I grieve for your attitude.

And never mention Ted Nugent to me -- he is a repugnant, crude idiot who likes killing animals with a bow and arrow, a particularly slow and vicious way to kill a wild animal.

Hickok: "You know the sound of thunder. Can you imagine that sound if I ask you to? Ma'am, listen to the thunder."

Please, don't generalise people!  I'm a practising vegan and have been for 4 years (vegetarian for 8) and there are many reasons for being vegan and many types of people make up the vegan community.

I could go on and on and harangue you with all the great reasons veganism is a good idea  but I'm sure you 've heard them before so I wont prosyletize. It's enough to tell you that there are a large number of us that respect your right to make up your own mind and , no, we don't think that your evil just because you happen to eat meat.

Let me tell you though..  I can't tell you how many times I've had someone 1. tell me why im an extremist 2. wave their meat in front of my face and make mmm noises before slatherign it down their pipes 3. 'tsk' at me and wonder how i get my nutrition (when I know I know what i'm eating a great deal better than they do)

It seems to me that vegans get a lot more flack than you poor put upon 'carnivores.'

..and your not a carnivore. If you didn't eat any plant matter at all.. you would die.

Hermaphrodite with attitude!

You're an omnivore, not a carnivore! I hope anyway!! :)

Eating vegetarian or vegan is almost always less expensive than eating meat and other animal products. Meat and animal products are unsustainable luxury items that many people in developing countries can't afford. Most hungry people would prefer save the 10lbs of grain it takes to produce 1lb of beef and feed the grain to their family. Meat production in this country takes a lot of energy, too -- one gallon of gasoline per pound of grain-fed beef.

Keith Acker writes as follows in his "A Vegetarian Sourcebook":

Land, energy, and water resources for livestock agriculture range
anywhere from 10 to 1000 times greater than those necessary to
produce an equivalent amount of plant foods. And livestock
agriculture does not merely use these resources, it depletes them.
This is a matter of historical record. Most of the world's soil,
erosion, groundwater depletion, and deforestation--factors now
threatening the very basis of our food system--are the result of this
particularly destructive form of food production.

Booman. It's part of our bioliogical makeup, and I won't lie to you and tell you I still don't smell certain meat and start feeling hungry. It's basic biologiy to respond to the smell of protein and fat.

So I'll never pick on someone for being a meat eater. I will however give them a very frank answer if they criticise my vegetarianism.

I do also ask those who ask me politely about it to 1) consider the case for avoiding meat produced by inhumane practices and 2) think about how much meat we eat & how socially injust and environmentally unsustainable it is and therefore 3) ask them to please consider eating less meat, and taking the trouble to source it responsibly <if it is possible</i> - because in some places it simply isn't.

I also give away lots of healthy duck & hen eggs from my mother's spoilt hens and our spoilt ducks. :-)

"this just can't get more disturbing!" - Willow

Booman I agree about Cornyn but I'll have you know that I accidentally gave you that 4 and now I can't take it back. Ted Nugent is a repulsive piece of waste product.

Booman,
I'm leaving my four with you in spite of the Ted Nugent statement. I agree with you opinion of the attitude taken my some against those of us who eat meat. I have no problem with it at all. Eating meat that is. That doesn't make me immoral or indifferent to suffering. To me it's the natural order of things. Has been for millions of years. Animals have been eating each other for millennia.
I understand Susan's heartbreak. It affects her that way. It does not effect me that way. I will never knock someone for their choice of food and I'm not saying that Susan is, but this diary is unbalanced in my opinion.

Green Grass and High Tides Forever