Wooooo! Vegetarians! I have become one too. Well, not really. We still eat fish, but I don't like to say I'm pescetarian, for two reasons: first, it sounds like I worship fish (Note: I do not worship fish). Second, the logic behind naming these terms is entirely uneven. Carnivore and omnivore are words that tell us the set of things one eats. Vegetarian sounds like it tells us what one eats, but really implies what one doesn't eat, but only by leaving meat out of the word, as if it were conspicuously absent -- clearly a word embraced by non-meat eaters for use in a meat-centric society. Pescetarian is even more misleading: is there anyone, besides Gollum, who only eats fish?

(I now fully expect to learn the name of a tribe which eats only fish).

If we can't, as a group of English speakers, get our egrets in an ellipse on this one, we'd better just go ahead and outsource the job. I think the Germans could put together a very consistent lexicon on the subject for us, and ahead of schedule too, but let's entertain all possibilities.

But regarding veggie-centered dining, we undertook it first as an experiment. Part of that experiment, though I only told a select few about this facet, was to see whether my non-ethically motivated practice _became_ an ethically justified practice along the way. I suspected that it would, being one who suspects that all beliefs are self-confirming, especially when crystallized through some variety of practice). Sure enough, it did. Self-fulfilling prophecy? There is no double-blind version of this one, I'm afraid.

My ethical shifts haven't been drastic, I guess. I never was at peace with the business of killing animals which underpins much of "our" diet, and am even less so now. My sense of the connection and ethical accountability between life of different species has grown much stronger. All the while, I realize that, taken to its logical extreme, a world without death is impossible -- barring unprecedented shifts in the lay of the metaphysical landscape. I think often of the paradox of the devout Jainist sweeping bugs out of his path. How many unsuspecting bugs have been needlessly maimed by zealous sweeping? And if we save all the bugs, we still have the microorganisms to weigh upon our consciousness. In fact, I think that without some of these, the very digestion of food is impossible.

I guess I mainly want to cause as little suffering as possible, or to state it positively, to be a part of healthy ecosystems and symbiotic relationships which create as much harmony and wellness as possible. For whom, would be the question begged, and who better to bring it up but a host of the extinct, displaced by a long sequence of invasive species.

Meanwhile, I'm going to keep eating lots of veggies and skipping the meat, and this, mainly for hedonistic reasons: it feels really good.

Cheers on your shift thenewgreen! Keep me posted.

I was vegetarian for maybe two, or two and a half years, with a nine month vegan stint in there. It was for moral reasons - I believe that animal suffering is, well, bad. I had to go vegan because it was the logical extension of vegetarianism (since animals also suffer in egg and milk production). But one day I sort of just... stopped. In a sense I'm morally bankrupt - I never really changed my mind, philosophically speaking.

My return from veganism to vegetarianism was based on the fact that I was no longer convinced that a vegan diet is particularly healthy. I know mine wasn't. Actually, I lost a lot of weight, and don't have much to lose in the first place.

These days I am skeptical of any assertion about nutrition one way or the other...

I always remember people asking me what I ate, with an incredulous tone, as though being vegan or vegetarian meant that you basically starved. In reality, my diet became much more varied as a result of the change.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I often end up eating vegetarian meals. Meat runs up a grocery bill pretty quickly if you're concerned about the quality and source of your meat in the U.S. Personally I enjoy meat, but in the U.S. I find that the quality of meat is pretty poor. The chicken that people eat is generally flavorless due to being raised on feed and the flesh is disturbingly soft due to living in cages. Even the "free range" chickens tend to be low on flavor from what I've found.

All of these animals need a variety of food sources to be healthy, which means allowing them to browse and eat what they want. I understand why animals aren't raised like this in America, but it's a shame that the state of meat production in the U.S. is so poor. By raising animals in this way, the fats of the animals we generally eat contains very little if any Omega 3 or 6 fats, essentially making the fat completely worthless except as a source of moisture and minimal flavor.

If you get the opportunity to travel to a country where animals are raised in an environment where they can browse for food, (I don't mean free range, because that's just FDA jargon for who-knows-what) with a friend who hasn't traveled much, gauge their reaction to how the meat tastes. If they're used to American food, the reaction will often be that the meat is chewy, or it has a strong animal taste and often they will want "normal" chicken, pork, beef, whatever, not realizing that what they think of as "normal" food is very far from the norm world-wide.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent. I think eating vegetarian is a good option, though there are certain considerations that people should take. For example, soy products are full of plant estrogens, as are canned tomatoes. Iron can also be an issue for people making the transition into vegetarianism as most people who eat meat get quite a lot of it from their food and so don't really think about it. Also, eating seasonally and locally can be tough if you're from an area that suffers from harsh winters. I'd guess though, that as your wife is a vegetarian already, she's probably got that stuff figured out.

Vegan here.

If I recognize the suffering animals in industrial farm conditions undergo, these farms begin to look worse than concentration camps. At least Gypsies and Jews had a marginal chance to survive. I have difficulty eating animals that feel pain in a similar way to the difficulty I have eating infant babies or humans with disabilities.

I hoping they start producing synthetic meat