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Why are you Vegan?


robert
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I was reading this thread at work when one of my colleague was reading an article on a tabloid telling the ordeal of a dog who had to be put down after suffering abuse by his owner. She said "how can people do that to animals": she's not vegan/vegetarian.

I'm vegan for that. I'm sure you see what I mean. The incoherence of our society is what made me realise how wrong it is to eat meat. We cringe when we hear of pet abuse or koreans eating dogs, we spend billions to take care of our pets, yet farm animals are considered nullity.

I don't want to be part of that, not anymore. I'm 26yo and I've been vegan for about 8 months, I've caused enough damage.

All we need is better education, we can't count on governments, there's too much money involved, but websites like this will undoubtely help spreading the message.

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Ethics for me, I always felt a hypocrite because I didn't think baby seal clubbing was right but I bitch about it while munching on a T-bone stake. The only reason why I hadn't made the leap to vegan was because I thought my training would suffer due to lack of protein.

 

Turning point was meeting Jullia Hill, the length she went for something she believed in inspired the hell out of me. Her story was kinda magical to me, I know it sounds kinda gay to say but hearing her story helped me cross over to the vegan side. I didn't care if I was going to get weaker or become unhealthy. Good thing I was just misinformed, I've never felt healthier and now that I'm training again I think its actually helped in many ways.

 

So, ethics over health for me, health is just a benefit.

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  • 1 month later...

I feel the best when I'm on a strict vegetarian diet consisting of unprocessed whole food.

So much I am sure of!

Ethics is a lot more complicated for me.

Is it better for an african mother not to kill the mosquito that is going to infect her child with malaria and kill it? Can a cow live in harmony with human beings? Some fish are obviously flourishing due to our pollution all the whilst taking up habitat from other fish that are dying by the millions. Is it ok to eat tofu from soybeans that you don't know where they come from? Is it ok to eat palmkernel oil of which you don't know the origin? Is it better that wild animals die of diseases instead of shooting some of them to prevent it? Is it better to buy the gloves from a wild raindeer than acryllic ones that pollutes the oceans?

 

Vegans as well as other animalrightists has brought to my attention the concept of factory farming and this concept is truly a disgrace to mankind. The status of our oceans and seas are also very disturbing.

 

For every chioce I make I want it to be the best for me and the rest of the world. It seemed so easy when I became a vegan now it has become more complicated. If I stare myself blind and petting my back for being a good vegan I might forget the reasons for which I became a vegan (making mine and others world a better place) and actually make the world a worse place than I intended. Having a negative attitude towards my fellow human beings for example won't help me, my friends or the animals nomatter what I consume for dinner.

It's a daily struggle.....

 

These are just some of the thoughts I have and I don't meen to diss anyone, really!!

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  • 2 months later...

I'm a vegan for health reasons primarily, but the ethical reasons are significant. One thing that's not mentioned enough I don't think, is how human ignorance is fostered, and cultivated among meat eaters. Factory farmings sucks for animals obviously, but the fact that the majority of people are ignorant of it, and how much effort is used to keep it that way, is mabey even worse.

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my first reason was health (reduce exposure to dioxin and other toxins that have been linked to cancer etc.)

 

second reason was environment (resource use, pollution etc.)

 

third reason was for the animals (i just didn't think of the ethical reasons early on)

 

when people ask me why, i start off with "for my health, the environment and the animals". i then elaborate if possible.

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I don't think I ever answered this...

 

I am vegan for ethical reasons, definitely. I find what is done to animals in the meat, dairy, and egg industries horrific, and I want to remove myself from it as much as possible.

 

I can't remember what started me thinking about it. I was vegetarian for ages (over a decade) and never really thought about dairy and eggs. Obviously, something made me start thinking about it, but now I can't remember what that is!

 

The environment is a second reason, but ethics is by far the big reason. Health is a nice little benefit but it's not really a reason for me to be vegan. I don't have enough willpower to completely abstain from something just for my health!

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This is always a tough question to answer when speaking to non-veg types. Usually, it is asked over a meal where someone is inevitably shoving some carcass down their throat. I don't know about everyone else, but I just don't think the topic can be seriously addressed in that environment, obviously they're going to justify why they're eating what's in front of them, whether it be verbally or in their own head.

 

And their justifications are always half-assed, IMO, b/c sad to say, I don't think many people think about where their food comes from beyond whether or not it was on sale at the huge chain grocery store that imports half-ripe, genetically modified, pesticide ridden foods from all corners of the world while exploiting the land of the people who grow it...They're not usually asking the vegan question with honest curiousity, but more to use it as a vehicle to justify why they eat the way they do. For some reason they need that gratification - they need the protein or they don't know what they would eat if they didn't eat meat or being vegan just seems boring. Almost everytime I get asked this question, there seems to be an attempt to make me seem like the weirdo, even when it comes from people who seem to have the best intentions. I was having a discussion about sugar not long ago, and I admitted that not all the sugar I eat is vegan - sometimes I will eat candy or buy non-vegan in a pinch if I need it to bake or something. I could just see the victory dance in the non-vegan's eyes when I admitted that, it was like, "ok, she's not perfect, it's alright if I eat meat."

 

In general, people see it as a sign of weakness if they find out they were wrong all along and are put in a position to have to change their minds in order to do the right thing. Instead, most will deny the existance of the problem so as not to admit they were ever wrong. New ways of doing things, new traditions, even if people know they're right, are rarely received with open arms. For some reason, I liken it to slavery (are animals kept in factory farms really dissimilar to slaves?). The plantation owners used slaves for generations and generations, nobody questioning if it was right or wrong b/c that's what they always did. I like to think that someday eating meat will be the same way, right now people do it, in part, b/c they don't know another way. Maybe that will change.

 

So, why am I vegan? When I first became vegetarian, it was basically all environmental reasons, we all know what those are. I wanted to preserve our Earth, and eating animals is contradictory to that goal. I knew in the back of my mind that using animal products at all was contributing to environmental woes, but I felt good knowing that at least I was contributing less. In the beginning, I was of the opinion that if an animal was killed in a humane way and not pumped full of hormones etc, that there was nothing wrong with eating them, but I still opted not to basically b/c I knew that there was no way of knowing, unless I killed the animal myself, that it was done humanely.

 

My opinion has since shifted. I read "Slaughterhouse" by Gail Eisnitz and saw that "Meet your Meat" video on PETA. I got out of denial. There is no way to humanely kill anything or anyone. I don't think that I should have the power to decide if someone lives or dies for my appetite when there is plenty of other food that I can eat. I found that I couldn't contribute another cent to something that I feel is so destructive to our world and to other species.

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Great thread.

 

I'm vegan because factory farming is pure EVIL, my cholesterol and BP were too high, and because my wife convinced me to "cut the crap" and go from veggie to vegan.

 

Also, and I'm not sure I've seen this reason in here yet - because it feels good to live a principled life. I'm living more in line with who I really am. I'm closer to the person I want to be, the person I know I can be deep inside - the ultimate me, if you will. The closer I get to that, the more happy I'll be.

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Also, and I'm not sure I've seen this reason in here yet - because it feels good to live a principled life. I'm living more in line with who I really am. I'm closer to the person I want to be, the person I know I can be deep inside - the ultimate me, if you will. The closer I get to that, the more happy I'll be.

 

Luv that! I know what you mean! So true!

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