Why Veggie? (article)

[Guest guest]

Here's an article just in through the kind assistance of SoFlaVegans (great

list,

btw, and highly recommended - more a newsletter than a discussion list, so

go on Digest if you join.). And it might be interesting also to look in our

Polls

section for a couple of Polls in the past which addressed this issue.

 

Best, Pat ;=)

 

Why do people become vegetarian?

You'll be surprised at what the latest survey has found!

by Kathleen Lisson

 

http://members.aol.com/khlisson/surveyarticle.html

 

They munch on carrots, eat tofu, and throw veggie burgers on the

grill. Vegetarians and quasi-vegetarians are taking America by storm.

No longer longhaired hippies wasting away on brown rice, today's

vegetarians sample a wide variety of familiar and ethnic dishes. But

how did they come to the decision to lead a meatless lifestyle?

Jupiter Rising, a newsletter for new vegetarians, recently asked 100

readers and other vegetarians that very question. The results shed

light on the motivations of people who eliminate meat from their

diets.

 

Of the 100 polled, 72 vegetarians stated that they gave up meat

because they thought it was ethically wrong to eat animals. Chickens,

for instance, are forced to live in cages too small to be

comfortable, in long windowless sheds with poor sanitation. They are

debeaked and made to lay eggs continuously. When their egg production

declines, they are sent to the slaughterhouse and killed to become

someone's fried chicken dinner.

 

The other 25 vegetarians listed health reasons as their deciding

factor in giving up meat. Animal products contain fat and

cholesterol, which is exactly what today's health conscious person

does NOT want to eat. Chickens, pigs and cows are fed growth hormones

and antibiotics, which end up in the packaged meat at the

supermarket.

 

Three vegetarians gave responses in the 'other' category. Most cited

environmental factors in their decision to become vegetarian. Forests

are cut down to provide food and grazing land for meat animals,

valuable ecosystems that help sustain our planet and provide habitats

for wild, often endangered, animals.

 

Forty-four percent of vegetarians surveyed gave up eating meat

gradually, while fifty-six percent gave up their turkey cold turkey,

most because of a realization of how ethically wrong it is to eat

meat. The first kind of meat most gradual vegetarians gave up was

beef (73%), the last was fish.

 

This informal study sheds some valuable insight into the reasoning

behind the newest path to better health, vegetarianism.

[Guest guest]

Pat wrote:

 

> Here's an article just in through the kind assistance of SoFlaVegans

(great list,

> btw, and highly recommended - more a newsletter than a discussion list, so

> go on Digest if you join.). And it might be interesting also to look in

our Polls

> section for a couple of Polls in the past which addressed this issue.

 

Yes I think our Polls give a more accurate representation of the diversity

of motives, maybe because the pollster knew how to ask the right questions

:-) Seems to me there are two kinds of " wrongness " in eating animals, one is

if you find it wrong to take the life of the animal and the other if it

seems to you to be wrong to put the animals in inhumane conditions in order

to serve your interest - if the latter, veganism seems an obvious next step!

 

Piers