Hey MEAT EATERS I just ate a big fat block of Tofu for lunch! YUM!

[Gothic Sponge]

You have probably guessed that I’m a vegetarian. I’ve been one since 1987. I am not a vegan, although I was one for about 5 years. I found it too hard to eat. I won’t eat flesh of any kind, not even fish. I do eat products with milk and eggs in them, but I do not drink straight milk, or cook eggs.

I got into the whole vegetarian lifestyle for animal rights, but then found I felt healthier so I kept it up for animals/health purposes. I’ll be the first to admit I’m the world’s unhealthiest vegetarian. It’s not that I eat badly, but I don’t get enough exercise. The computer is my drug. A recent doctor’s visit changed all that, because I have high blood pressure. I’m now doing a few miles on my treadmill every day.

I make no friends being a vegetarian.

Non-vegetarians don’t understand why I do it. Some feel it’s a threat. Why? I’m not sure, but I’ve had some people get belligerent with me when they found out I don’t eat meat.

Some vegetarians don’t like to hear I’m not vegan. To them I’m not helping “the cause.” So, they get belligerent too.

I can’t win!

Here is where I stand: EVERYONE CAN GO FUCK THEMSELVES!

I’m not a militant vegetarian! In fact, I can’t stand them! I’ve known a few of them in my lifetime and don’t wish to meet any again. I once knew a guy who wanted me to go with him to throw bricks through butcher shop windows. When will these people learn that the pen is mightier than the sword? I think some animal rights groups have good intentions, but their methods just suck! Like the ones who throw red paint on people wearing fur. What do they think that will accomplish? As if the people with paint all over them are going to say, “Oh, I now understand fur is bad! I’m going to get a tofu salad!”

On the other hand, I’ve known the "Red meat is all-American John Wayne assholes!"

These are the people that love to go hunting on the weekends. Years ago, I used to work with a few of them. Whenever we would have some event at work where we were all eating together, they would make jokes about my diet -- “Why don’t you just go graze outside on the lawn?” I heard it all from them. I would just brush it off, and laugh with them. Some of them respected me more because I had a sense of humor about it, while others hated me more because they were out to push my buttons, but I never let them. That pissed them off -- they would try so hard too, it was funny.

It never bothered me when they made jokes. I’m a strong believer in the old saying, "if you can’t laugh at yourself than who can you laugh at?" They just couldn’t understand why I’m a vegetarian. They had small minds. I noticed they always had to assert their manhood. Maybe some other things were small too.

[RebelOne]

1. Vegetarian here, too. I'm with you.

[rene moon]

2. Me too!

Mu husband and I are veggies and I have never understood why others get so mad that we don't want any meat. I could care less if someone gets meat, why get upset when I don't?

It goes along with the same thinking with people who dont want kids.
Most people in this country can't wrap their little brains around the fact the people have the right to do what they want and not conform to the masses.

[AlienGirl]

3. Vegetarian here too

Most of the time I'm vegan--except when I hurt myself with my vice, raita. (I am lactose intolerant and somewhat allergic to milk protein, and I have an allergy-addiction to raita.)

I really don't get why meat-eaters get so defensive. I don't try to make them vegetarians; and I don't generally explain why I am vegetarian unless they ask.

My best guess is that they see I eat plenty of yummy foods and am not wasting away, and it makes them feel like their own beliefs regarding vegetarians are false. It's hard to believe all veggies are miserably nibbling "rabbit food" and turning into anemic skeletons when here I am, plump and mostly healthy, chowing down on leftover Ethiopian food.

Tucker

[girl gone mad]

4. as a fellow vegetarian..

I can relate.

I'll never understand why so many meat eaters feel threatened by vegetarianism.

I don't evangelize and I've also had vegan friends drive me crazy with their holier-than-thou attitudes. My family is not vegetarian and my son is a very picky eater, so I sometimes cook meat. I only buy organic, free range for them.

[Pithlet]

5. There are assholes on both sides, for sure.

I'm not a vegetarian, although I've all but completely cut meat out of my diet.

[jobycom]

6. Wait. You can eat chicken, right? Or shrimp? Just not meat.

Sorry, that's the routine I hear EVERY TIME I visit my in-laws. I get teased a lot at work, too, though a lot of it is just goodnatured ribbing from a bored coworkers who don't really care one way or the other. A couple, though, are bothered by it.

I met a neighbor whose dog I ran over the other day. The dog was out running around, and I hadn't seen him since I hit him (actually the dog ran into me), so I stopped to talk to him. My five year old daughter was with me, and was horrified, because the man was gutting a fish in his front yard. She wanted to know why he would kill a fish, and he said "To eat it." She eats fish (I'm the only vegetarian, though I think she might move that way), but had never really made the connection.

She tells the man "My dad doesn't eat fish, he's a vegetanarian (her way of saying it)." The man looked a little uncomfortable, and so he said "Yeah, we don't eat meat much either. Only fish, no animals."

Wierd. Fish aren't animals? Reminds me of the hunters who say they "harvest" deer, rather than "Blow their beautiful little heads off, gut their lifeless carcasses and eat them."

I don't try to convert anyone, not even my kids. Everyone has their own paths. But the more I listen to carnivores, the more I detect something a lot like guilt in a lot of them. The language, the way they don't say "Kill," the way they define fish or chicken or shrimp as not animal, or not meat, the way many of them try to claim that they are "practically vegetarian." Not all carnivores, probably not most, but some, seem to have issues with it.

[AlienGirl]

7. I raised my kids vegetarian, with the idea

that they can choose to add meat to their diet if they want, when they are old enough to make that decision. So far neither has.

Tucker

[Gothic Sponge]

14. I agree. If i had kids i would raise them like you're doing.

[jobycom]

20. Their mother isn't vegetarian

So it's not completely in my hands. I do the cooking, but she takes them out to eat enough that I don't have control of it. My spouse isn't the type to stick to agreements.

[theoceansnerves]

8. it's true some vegans are nutty

but really, 99% of them won't give you grief for not being a vegan. if they do i think it's based more on a character flaw they had even before becoming vegan, and not veganism itself that's making them into jerks

and yeah, the carnivore thing gets me too. i never scrutinize someone else's plate no matter where i am. and i love it when they (wrongly) try to "catch" us slipping up. let us eat our food in peace, please!

[BOHICA06]

9. Silken or Chunky?

Loved trying to chop-stick a silken block at a Honolulu Ramen Restaurant. Made eating an adventure!

[Gothic Sponge]

10. Firm

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. I'm not vegetarian, though I have gone long periods as one, but I've

never understood the hatred toward vegetarians from some carnivores, people who are really offended (or more likely, threatened) by someone else's choice to eat only vegetables.

I've never, ever, ever understood that animosity toward vegetarians.

Animosity toward holier-than-thou assmunch vegetarians, yes, but then it's more the holier-than-thouh attitude that's offensive, not the vegetarianism.

Stupid shit, like:

"I'd love to come to your place to eat dinner, but remember, I don't eat meat. i don't want you to go out of your way, so pasta with a cream sauce, or even a large salad, is just fine."

"You don't eat meat? What - America isn't good enough for you?"

Cripes, I have friends who are like that, who think vegetarianism is akin to handing the keys to the Pentagon to the enemy-du-jour.

I don't get it. Probably has to do with small penises, a lack of self-esteem, and fear of the unknown tempered with a fear of actually trying some introspection to know themselves. But that's just a guess.

[Endangered Specie]

12. Whatever... more meat for me

[Gothic Sponge]

13. Endangered Specie be like the Vulcans

[trumad]

15. Tofu...Yum

[Gothic Sponge]

16. Tofu is good

You just have to know how to prepare it. My meat eating friends like my work with tofu............Man, that sounds perverse.

[Endangered Specie]

17. hehe, trying to appeal to my Trek side...

who said all vulcans dont eat meat anyhow?
I know the 22nd century ones dont, but is it on record that 23-24century ones do?

[ChickMagic]

18. But...but...

Tofu can't run away from you! Sorry, couldn't resist. I must have taken silly pills.

I honestly respect your position.

[BiggJawn]

19. How'd you fix it?

I like tofu, too. I'm an Omnivore.

[NightTrain]

21. So, do vegetarians refuse to perform fellatio?

Seems like a legitimate question to me!

[Kenneth ken]

22. would you really

want a person performing fellatio (or cunnilingus) to rend, chew and swallow your meat?

We just lick the juices.