Semi Vegetarian?!
Semi Vegetarian?
I have recently decided to become a semi vegetarian (I do not eat meat, but I do consume seafood). I chose this for many reasons, two major reasons are I can't stand for animal cruelty (and yes I am okay eating seafood though), and health reasons. For those who are vegetarian I would like to hear why it is that you chose to become one, and if you live with a spouse that is not, how do you live together and love each other, while still respecting each others way of life? I also understand how easy it would be to play devils advocate in this case, so if you have nothing constructive to say, please don’t say it at all.
Additional Details2 months ago
straightedge hapa I think that God didn't intend many things, such as war, famine, and racisms, however they are an everyday reality. I think that you became anemic because you didn't utilize all of the foods available to keep you healthy.
2 months ago
lol... okay sorry to have offended some of you, that really was not my intention as it terns out I am a pescatarian. I guess some of the research I did on the internet was not as factual as I thought it was.
Answers:
2 months ago
straightedge hapa I think that God didn't intend many things, such as war, famine, and racisms, however they are an everyday reality. I think that you became anemic because you didn't utilize all of the foods available to keep you healthy.
2 months ago
lol... okay sorry to have offended some of you, that really was not my intention as it terns out I am a pescatarian. I guess some of the research I did on the internet was not as factual as I thought it was.
Hi there!
I'm a vegetarian now, but I used to have the same situation- I occasionally ate some chicken, shrimp,crab, etc., but was never a huge meat eater.
I chose,if you want to call it that, to be vegetarian because one day I realized (while I was eating a very nicely done chicken breast) that it tasted disgusting. Thought maybe it was a bad piece of chicken, but no dice- every time I tried to eat any meat, I thought I'd gag. It even smelled bad. I took this is a sign that my body was not into meat at this point, so I wouldn't eat it.
It's been a couple of years, and I still have zero interest in meat. To be honest, it's a side benefit that I'm not harming any critters in order to eat, and I enjoy that a great deal- but it was not my primary motivation in deciding to avoid meat.
My husband is an omnivore, raised in the usual meat-and-potatoes tradition, but he doesn't really eat a ton of meat.
How we co-exist: pretty easily,really. I make a lot of different veggie dishes (casseroles,bakes, etc.) w/a lot of variety, and he's totally fine with all of the Boca-type products. Sometimes I make chicken or fish dishes just for him, and something else for myself. He can also make vegetarian dishes and does a great job with them (although he doesn't cook too often). When we go out to eat, sometimes he gets meat, sometimes he doesn't.
Basically, he can do what he wants on this. What he eats is his decision, and what I eat is mine. I do not want or need to eat meat, but I can't make that determination for him.
However, I do most of the shopping and the cooking. If he wants more meat, we can do that, but it costs more to prepare totally separate meals for just him (he'll eat veggies too). It helps that he has always been very respectful about it, and goes out of his way to make sure that we are both able to eat what we want.
A lot of people who eat meat at every meal just have an attitude towards vegetarian food for no real reason. Those same people have eaten my cooking (all of it) and never said a peep about any meat missing, so it's just a matter of what they try and what they get used to. Tofu *is* gross if not prepared properly. Braised, baked, BBQ'd,glazed or stir-fried in a decent sauce, it rocks.
i also became a "semi vegetarian" as well about a month or so ago for the same reasons. a few weeks into it i started eating meat again, just for the taste, but then i realized that if God didnt want us to eat the animals then most people wouldnt, but also becuz of health reasons i stoped becuz i was gettting anemic
I'm a vegetarian for moral reasons and envionmental reasons. Livestock is responsible for 60% of greenhouse gases. Raising livestock is responsible for soil erosion.
Water is becoming increasingly scarce or polluted in many parts of the world. Scientists at the World Water Week conference held in August 2004 advised that "growth in demand for meat and dairy products is unsustainable" and that "animals need much more water than grain to produce the same amount of food, and ending malnutrition and feeding even more mouths will take still more water." Livestock is responsible for 80% of water consumption
A Cornell University ecologist states that "animal protein production requires more than eight times as much fossil-fuel energy than production of plant protein while yielding animal protein that is only 1.4 times more nutritious for humans than the comparable amount of plant protein."
The U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat.
Here's the moral reasons:
Even with welfare laws, animals are treated very badly on most farms. I could write about them all, but that would take to long, so I'll only tell you why I don't eat chicken. Chickens are the worst treated animals of all. They are crammed into small cages in which they cannot move and are forced to spend thier entire lives in them.
Induced Moulting is a horrible practice. It involves starving the chickens for days to control egg production. It is very inhumane. One researcher from the USHS visiting an egg farm said that when he entered the place where the chickens were kept, He said that he heard "the sound of a thousand beaks biting on metal cage bars". The chickens are so starved that they begin to pluck the feathers of thier neighbors to satisfy thier urge for food.
I give the factory farms points for creativity though. They kill the "expired" laying hens (which produce low quality meat) with electric baths or gas chambers. The gas chambers are designed to operate to save money, so very little gas is used, often making the chickens die a slow, painful death (if at all). The next step is feather removal which they use boiling water to do. The chickens, dead or half-dead are violently placed into shackles. The shackles are on a conveyor belt which dip them head first into the boiling water and slowly drag them deeper and deeper into it. Many chickens weren't killed by the gas so they are boiled alive in the water.
You are not really a semi vegetarian - you are a pescatarian since you eat fish but not other animals. Please don't call yourself a vegetarian and continue to eat fish because many people will think all vegetarians eat fish which is not true.
I am a vegan because animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on or entertain us. Being vegan is my daily activism and extension of my beliefs. My husband was always respectful of my views and 2 years ago became vegan too!
BTW, eating seafood is animal cruelty!! Fish feel pain!!! Also, many other sea animals are killed during the fishing process (whales, dolphins, sea otters are often trapped and killed in fishing net)
Please get the terms right. Since the only flesh you consume comes from fish, you are a PESCATARIAN. Vegetarians do not eat flesh, not even from fish, not from any animal, so please do not call yourself a vegetarian when you are not one.
As for my diet, I'm a vegan for the same reasons that texaspice9 stated. In fact, I agree with her 100% about eating fish. Fish do feel pain, or they wouldn't have a nervous system. Eating fish is cruel, this is true.
I'm also a vegan for health reasons, and for the environment. So, there are three reasons why I'm vegan: animal rights, the environment, and health.
I think the best reasons for being vegetarian are for the anti-cruelty reasons, and to just practice moderation. I am actually not vegetarian [aaaaagh please don't kill me!!!], but my family eats meat sparingly, and we eat only free-range (yeah, the scary chickens with the heads and feet attached are actually the ones that have not suffered the meat industry, but have actually lived good lives at local farms) and we strongly believe in taking advantage of all parts of the animal and not letting any go to waste (so yeah we eat all the nasty parts that a lot of other Americans throw away). My vegetarian friends at school and our Buddhist vegetarian friends appreciate that.
But please, if you become vegetarian do not eat seafood (or eat less of it)! They do have pain sensors and they are certainly not "dumber" than land animals. Humans are more psychologically comfortable with eating seafood because we do not live in their environment--we just pluck them out of the water. Also, seafood are not as aesthetically as appealing as land animals, which tend to be more "cute".
Also, by funneling your protein consumption into seafood, you are facilitating the destruction of the seas. About 30% of what shrimp trawlers catch is shrimp--the rest is natural ocean wildlife, which will die on the ships and be thrown back in the sea, wasted. To give you another example, the imbalance of sea wildlife will cause a chain reaction in ocean ecology and negatively effect the entire ocean. Even aquaculture harms the chemistry of the sea. This is all without mentioning that the actual fish you eat is being decimated. The tuna is actually going through what the buffalo went through centuries ago.
It is also important to remember other countries. Africa, where most of our fish is caught, suffers without adequate protein. All of the filets and fish go to America and Europe--poor African coastal tribes eat the only things the fishers give them--fish heads and leftover bones from filleting. All of the fish consumption is being funneled to America, Europe, and the more populated areas of China, while the indigenous people have nothing left.
Or you can do what we do and eat fish that are on the safe-list, like salmon, mackerel, sardines, oysters, etc. You can find a list on the internet. Good luck with being vegetarian! What you're doing is great!
Errr, ahem, you are still an omnivoreo.O You eat the flesh of an animal, even if it is one that swims, so there's no "semi" about it.
This is my thought...if food is the cause for any marital issues, the marriage is pretty weak.