animal lover and total hypocrite?

Question

i cried for joy today when i watched what could've been the death of a cute duckling due to pollution, he saved himself and waddled away with his mother and duckling sib. i often find myself wondering what kind of a life the animals on the side of the road led and squirrels seem so wonderful and happy all of the time. oh, and i had chicken for dinner.

i receive emails from peta on a daily basis and have even sent away for the vegetarian starter kit (which is just a magazine by the way) i thoroughly enjoy soy milk and love to eat my vegetables. growing up in a "meat and potatoes" kind of lifestyle makes the conversion to veganism (is that the word?) seemingly impossible. i would love to start small with vegetarianism but every time i start i resort back to my animal eating ways. i love animals SO very much but have ZERO self control.

any tricks of the trade i should know about? i am disgusted with myself and need to make a change NOW!

Answer 1

Have you watched the video at meat.org? I had never even considered vegetarianism, but the first time I watched that, I became veg the next day, eventually now vegan. I am not even what you would call an animal lover, of course I LIKE animals, but I just can't deal with eating something that was treated SO inhumanely. I watched it every day for about a week just to remind myself; after that, I was fine. You have to want to do it in your heart ... try reducing your meat intake if you want to ... but there's nothing one can do or say to make you vegan.

Answer 2

Here are tips:

1. Take your time - my journey from meat eater took about a year.
2. Start out using some basic substitutes for the meat you are used to in foods where you won't even notice - ground meat replacements are available in the frozen food sections.
3. Leave meat off things that don't need it - pizza, salad, spag, etc.
4. Get some good cookbooks when you are ready to branch into more interesting foods - Moosewood books and New Farm Vegetarian are two of my favorites.
5. If you are worried about what to eat check out the book "Diet for a New America" it will cover many of the health questions.

A good start is to pick one or two nights a week as "veggie" night. Then work your way from there stopping wherever you feel most comfortable which might be 2 nights a week or 7 nights a week up to you.

Answer 3

Perhaps you need to think about this in the opposite way.

You appear to be talking about giving up meat, rather than embaracing vegetarianism. Thats a negative approach so you are always reminding yourself you are giving something up.

Why not think of it as you now have a wider range of foods and tastes free from that meaty stuff. Great - what a world of food opportunities you've given yourself.

Just do it now, clean break. Easy.

Are you sure you really love animals when you eat them ??? All that pain, torture, death and cruelty just to satisfy your taste buds ?? Doesn't sound like "love" to me.

PETA is an animal rights organisation. You'd be better siding with a vegetarian organisation that focuses on the diet, try the Vegetarian Society or the International Vegetarian Union

Finally, if you really need to convince yourself just read many of the meaty-troll answers we get in this forum. Do you really want to be associated with those people ? Surely not.

Answer 4

I wouldn't support PETA in any kind of way if I were you. The whole PETA organization is flawed. They claim to be "for the Ethical Treatment of Animals", but they honestly do more harm then they do good. They're ringleader even uses products that have been tested on animals, even though PETA is supposedly against animal testing. If you look into it, you will find more stuff that shows how badly PETA contradicts itself. Oh yeah, and I hope you don't have any pets, because if you do, PETA thinks that you are enslaving them. They don't beleive that any animals should be kept as pets, and if PETA had their way, cats and dogs would be extinct.

If you really want to go vegetarian, just try to find new interesting and tasty recipes all the time. Give yourself a lot of variety so you don't get bored with eating veg. There are actually a lot of tasty vegetarian recipes out there, and even some of your favorite foods can still be good if you .leave out the meat. Spaghetti is one of my favorites for example. Going veg is very healthy, but if you find it too hard, maybe you could try buying your meats from a local family farm that treats the animals much more humanely than a factory farm. Even buying your eggs and milk from a small family farm would be much more ethical than buying the factory farm produced products from a grocery store, and fresh eggs from free range chickens taste better, have a richer color, and you don't have to feel bad about eating them.

Good luck on your mission to become a vegetarian, but stay away from anything PETA.

Answer 5

I think that if you like chicken you should try 'chik'n nuggets' by morning star farm. taste just like the real thing, but not meat. It even looks like it. It's very good when you need a 'meat fix'. Also if you want spaghetti so sloppy joe add some morning star farms grillers /.. it looks like meat.

But if you're not into the whole "fake meat" thing then try minestrone soup, bean and veggie chili, cheese enchiladas. There are many options.

And try gradually eventually you'll lose the taste and craving for meat

And also, remember it takes a strong person. If that's what you want don't give up.

Answer 6

in regards to the others who said they eat animals that are killed "humanely":

at one point, i was concerned about how animals were treated. i wanted their deaths to be as quick and as painless as possible. i bought "organic and free-range" meat thinking the animals were treated better. however, i came to realize that it isn't just about *how* they're slaughtered... it's about their life and their freedom. these animals do not deserve to die just to satisfy our appetites.

when it's all said and done, whether it's performed "humanely" or not, it's simply death: death to an animal who would have wanted to live their life as they're meant to. the animals we call food here are extremely intelligent and loving. don't they deserve a chance at life?

as for the asker, just stop. simply stop eating meat. practice compassion and self-discipline... if you can't stop a simple thing like this, then what will it be like when you're faced with another dilemma? will you take the easy way out because it's more convenient?

nothing is impossible. it may take some time, but find your niche and stick with it. read up on books and learn as much as you can about vegetarianism and veganism.

best wishes.

Answer 7

Let's cut the bull$hit. If you slip back into your meat eating ways, don't fight it. Apparently you like meat, right? That's what GOD put them here for! Eat up. Don't let the PETA pricks make you feel bad about eating meat. Steak, Pork Chops w/ baked apple, Fried Chicken, Hamburger... How can you say no to that?

I don't care about animal rights because we don't even give equal rights to other human beings! How's about we get that out of the way first, umm? Besides, chickens can't vote. Cows can't tap dance. Pigs can't sing. None of them can't read, write, or do math! So why are we so hell bent on "animal rights"? They are our food. I refuse to put food on the same level as me. At passover, eat the lamb. During lent, have some fish. During Independence Day, have some ribs. It's not like you're eating your parents or siblings!

Answer 8

Go to www.veggieboards.com

it's a vegetarian/vegan message board.

Answer 9

Cut out magazine/internet pictures of wistful-looking barnyard animals staring into the camera, then tape them to your refrigerator. Its a proven fact that eyes, even in photos, make people feel watched/guilty and make them more honest.

Just a thought ... never tried it.

Answer 10

If you're a church-goer find a Seventh Day Adventist church and convert...your parents and friends would probably help you a lot more if you were doing it for religious reasons.

As for resisting temptation, I truly don't know what that's like since I've never tasted meat before. It just looks like something dead on a plate to me...like when roadkill gets flattened beyond recognition and "cooked" by the sun.