From: vprasad@uoft02.utoledo.edu
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: rec.food.veg survey results - Part 2
Date: 26 Aug 92 19:20:58 EST
Organization: University of Toledo, Computer Services

================================================================================
		    REASONS WHY PEOPLE CHOOSE VEGETARIANISM
================================================================================
From: mmc@unhd.unh.edu (Meg Cawley)
Subject: Name Your Diet POLL - RESULTS part 2

         Part 2 of the results. These are the reasons people gave for choosing 
their particular diet. Happy reading!

6) Main reason you are a veg: health

6) Main reason you are a veg: health

6) Main reason you are a veg: health

6) Main reason you are a veg: ethical (animal rights) and environmental

6. My reason for being a veg is health: primarily my own, secondarily that of 
   the planet.

6) Main reason you are a veg: Ethical

6) Main reason you are a veg: Not for moral reasons; I guess health reasons. I 
   got grossed out a few years ago by how meat-centered my diet was, so I cut 
   out most meat. Now, it tastes fatty, makes my skin greasy, upsets my stomach
   and I don't really crave it.

6) Main reason you are a veg: cultural, social (religious?) reasons. Always 
   been veg, and belong to a veg family, and I actually like to be veg.

6) Main reason you are a veg: health/dietary reasons

6) animals are my friends..:)

6) Health

6) Main reason you are a veg: health

6) Main reason you are a veg:
    1) Factory farming.
    2) Environment
    3) Animal rights
    4) Hinduism (I like the tie-in, though I am not devout)
    5) Health
    6) My girlfriend is one.  Although she never tried to convince me in any 
way,  I came to the conclusion from watching her that it's really not necessary
If it's not, why kill them?

Note:  The order follows the first being MOST important. They're all really 
important, however. They are factors which all work together. Pretty much I 
don't agree with killing MAMMALS and other fairly intelligent animals since it 
is TOTALLY unecessary unless you buy the 'taste' argument. As for fish, I don't
really consider them very intelligent, so in the animal rights sense, there is 
no problem. They are not factory farmed, so that is not a problem.  The 
Environment, Hindu, and consistency issues enter in here. I wouldn't want to
confuse people, when I say I am a vegetarian. Also, there are problems with 
what happens to other animals, like DOLPHINS, when fish are FISHED. :) Besides,
I don't nor did I ever like fish, or the smell thereof. :)

6) Main reason you are a veg: I'm smarter than you. (just kidding, sometimes it
   is what I say though)
   Human = species evolved to state 'x'
   animals = species evolved to state 'x minus epsilon' (epsilon very small)
   I enjoy life as an x so My gues is that x - e also does therefore live and 
   let live.

6) Main reason you are a veg: first religion, now from personal convictions 
   regarding cruelty to animals and personal health.

6) Main reason you are a veg: Habit, taste (started moving toward keeping 
   kosher while still eating in the dining center at college. Before I left 
   the dining center entirely I ate only veggie stuff there. Then I couldn't 
   afford meat...sort of lost habit/taste for meat) money (meat is expensive), 
   convenience (it is a pain to get kosher meat at many places). Health is 
   kind of a bonus-- motivation, not orig. reason.

6) Main reason you are a veg: My reason for reducing meat intake is health 
   related, not aesthetic. I do not intend cutting out fish.

6) Main reason you are a veg:	Health + Humanitarian issues

6) Main reason you are a veg: No good reason not to be! Also, seems more 
   "natural."

6) Main reason you are a veg: moral/ethical

6) Main reason you are a veg:       Humanitarian/animalitarian etc.  

6) I don't want to support the mistreatment of "cultivated" animals; a close 
   second is health.

6) ecological reasons

6) Motivation: Mostly ethical. I also believe that a vegetarian diet is 
   healthier than one with a lot of meat, provided the veggie diet doesn't go 
   over board on dairy products. But that is just a side benefit. I am a 
   vegetarian for the animals' heath, not mine. I think very moderate meat 
   consumption is harmless to the human.

6) Main reason you are a veg:

         Became one as an experiment... was trying to determine if food
allergies affected my eczema.  Cut out all meat, fish and chicken.  Later
discovered main culrpit was dairy produce, but never felt any need to restart
eating  meat.  Have since become more convinced of the ethics and health
benefits of vegetarianism...

         Main Reasons - have evolved over the years, but for now, I don't need
it and don't want to consume the resources that are necessary to produce it.
For that reason, I would feel better about eating hunted animals than
domestically, commercially produced animals, but I really just prefer not the
eat animals at all.  The fish is a compromise - it allows me to have meals out
with others, to entertain and to be a guest without too much emphasis on the
fact that I don't eat what many others eat.

6) Main reason you are a veg:

         My older sister started. She was a very difficult child, and my mother
feared she might decide never to eat any more if she tried to force her to eat.
(Kid did decide never more to go to the potty at one occation. Well, you can't
succed with that-something did happen every week-but it is quite possible to
stop eating. You'll die, of course, but that's just a side-effect). I thougt
everything she did was right, so I followed her example.

6) Main reason you are a veg:   Health, environment, budget.

6) If I'm not willing to go out and kill for food, then why should I let 
   someone else do it for me.

6) Main reason you are a veg: Was brought up that way and the idea of meating
   meat looks as appealing as eating a dead skunk.

6) Two of my best friends are vegitarians and I really respect them and I found
   out that when I was 5 I wouldn't eat beef because of what it did to cows. 
   This subsided for about 12 years after I discovered the BigMac.

6) Main reason you are a veg: I believe it's healthier

6) Main reason you are a veg: animal rights/ecology (I feel they are tied 
   together)

6) Main reason you are a veg:	to avoid animal abuse

6) Main Reason:

         I have serious allergic reactions to all fish and poultry. As far as
animal products are concerned, this leaves me with only red meat and eggs
(whatever I'm allergic to doesn't make it into the eggs).  Since I am concerned
about my cholesterol level, I try to limit the amount of animal products I
consume.  That's why I am mostly a vegetarian.  However, I still do like to
have meat once in awhile (those are the "cloudy days" in my fair-weather
vegetarian diet).

         Why only 4 years??  I've had this allergy for about 10 years. However,
my father is a "meat and potatoes" type of person so my mother and I could only
cook things that he would approve of (we could cook some other meat item that
he didn't like, as long as we made something for him.  However, we couldn't
make vegetarian things because we couldn't take his kvetching about an
"inadequate meal".)

6) Main reason: it turns my stomach to think about eating dead animals.

6) Main reason why I have been a veg? - I was born in a strict Hindu Vegetarian
   family in India; so I guess it is because of religious reasons. ******

6) Main reason you are a veg:

         By now, it's inertia.  Once upon a time I raced cross-country and
quickly found that I would vomit meat if I ate it the day of a race.  Last I
checked (didn't think to ask when a friend handed me a snack) meat gave me
indigestion.  So I would have to reacclimate (assuming I could) to eat meat,
which seems pointless.

6) Main reason you are a veg: Health/Animal Welfare/Ecology/Protest against
   North American conspicuous consumption (eg 20 ounce steaks in restaurants!)

6) Main reason you are a veg: ethical, primarily, although I am increasingly
   becoming aware of the positive environmental impacts, and health benefits. 
   (I prefer to ask what good reasons people have for *not* being veg! :-)

6) Main reason you are a veg: I like animals, no sense killing them to feed me 
   when it isn't necessary.

6) main reason-ethical (although it is hard to pick one)

6) Main reason you are a veg: 1) imact on the planet 2) health 3) reduce
   unnecessary cruelty.

6) Main reason is food chain arguement--too many resources expended to feed 
   the rich.

6) ethical

6) ethical

6) Reasons:  ethical and health.  I know how much healthier I felt after 
   eliminating dairy products; I know my body does not digest meat very well, 
   and I'm sure I am better off without it. I am a staunch animal rights 
   person, and find I can no longer ignore their suffering in this area -- 
   anymore than I could leave an injured cat or dog lying in the street. I am 
   trying very hard not to be a hypocrite!! (I am also trying very hard not to
   involve myself in arguments all the time or proselytize --sp?? - which is 
   why I haven't insisted on complete vegetarianism so far). I've also recently
   read MOST of "Diet for a New America".  Yegods!

6) Main reason you are a veg:   Health, environmental reasons.

6) Main reason you are a veg:

         I ate mainly veggie food for years before becoming a fully fledged
veggie. I never particularily loved meat.  Turning veggie seemed a natural
thing to do.  Concern to make less of an environmental impact (wilderness land
is the best land !!!), concern to reduce use of animals by man, feeling that a
mass-mechanised farming society is not justified in using animals when it can
very easily avoid doing so.  A feeling that this is the right thing for me to
be doing (spiritual ??).  I was going out with a vegetarian girl when I turned
fully veg, which made it easier but wasn't really a motivation. Health wasn't
really a consideration as I was already eating very little meat.  I don't have
a sweet tooth and I "graze" on fruit given the chance, so I guess I'm just a
natural healthy eater (except for caffeine :^).

>6) Main reason you are a veg:- health reasons 
    Vegetarian because it's a healthier diet, vegan because I'm allergic to 
    milk products and eggs.
    - More environmentally sound
    - I like animals

6) Main reason you are a veg:   N/A

Note: I am not vegetarian, but for health reasons I do not eat meat with every 
meal.  Additionally, I have friends whose diets range from strict vegetarian 
to fish-eating quasi-vegetarians.  

6) Main reason you are a veg:  Animal rights & environmentalism

6) Main reason you are a veg: Death is suffering.
Killing animals causes them suffering.
I don't want other sentient beings to suffer.
I don't eat animals.

6) Main reason you are a veg: health

6) Main reason you are a veg: Environmental impact, health, squeamishness
   (i.e. not eager to kill) / animal sympathy

6) Main reason you are a veg: I never felt good about eating animals, and 
reading about vegetarianism in James Fixx's (rip) Running book gave me the 
impetus to give it a try.  I've since come to enjoy and appreciate the health 
aspects of it, having recently found out my father (I'm an adoptee) died at 
age 47 with artherosclerosis.  I also feel good about the political/ecological
benefit of eating lower on the food chain. This *is* Berkeley, don'tchaknow.

6) Main reason you are a veg: philisophical (not religious and not necessarily 
   "moral")
 
6) Main reason you are a veg: Healthier Diet

6) Main reason you are a veg: No meat--moral and political. No dairy-allergies.

6) Main reason you are a veg:  I like animals
 
6) Main reason you are a veg: aesthetic
   Poor kidney function - need a low protien diet. You don't need to eat meat
   to be healthy, so why do it.

6) Main reason(s) for vegetarianism: "all of the above" -- sort of fell into
   it because all our (my wife's and mine) friends seemed to be veggie, so we 
   got used to it.  Also: anti-factory-farming, pro-animal-rights, economics 
   (local: cheaper to eat; global: sustainable food production), taste (I love 
   to cook: I find veggie cooking more varied and enjoyable)

         As far as my health goes, my cholesterol is way down, along with my
weight; but the main benefit I get is that I generally feel better.  I also
notice that the less cheese/milk I use the better I feel, so I expect that
these foods will disappear soon from my menus.

6) Initially, because I was finally overcome with how yucky it is to eat the 
   flesh of dead animals, and also because I am a very experimental cook and 
   wanted to learn to cook vegetarian. Since then I have become more aware of 
   the environmental impact (or lack thereof!) of a meatless diet, and my 
   fondness for animals has grown as well. Health things - I've lost weight, 
   and I feel healthier both physically, mentally and spiritually.

6) Main reason:  I have been veg since I was born. My entire family is veg.  I 
tried eating meat once or twice after coming to the US, but I was too grossed 
out and I knew that I cannot tolerate this any more.

6) Main reason you are a veg: Health reasons

6) Main reason you are a veg: Ethical reasons (not religious)

6) Main reason you are a veg: Errr, 'cos I like animals?

6) Moral

6) Main reason: Environment. Health and ethical reasons strong, too.

6) Main reason you are on current diet: Health

6) Main reason you are a veg: I think eating meat is gross.

6) Main reason you are a veg: immeadiate health -- If I were to eat animal 
   products I would not digest it well, and would feel lousy.

6) Environmental concerns (it takes alot more energy/resources to make a pound 
   of meat than a pound of veggies)

5) Reasons: 1. Ecology. 2. Couldn't kill an animal myself. 3. Health (in order 
   of priority)

6) WHY VEG: Started out with 1st apartment - couldn't afford meat. After a few 
   months, found out didn't like it anyway and makes me royally ill to eat it. 
   Don't even like the smell. Only just lately getting to the moral side of 
   the issue. Staying veg also because I feel much better - less sick with 
   colds etc - and want to prevent later illnesses.

6) Main reason you are a veg: Ethical/Moral (then Environmental)

6) Main reason you are a veg: Health, evolving into moralistic & environmental 
   as well.

6) Health and animals


6) Main reason you are a veg:
   
         A friend explained the health reasons to me.  Although overall I don't
eat meat because of health reasons, it started getting me to think about it.  I
guess I have since been "weened" off of the taste, as well as the "I couldn't
kill one myself" issue. Pretty much the same reasons for thinking about fish.
Question:  Is is odd or weird to eat only shellfish out of the fish group? 
Everyone has their own reasons for not eating whatever, but I was wondering if
you knew of anyone who was the same as me for fish. As for chicken, 
someday...but it will be alot harder!

6) Main reason you are a veg: Brought up vegetarian. Tried eating meat but 
   my brain turns me off when I think of the animal can eat "invisible" meat 
   products but no "real" meat.

6) Main reason you are a veg: Health; mine and the environment's, protesting 
   factory farming (when I do buy eggs, I go for as locally produced as I can 
   get).
 
6) Main reason you are a veg: factory farm methods

6) Main reason you are a veg: eliminated mammals for moral reasons, 
                              poultry for health reasons

6) Main reason you are a veg:  Raised a vegetarian.

6) Main reason you are a veg: health/environmental impact/cost

6) Main reason you are a veg:

         better control over health + interested in a lifestyle which can work
more in harmony with the earth's ecosystem;  the earth cannot support or deal
with so many meat eaters and their waste + enjoy a lifestyle which has little
dependence on animal products for daily survival.

6.  Health, love of animals, ethics, environmental in that order.

6) Religion: Buddhist. Also: recent allergic reaction to eggs and milk products.

6) Main reason you are a veg: Against cruelty to animals.
 
6) Main reason you are a veg:   

         Animals, I use only cruelty free, animal free soap and shampoo and
all, and I don't wear  leather.  I even got in trouble for putting  cards into
coat pockets at a furrier.  My British girlfriend has been in hunt sabbing. I
also buy all the other arguments,  espescially the famine argument.  American 
farmers waste as much oil as Detroit!  I don't really give a damn about health,
but I do want food to taste good, and I know I like food a  lot more now than
when I was a carnivore.

6) Main reason you are a veg: ethical

6) Main reason: Environmental, health, ethics, the whole ball of tofu, I guess,
   no main reason. I didn't see any reason NOT to be a veg.

6) Reason (if you're interested): 

 I care mostly about people starving to death, not about animal welfare.  I'm
 disgusted by the inefficiency of growing cows, pigs etc. for food, especially
 when many people in the same countries are starving. 

 In Ethiopia in 1985 (the height of the "Band Aid" famine), they exported 3000
 tons of beef to Britain, produced on prime farming land on commercial cattle
 ranches in the rich south of the country. That's utterly obscene. 

 So, I don't mind eating fish, because there's no veggie food alternative from
 the sea (unless you like plankton or seaweed).
 
6) Reasons for same:  COMPLETELY 100 PERCENT ETHICAL. I am a very strong
 activist in the areas of animal rights and antivivisection. I have been 
 arrested for what I believe in and will be arrested again if the need is there 
 to help the animals by acts of peaceful civil disobedience.
   
6) Reason:  At first, health; now health and ethics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: gt4646a@prism.gatech.EDU (gt4646a BEAUCHAMP, ROB)

>	If it is appropriate, I'd like to know about reasons people have
>for their choice of vegan to no-flesh diets.

 For me, it boils down almost entirely to a health choice. A couple years back 
 I picked up a book called "The Paleolithic Prescription", which prompted me 
 to begin cutting back on meats and animal fats. I was ovo-lacto-vegetarian 
 for over a year, and just recently (and painlessly) switched to a near-vegan 
 diet. From the reading I've done (and I've stuck to reputable sources), I'm 
 convinced it's the way we're designed to eat. 

 A younger sister of mine has been vegetarian for longer than me (ovo-lacto). 
 For her, it's more out of concern over animal cruelty. (One of these days  I'm
 going to have to talk to her about dairy farms.) 

 [BTW: By "near-vegan", I mean I occasionally eat fish (but not shellfish).  I
 read somewhere that the term for this was "pesco-vegetarian." I think  I'll
 just stick with "near-vegan."]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: j_doe@Pokey.ncsa.uiuc.edu (John Doe)

 There is (at least) one other reason for turning (or staying) veg: some folks 
 just find meat products "gross".  When people ask me why I don't eat meat, I
 sometimes tell them: 'probably the same reason you don't eat cock-roaches
 :-)'.  Doesn't have to be rationalized moral/economical/ethical & health
 reasoning behind it- some people just don't like the idea of  ingesting dead
 animal tissue.

 When I first turned vegetarian, I did it partly for health reasons, and partly
 for ethical & moral reasons.  I think that in the back of my mind, I still
 clung to the idea that I 'needed' to eat meat to get enough protien, and to be
 stong & healthy.  The decision to make the switch was helped along when I
 found out that quite a few *very strong & healthy* bicycle racers that I knew
 were vegetarian.  After being vegetarian for several months, the  'need for
 meat' syndrome was cleared from my mind and it really became hard for my to
 justify eating meat at all- and in fact it started to seem really gross.  This
 was totally unexpected and really surprised me: I used to snack on raw
 steak...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: gph@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Paul Houtz)

I am a strict vegetarian, in that I eat no animal products. Reasons:

 1. Only animal foods contain cholesterol.  Dietary intake of Cholesterol has
    been proven to be dangerous to human health.
 
 2. I believe the evidence strongly suggests that humans are herbivores, not
    carnivores.  Humans are not well designed for eatin animals.
      
 3. Today's polluted environment makes eating lower on the food chain safer.

 4. The vegetarian diet wastes far fewer resources.   Many more people could be
    fed if our produce were not fed to animals.

 5. Today's animals are raised in factory farms in the U.S.  I find this cruel
    and abhorrent, and refuse to support the U.S. animal farming industry.

 6. I care for animals and believe that humans are mentally, physically, and
    spiritually healthier if they consume a diet of plants only.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: MONNINGH@THYME.FNAL.GOV (MAX MONNINGH)

 1. Animals concentrate enviornmental toxins in their tissues. Most smart non-
    vegans don't eat fish from Lake Chicago (Lake michigan) very often, if at 
    all. Remember how DDT concentrated in the food chain to endanger several 
    ichthyophagous bird species. Remember the PCB contaminated cows?

 2. Animals are often fed growth hormones, antibiotics etc., to increase the
    farmer's productivity.  The animals are supposed to be on diets free of 
    the various proscribed chemicals for a"drying-out" period before slaughter,
    but this is not always observed. These additives have been demonstrated to 
    have adverse effects on humans.

 3. Animal flesh can contain a number of parasites. These parasites are (in the 
    cases of mammals and avians) are adapted to warm-blooded hosts. 

 4. Growing meat animals is at least one order of magnitude less efficient than
    growing crops.

 5. Cattle have been implicated as being one of the top three or four sources 
    of biogenic methane.

 6. Cattle production has resulted in the pollution of numerous watersheds.
   
 7. Poultry has been shown to carry salmonella.
    
 8. Shellfish have been demonstrated to carry cholera.
    
 9. Devastation of numerous species: extinctions, range extinctions, are 
    directly attributable to the cultivation of meat animals. (wolf, coyote...
    
10. Meat eating results in increased chance of heart attack, cancer, stroke,
    diverticulitis, gall stones, elevated serum cholesterol, etc. 
    
11. There is no scientifically credible evidence to suggest that animal flesh 
    is a necessary component of the human diet. Human beings have been shown 
    to live long healthy lives without ever eating any animal flesh.
    
12. It is less expensive to eat a vegan diet than a meat based diet.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: tmccard@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Tim McCardle - E41)

Atri Indiresan writes about a vegetarian choosing to become a non-vegetarian:

| While I don't want to judge anyone by their choice of diet, it seems bizarre
| to me that someone would make a conscious effort to do something emotionally
| repulsive, to make life a little less complicated. Being vegetarian in the US
| quite easy.  It just takes a little conscious care - a little label reading in
| the supermarket, informing other people where relevant etc. - and it certainly
| doesn't make you a social outcast, or a peculiar species people gawk at in a
| zoo.

 The following may explain why a vegetarian would begin to eat meat in America:

 Social pressures similar to those that are pro-vegetarian in India, are
 anti-vegetarian in this country.  The mentality can be summarized as follows:

 If you are what you eat, then you aren't what you don't eat. If you reject
 what others eat, then you reject them.

 This makes it impossible to escape the "emotionally repulsive" aspect of
 eating with certain people unless you don't mind making other people feel
 uncomfortable.  For those that do, the emotional stress may be minimized - for
 themselves and others - by simply eating meat.  If there are professional
 pressures, as well, then it is even more complicated.

 The above of course, depends on the people you eat with.  The more
 "mainstream" you and they are, the greater the pressures.  Those mainstream
 individuals who become vegetarian may discover that food is an extremely
 divisive issue since "breaking bread" is an almost innately cohesive act -
 when people can't break the same bread - it may limit the bonding and create
 tension.  The cumulative effect of the social pressure, year after year, can
 take a very heavy toll after a while.  Here are some of the possible pressures
 and emotional difficulties for a married couple:

  1. The meat dishes which have been a family tradition on special occasions are
     no longer eaten by you or your spouse.  (this is especially difficult for
     the spouse that preceded the other in becoming vegetarianism)  
  2. You want to go out to eat with your parents, but the restaurants they like,
     serve few if any vegetarian entrees (and it is tiresome to have to ask for
     special orders there). They do not like the vegetarian restaurants you
     prefer.       
  3. Many older, powerful individuals look unfavorably on vegetarianism.  These
     individuals happen to be your work clients or superiors - or both.  
  4. Many men see vegetarianism as effeminate, stigmatizing those who practice
     it.    
  5. Your children's friends want them to eat meat or give them a hard time
     about vegetarianism.  Your children want to eat meat because of social
     pressures or taste and even want you to prepare it for them at home.   
  6. When you or you children are sick, people blame in on vegetarianism
     
 Eating is simple if you are not subject to the above, but it is not always so
 simple for those who are.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: terra@athena.mit.edu (Terra Witkop)

 My reasons are, or at least started out being a little strange.  When I was
 18, just before I left home for college, I was dating a guy who was a
 semi-veg.  When we ate out and I had beef, he would tease me and call me "a
 little carnivore".  I took that as a challenge, and decided that if he could
 stop eating red meat, so could I.  At that time, it also was a great
 expression of rebellion, as red meat was always a prominent feature in the
 family diet.  When I went to school I became a semi-veg (except for two brief
 lapses during the fall semester of frosh year, when I was very  depressed and
 ate a cheeseburger [at the Hatch, if there are any UMASS/ Amherst folks out
 there] in a sort of gesture of self-flagellation, I think. The relationship
 with this guy flagged, and my diet became more of a discipline.  Even allowing
 for chicken and fish, it's not that easy in the U.S.!  At the same time, I was
 doing a bit of reading up on vegetarianism, and found plenty of good reasons
 to continue excluding red meat from my diet.  Also, I've found that
 semi-vegetarianism helped me to explore various types of food I might not have
 bothered with otherwise (having grown up in such a meat'n'potatoes family, I
 can imagine I would probably cop-out with burgers a lot.)  I have eaten no
 flesh at all since early September.  I think the biggest motivator to me is
 the personal challenge and self-discipline, although health considerations
 enter into it somewhat.  Incidentally, I love Indian food!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mcdermot@socrates.umd.edu (Tara McDermott)

 I had never even acknowledged the existence of vegetarianism until I went to
 college.  There, I became good friends with several vegetarians, who soon
 educated me all about it.  I didn't take any of it seriously for the first
 year, though I did refrain from eating any meat around any of them.  Many of
 my friends were, well, I guess you could call them militant vegetarians, but
 they all knew that preaching of any sort turned me off.  They never brought
 the subject up;  as soon as I mention something, or expressed interest I would
 always learn about the evils of factory farming, et cetera.  It wasn't until I
 had done a lot of hard thinking and had exposure to the idea of it that I even
 took the idea of turning vegetarian seriously.  During my second year of
 engineering I opted to take the oral communication skills test (a speech),
 instead of having to actually take the course. I finally chose as a subject
 vegetarianism (I wonder where this will lead?).  The weekend before my big
 speech, I had one of my best friends come up for the weekend and bring a whole
 slew of propaganda to help me, and in the process of seeing hard facts and
 evidence of how utterly disgusting the process of getting meat is, I really
 wanted to be vegetarian.  That night when I went down to the dining hall and
 saw all these dishes made with meat in front of my eyes, I knew at that point
 that I would no longer eat it.

 Being on a meal plan, and having practically no alternatives for food choices
 (the supermarkets were pitiful in selection, and incidentally far away), I
 ended up relying on cheese and milk as my main staples. Cereal was the single
 most common meal for me those long months.  It was NOT easy even then.  I was
 brought up on the common meat and potatoes fare, and considered meat my
 favorite food (and still do, though I won't ever eat it).  

 Those were the reasons that I became vegetarian in the first place - having
 friends who showed me what it was all about, and how much better for the
 earth, for yourself, and for your piece of mind it was. Several of my friends
 are literally founts of knowledge, and through them and usenet, I finally made
 the transition to veganism this summer.  Having just moved down to MD, and
 getting a job at a health food store only helps.  

 As for what kinds of food I eat, well, LOTS of stuff!  There are the usual
 vegetables - broccoli and potatoes (poo pah on the macrobiotic diet - they
 don't eat potatoes!  I think I would die if I couldn't do that) and corn on
 the cob, and mushroom-scallion stir frys, tofu dishes, falafel, lentil pilaff,
 rice pilaff, long grain and wild rice, lentil soup, any vegan chinese food,
 brown rice, lots of pasta!, granola, soy milk, grape-nuts (yum!), lots of
 fruit, tomatoes, more rice.  If you can think of it, it can be made.
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From: 284miley@gw.wmich.edu (Tim Miley)

 I never knew any vegetarians, saw any vegetarians, and if I did, I probably
 would have laughed at them.  I was overweight, loved McDonalds, and told
 myself that I didn't give a darn about the fact that I was eating ground up
 dead cows.  I was tired of being fat, though.  I wanted to get into the Navy,
 but I couldn't pass their weight requirement, so I ventured into a health food
 store and picked up an interesting looking book called "Vegan Nutrition: Pure
 and Simple" for some reason.  I like to think it was divine assistance.  At
 any rate, I was eating a piece of pizza (yuck!) and reading the book and the
 reaction that came to me was something like the experience someone would have
 who had been lied to all of his life.  I went vegan the next day (I still have
 trouble believing this myself!).  My parents were neither enthused nor
 vehemently opposed.  

 So, I read more about veganism and meat-eating and came to the conclusion that
 meat-eating was not only unhealthy, but also bad for the environment, and just 
 plain WRONG.  Humans have no right to eat animals, test (torture) them, use 
 their skins for clothing, or exhibit them for profit.
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Newsgroups: rec.food.veg