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Vegetarianism is a life-style choice to forgo the consumption meat. People may implement this to varying degrees. Some vegetarians are more 'strict' than others.
Reasons for vegetarianism include:
- moral reasons (animal welfare) - sometimes rejecting all meat-eating, sometimes rejecting the cruelty of modern farming practices.
- environmental reasons - the greater resource use required to produce meat in many cases; depletion of fishing stocks.
- personal health - some people have conditions that are made worse by the eating of some kinds of meat.
Many vegetarians will still eat eggs and/or dairy, sometimes restricting these to free-range or organic products. (Organic certification often includes a greater emphasis on animal welfare than conventional factory farming). Vegans eat no animal products.
A vegan is a particular adherent to a stringent vegetarianism, where even animal derived products, including dairy and eggs are not consumed. Some even go so far as to avoid all animal products, not just food: leathers, furs, feathers, bone, etc.
Warning Research is crucial when entering into any significant diet change. Some extreme cases have resulted in death, e.g. the much covered in the media example of child negligence under the guise of a vegan/raw diet.[1]
Promoting vegetarianism
Delicious vegetarian recipes do exist. If people don't believe you, get some top-rated vegetarian recipes from web sites (5 star or at least more than 4.5 average, preferably with a very large number of ratings) and share the recipes (and perhaps share the food) with your friends.
External Links
- Vegetarian is the New Prius - on CommonDreams.org, by Kathy Freston, January 20, 2007 the Huffington Post.
- Vegetarianism and the Environment, Animal Liberation Inc. (South Australia) - includes interesting graphs of the relative impacts of various human activities.
- Environmental aspects of Animal Liberation: Real conservationists don't eat meat, Animal Liberation Inc. (South Australia) - a talk by by Geoff Russell, prepared for a vegetarian conference, Adelaide, March 1997.