I'm not meaning to insult, but I don't understand the Vegetarians and Vegans who.....?

Question

....shop at Wal*Mart and eat fries from fast food restaurants. Yes, I am an omnivore, but I don't eat meat everyday, I REFUSE to eat at fast food places and shop at Wal*mart, I buy my groceries from the local organic co-op, and I don't support any company that harms the planet, tests on animals or has any type of shady business practice.

Doesn't vegetarianism so hand in hand with these ideals? Shopping at Wal*mart isn't good for the planet, animals or your fellow humans!!!

Also, what are your reasons for being Vegetarian/Vegan if the reasons that I listed aren't?

Also, I'm not trying to be ignorant. Many of my friends are Vegetarians and I often eat vegetarian meals. I don't believe that eating a lot of meat is healthy or naturally sustainable. So, I'm not a troll!!!! Curious, that's all.

I totally understand people who are not able to afford to shop anywhere other than walmart, but if you CAN afford it, why? Most of their products come from sweatshops and they mistreat their workers!!! Aren't PEOPLE just a teeny-tiny tad more important than animals? I like to thinks so. Not that I don't love animals or anything.

Answer 1

No, you raise a totally valid point. I see that alot here, suggestions on buying things at Walmart and I do not get it either!!! Sadly I am guilty of going there from time to time, and its pure hell yet I still do it!! There is a Southpark episode regarding Wall Mart I always relate Walmart shoppers too..If we could only find the evil eye in the electronics department that keeps drawing us back even when we insist we wont do it!! I have to work harder on that! I have completely cut out fast food. I make my own fries!


thanks for bringing this up!


*ah! edit-I dont agree humans are more important-but of course most will see it that way, we are human afterall!! as far as money goes, i have none yet still manage to do most of my shopping at Sunflower Market. Buying fresh foods as opposed to packaged is a good way to cut that shopping bill in half.I also dont understand why anyone here is offended by someone suggesting its not a good idea to shop at Walmart. Surely there are alternatives for everyone..yes affordable! Didn't these small towns have other stores before Walmart arrived? I mean my god, you guys act like Walmart needs to be defended. If you take offense in the suggestion walmart isnt good for the planet or humans in general, than man you all need to work that out with yourselves. She is 100% correct and even though we all know these things arent all avoidable WALMART surely is!!!!!!!!!

Answer 2

Whether we were made to eat meat or not is irrelevant when choosing to go vegetarian. At least for me. True, humans have been eating meat for a long time, but the way we kill animals hasn't stayed the same. The animals in factory farms are put through vast amounts of distress, not being able to feel the sun on their backs or be able to move a muscle their whole short lives. Chickens are fed antibiotics to grow faster, instead of letting it grow at it's healthy, own pace. Basically, the way animals are raised for food isn't the same as it was thousands of years ago. The killing methods aren't the same either. Before, chickens could have a fast, non-painful death. Now, they're being scalded alive, some still struggling to hold on even after. Whilst raising animals for food we also are slowly destroying the planet, with all the animals using up thousands of gallons of water and whatnot. An animal on a "regular" farm would definitely not be wasting much water at all. Moving on... Meat isn't exactly healthy or unhealthy. People who choose to eat meat typically eat too much of it, and get too much protein. There are other much more healthy ways to get protein. In the end, humans don't need meat to survive, so why kill that cow? Why kill that chicken? Animals have feelings, they can feel pain. Oh and, they actually do have somewhat similar intellectual knowledge as humans. Just because they can't necessarily talk doesn't make them any less smart. I'm not vegan, yet I buy cage free eggs and buy milk from local farms. Being vegan isn't unhealthy. I actually want to be a vegan. I just can't at this present moment. We're the only species that drinks milk after the infant stage. And eggs... we only really eat them because of their taste. We don't NEED eggs. That aside, it does get to me when some vegans think that eating eggs is just like eating a baby bird, because most eggs that we buy at the supermarket aren't fertilized. (Hens don't need a rooster the lay an egg.) And the vegans you talk about, wearing leather but not eating a cow... they're just hypocritical, I suppose. Anyway. Both meat eaters and vegetarians and vegans make good points. What it all comes down to is personal preference.

Answer 3

Perhaps.
Of course, in the same respect a person could say that he doesn't understand how a person could go through all the effort of refusing to support evil businesses like walmart and fast food companies, and refuses to use animal-tested products could possible support something as hideous and gigantic and evil as the meat industry.

Becoming a vegetarian goes hand in hand with the ideals of doing what is right for the environment, the self and the beings with whom we share the planet.

The truth is that people do the things they feel they can best do to avoid being a part of what they feel is wrong. For some, this means going veg, for others, this means only supporting small businesses, and for others still, this means doing both. There is also a long list of other things we could be doing to work toward our ideals. Are either you or I doing everything that fits in with our beliefs? No, but hopefully they are on our list of goals.

Unfortunately, the only people at risk of being called a hypocrite are those who are actually doing something. But if that is the only downside, I can live with it.
:)

I am a vegetarian because I could no longer allow thinking, feeling beings to suffer and die so I could have something I didn't need on my plate.

I also do not shop at wal mart.
:)

Answer 4

It seems to me that you probably live in a progressive community. Perhaps you should take into consideration the fact that there is not an organic co-op in most towns, people are limited to what they have available to them. Also, many people are not educated regarding certain unethical business practices, so they have no idea that they may be harming the planet or another human being by shopping for diapers or whatever. Many of those people would make different choices if they were educated and had other choices available to them.

I believe you are making a big assumption regarding the reasons why people choose a veggie lifestyle. It is not always about ideals. The list of reasons why people choose to be veggie are many and varied. Some common examples would be health, personal taste, animal rights, weight loss, or medical necessity.

I do see your point that occasionally hypocritical activist types can mouth off about how Eco friendly their diet is and then jump in their Hummer to drive 1 block to Wal*Mart. People like that probably don't participate in a lot of critical self evaluation, so they don't realize that they are giant hypocrites.

As to why a vegetarian would eat fries from a fast food joint...well...they are probably hungry and don't have much else available. And considering how almost every "salad" at a fast food joint is full of meat, it may just be the only thing on the menu that is actually veggie.

Answer 5

You ask an excellent question. I've been a vegetarian for many years, but I shop at Wal-Mart, mainly because I am poor. I hate the fact that some of the clothes I wear were probably made in a sweatshop somewhere in China. Unfortunately, though, because of my income, my options are quite limited. However, I do try to shop at Target more often and I also make it a point to use cosmetics, toiletries, and household products that are cruelty-free.

Answer 6

I don't see the correlation b/w being a vegetarian/vegan and shopping at Walmart? If they mistreat their workers and sell clothing that are made at sweat shops or through child labor, what does that have anything to do with being vegetarian?
Those people that work at sweat shops are glad to have a job and alot of those kids working in those factories are the sole providers for their families! I saw a documentary on this topic and those people actually appreciated that they even HAD a job. They don't live in societies where work is so easy to come by, If you're poor, you appreciate having a job.
Walmart is affordable and I shop there for necessities(products that are cruelty free). I find it rather contradictary that so many people claim to not patron Walmart, yet it's always packed when I shop there!
I agree with supporting companies that create products without testing on animals, but I will not stop shopping at Walmart and/or Target.
Walmart is not the only big name store to receive bad publicity! TARGET also has a bad reputation, mostly for being a company owned by France. I've heard many times people boycotting TARGET.
There is always some form of negative news circulating about big name stores, and not everything is necessarily true. But for that information that is actually true, what establishments will be left to shop at? Not very many.
Am I supposed to change my lifestyle and pay more money for necessities for myself and my family just because people like you already developed an opinion on how a vegetarian is supposed to be?
I do not have to prove anything or explain why I make the choices I make. Why are you trying to insinuate that vegetarians/vegans are hypocrites? Why this fascination with us anyways?

Answer 7

I'm not a vegan or vegetarian, but it would make sense to me that not all vegans and vegetarians eat the way they do solely because they are not into supporting the types of businesses you mentioned.

Maybe they eat like they do because they don't like the taste of meat, or they feel healthier when they don't eat it. Being vegetarian doesn't mean you devote your life to finding places to eat that don't use some type of animal product on their foods, just means they don't visit the butcher and can bypass the meat section at the supermarket.

Also, some people's medical conditions, such as diabetes, can be improved by drastically cutting down on meat intake, or just eating very lean meat. A person with diabetes who chooses to become vegetarian doesn't do so because they don't want to eat anything that harms the planet, just means they choose to be vegetarian to improve their health.

Selfish reason to some people, but it's stereotyping to believe that all vegetarians sit around doing nothing but finding organic farms that don't "harm the planet" or test their products on animals. It's not a way of life, it's an eating habit! If I choose to cut down on dairy, that just means that I won't be eating cheese and cereal with milk everyday, and I certainly won't be searching restaurants' recipes to see which ones are acceptable for me to eat. What fun is life if you are constantly thinking about every bite you take, whether or not these french fries are unacceptable for your diet, or why I should inconvenience myself to NOT shop at Wal Mart for whatever reasons other people can think of today to convince me to live my life how they think is acceptable.

Answer 8

I am a vegetarian for health reasons - explained in previous answers - feel free to look those up.

That said, I do agree with you 100% on your ideals, but I hope you may be able to see how someone could be vegetarian and not live with those same ideals.

Also, as a former grad student living on less than 10,000 per year I can say that Walmart is a necessity some days, for me it was once in the past seven years. I do try to avoid all major outlets.

Answer 9

Truthfully- I shop at WalMart because they have the best prices on pet food. I run a rescue and cost is a BIG factor that affects how many animals I can help. I buy organic and local stuff when I can, but hey, vegetarians are human.

Answer 10

Shopping at Wal Mart in itself isn't bad. It's not WHERE you shop but WHAT you buy. Wal Mart only makes money on what people buy, so if people don't buy things from "bad" companies that mistreat animals then they will not make money off of those things and perhaps sell less of them since a store that bases it's whole business around the best deals cannot afford to stock things that people don't buy. I think that buying vegan foods from Wal Mart can actually help advance the movement a great deal, since if more vegan foods and organic foods show up in Wal Mart, more people will see them, try them and buy them regularly. You sound like a real snob here. Sure, shopping only at an organic co-op is great, but it's not feasible for many people. To advance veganism into the mainstream we need to support accessible avenues like Wal Mart.