enforcing vegetarian / vegan diet on others?

Question

I am a vegetarian, however I do not enforce what i have chosen on to other members of my family, especialy my son. I let him eat meat but I feel that make me no less of a vegetarian.

what i want to know is why SOME vegetarians and vegans have to enforce this onto others? and what honstetly does this achieve?
I love animals to but some of these past questions are animal activists wanting some sort of revenge on the world full of meat eaters. I believe in balance otherwise we will be over popualted with cows ect and can you imagine the stink,. (mind you would probably be able to fuel a car just on the smell)

Answer 1

I have never "enforced" the vegetarian lifestyle on anyone, if they ask, I tell. And I have never met any vegetarian or vegan who does that, I have even asked in this section before if the veg people in here do that. They all said no except one teenage girl who said she does. Some of the questions you are reading in here that are "animal activists wanting revenge" are in fact meat eater trolls making vegetarians and vegans look bad. They get a kick out of it because they lead boring pathetic lives. You have to ignore them.
Like Brenda B said, I also get a lot of "attacks" from meat eaters.

Answer 2

A parent duty is to teach a child what they think is best for him/her well being but if your son is an adult, than that is different, he is free to do whatever he thinks it is better for him.
My child is 6 and she has to eat what I eat, if she doesn't want to be vegetarian anymore, she may choose this after she became and adult and leave home.
The animals wouldn't never overpopulated the Earth because Nature controls they number. It is the artificial insemination that make the population of catle, sheep, etc be so big. A cow would have a calve every 2 years at least, but artificially impregnated, she has no choice but to endure another pregnancy soon after given birth, what she would do otherwise, she would use her energy to solely provide milk.

Answer 3

I totally agree! I've been a vegetarian for a couple of years and my decision was totally my choice. These 'activists' didn't persuade my decision at all, they just got on my nerves. Personally, I think that their 'campaigning is irritating and futile. It's really nice to see that somebody else agrees that there is no point in forcing beliefs down others throats.

I can't really think of a reason why these other veggies feel that they can change the world to believe what they believe. It makes absoloutely no sense!

But your overpopulation theory doesn't make much sense to me....

=]

Answer 4

Just wanted to educate you on why there is an overpopulation of cows. Humans over breed them. All those hormones, get them to mate and reproduce as much as possible. If we let nature take its course, those cows wouldn't be there. There'd be more of a harmonious balance.

Humans are pretty destructive, we cause the overpopulation so we can eat it. Vegetarian activists are doing so because they wish that more people would become vegetarian reducing the economic demand for meat, so farmers would force the reproduction of so many animals. Because of this, many foresting lands have been cut down just to create some land.

So you see, we're not helping create a balance, we're causing the inequality that makes it an imbalance in the first place.

No one can force anyone to eat anything. Sure, when my fiance and I get married and maybe have kids, we'll keep our household vegetarian and educate them about the benefits, but it's their choice to eat meat, it would just be outside the house (at school or at a friend's house or wherever).

Answer 5

Family is different than strangers. Enforcing on strangers is quite different.

Well, I suppose your son was not raised as a vegetarian. I know a lot of people raised as a vegetarian or vegan and they never said to their parents, "Oh, please please let me eat meat... I'm starving for some meat.. why won't you let me eat meat like my friends at school do?" Just doesn't happen. Just as those kids at school who's parents are from some other country... "Oh, why oh why are you feeding me this Iranian food... I want to eat the food the kids at school are eating..." or Chinese, or Japanese or whatever... None of my classmates ever had such things to say.

But, let's just be hypothetical.. if my kids wanted to eat meat.. I'd not allow them to eat it. Why? For the same reason I do not allow them to smoke, drink beer, pig out on candy, or whatever... Sure, if other parents want to allow their kids to do such things, but I do not... other parents are free to load their kids up with junk food, as I am free to allow my kids to eat healthily. When they are grown, they can do what they want, but that is what parents are supposed to be there for... to educate their children... too tell them the good from the bad etc. Some preach various religions to their children and have them attend church/temple etc. They do not force them to go (at least I hope not) -- it's part of their belief system. Some do not eat certain foods, such as pork, non Kosher, etc. If I choose to feed my children all organic vegan food and not allow them junk-food, I'm not forcing them... it's part of our lifestyle.

Answer 6

You are asking your question like vegetarian is meaning only for the human being concerned. In my point of view it is not the case. When you choose to become vegetarian, its probably because you had discover than animals have feelings, can be hurted and that its just wrong to exploiting them, like its wrong to exploiting human. So, I will answer you by another question: if your son want to kill your pets, or a beautifull squirel or a classmate, will you let him do this because every body is free to choose for himself? Personaly, I will teach my son what "meat" is meaning. I will teach him that meat is a dead animal. This animal like to live, to have childrens, to have friends, excactely like he do. And I will explain him that I think its wrong to kill (or to pay someone to kill) such animals. I dont feel that I enforce a diet on others. But in all my decisions, I have to consider all concerned interests. And the animals interested of stay in life seams to be bigger than a "delicious taste of meat". Dont you think? The choice to eat meat is not excactely like the choice to swimm or to dance. It means exploiting someone who dont want to be exploited. I wont let my childrens exploiting another children and/or torture another children. So why will I let him do that with an animal? Just because he look different as us? Because he have more hairs than us? Because he cant talk? Or because he have 4 legs? So what is the frontier? Is it the color of the skin? Or the level of the education? The frontier should be "can this being feel pain, hapyness?" If yes, so I will not hurt him for smaller reason than "survive" or "save my own-life" (this is just example).
Hope it help you to understand why some vegetarian, can be considered like "enforcing". This is not enforcement. This is just ethics. I'm sure you wont let your son destroy the car of your neighboor. The car, cant feel anything. So..... think about animals who can feel.... and decide what is the right answer.
Sorry if I'm a bit "direct" in my answer. I dont judge what you do or not do. I just try to help you to answer your difficult question. In the past, I asked myself with the same kinds of questions, and I know its not easy to get answer... as our mind as really formated like "Human are like God, they are just the top of the creation, animals are nothing, etc...". Vegetarian dosent mean to "love animals". No need to love all african peoples for being against racism. Its just understand that ethic cant stop at the frontier of white people and not even at the humanity frontier. Vegetarian is the easiest step to stop lot of cruauty on this planet. This is not the only one, I just said that it is probably the easiest. Last but not least, if everybody become vegetarian, overpopulated cows or pigs will not be a problem, because all cows or pigs that people are eating are "produced" by humans. If nobody buy them, we wont produce them anymore. Cheers.

Answer 7

i'm not a vegitarian however i dont eat many animal products apart from fish or chicken, and i try to stay away from dairy because it hurts my stomach but anyway, i actually used to date a vegan and things were fine between us. when we ate together he never had a problem with me eating meat, but then i've had some vegitarian friends that send me videos of cows and pigs being skinned, and chickens and lobsters being killed all to "prove a point" and convert me to vegatarianism, and quite frankly i find it very rude. because i'm not forcing any of my vegitarian friends to eat meat, and i have cooked vegitarian meals before as i own a number of vegitarian cookbooks. i dont know, i think people should be free to eat as they please, but i think some vegitarians/vegans maybe not take things too seriously, but they are very passionate about thier cause you know? i guess thats why they come across as forcefull at times, i can understand why but at the same time i hate being on the recieving end of it all and i dont think it's right.

Answer 8

Have you not considered you have fallen into the trap of forcing meat on your son. We all decide what we feed our children, be it fish,meat,soya, or whatever. We all decided whether to give our children processed or organic. Ready made or home made food.
My guess is that you are in fact a troll having a little festive stir.

Answer 9

Vegetarianism works in Body-Emotion-Intellectual balance.

*Body*
For health reason, taste, instincto, hate blood, filthy, etc

*Emotion*
Compassionate reason, sympathy to animal, suffering, pain, cruelty, cry, scream, love, care and freedom.

*Intellectual*
World issue, hunger, starvation, resources, meat-politics, freakonomics, domination by the strong ones, poverty, criminology psychopath.

There are common reason for most vegetarians show care to their loving one, insist others to opt or believe his values.

Your diet choice direct and indirectly affect others, like price leverage, govt's unfair distribution of people's tax money to subsidies and compensation to meat industry, control, treatment and research on meat-borne indigenous diseases, contamination and eradication of diseased livestock, etc. Last year the world had spent more than USD6 billion to curb poultries infected by Avian Flu alone (and this is only an example).

A ordinary vegetarian may console to show his/her love and care to others. (Like a mother to a child, a brother to his sister). But an intellectual vegetarian indeed has his/her "right" to question. The time will come soon when the literate public exposed to all truth, and question the authority for the happenings and "bias" around us.

Answer 10

People need causes; something to define their identities.

My best friend has chosen gay rights, I've chosen libertarianism, some people choose veg*nism.

That, however, must be combined with a more aggressive personality to give you a militant veg*n.

Some people just care more than others.