1. What was the most disgusting animal-source food you ever ate?
A really rare steak. At the time, I thought it was great. About a half-hour later, though, I was feeling pretty sick. A little while after that (and through the next day or two), I was violently ill and puking my guts out -- the meat had been contaminated with some sort of nasty virus. Thinking about the fact that the virus could thrive in both the meat and in me was a pretty direct reminder that humans have some other things in common with cows (and other creatures), too...
All of it, come on. I do remember getting talked into trying tongue when I was about 11. I was very proud of myself for eating it though, felt very grown up. It wasn't any grosser than anything else I was eating.
I would have to say deer meat, simply because I wasn't aware it was deer meat. The guy who served it to me said it was steak. I love deer and think hunting is barbaric and I never would have eaten it had I known that he had killed it himself. That was about 9 years ago. I became a vegetarian 2 months after that incident.
I had Pork balls from my local chinese restaraunt and they were all tough and tasted like cardboard. Both me and my older sister had them that night I however chucked them after the first two she being a greedy hog had the lot. I felt sickly that night she however puked her guts all night. Food poisoning grande scale.
I'm not sure I found anything that gross. I have eaten some pretty horrible sounding stuff like chickens feet, tounge, tripe but I didn't find them gross at the time. Afrer all, what's the difference between eating a cows thigh and a cows tounge?
Something called a barbeque pork riblet. It was a processed piece of meat?? I suppose. Simple- disgusting
When I was 6 years old my step-father prepared this 'soup' for me. I was not told what was in it. It tasted very sweet but had a very putrid smell. I was later told that it was my pet rabbit, Anastasia, who had been loose for 2 weeks. I immediatley vomited on my bastard of a step-father's shoes.
Steak--gristly, fatty, and bloody. I can't believe I used to like it.
Veal kidneys & sweetbreads, sometimes escargot.I really enjoyed these things until about 5 years ago.
Probably deer sausage, when I was a kid. I didn't think about it at all then because I was raised in West Texas ranching & hunting country, but now I feel that I ate Bambi!
When I was in the Philippines, I ate a dish that contained a ground up pig's heart. I was not told what it was until later. Filipinos are big on pork. They also eat a dish called "lechon" where they roast the whole damn thing and then stick an apple in its mouth. The whole thing is covered with grease and fat... it really turns my stomach to think I ate that with my family members. When I go back there next summer I think I will stick with the mangoes and rice.
It was all pretty gross. At the time I craved it.
Lobster. Without a doubt. I could never eat one anyway, because it still looked like it did when it was alive. But I did taste a piece once, and it was absolutely disgusting!
Snake and Quale.
Just the usuall hot dogs and such. But a friend of mine ate those disgusting blood sausages (gross!!).
I personally never got into anything other than the typical MEAT which was disgusting enough. And I am sure I unknowingly ate things that would have made me sick at the time and they probably did as a matter of fact and I didn't know it. Hot dogs and sausage would fall into this column.
It's a toss up between the brain of a calf, bird's nest soup, shark fin soup, and cow tongue.
Chorizo, it had bits of blood vessels and intestines in it.
I would have to say it was duck at my uncle's wedding when I was 6 years old.
Lamb brains at the age of 10. I still remember the moment after my uncle told me what I had just eaten.
Black pudding. Lovely stuff, every saturday morning for breakfast, with bacon, scrambled egg, fried cheese, on fried bread (fried in bacon fat). Is there a less healthy breakfast you can think of? Is this the most disgusting? After all what's worse than pig's blood? Unless you're Ozzie Osbourne, and eat pidgeon heads...
When I was younger I used to always love to eat hot dogs. As soon as I actually found out what was in them I found that I never had an appetite for hot dogs again.
Chiterlings -- tasted of shit. Actually I lie in saying I ate them, I meargly tasted them.
The fat (especially the fat of pig). When I eat fat, I immediately have a feeling of vomiting. When I was a little kid, sometimes my parents forced me to eat it because they thought it was good for my health. The terrible moment came as soon as I put it in my mouth.
Quasi-raw bacon that Gramps used to cook and lobsters. Can't believe we'd boil 'em alive and that they eat sea-floor garbage. Granny made "steak tartar" with hamburger once and that didn't get eaten completely (awful concept to begin with).
I remember this extremely disgusting cheese with chocolate in it. It was supposed to be some sort of Belgian 'delicatesse', but looking back on it now, I really wonder how I could ever have eaten, and *liked* that.. .
My father, having survived Nazi concentration camps, forced me to eat the fat around a steak when I was 7 or 8. I gagged and became nauseous but was nevertheless forced to eat it with slaps to the back of the head. He said he wished he could have eaten so well in the camps. It was hard for him to understand that I didn't want to eat the fat. Of course, I've forgiven him.
I think it was liver, although it was more disgusting to put it (raw) on a hook for fishing. Perhaps it was gibblets?
2. Have you changed in any way since you stopped eating animals?
Yes, gradually. I've certainly become a lot nicer and less angry, but I'm not entirely sure if it's a result of changing my diet or if it's more from getting more serene as I get older. I do feel a lot more 'in tune' with animals (even insects) than I used to, though-- I used to despise dogs, and now I see them as wonderful, loving creatures.
In denial, less sure of myself. I don't think I have changed too much, just in the fact that there was like a 12 year lapse between wanting to be veg and starting to be, totally due to societal pressure. So I guess the biggest difference is I don't pay so much attention to societal pressure these days.
I've always loved animals. I just needed to realize that there was really no difference between my pet kitties and that cow on my plate. They both deserve a life free of suffering. I have changed so much since I've gone vegan. I feel so much better about my self.
I was a stone over weight I had more zits than now. I have more stamina and more money at lunchtime to spend on fizzy drinks and chocalate but because i have more stamian I buy healthy stuff. Sometimes however I can go a bit dizzy if I dont eat the iron fortified foods.
I'm far less tolerant than I used to be!
I've pretty much the same since becoming an almost vegan except my compassion for animals has grown even greater. I try not to kill bugs anymore--though I often fail at that. I try to appreciate every creature's place in our ecosystem. I have also developed a great love for studying nutrition and the impact a meat-based diet has on our environment.
I was really against animal cruelty. When I was about 12 I had a friend whose mother worked for the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to animals) and I felt revolted to know that so many people neglect their pets or allow them to breed knowing that they won't have homes to go to and they end up being put down.
I gave up eating animals for health reasons, and didn't give much thought to ethical reasons until I read John Robbins' book. I have definitely become more sympathetic to animal rights causes and more kind to animals. I am also more open to environmental concerns.
I felt like a damn hypocrite because I'd say that I was an animal lover, while I'd go out and eat a hamburger. Now, though, staying away from all forms of animal killing and testing has become like a crusade.
I am the same person now as I was before I became a vegetarian. No big change. I was always concerned with AR.
The texture and smell of meat has always bothered me. I haven't ate meat in 15 years. Meat never sat right on my stomach... I think meat is murder anyway it's done.
I have always been an animal lover and was exposed to them very young, and even when I was five I can remember how I loved snakes and toads and enjoyed holding them. I was in denial when I ate meat, and it was a very deep rooted sense of guilt that I hid from myself. Now I am much more comfortable with how I am and I feel more in touch with my true feelings, as sappy as that sounds.
I have become a much more aware person, thoughtful, kinder.
I haven't changed significantly. I was always very compassionate towards animals and other humans. I just did a great job of dissociating the food on my plate from its source.
I have learned to be stronger in my beliefs and not swayed by others or hide my own so I am not preceived as different. Now I am what I am.
I was pretty much self-centered and chased after a lot of material goodies and definately did not have the awareness I do now and the the social interest, caring for all LIFE and the planet. I took LIFE for granite<-- I spelled it that way because life was very HARD before VEGAN. A lot of emotional upheaval.
Although I 'loved animals', that love was limited to cute & fuzzy domestic critters. I was pretty self-interested and didn't consider the impact of my actions on the planet mattered. This has changed radically.
I've always been pro-animals. Have avoided killing insects even as a child. Greatest motivation for this was the original Kung Fu where the monk swept the path before them to avoid stepping on any creature. Cool!
I was always pro-aminal. I always hated eating meat. but my parents said I wasn't old enough to make the decision to become vegan.
More or less the same. I always cared for the animals and nature in general. (well after the age of 12). Since I stopped eating fish and chicken I am more energetic and happy.
Hyper, and much more aggressive
(although never as much as the people around me).
Whenever people would say - " How can you eat that? " or " Do you know what you're eating? " I would always say something like " I don't care, it tastes good." Something stupid like that.
No real difference as far as I am aware, except younger :-)
Generally the same. I had decided not to kill any animal 1 year before becoming a veggie. I think "no killing" is more important than "no eating" to the spiritual charactor of a person.
Now I believe I have a greater sensitivity to life, energy, my senses (all six), and how everything is interconnected. I've learned greater personal discipline and responsibility in not letting my desires run the show. I attribute alot of this to 16 years of being a vegetarian. My energy level tripled, face cleared up, and I've been sick twice in 16 years as a result of going veggie. My reverence for life has evolved considerably since those early daze(!)
That's hard to tell, since I was so young at the time. But cutting out animal-products all together, does seem to have given me more energy. Maybe that's 'cause I'm eating more fresh fruit and vegetables now (I was very much a bread-and-cheese veggie plus a cereal-fiend before), or maybe it's juist because the dairy-pus has gone. Either way, my general health has vastly improved.
Aggressive and angry; full of outrageous indignation. Still a bit opinionated today though, but much subdued and more at ease with myself.
Uh.. is this a trick question? Do I have to answer in 30 words or less? Let's just say I am calmer now and much happier. Has more to do with spiritual growth than my eating habits
(although the spiritual growth has affected my eating habits).
3. Did you ever mistreat or kill an animal?
I threw our "mean" cat into a kiddie pool when I was 6 or 7. (I justified this on the basis of the fact that he was "mean". I also pushed my cat (the one I loved more than anyone else) into the tub with me when I was 4 or 5, because she had fallen in once before and I thought it was fun to play "mommy" and dry her off.
I was scolded pretty strongly for both of these acts, somethinghttp://www.bestjuicers.com/ my mom for, it was the beginning of my understanding.
Last summer Our car hit a baby quail or shttp://www.startthehealing.com/, but I was there. It was the last one in the line of maybe six following the mom. We stopped and I went back to kill it if it wasn't dead, but I couldn't. So I just held it until it died. It's family had stopped in the long grass by the road but flew away when I came to pick it up. I don't think I will ever get over it. I really wanted to never ever use a car again. But I do to get to work. It is still a goal of mine. I will never take another driving vacation. (which was the context in which this happened.) I think we might have hit another bird later that summer (they were everywhere one morning) but I couldn't tell. I hate cars.
Unfortunately, yes. When I was about 17 or so, our family cat had kittens. After a few days (weeks?), it was obvious that one of the kittens was partially paralyzed, suffering, and having great difficulty breathing, among other things. I remember that we were afraid that it might be Feline Leukemia or something similar. Anyway, I had this macho notion that 'being a man' entailed being able to take responsibility for such things and I thought that I knew enough to be able to put the kitten out of its misery myself-- quicker than it would take for us to get an appointment at the vet to do the job. I'd heard that hanging is considered one of the most humane ways of executing someone and that death comes very quickly after someone's neck is broken. So I steeled myself for the deed and then broke the kitten's neck-- and my heart-- at the same time. It wasn't humane-- it was a horrible nightmare. If there is one single mistake/act in my life that God would allow me to go back and handle differently, that would be it (and there've been some others that would count as doozies...).
Not intentionally. When I was about 12yrs. old, I had a pet salamander. One day I could not find him anywhere. Well, he must have crawled out of his cage. About two months later I found his petrified body on the heater behind my dresser. I still feel awful about that. I cried for months afterwards. Everytime I thought about it, it made me sick.
I dropped my Hamster once but he was ok I never meant it I was only 13. I cant even do a mercy killing I once saw a rabbit that was obviously in great pain I stood there looking at it for ages but just couldnt chuck a stone at it I worried about it all night but it had gone by the morning.Ive only ever killed insects in the past I cant do that now in the summer my mission is to save all the flys in the swimming pool.
Never any mammals or birds or fish. I stepped on,sprayed, swatted various insects. Nothing sadistic like tearing wings off flies.
Of course. As I child I was pretty cruel/ignorant. I never really had anyone tell me it was wrong. Now I try to have as little impact as possible. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify...
No, but I have chased down people in my car after they splatter innocent creatures onto our highways. I have landed myself in jail for this, but it was worth it to me.
As a child we would be taken out at night on my grandfather's farm to shoot rabbits using a spotlight to "stun" them first. This was because they were eating the vegetables in his garden, ironically. Also I have killed mice.
I guess I used to be pretty mean to my dog when I was a child. Spanking, etc... She was a sneaky, cunning little dog, but you get back what you put in--right??
I have always loved birds. I used to have a buggie that talked. When it died I bought a parrot, I guess it was for the novelty. But you would never understand the attention a parrot needs. If they don't get it they scream constantly and uncontrolably and sometimes they will restort to pulling out their feathers. I think this is the creulist thing anyone could ever do, ignoring a pet. I urge everyone to know what their getting into before they buy any pet.
Mistreat, unfortunately, yes. I lost my temper a time or two and was more harsh than necessary with my cat and dog. They were both okay afterward. Doggie hasn't been punished in about 4 years now. Kill--bugs and spiders. Responsible for killing--rabbits for a science project in 7th grade.
No, not intentially... except for bugs. God I hated those things, I still do but I am somewhat better. I have killed a raccoon accidentally with my car and am still plagued by it.
When I was very young, I sprayed our birds cage with air freshiner and I geuss it got in her food because I found her dying the next morning. I felt (feel) terrible. I accidentaly crushed at least one bird, I mistreated birds when I was little, slapped them around with a glove so they couldn't bite me. I excused myself cus they were aggressive birds, but they probably wouldn't have been if I had been good to them and established trust. I hate that I did that. I feel I should mention I have also rescued many wild birds. I used to scare my dog on purpose.
I've been told that I mistreated my gerbils when I was a toddler, but I don't think I understood they were alive.
Yes, when I had a cat mess on the carpet for the hundreth time, I took her by the scruff and threw her outside. I threw her harder than I thought and she hit the wood fence. She was fine but I still feel guilty.
Although I only intentionally killed one animal (a sparrow) it is my worst pre-vegan demon. I was about 10 yrs old. It was a beautiful summer day and this bird was happily cherping away singing the song of life and I was experimenting with a new bb gun. I stood with the bird in the gun's sight for a fairly long time. I had plenty of time to think about it, but yet it did not seem real to me. TV had influenced me so about guns and I was desensitized to what I was truly doing. I did not think I would hit the bird at all. I was shocked and sadend when it actually hit the bird. It was only one shot, but it hit her square in the chest. And like a slow motion movie I saw it over and over again and have to admit I still do. The bird feathered into my neighbors backyard and died. I was crushed and haunted by the act for months, and still feel really bad about it. I have also hit one or two animals with my death machine (car) at one time or another. Not recent though.
As a child, I had some pet earthworms. I forgot to water them and they dried up and died; I still feel badly about that. Once, I killed a bird. It was a sparrow who was injured and stuck to the baking hot pavement by the blood that was oozing from its tummy. I was about 8. My friend and I got off our bicycles and pried it off the sidewalk (it was still alive but pretty messy), took it to a stream and held it under until it drowned. Cindy & I both held it, each with one hand, so that no one person would feel miserable about the act which was intended to release it from suffering. Even then, the little bird put up quite a struggle and took a long time to die. We said a prayer and buried it and marked the spot with a cross made of twigs.
Also, I used to think it was okay to swat my cats if they were 'bad'. Until one day about 15 years ago. My cat had bitten through the electrical cord on my aquarium and shorted the wire and undoubtedly given herself a shock. I wanted to discourage her from ever doing this again (as if she needed any further embellishment on this point) so I yelled at her and gave her a hard smack on her side. The next morning I let her and her sister out for their morning wander. Her sister came back, she never did. I realized what a fool I had been and have never chastised my cat friends for being what they are again. That was a year or two before I went veggie.
Yes, my pet hamster when I was 8. I was trying to make him a Xmas scarf and he would hold still, so I spanked him (after all, isn't that what parents do to you? and I was his parent) a couple of times and broke his back. He did recover, but I was sick for a week.
Me and my friends use to collect spiders and worms and keep them in a jar in my basement. when we were like 6 and 7 years old.
Bugs, flys and ants. I have killed some...
I've probably set a mouse trap or two (before V-Day). I've hit our dog with newspaper. I can't remember anything else.
I love and still do tease and torment pet dogs and cats. My poodle is almost blind. If I hold some food in front of it's nose, and let it sniff it, I take it away, and the dog is still trying to sniff there for the food, and attempts to eat the food, which isn't there. I am a tormented soul. Brilliant fun.
I go to school at Penn State University. On campus there are a lot of squirrels and chipmunks. One day my friend and I were walking to class. A chipmunk ran by in front of us and went into some bushes. So we kept walking, then I felt something under my foot. The chipmunk came right out from the bushes and under my feet when I was walking and I stepped on it. I felt really bad because it wasn't actually dead yet, it was just lying there squirming around. I didn't know what to do so I left it there. Later I checked and it had died. Everyone PLEASE forgive me. I still fell bad because it only happened about 3 months ago.
I am sure I must have but I have no memory of it. There is a photograph of me at 2 chasing a pussy cat with a broom.
I killed many animals during the first 20 years of my life. The victims include insects, frogs, small snakes, fish and crabs cooked after fishing and animals killed in middle school biology lab. I feel guilty deeply for these.
I've rough-housed with animals (dogs, cats, and birds), yelled at a few, scolded a few physically when being assaulted first --- no damage done and for shock value, but never mistreated one (well, a few ladybugs got wings pulled off when I was very very young). The only animal (aside from fishing when in teens) I can remember deliberately killing was a poisonous frog in Centeral America that had bitten my dog. I have deliberatly squashed scorpions.
Yes, I killed a rabbit at 16 with a BB gun. I had to pump several shots in him to stop from squirming. I'm still haunted by guilt today when I think about it.
I never mistreated one, although I did kill bugs and rodents.
4. Do you still kill bugs, spiders, etc.?
I killed a bunch of moths this fall. They somehow got in my house and just kept popping up. I got tired of opening the door and letting them out so I just starting swatting them. Other things, such as dangerous spiders, wasps, etc. Once they get in the house and make themselves evident to me as a threat, they get the rolled up newspaper. Unless they are by a window. The same goes for flys. I usually use a rubber band. pvdQ2 = I was never really a big meat eater. I ate mostly chicken and other lower fat meats. I began taking Hapkido (A Korean Martial Art), checked out a couple of web pages one day, read on the YSL page about people not really being designed to eat met, and thought, what the heck I'll guit. I still ate dairy at the time, mostly yogurt and cheese. Then my wife found a reference to John Robbins in a Tony Robbins book (I dont think they are related), got his DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA book (a must read for all vegetarians) and decided she wasnt going to eat animal products. I said great that'll make it easier for me. Then I read the book myself, and gave up dairy and all animal derived products (to the best of my ability/knowledge). Along with this I began reading Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching and other martial arts type books, which has allowed me to slow down a bit and not take life so seriously. I am pretty laid back anyhow, now I am moreso.
I will still kill animals/insects that pose a health or safety hazard to me or my family. Roaches, mice, mosquitos, scorpions. I do try to spare spiders and other insects whenever possible. I would also kill a grizzly bear/other wild vicious animal if it were attacking me or my children.
Yes, ants(accidental stepping), cockroaches(intentional), mozzies(intentional). Everything else gets put outside. Don't mozzies carry malaria? I'm more concerned about mistreatment of animals than killing.
I never kill bugs anymore the only thing that threats me are wasps and I have gone erratic and sprayed stuff at them the guilt gets me every time. I beleive I have no right to pick flowers or end any type of life that wasnt meant to be ended unnaturally.
I never kill bugs. My friends think I'm a little wacky, but I try to catch them in a jar and take them outside to free them. I just don't think I have the right to squash some little creature.
Spiders, flies, roaches, and other similar things-- no. I generally try to catch them and put them outside. I used to kill ants, figuring there was no other way to deal with them, but I've found that if you move/remove their food supply, ants will generally go away on their own.
I really don't like most bugs, but most times I catch myself and realize I I don't like most bugs, etc., but I usually catch myself and realize that I shouldn't kill them because of my own dislike. I have no right to play God.
I killed a tick on cat once.
Yes. I hate to admit this, but I still kill big black spiders even though I know all the good things they do. But when they come into my house I feel like they are not where they belong. And I refuse to pick them up and let them outside. eeek!
I still kill bugs and spiders. I try to put them outside first. I feel guilty about this except for fleas and mosquitos.
I try not to, but sometimes it is really hard. My cat had a bout with fleas and I did anything and everything to get rid of them. Bees and larger insects, as well as flies, are pretty easy for me to get outside but smaller nuisance type bugs are so much easier to just kill.
I don't kill bugs, I try to respect life as much as possible.
When possible, I will escort a bug outside rather than kill it. But sometimes, there are no other options.
Only poisinous ones. I have to protect myself and my son from animal/insect dangers.
Normally no, haven't for years. Catch bugs and spiders in a jar and when I see any life I try to walk around it. But last summer ANT INVASION CITY! I tried all natural ways I knew of to get rid of them with no success. And I sponged them away. I hate it when I can't preserve life, but I try. Ants are a tough one.
The only insects that I have intentionally killed have been fruit flies during a horrific population explosion of them in my kitchen (it's a long story). Normally I will go to great lengths to make sure that I do not risk injuring insects that are hanging around my vicinity and will not kill them intentionally, not even mosquitos. (as the saying goes, if you kill 1 mosquito, you will be visited by 1,000 of his/her siblings)
I avoid this still, however ants one time swarmed my house and I did call the exterminator. One occasion I kill biting spiders, but it really grosses me out to the point of nausea.
I still kill parasites-- whether plant or animal. Killing things that prey on me-- fleas, ticks, mites, etc., doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm a little bit disturbed by killing the things that prey on my plants, but I don't know what the alternative is, except not to have plants that bugs want to eat-- or by extension, not to eat plants that have been raised with pesticides or other bug controls. This doesn't strike me as a very workable alternative, so I just continue with my current practices for the time being. (Having ladybugs or other 'natural' predators around to do the killing for us doesn't really strike me as being ethically superior.)
I try not to kill any living thing.
I kill bugs in "self defense". I must admit I carry this beyond defending my life to defending my house or my blood. I kill mosquitoes, ticks and ants that come in (because they are hard to relocate). I always catch and release spiders, etc. I have let my cats kill mice that come inside (they don't go outside), but I have tried to rescue one or two as well
No, some of them still make me sick (I hate roaches), but I tend to push them out a window or out of a door rather than killing them.
I used to kill these guys immediately. Now I try to jar whatever I can. Ants are sometimes a problem, esp. in California. I've tried soap near the incoming area (to throw off the scent trail), but besides that, I've had to sponge them up once or twice. Spiders, roaches, other bugs always live.
The only other insect that I sometimes kill are mosquitos. Mosquitos suck my blood and carry disease to boot. If they get aggressive, it costs them.
I run a mile because I hate bugs. I hate the huge Aussie bush flies, spiders etc. Won't go near them. For a six foot five male, that's kind of wimpy, I know.
I don't normally kill bugs except for maybe those hairy spiders. They scare me.
Certainly do not kill bugs, spiders or any such. Do not always take care to save them though. Less friendly to bacteria and viruses
No. I won't kill any animal for the rest of my life. Actually I'm ready to save any animals in difficulty. For bugs, flies, mosquitos, roaches or spiders, I will catch them carefully and send them to a place they live and far from my home.
Depends on the situation. If it's a poisonous or potentially poisonous spider, it's history. Ticks and mosquitoes I don't tolerate at all. They're after my blood and pass on disease. Roaches I generally tolerate unless they are breeding too much or slam the refrigerator door too loudly.
Spiders I catch with a glass and put outside. But mosquitos and wasps.. Let's say they're not exactly my best friends. And finally cockroaches.. I've never been pestered by those, thank goodness, but if I were, I wouldn't think twice about terminating them.
Unfortunately, yes -- sometimes. I squash roaches and swat at flies.
Nope. I have, however, been run out of my room by the bees while I wait patiently for them to find the other open window. I can handle one, but no more than that..
5. Did you ever think about the animals when you ate/cooked them?. What were your thoughts at that time and how did you deal with it?
My parents used to go crabbing and take me along when I was young. I loved to help catch them, but I was always pretty freaked out that cooking crabs (or lobsters) involved boiling a living creature to death, and I never understood how they could bring themselves to do it. I had the same feeling whenever I saw people catching and later cleaning fish-- disbelief that people could kill other creatures so easily and with so little remorse. I was so used to eating animals at the time that about the only real effect it had was to make me kind of squeamish whenever something that we'd killed ourselves appeared on my plate. It wasn't until sometime later that I followed that feeling to its logical conclusion.
Yes. Chicken used to bother me because it still looks like an animal on the table--legs, neck, wings, etc.. At the time I forgave myself because I thought we NEEDED meat to survive. The minute I learned differently was the day I became a vegetarian.
No. I figured animals are put on this earth as food. In fact I still kind of feel that way. I respect the old ways of the Native Americans, who were in tune with nature and respected every thing. That's how I feel about killing animals. I personally do not do it. The key word is respect. I've recently come across a few passages in the Bible that perturbed me. Some in Genesis an other Old Testament books, but recently I came across one in the new testament. It read something about Humans being considered God's favorites, above the animals, birds, etc. That kind of point of view kind of irks me. I feel that lack of respect for others, animals, earth, etc. is a BIG PART OF THE WORLDS PROBLEMS!!!
I never cooked diseased flesh, my mother always did. I would always suggest a vegan alternative. But i was just plain 'crazy'.
When I was younger I never even thought what meat really was. It always came presented to eat .
Not really. After reading "Animal Liberation" by Peter Singer when I was in yr 11 I became vegetarian but then my exams came and everyone was blaming my tiredness on my diet so I started eating meat again. Since then I avoided meat when I could and ate meat with guilt.
I remember as a young kid getting mad at someone who called my steak a dead cow. I didn't want to hear that. Again, I was raised where "Beef is king" in West TX, so I never gave it a lot of thought then. It was (still is) like questioning Baseball, Apple Pie, or Jesus.
Definitely, I forced myself to imagine them getting brutally slaughtered. I couldn't live with that guilt, so I became vegetarian.
I never thought about it too much when I was younger. As I got older, I did realize that they were once living beings. It only started to affect me when my father went vegetarian and I found out about the way animals raised for food were treated in the slaughterhouse and the way they were killed.
When I was six I had a month where I just sobbed every night at dinner.(right after I asked and learned about the origins of meat) (I wondered why meat didn't have ingredient labels like cereal) My mom told me that I had to eat meat for my health, and that I would just be throwing the animal's life away if I didn't eat it, since it had already died. I bought this argument, and continued to eat animals until I was 18 (with one attempt at vegetarianism, which did get me off red meat) but for that month I remembered what I was doing. Then I forgot again.
I really never gave the animals a second thought. It never bothered me until recently.I started thinking about amimals that were bred specifically for human consumption after a visit to a provincial fair in Canada this summer.
I rarely thought about the animals I was eating. I was into denial at the time.
Like many people on here I am sure, I was in denial. It did bother me sometimes when I was younger, especially when I ate meat on the bone. My family ate a lot of meat that I grew up on, but since I turned vegan they really have cut down a whole lot. It helps that I give them veggie cookbooks whenever I see them on sale as well as give them articles about nutrition.
I knew it was wrong but didn't accept it. I was young, (still am) I know much about what really happend to the animals, what they felt like, I was selfish and didn't want to think about it. I had the abstract idea it was better to be a vegetarian, but I didn't FEEL it, I didn' take it in, I wasn't aware.
Once I was mature enought to realize where animals came from I found it very hard to eat meat without visualizing the animal.
No. I am real good at denial. As far as I was concerned, the meat I was eating was not really an animal.
Came up for me often, but I kept telling myself it was necessary because I believed the propaganda I was fed in school and thought I'd get sick without meat. One time I was in my car eating a whopper and chicken nugget parts and I bit into a huge glob of fat in the chicken nugget. It was the start of my awakening. I was grossed out in a big way and thought of the animals that day. Many times I would think of the animals waiting in line at a fast food drive thru.
Once I realized that I had the freedom to be vegetarian, I did it. I had lived with someone who had a violent temper and understood full well what it meant to be at the receiving end. Also, something weird happened. Every time I looked down at my plate, I would just 'see' the live animal and start to realize what I was doing. Then I read Animal Liberation and that clinched it for me.
No not really, but I did go to a meat packing plant while I read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (it was a school thing) and was overwhelmed with the indignity of the death of the animals. It's not like on the farm. (I lived in a very rural area.) There is nothing noble, worthwhile, or good about it. It is nothing more than automated butchering of countless animals. The amount of time for a cow to be brought from a living animal to a cleaned hanging carcass was 10 minutes. I could go into the gory details as I will never forget the experience but I won't. I do recommend this experience for all meat eaters, I don't think people are aware of what really happens.
This was one of my reasons for going vegetarian. I couldn't think that I had just taken a life to eat. it always made me sick.
When I was eating red meat I never considered that I am eating flesh. (well I was only 13-14). Six years ago I gave up fish and chicken because of the guilt. It made me upset , and therefore my behavior became arrogant and mean in some cases so... I stopped eating them.
No thoughts before becoming a vegetarian. Even then, it was probably more than a month before I started to accept animal feelings as a possibility. Once I became more open minded, species-ism was soon out of my list of deficiencies.
No. Ate meat. Meat good. Anyone see the Ren & Stimpy episode where Ren is a surrogate Dad, to this guy in Jail, called Kowalski. It went :
"So what would you like on your sandwiches, son"
"meat"
"and what would you like to drink?"
"meat"
yeh that was me....
Once I started calling the meat I ate by its animal name ( Beef- Cow, Pork- Pig, Etc.) It made me realize that I was eating what used to be a living animal.
I love cows and pigs, so why was I eating them?
I'm sorry to say I didn't think of that. However, now I think about those killed animals sometimes when I see others eat them. I think they don't have such thoughts when they eat, just like I didn't either. I'm not able to stop them from eating such "food". In China, people usually tease at you if you try to do so. As a veggie, I feel a little bit lonely here.
Never thought about it much, although Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" got me wondering about it all and was instrumental along with Gary Null's works in getting me to question the situation. I became a veggie more outta spiritual curiosity and a belief that it was fundamentally wrong from a higher energy /health standpoint, let alone the possible ethical/moral dilemma.
Before I stopped eating meat, I asked my parents if they could find meat that came from animals that had died of natural causes.. . So, I never felt good about eating animals at all.
No, never. Meat was like the veggies on my plate -- simply food.
Not before I became a veg*n. Now, it's hard not to.
6. What was the main experience that brought you to be a vegetarian?
There were several. One that stands out:
I'd never been that close to the family dog -- I'd always disliked dogs because they tend to be smelly 'in-your-face' animals that made me kind of uncomfortable. Anyway, I decided once on a whim (while high on pot) to make the effort to just be really nice to him and play with him as much as he wanted. I wanted to try to return some of the love and affection to him that he obviously felt for us. Wow. Something inside of me woke up then and there when I realized how hollow my own universe was by comparison to the rich joyful place that he lived in every day. I was watching some nature show on PBS and they were talking about sharks that were being bounty-hunted off the great barrier reef even though they were not dangerous to humans (I suppose it still dampened tourism or something). They were paying $100 per dead shark. I was outraged, as I was supposed to be. I was offended deeply by the fact that these people were putting a price on a life. and then I realised that if it wasn't worth $100 to kill something, it certainly wasn't worth dinner. I gave up meat (this was right before dinner -steak) and it lasted about a year. My mother wore me down again and said I "had" to eat birds and fish until I was eighteen. So I did. By that time I had a good friend who was vegetarian, which reminded me to go back to it when I said I would.
After having two children I had horrible digestive problems. I had painful bouts on the toilet and had to do Lamaze breathing to get through it. I vowed to do whatever necessary to make it stop. I started reading everything I could about health, starting with Fit For Life, then Laurel's Kitchen, Fit For Life II, Diet for a New America. The last book really did it for me. I now have no tummy problems and I feel terrific in so many ways. Becoming a veg. has enriched my life in more ways than just nutritionally.
I think that I made the connection when my neighbor shot a deer and brought it home. I saw him taking it off of his truck and he told me that he was going to eat it. I thought that was so disgusting. That night at dinner I told my father about it. Well, he was already a vegetarian and he asked me what the difference was between that deer and the corpse that was on the dinner table. There was no difference and I stopped eating meat right then and there.
Actually, it was and still is feelings that I've had for River Phoenix and his beliefs, as well as seeing my family gorge themselves on animal flesh at dinner. I just had to take a step back and relaize how disgusting and hypocrital it all was.
I did not have an ephifany. It just sort of happened and was helped along by reading C. Adams' book the Sexual Politics of Meat. pvdQ4 = The only time I will kill something is if it attacks me. Otherwise I let it be.This summer we had a giant spider & web take up residence right near the back door.The spider was so bit you could see it's eyes. Everyone was afraid of it & wanted to kill it but I kept it there till the first frost came & it died. My kids even gave it a name!
A relative wouldn't eat the meat that I fixed. I teased him about it, but secretly felt guilty for teasing. Afterwards I went to the library and checked out about 40 books on nutrition and vegetarianism. After about the third book I was convinced that not only would it not harm me to give up meat, but it might even be healthier.
My older sister went through a stage of vegetarinism when she was a teenager except what she told me stuck in my mind so much I could never face meat again. to me it was a living
Reading Neal Barnard's, Food for Life. I was shocked that, not only did humans not need to eat meat, but that it was detrimental to human health. I was also angry that all my life my own government told me meat was good--so did my school! I am angry still. I know school children are still taught nutrition by materials given to teacher by the meat board. Let's change this!!
The fact that i got sick to my stomach everytime i tried to consume an animal.
Reading John Robbins, DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA. Thank you sir.
Reading "Animal Liberation" by Peter Singer and realizing that I Couldn't protest cruelty against domestic animals and animal testing yet still eat meat, that I couldn't protest fur coats and still wear leather shoes. I also went to a lecture given by Peter Singer which really inspired me to make the final leap to veganism. There were stalls and so many like-minded people that I didn't feel like some freak.
I cooked a steak one night. I had it in the oven, when it came out, although it was cooked, it was completely full of blood. Previous to this experience, I had always eaten meat and even made fun of my veggie friends because I thought they were wimps. AFter this, any type of meat I tried to eat reminded me of human flesh and my body rejected it. After careful evaluation, I realized that this was not something my body needed anyway so I minus well do what was best for me and change my diet for good.
I don't know. Little things piled up. I didn't want to kill animals. I saw a thing about veal that lead me to become a tempo veg. I geuss it just didn't seem right. Once I was a veggie I learned more and more and became truly inspired. It was a slow shift that started when I was very young. Now I'm a Vegan.
Reading *Food For Life* by Neal Barnard and *Diet for a New America* by John Robbins.
It was a movie I saw when I had the flu. I walked in in the middle of a horror movie on TV the premises was that this psychologist was helping people stop bad habits with hypnosis and a drug. Well one of the people he (helped" was a woman who was overweight, in one scene she is praising herself for her control around cookies, later she broke into this guys house and butchered and ate him. The next day she didn't remember a thing. That was to much like what we do, we eat without realizing what we do.
A significant other told me to stop eating animals if I wanted to continue the relationship. Love and lust motivated me but it really matured quickly from there. Although I remained in egg and dairyland for sometime after that. It was not until I went vegan that I really felt better on all levels, (Body-Mind-Spirit). John Robbins and Michael Klaper, M.D. took me to the next level.
I couldn't think that I had just taken a life, just to eat. I think that if you eat something you need to think about it's source. I was not willing to think about a cow eating grass in a pasture. so I became vegetarian.
I simply got very attached to a young goat when I was living in Europe. I was 14 years old and I was spending a lot of time with different animals in some farms. One goat became my closest friend. We slept in the same room and played every day. Till one day, about 3:00pm coming from school, I went to the farm but my little friend was nowhere to be found. Coming home I passed by my uncle's house and outside on one olive tree was hanging the skin of my goat friend. I never gave him a name...hmm It made me think that the fact that you dont know an animal doesn't mean that you cannot become its friend, doesn't mean that you cannot get to be friends, doesn't mean that you cannot get to love it. That's when I considered all animals to be my friends
(well I know but I still hate roaches).
For now I'll just say that I can relate to your story about the bird you shot with your BB gun when you were a kid. When I was kid a ran over a chick with the lawnmower (on purpose). As soon as I did it I was horrified and traumatized, and I still to this day feel enormously guilty.
Information put forth by EarthSave at an EarthDay festival.
A vegan barbeque by the vegan society in Sydney, which had lots of animal cruelty pamphlets, which really turned me off the stuff.
When I was in high school a couple of the students were into Krishna Consciousness. I always talked to one of the students that I knew. He always told me how it was wrong to kill these animals because what makes us have the right to kill them?
I also read Diet for a New America. That book told me about factory farming and everything else that goes along with meat production. From then on I've been vegetarian. I haven't been able to become vegan yet, but hopefully someday I will.
I had some unease on my throat 2 years ago. I thought I might feel better if I only eat vegetable meals. But the reason I kept on doing so is I think it's a good way to respect life.
What truth? One truth was that the last time I inadvertantly had meat I became very very ill. That's true and conceptually was quite interesting to me
(validation of the health effects, anyway).
It just seemed like the right thing to do. I wasn't happy eating dead animals, so I stopped.
I became a vegetarian out of curiosity and at the urging of close friends. I wanted to see if it was possible to live and be healthy without eating animal flesh. It was an experiment that never ended (27 years now).
7. Confession or pre-veg experience of your choosing.
Confession: I used to think vegetarians were "Weirdos."
The first time I tried becoming a vegetarian (I tried it for about a year), it didn't work out. I was loaded with guilt and obsessed with getting enough protein ("Diet for a Small Planet" induced disease), and I was drinking so much milk and eating way too many nuts and way too much tofu. I spent a lot of time feeling pretty sick, and my friends all kept trying to get me to drop my newfound vegetarian ways. After a while, I began to really miss meat-- I just wanted to enjoy a hamburger and be able to eat the same stuff as all of my friends, and I felt that my diet was screwing up my health. So I went back to being a carnivore for a while.
But that had some effects on me, too. I started feeling a lot more stress. I wasn't comfortable with myself or my place in the world. I didn't sleep very well. This went on for a couple of years. Eventually, without fully realizing it at the time, I ended up going without meat for about a week. When I noticed this, I also noticed that I felt *right* again-- and that I wasn't preoccupied with my diet. I was simply eating the things that I wanted to-- which no longer included dead things. From there it wasn't a matter of really *deciding* to be a vegetarian again, it was more a matter of recognizing that I'd already made the decision on an internal level and that everything was working out. That was about 8 years or so ago, and since then many of my friends have joined me and gone vegetarian themselves.
Not sure what this is for, but here goes. To the best of my knowledge, I do not eat animal products and try to avoid all other animal derived products, which can be very difficult. However, I believe that people have the right to choose what they want to eat, drink, smoke, etc... I try to provide a good example to others as opposed to impress/insist/impose/force my opinions on them.
I worked for McDonalds.
I loved eating meat. For a time I could feel strongly an "animalistic" pleasure in tearing flesh from bone. It made me feel in tune with nature or something. weird huh?
When I first went vegan, my cravings for pizza were so great that I for the first six months, I had to sneak a couple slices to satisfy them. Then I found some decent vegan cheese and never turned back.
I think the next step for me is to get involved with EarthSave or something similar to try and inform the rest of the world. I choose not to eat meat mainly because of the impact upon the Environment caused by such practices as Factory farming, and the meat/dairy industries abuse of the world and misinformation provided to our people.
I had a chance to go to Venezuela for Christmas and New Year with a friend. Her family was totally against not eating meat, and told me I'd have to eat it if I wanted to go. They actually believed it was unhealthy and annorexic to not be eating animal meat. I never got to go on the trip, but it was definitely worth it to keep my strict beliefs.
No confession but I remember as a child my parents were in Chicago. For some unknown reason we went on a "tour" of the stockyards. It was really traumatic. To this day I still don't know why they chose to take me there.By the way, the Chicago stockyard is no longer in existence. I think it moved to St.Louis.
Seeing-The Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and her Lover- put me off meat for about six weeks until a spare ribs orgy .
I was also a bread and cheese vegetarian. I finally ran out of excuses for not becoming a vegan... I thought I could not give up chocolate but someone told me dark chocolate was usually ok. I did it for a week... a month, and now it has been six months.
When I was in my tempo veg phase, it became about convincing others what a good person I was and I would sneak meat. I was about eleven.
I am about 5 yrs old or so. I am at a friends house. The family is having a BBQ and I am handed a hotdog. Something woke me up briefly that day and I refused to eat the meat and made a meal out of the bun and fixings. It became a big deal and the family freaked out becaause I would not eat the meat. I thought of the animals that day, but the teasing from the neighborhood bullies soon pulled me back into a life of dead animal ingestion and indigestion.
Just a failure to understand that non-humans count and have feelings, too, in different but no less valuable ways. The fact that that cat left home after that incident had a profound effect; it tore me up because I realized only after how wrong I had been and how I had underestimated her. These days, if the cats are acting up (i.e., their playing is getting out of hand and the young one appears to be at a severe disadvantage at the hands of the older, heavier cat), all I need to do is literally just -say- something, like, 'Al, take it easy' firmly but quietly, and that seems to break it up. Al just stops and walks off. It just hurts to realize how blind I had been. But that was 15 years ago.
Breakfast. Often the following: 11 slices of bacon, followed soon by 3 eggs deep-fat fried in the bacon fat, then potatoes deep fat fried in what grease was left. All eaten with toast, so I could sponge up every last drop. If I tried this now I would barf just from the knowlege of knowing what I was doing. I have trouble watching someone cook meat.
I was in a Chinese fast food restaurant. I have to eat there because there are only less than 10 veggie restaurants in Shanghai, a city of 13,000,000 people. The waiter noticed I'm a veggie and changed the ladle she has used to serve meat for others. She must think the new one is 'clean' for me. But she forgot she had used it to carry some shrimp balls, I had seen this. Then she quickly put some dou-fu into the bowl of my noodle before I can say anything. Usually I won't accept such a meal, but I felt it difficult to say so at that moment. Anyway, I think I won't allow such things happen again
I had alredy been a vegetarian for a few years when my mother confessed that she used to sneak meat into our sauce and other meals.
My ex-wife and I became vegetarian together when my first child was born in 1970. I used to sneak off the first 60 days to have a cheese-burger on occasion. I never told my wife about it. Ironically, she's no longer veggie, and I'm becoming more devout vegan as I get older. I won't eat any type of animal product today -- not even a nibble.
Confession- I live with meat eaters and make no attempt to influence them in any way. I don't often find it disgusting, in fact the smell of cooked meat sometimes smells good-- although it still tastes awful. I have been known to desire a double bacon cheesburger, regardless of how I know it'll taste.
