What Made You Become A Vegetarian Or Vegan?

Well, sorry I am late, you must have known I would be here eventually in this one! For me it was a gradual thing. I never really liked eating big pieces of steak or anything that looked like animal flesh as a child, or even later. I preferred those meats that were manufactured and less meat looking like mince dishes, sausages, burger patties, etc. These were also far more unhealthy that a piece of steak though. My wife had dabbled in vegetarianism when I met her and her brother was a vegan. She was working in butcher shops at the time though and we used to get free meat! I had never met anyone like this before who had lived without meat. Her brother did it for environmental and ethical reasons and I shared some of those views, but still ate meat. When my wife to be at the time started getting into vegetarian dishes again later, I found that I liked them more than meat dishes and over time, gradually just gave up meat. She had gone completely vegetarian for health reasons as she was getting a bit overweight and still buying meat for me. I said to her, just don't buy it anymore. I am more than happy not to eat it. Then over time, we noticed improvements in our digestion, energy levels, and both had weight loss as we progressed into more vegan foods and then into a raw vegan lifestyle. I do not understand how you could possibly think that cutting meat out of your diet will cost more? Meat is expensive to produce and buy! Not eating it would save money! Replacing meat with lentils in a curry or Mexican dish, not only tastes better and is healthier, but is a lot cheaper! I personally have no issues with eating vegan around here as it is quite common and gaining popularity too. More and more options are becoming available for eating out, but we eat at home most of the time anyway. Clean up after meals has also become more easy as there are no greasy pans and masses of pots which need lots of heavy scrubbing. We are flexible with our kids. We want them to make their own decisions at their own pace. We did try to be hard core on them in the beginning, but that caused a lot of stress. They know what is healthy and what is not. They are aware of environmental factors in the meat and dairy industry. When they are at kids parties or friends houses, they are free to eat whatever the other people are having, but they do notice a difference in how they feel compared to when they eat at home.

There are no vegetarian or vegan in our family and so are my relatives by marriage.I have heard of IVU,flexitarian and so forth but as to vegetarian and vegan I can't be a bit more specific.I guess that vegetarian and vegan are like the ascetic.From the point of view of science,we must have a balanced diet,no matter whether vegetable or animal,as long as they are benefical to our health we see no reason why we don't eat them.

I am a vegetarian every once and awhile I will go on a vegan streak, I miss cheese too much and go back to technically being vegetarian lol I don't miss meat. I don't even think about eating meat at all. My husband and kids will eat vegan and vegetarian food, however once a week or so my husband cooks a meal that has fish or meat included and they will eat meat if we go out to eat. My 13 month old doesn't like meat, if you give it to her she spits it out - except sushi, my 12 year old isn't eating any meat right now. Personally, I find buying the foods me like to eat in general difficult: we don't eat processed, packaged food; we prefer organic, only guy cage free vegetarian fed eggs, don't buy items more than a handful of grams of sugar per serving, only whole grain, not high fructose corn syrup, we avoid all food colors/dyes and we don't like dairy (no cows milk at all, sometimes we will buy organic dairy yogurt, cheese and organic ice cream)

Most people in India are vegetarians due to religious reasons. But in our state, fish is a daily dish in most homes (except in those of a certain caste who are strict vegetarians and they happen to make up a very small percentage of people). I grew up eating fish almost everyday (except during festivals....if you don't count the days of the Gulf war when we were deprived of food totally or made do with what we could get our hands on). So, we do get weird looks when we tell people that we are Hindus from India who eat meat...the weirdest looks we get are when we say that we DO eat beef. We now stay in a state which is not a coastal area and we do not get fresh fish. And since I learnt to cook after marriage, I never learnt how to cook fish. So, we have vegetable dishes most days and non-veg is an occassional treat. This was the case for quite a few years till my little one who is a staunch non-vegetarian started throwing tantrums everyday and refused to eat his veggies. We now have chicken almost every day. I like salads and though I do crave for meat/seafood sometimes.....I'm fine with vegetarian dishes on most days.

Hiya Janey, Not a vegetarian but I don´t eat very much meat at all. I cook it and then give it to everyone else as I cannot go against what they want to eat. Do a lot of Chicken with Chick Peas and Lentils and that is done with plenty of vegetables so I don´t have enough room for meat after eating all that. I like the taste of chicken but it is rare I eat a lot of it now. Eat a lot of Salad too but they are making it much more expensive to find good lettuce and not that packeted stuff that does not taste of anything in particular. It can be hard to just stick to eating things that don´t have meat in them. Like Plke I eat a lot of vegetables whatever is going the cheapest at the time. I still eat Eggs though but not that much either.

I read a book that I randomly saw on the shelve in my local bookstore. I figured I want to be healthy and so I took a gamble and bought it. The Thrive Diet by Brendan Brazier started it all off. Now I am listening to the China Study on audiobook and reading The 80-10-10 Diet by Douglas Graham. He is worth looking up, try youtube and check out Harley Johnstone known as durianrider on youtube. After the health benefits would come the environmental reasons. I do treat my friends differently but in a good way, I invite them to go running with me and encourage them to eat more fruit and veggies and less meat and dairy. My family was a little worried for me but I ignored them at first. I don't live with them and if I had to I would probably tell them to bugger off if they criticized me.

I just love animals so much, I look at them as other living creatures that feel pain and have a will to live, I know me not eating meat doesn't make a lot of difference but I really do wish animals did not have to be killed...

Years back when I was a kid it was very hard to find vegetarian food options now at burger king they have veggie burgers and macaroni and cheese so theres a lot more to choose from. Sometimes in a nice resturant I have a hard time finding something vegetarian to eat though there is very limited options. My daughter doesnt like meat and my son eats a little. I am 27 and stopped eating meat when I was 7 because I hated that animals were killed for me to eat I couldnt stand the thought of it. My mother, father and sister were not vegetarians just me.

I am not a vegetarian Janey but for health reasons don't eat red meat now. I eat a lot of vegetables and am curious about your comment that being veggie would cripple you financially. I eat between five and ten different types of fruit and veg a day. Typically these cost no more than £15 per week for me alone. I buy from a mix of supermarkets and markets. When I used to eat "normally", I.e. Processed packet foods the cost was closer to £50 a week and did me nothing but harm. My current extravagance is raspberries but even these can be bought for £1.99 for 200g if I am prepared to shop around.

For me my parents are vegetarian then after along run I want to it because I know that it must done t my self so that I have the reason to became vegetarian.

It is a bad question.