i have been vegitarian for about 3 years now. my roommate is vegan. i have always thought it was extreme and not something i could do. today i was cleaning and he is considering doing volunteer work for "Vegan Outreach" so i am picking up the propaganda around the apartment and i find this little booklet called "Why Vegan?" so i stopped and read it. it was very very very sad. i never did much research beyond meat and meat productivity. but this was just horrifying. i almost felt like i really hadn't done anything good. now i am wondering why i am vegiterian. while i now have the information i would need to help me consider being vegan and understanding why my roommate is. i would hate to make this choice for the wrong reasons. but what wrong reason is there to do it? even if i did it just for acceptance it would be good. it would be one less person fueling the insane machine of the industry. in 1997 they found that in the U.S between one and a half to two million people were vegans. there is a number i never would have imagined. i always thought only crazy people wanted and chose to be vegan. like it was an extermist way of thinking or something. but the facts keep piling up. i don't know. wait a second! i am rambling!

Give us more of the interesting facts, then we can comment. I travelled with a vegan in Ireland. It was hell. But I wouldn't say I judge all vegans on him. Just a thought to throw out there, you know?

The Morals of the whoel thing - just where do you draw the line? Say you cut out all animal products - but you don't also cut out all non-animal foods that haven't come off a small family farm. Then you are contributing to habitat loss and monoculture agriculture, to erosion and soil nutrient depletion. in my eyes, that's just as bad as animal meat factories. it seems to me that there are way too many of us on this planet for all to go back to the self-sufficient, grow your own, raise your own lifestyle. How do you feed everyone? I have considered veganism, but I just can't see doing it half-assed, and I don't have the abilities and resources to become a self-sufficient small farmer.

the cheese man, THE CHEESE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i guess there lies that point where veganism has always seemed outrageous to me. the vegan outreach site says, "one person alone can't change everything. a lot of people think you have to becomevegan all at once. do it at your own pace. veganism doesn't have to be an all or nothing choice. there are people who are vegiterian who think they can't do it right away and they do nothing. that is just as bad." they also said that the only thing that truly defines veganism is a person who is not interested in fueling practices that promote cruelty to animals. hense why the whole no by products thing. i think i will see how it goes. i believe that gradually would be the best thing. cause i am truly doing it for myself. not for any fashion statement or clique`. it almost isn't a test of will power. there is no wrong reason to do it. is how it feels. liek even if you did it to impress someone, you are still helping in a big way. they said on there that by products are just that, by products. if the industry shuts down, the by products will disappear. they also tell you some ingerdients to look out for. they aren't just all about veganism either. they are just about stopping an industry that has has turned animals into machines. not living things. they treat them like computers and it is just a factory where you disassemble them. they have some interesting things to say when people give you the old "but plants have feelings." and they are omniovoires. humans have feelings. but apparently we are too "ethical" to eat them. go look at it. http://www.veganoutreach.com

My sister brought home a vegan friend last Thanksgiving, and she brought with her a Tofurkey. The most foul thing you've ever seen or tasted. If you're vegan/vegetarian, I wouldn't think you'd want anything that's supposed to look or taste like meat. Also, my sister and her vegan friend came to visit me once, and all we did was spend time finding either the right groceries or restaurants suitable for her to eat in. It was annoying, and the whole thing just made her seem selfish, as if what my sister and I ate and whether we liked it or not didn't matter.

Yeah, sometimes it feel slike that travelling with vegans. I don't really like fake meat. (I'm veg.) However, I do eat tofu, because it has things I need to get somehow, and it's very malleable. Just about anything can be made from soy. Even cheese. However, not all soy products are good. Soy cheese, for example. I just don't think I can live without milk. I get it from the neighbor's cow, though, so it isn't so bad. The other thing is animal testing. The vegan I mentioned above condones animal testing because all he cares about is inefficient land use, not cruelty, which I think is rather silly. However, he is firm in his convictions. Not all meat is inefficient land use. Tea and coffee, both of which he drinks, make bad use of land. Also, many crops tear up the land/are farmed badly, so they also are inefficient. Really, I think objecting to cruelty is the only recourse. I will eat an animal if I've caught, killed, and butchered it myself, because I know it's had a decent life. But anything else--no. Anyway. I think veganism is rather silly, because suddenly you have to decide what grounds you have for veganism, and then you have to look at all the other things that contain by-products/use animal testing/use land well, and suddenly eating and living is a big production, and sometimes a costly one. In addition, a lot of people who don't farm or know about farming make judgements on farming practices based on intuition or false information, which gets me all riled up. Anyway. My .02

Basically, the last "ethical" system of human sustenance was hunting and gathering. Anything after that is in doubt.

plus, it just occured to me that some vegans on the Left are the equivalent of right-to-lifers on the Right. So it seems the logical counterargument when confronted by the vegan guilt trip is to say "it's my body, and I'll decide what to put in it. I respect your arguments, but it's my choice." (whether the choice is right or wrong is the problem, eh?)

i guess i just see it as... it doesn't have to be such a big deal as i once thought it was. if i do it, it is because i want to, and killing animals and making them sick makes me feel bad. like the fact that people don't often remember why dairy cows give milk. the same reason human cows to. to feed their babies. we trick their hormones into thinking they have had a baby so they will produce milk. and people hear the moo of a cow. some don't realize it is a mother calling for her baby. and if she had one it was probably taken from her and killed for veal. this isn't like some computer or handling raw ore for metalsmithing. this is animals that walk around live and breathe. much the way we do. i don't see why we don't at least stick to our species. like why not just take human milk. enslave women and make them into milking cows. we just keep fucking with their hormones so they milk more. that would be considered wrong because we as humans can talk and what not. there is some sort of ethic involved. in 1940 cows averaged 2.3 tons per year. in 1996 it was 8.3 tons per cow. that is with the bovine hormone approved in 1993. and some cows on it have been known to produce 30 tons! but as humans we greatly discourage steroids and what not (the germans know all about it) but we will inject it in to something we eat and be dissappointed when it isn't there. it just makes me feel funny, that's all.

It is kind of odd, which is why I use the neighbor's cow. (We share). When their horses have just foaled...yum. Mare's milk is the best. Some animals actually produce milk a little longer without the aide of hormones even without a child, like goats. (If you encourage it by milking.) About once a year, you have to breed them, but generally they produce enough emilk on their own to feed one person. I assume it's similar with other animals, I just know goats the best. Anyway. I do admit, I buy cheese, since it's a pain to make. I buy organic cheese, though?

I am a veggie out of choice. I accept other people's choices yet I do not regret or miss meat at all. It has been three years now and it has got to the point that I do not even think why I chose this lifestyle I just no I do not want to change it and let myself down. But everyone around me is very supportive although not veggie themselves.