Why are vegetarians looked down on and treated like bad people?

Question

I keep getting the "vegitarians are no good" speech! all meat eaters call me a hippie! then i tell them they wouldnt be as fat. but then i get called a hippie again! everyone who eats meat in my family are fat! im the only skinny person!

and also is it soooo bad to care about the enviroment? animals are not inferior! and also what goes on at KFC! N-A-S-T-Y!

IF PEOPLE ACTUALLY DID COME FROM MONKEYS, THEN WERE ANIMALS. DO YOU WANT TO EAT YOURSELF?

people seem to belive we came from monkeys, but i dont. people are animals though.

Answer 1

People can get very put off when you try to point out the benefits of your choice to be vegetarian. In my experience, a lot of that has to do with not WHAT you say, but HOW you say it.

It's your own personal choice, and because of that, it does not need to be everyone else's. I try to follow a few simple rules for talking about it with non-vegs (most of the people I know). Please keep in mind that these are MY rules for not causing conflict, and they might not work for you.

1) Don't bring it up first.
2) If they ask a question about your diet, keep the answer brief. Nobody ever wants a detailed explanation anyway, in my experience.
3) Stress the fact that is your own personal choice, and that although you feel strongly about it, you realize that others don't feel the way you do.
4) Don't judge meat-eaters. Chances are you used to be one too.
5) Don't expect anyone to go out of their way to be sensitive to your choice.
6) Just say something like, "I feel great! It is the right choice for me" if you're asked why.
7) Leave politics and ethics out of it, if you can.
8) Change the subject if you feel like things are getting ugly in some way.
9) If someone seems genuinely interested, be ready to explain your choice in detail. Be armed with information. Don't mistake politeness or respect for genuine interest, though.

I know a lot of other vegs might disagree with my position, but sometimes you just have to go along to get along. I feel as strongly about animal cruelty and the environment as other vegans, but I just don't feel the need to "evangelize," so to speak. Incidentally, most of my friends accept my choice, and none of them are disrespectful about it because I have chosen not to disrespect theirs.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Being a Vegiterian is definitely not a weirdo kind of thing. It is a common perception in people that meat for meal is a cool thing to do. But they generally forget that Animals process this meat from the same vegitarian stuff. And the one who feeds on this first hand source of energy will definitely be a superior person.
The are scared to acknowledge the fact and more so scared of the other person knowing the reality might they be beaten so they take this route of calling flesh meals as cool and hep and shatter the self confidence of the people who deny it, so that if they fall to trap there actually will be no difference between them and you and the superiority striked off.

Remember that the best of people are not in the majority they always come from a minority segment and what makes them best is their self confidence and their ability to stand up against or in front of majority projecting your cause.
Any example in HIstory u take up. you will never find a single person who was suceessful but during the initial and / or later years was not tried to be pulled down by the surrounding people.
Be assured your stand is the Best.

Answer 3

In the end being a vegetarian is the best way to go! It is so much healthier for you. Not just in terms of fat but with cancer, alzheimer's disease and probably a whole bunch of other illnesses.

I've been a vegetarian since April, 2006 and already I feel so much healthier. Look at our teeth, they don't look like we were meant to be meat-eaters. The only thing our bodies need from meat is the vitamin B12...And you can have that by taking vitamin supplements.

I say stay strong and stay a vegetarian. When people dont want to accept you for who you are then ignore them. They are the ones who will lead an unhealthy life.

Good luck!! :)

Answer 4

people are not only fat because of meat, other things make them fat too. the problem is that humans are the smartest strongest species and that is why we are not being controlled or killed down to a controlable size like humans do to cows and pigs. if it were reversed and cows and pigs and other animals killed humans for food and took over the world it would be totally different.i think the smarter ones arent being killed for food like dolphins and chimpanzies. you see how many stray cats and dogs there are... what if pigs and all other animals were allowed to just go make more babies and nothing was controlled? life would be chaos and there would be no cities, just farm life. ha ha ha

Answer 5

I don't know your real situation with this vegetarian thing first their are quite a few heavy vegetarians because they take in many calories from fattening foods & snacks such as peanutbutter & candy to satisfy cravings second your argument that animals are not inferior do you wear leather shoes,belts animal tested cosmetics so the bottom line are you a hipocrit or a true vegan learn the difference if you don't know. p.s. everybody on this site should really use your spell check so people could take your questions more seriously!

Answer 6

Not all people who eat meat are fat. I'm not fat I eat meat, daily. My mother isn't fat, my kids aren't, my bf isn't and neither is my dad. We all eat meat.

Vegetarians looked down on? NO Treated like bad people? NO......I don't care what you eat. Your grocery bill is probably a lot cheaper than mine. Problem is......the vegetarians on a crusade against meat eaters. That is why most vegetarians are given the BS they are given. Chances are if you don't try to shove your way of life in our faces......you won't hear much from us.

KFC? I tried all my life not to have to eat that anyway. It's not what goes on there, it's just the chicken in general. It's not good to me there. I rarely eat chicken that myself, my bf, or mother didn't cook.

This is what would happen if EVERYONE became a vegetarian.

If we didn't eat meat animals would over populate the world. There would be no room left for humans. REALLY. If you think eating meat is sick...just wait until the world becomes what you want it to be and we can't even walk to our cars without either getting attacked or trampled by animals. There would be so much poop that you and the rest of the world would be wearing hip waders every where you went. The numbers of animals would just keep multiplying. Dead and decaying animals everywhere. Can you imagine the smell? There is not enough grassland left in this world to feed all the grazing animals. What grassland is left we would have to take to grow more vegetables to eat so we'd have food. The farmers can only grow so much grain to feed them and us too......then it would be down to them or us.......do we use the grains and vegetables to feed ourselves or the animals. Fact of the matter is..........most of the grain and grass fed animals would starve to death. The cattle/pig farmers wouldn't want the animals anymore..what good would they be to them? The farmers aren't going to spend the money to feed them and not make money off them. They would turn them out free. Diseased sick and dying animals everywhere. What kind of diseases would we end up with because of them? Rabiesand many others. The other animals that eat meat are going to attack them in the streets, woods, your yards.....who's going to clean that up? It all boils down to they are going to die from starvation or another animal killing them...cars on the road etc. They will become so wild and untame that they will indeed trample and eat our vegetable and grain crops. In the end.........humans would be the ones starving to death. EVERYONE would have to go back to eating meat to survive because there would be nothing else. At that point are you going to get disease free animals? Probably not. You are thinking small scale save the animals. There are BILLIONS of them. Without the sale of meat as food, there is NO money to feed them and give them the vaccinations and shots they need for diseases. It takes A LOT of money to keep animals fed and disease free. What about the calves that are trying to be born backwards or can't come out? Last I knew 12 years ago it was about $1000 for the vet to come out and do a c section on a cow.....it's not that uncommon. Who's going to pay for it? It's probably $1500 by now. The only animals that would be taken care of are on dairy farms and they wouldn't be that safe because of so many other animals in the world carrying diseases.

The way some of the animals are slaughtered is not right, I agree. There always needs to be a quick less painful way for them. For most...their 1 minute of pain sure beats weeks of suffering from hunger, lack of water and diseases eating them from the inside out and losing their minds.

I don't have a problem with vegetarians at all. Your way of life is YOURS, but before the meat eaters are critisized by the vegetarians one more minute.......think about what would really happen if we were all vegetarians. You have to admit I do have a point.

Answer 7

I don't look down on vegetarians. I actually admire them. I would be a vegetarian, but meat just tastes really good to me. Usually, though, I eat veggies. Good for you for sticking up for yourself.

Answer 8

1) We don't come from monkeys

2) If you don't like being called a hippie, Don't call people fat.

3) I don't look down on them as bad people. i look at them as someone who has chosen a different food style i know very little if anything about. The problem is if you try asking a question you get the attitude you were showing earlier

Answer 9

because you people preach and preach and preach and preach and preach. you wouldn't like my kind if i preached to you ALL the time about what you should do and how i'm so much better for doing it. your logic is loose and irrational, "you came from earth right? well you dont want to eat yourself!" heh. "cows are mammals and so are you! you wouldn't want to eat yourself would you!"......in many many countries, meat milk and eggs are the leading proponent of survival, with no other options. yea the big butcher companies are sick i agree. stop the cruelty, that's but you're not going to change something that's been going on for thooooousands of years. they ate meat in the bible (romans chapter 14)

Answer 10

Vegitarians aren't bad people, but preachy people like yourself are. It's not your choice of diet thats the problem, it's your reasoning. If you just don't like meat, fine, you won't get much flak back about it, but if you have a problem with others not being "as good" as yourself, your going to piss people off.

Oh and animals eat each other just so you know, and they're just as good as us, so what's so wrong with eating animals just like the animals, if animals are our equals and not inferiour?