- checking login information
Loading...To Be or Not To Be a Vegetarian?
- Diana Herrington
- March 21, 2012
- 8:05 am
- 236 comments
Many vegetarians think all meat eaters are completely wrong.
Many meat eaters think vegetarians are crazy.
I don’t agree with either extreme.
Joke: How many vegetarians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
I don’t know, but where do they get their protein!?
We are all different with individual needs. Just as there is no one type of meat eater, there is no one type of vegetarian. Some meat eaters eat pork, some don’t. Some vegetarians eat dairy, some don’t. Vegetarians eat a variety of different foods for a variety of reasons.
8 Reasons Why People Become Vegetarians
1. Health concerns:
A vegetarian diet can be a balanced diet filled with nutritious vegetables which can be alkaline-forming and health-building. Harvard researched the eating habits of 110,000 adults for over 20 years found that a one 3-ounce serving of red meat daily was associated with a 13 percent greater chance of dying over the course of the study. A vegetarian diet can reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease.
2. Spiritual reasons:
Commitment to non-violent food; not supporting the killing and suffering of animals. Hinduism and Buddhism hold vegetarianism as an ideal way to promote nonviolence and spiritual fulfillment. Seventh Day Adventists and Jains are vegetarians. Seventh Day Adventists are among the healthiest people in the world today.
3. Personal choice:
Sometimes for no explainable reason, a person just finds that they simply do not want to eat meat. Whenever they see it they have no interest in eating it so they never include it in their meals.
4. Food safety:
Close to 5,000 Americans die of food-borne diseases every year. Food poisoning is mostly from animal products. Factory farms, slaughterhouses, and meat packing plants are extremely unsanitary places.
Next: Four more reasons
Read more: Diet & Nutrition, Eating for Health, General Health, Health, Vegetarian, healthy diet, vegan, vegetarian
Diana Herrington
Diana Herrington turned a debilitating health crisis into a passion for helping others with healthy, sugar-free, gluten-free, eating and cooking. After testing and researching every possible healthy therapy on her delicate system she has developed simple, powerful principles which she shares in her recent book Eating Green and Lean, and as host to Care2 groups: Healthy Living Network and Healthy Cooking. She is the head chef at Real Food for Life, where she shares recipes and tips. Sign up for the Real Food for Life weekly newsletter or catch her on Facebook or Twitter (@DancinginLife).
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
people are talking
WELL, CHA, YEAH IT DOES !!!!! ______ & WE WOMEN CAN BE CREATIVE TOO (however, it might …
sounds tasty thanks
I see miracles everyday. For example a butterfly is a miracle.
I live my life
Always have to chemicalize everything.
236 comments
+ add your ownOkay, later in the article the author says that eating meat is fine, just eat less of it and if at all possibly eat organic meat as factory farmed meat is filled with antibiotic and growth hormones. It is true, many people eat far too much meat at one sitting and this is unhealthy, just as eating too much raw bok choy (some poor lady almost died eating three pounds of the raw bok choy per day or drinking too much herbal hibiscus tea at one go (some have bad side effects if consuming too much of this!) and please, nutmeg is a wonderful spice in tiny amounts but consuming a whole one at one time will result in death! Everything in moderation. We know what pesticides on veggies can do to us along with the growing studies on GMO foods.
Not everyone gets their meat from factory farms, there are many rural farms that raise animals organically and in splendid conditions where they see the sunshine and run free. I agree with Nicole B with the comment that a vegetarian diet is NOT for everyone and obviously an omnivore diet is not for some as well. Stop trying to convert us to either vegetarian or vegan as it isn't going to happen. Some of us don't eat a lot of meat as a portion the size of a deck of cards is all that is required for protein for those eating meat. Those on a non-meat diet...fine but others will still eat meat which has been part of the diet for generations.
It will be hard for me to become vegan, but i have to do it for the animals!
Vegetarians are on the right path.
I have been a vegetarian my entire life. I was born and raised that way and even the smell of cooking meat is completely nauseating for me, probably because it wasn't something I grew up with. I do know that some people occasionally need to eat meat to stay healthy and I don't think there's anything wrong with that as long as they do it in a sustainable and ethical way. I always find it very ironic when I end up defending sustainable hunting to omnivores. It drives me crazy when people who have no idea where their meat comes from say that hunting is "cruel". You want to talk about cruel? Lets talk about that factory farmed piece of cow you ate last night. Ugh, rant over. Moral of the story- if you're going to eat meat do everyone involved a favor and know its history.
please visit my
Eco-Eating
www.brook.com/veg
This not for me
Great article. ^^ It annoys me when people are on either extreme, too, whether ridiculously opposed to veganism or a omnivorous diet. My philosophy, personally, is that I won't make you become vegan, so don't make me eat meat or animal products. Some people may not agree, but it's my own opinion. Shouldn't you be able to control what you put in your own body?
Good article but I disagree with two of the reasons to become a vegetarian. Number one - food poisoning. I am a person who's had a good number of food poisonings in time and none of them was because of meat. Two of them for example, that are hard to forget because I even ended up in the hospital came one from fruits (peaches) and the other from spinach. Number two - economic reasons. I eat vegetarian most of the time, I have a chicken breast or some fish once or twice a week, so I know something about the 'economics' of a vegetarian diet. And trust me, it's not cheaper than eating meat. On the contrary. I don't know about other countries, but in mine if you want to go vegetarian you have to be prepared to spend more, not less. Prices will go even higher if you try to go vegan.
Yes it is true that most food poisoning comes from meat but also there have been cases of the same from veggie dishes-food preparation is key, washing and making sure that our food is safe--but difficult to do when eating out and we cannot check the prep tables!
login to add your comment
use your care2 login
add your comment