Veganism

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Animals eat animals regularly. Humans can make the choice not to, but we cannot deny our physiology. Certain needs must be met in order to be healthy. Finding that middle road of just enough is where Buddha really made the difference.

A great archived article in the Times demonstrating this point of view: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/week ... ttman.html

Some highlights (with my commentary in bold):

"...an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation."

"Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States."
It can take up to 16 pounds of grain and 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons, which could instead be used to feed people directly

"Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people. "
I'm a nurse in a hospital. Hospitals today are full of some of the most vile evolved pathogens in human history and the antibiotics that still do work are incredibly nasty and carry terrible side effects; I don't take my shoes home

I was a vegetarian at 14 (later vegan when 17) first for ethics; animals were my saviors, my tear-lickers when I would come home crying from school after being bullied. I stopped eating them when I was 14; I never really liked the taste of meat before then either. Later, I stayed vegan because of the above efficiency/environmental arguments.

I have no fundamental qualm with dairy, eggs or honey (I practiced vegetarian freeganism with dairy and eggs when I was homeless a few years ago); just how they are produced on a large scale. I'd like to have a small farm someday with goats, bees and chickens whom I will treat as goddesses and I will take what they have to offer in moderation and they will never be slaughtered, but allowed to live out their days in a spacious, clean, pastoral environment

My steak will not be in my cold dead hands. It will be in my cold dead stomach.

ruveyn

I'm vegetarian, no morality here though; I'm completely atheist and just a little amoral. I don't eat meat simply because I don't like the texture and the taste, especially the taste; it sticks in my mouth and refuses to leave! Vegans are a different story, I find veganism absolutely ridiculous. People who do not eat animal products are simply being impractical. Chickens produce unfertilized eggs, why let them go to waste? Cows produce milk, it's delicious and they cannot go very long without being milked. The list goes on.

However, humans, being the flawed, greedy, disgusting things they are feel the need to industrialise and, in doing so, have exploited and manipulated these animals for their produce. This is wrong, but this is no reason not to eat these products, the products don't hurt the animals, the human treatment does, it's our behaviour we need to change, unfortunately this seems very tricky.

Anyway, this is just my opinion. Vegans of course have the right to believe what they want and I have the right to find what they believe flawed and that is the entire history of human conflict. But I digress, in the end all it comes down to is "do I like this?" And"if I do, I see no problem with enjoying it" whilst working towards whatever moral agenda you may have.

Being a vegan is one thing if you were raised as a vegan, but switching from being an omnivore to being an herbivore is not that easy. However, if people today had to kill animals in order to eat meat, most would more than likely stop eating meat altogether. I would at least and most people today seem to also be able to accept gruesome acts against other humans and other creatures in general only so long as they are not present for the acts of slaughtering. If I were to attempt to be a vegetarian again, I'd probably have to go with being a lacto-ovo variety of vegetarian though since it is less abstracted and easier to do than live purely from vegetables alone.

Lacto-ovo? Is that a real thing? I still eat eggs and dairy products but I still consider myself a standard vegetarian. Is there some set of rules and sub-classifications that I don't know about? Some sort of...vegetarian code or secret society? In unrelated news I have just conceived the greatest film idea of 2012.

lacto-ovo = eats dairy and eggs
the term is used to distinguish from vegetarians who don't eat dairy or eggs (often called 'vegans').
or some people are lacto but not ovo, or vice-versa.
I observe that ovo-pesco (eggs and fish but not dairy) is becoming popular among my health-conscious peers.

Personally I am becoming Flexo (prefer veggies but not militant about it) in my old age.