one’s character and obstructs one’s acquisition of noble virtues.
Today, some people feel that because they are not actually killing the animal themselves, eating the flesh and other body parts of a dead animal does not violate the code of Ahinṣ. However, Hindus consider the consumption of dead animal flesh to be a barbaric practice. The Ṿsudev Ṃḥtmya and other Hindu scriptures state that one who consumes animal flesh, who sells animal flesh, or who prepares animal flesh Рall of these people accrue the same sin as the person who slaughters the animal. This is similar to the Western idea that the murderer and the accessory to the murder are both guilty of the killing.
Some people argue that God has given us the ability to kill animals and digest animal flesh; therefore God must have wanted us to eat animals. One could easily respond that God has given us the intelligence and ability to kill humans and digest human flesh, so in that belief system, did God give us this ability because he wanted us to eat human flesh? The flaw in this argument becomes clear here. These people have made the grave error of confusing ability and civility, or ethics. Men may have the ability to kill animals and eat animal flesh, but that does not make it right. Humans have the ability to do some very bad things. But civilization, ethics, morality, and dharma are all meant to restrain man from exercising his full barbaric, animalistic capability and instead, to elevate him from this animalistic condition to the plane of humanity and even higher to the plane of spirituality. It is with this intent of elevating mankind from just a human being to a spiritual being that Hinduism has propagated the value of Ahinsã and its corollary vegetarianism.

Answer 8

I love veggies...but I love Meats & Potatoes much more!

Meats, and the sauces/gravies that come from them, are my favourite foods...I don't understand the vegeterian point-of-view?

Maybe all the Veggies that you slice up for a meal are Screaming as-you-slice-them in tone not heard by the human ear.

What would Vegeterians eat then???

Answer 9

Alergy to
1.Meat
2.Game Meat
3.Fish
4.Snails(CHINA)
5.Snakes(CHINA)
6.Dogs(CHINA)
7.Asparagus(Everywhere)



10.Don' Wanna Be Cannibal

Answer 10

LOL, there are alot of other meats out there besides steak.
I beleive Veganism is the Healthiest way of Life.
http://www.hacres.com/home/home.asp