Why do people decide to be vegetarians?

Question

My friend is a vegy and he says he doesn't want to eat anything alive but eats plants<plants are alive>

does he mean things that feel?

Answer 1

i&#039;m speaking for myself and most vegetarians. people mainly become vegetarian because they see how animals are treated and tortured to provide us with food and they don&#039;t want to eat food that is tortured like that. like a lot of people think vegetarianism is just stupid but it honestly isn&#039;t. yeah eating meat may be the circle of life or whatever but does it really need to be abused the way it is. honestly i would have no problem eating meat if it was just simply killed and that&#039;s it. but no. animals are abused their whole lives and are literally tortured and i refuse to eat something that was treated that way. i hope that helped you see our point of view on the aspect of not eating meat.

Answer 2

Yes, he means living things that have the capacity for pain, suffering, fear, etc.  Plants are not sentient, animals are.

People become vegetarian for a variety of reasons.  For me, it&#039;s a combination of ethical, environmental, health and political reasons.

Answer 3

Many people decide to be vegetarians due to the extreme torture that meat-animals go through.

Actually, plants have feelings as well. A science experiment between two different rooms of plants was conducted [one room, people talked to and loved the plants, the other room, people screamed at the plants] and the results were astounding: Plants in the first room grew healthy, tall, and green; while plants in the second room drooped over before the end of the experiment.

I am very connected to nature, and it makes me feel bad sometimes [I know, I&#039;m weird]

Being a vegetarian for me is like choosing the lesser of two evils. If you were to choose between a puppy and a carrot, I&#039;m sure most people would eat the carrot, because the carrot would not feel pain at being consumed.

Answer 4

from experience

you feel cleaner and lighter and just not all gross when you dont eat meat, makes you feel good

but thats just personal preference

Answer 5

Plants are alive but they aren&#039;t sentient. They lack a nervous system and brain to register and comprehend pain. They have a system of tubes call the Xylem and Phloem which transport nutrients and water, but no nervous system.

People become vegan or vegetarian for many reasons. Some include:

- Don&#039;t like the taste of meat

- Animal cruelty

- Morals

- Religion/spiritual reasons

- Cultural reasons

- The environment: methane, CO2, resource consumption, agricultural waste

- Factory farming techniques

- Health reasons

- World hunger: grains used to feed animals can feed starving children

There are many reasons to become veg, everyone&#039;s motivations are different.

Answer 6

He means things that feel. you know, like how there boiled alive. plants couldnt feel that. BUT chickens cab. and when cows are butchered llimb by limb, gasping for the pain to end...plants wouldnt feel that.

Answer 7

I&#039;m a new vegetarian with the goal of becoming completely vegan in the near future. I am eliminating one food group a week to make the change easier. Meat was the first to go for me. It all started because I picked up a book on what I thought was about losing weight. (Skinny B*tch) and it really got me to thinking about what I was putting into my body. Animals that have been pumped full of hormones and pesticides can&#039;t be good for you! And that, coupled with researching how horribly these poor factory animals are treated prior to ending up on my plate was enough for me to change my lifestyle.

I believe there is enough information available for people to make an educated choice on what type of lifestyle they would like to live. I personally feel that my body will thank me for feeding it natural food rather than chemically altered food. And hey, if I get a bangin body as a result then that makes it even more worth it!

Yes, plants are alive, but we need to eat something in order to survive. =)

Answer 8

there are alot of different reasons why one would want to become a vegetarian. for some it has to do with hurting a live animal or should we say slaughter animals  just for food.  for others as one woman on here already answered it was tape worms.

for others it was just wanting to connect with nature and live off the land.. I could go on and on but I hope that gave you somewhat of a idea why

Answer 9

Your friend does a horrible job of explaining vegetarianism.

Vegetarians do not eat animals.

Animals have nervous systems with nerve cells that can react to stimuli.

Plants can react to stimuli but cannot flee when in danger so pain would never be of any use to them,

Cows, pigs, chickens, fish, shrimp, clams, worms, and ants are all animals.

If you really want some understanding of why most people become vegetarian, feel free to watch Earthlings:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=ea...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhxKnys7R...

Answer 10

Animals feel pain and suffer when getting killed!  

Answer 11

I went veg because my body could no longer tolerate meat, and what I read in &quot;Fast Food Nation,&quot; plus a few other things, kinda squicked me out.  

Yes, technically, plants are living things.  But they don&#039;t feel pain the way cows, pigs, and chickens do; plants don&#039;t have a central nervous system.  Also, if you&#039;re worried about the plants, you should know it takes between 5 and 15 pounds of plants to make a pound of meat.  Animal industry is brutal in many ways--on the animals it breeds and raises for food, on the unfortunate workers, and on the environment.

Some people believe that eating meat is taking food out of the mouths of hungry people, but the big problem in famines is one of distribution, not lack of resources.  So I prefer not to use that argument.  In theory, if everyone went veg--or at least sharply reduced their meat consumption--the earth could feed a lot more people, but in practice, there are corrupt governments who don&#039;t care if their people starve.

I&#039;m sure if you ask five vegetarians or vegans why, you&#039;ll get five different answers.

Answer 12

Probably.

There&#039;s a different motivation for each vegetarian. For me, my initial reason had to do with tapeworms. In biology class, we learned about various parasites that can infect humans. Our teacher mentioned the various types of tapeworms that are unique to certain kinds of meats. When I learned that they can grow to be up to 60 feet long inside a human&#039;s body, I just said, &quot;No. Way.&quot;