<p>i feel sorry for kids who are raised as vegans....just like i feel sorry for kids who are raised with religion.</p>
<p>Hepster, unfortunately people are like that all over. I've had people at work ask me to 'graze' so they don't have to mow their lawns. One time a guy asked me if I wanted a steak, when he knew I didn't eat meat. I told him sure, I would take it home and give it to me dogs. To which he replied 'Her dogs eat better than she does.' There were about 10 people in the room and they all started laughing. Then they started talking about the 'tree-hugger wackos.'</p>
<p>I have to confess that at that point I lost it. I just got so fed up with their rude behavior. I did nothing to provoke them. I said nothing when they ate their meat. But after all of them ganging up on me, I finally snapped and laid in on them about how their meat-eating is affecting the environment, not to mention their health, and we could feed the world's population and end starvation if everyone went veg (since it's more efficient to eat the grains than it is to feed them to the cattle) and stuff like that.</p>
<p>That shut them up.</p>
<p>This just happened once. Most of the time I just ignore them, or, if appropriate, I may make some comments in a lighthearted way. I try not to confront people because they can be very testy about their diet. Yeah, very testy! and very defensive. The real reason is that they feel intimidated because they think we are doing something they can't. They don't realize that many of us used to eat meat too. It's not that hard to quit, really.</p>
<p>I usually try to not take their teasing personally. That one time they just went too far. Hopefully some good came out of it because I got to say some things about my reasons for veg. that I don't usually get to say.</p>
<p>Whenever my son gets teased, he offers to arm-wrestle. He nearly always wins, even with big guys, even though he is 5'9" and weighs 125. That makes his point better than anything he could say.</p>
<p>"i feel sorry for kids who are raised as vegans....just like i feel sorry for kids who are raised with religion."</p>
<p>That's an interesting comment. I can sort of understand.</p>
<p>I started out raising my son as vegan but when he was about 5, I decided to become lacto-veg (include cheese). He's never had a glass of milk in his life, but he loves cheese. The reason I made that decision was because he already did not eat the cake at birthday parties (we are health nuts too so avoid sugar) and I didn't want him to feel too 'different.' </p>
<p>I do not regret my decision. I totally respect veganism, and there is no doubt it is the healthiest diet for adults, but it's a little trickier with young children because they need more fats than adults do. If they don't do dairy then you need to make sure they get plenty of nuts, avocados, etc. My son likes avocados but not every day. I never could get him to eat much in the way of nuts and nut butters, so for him the decision to go lacto-veg was a good one. </p>
<p>People have different reasons for being vegetarian. For me, it is both health and animal rights. But, I do not see dairy as being in the same classification as meat, since it is a by-product from animals rather than the animals themselves. No animal died to give milk, although dairy cattle are usually treated badly. Personally, the balance I chose was to buy only organic, hormone-free cheeses from free-range cattle. I truly do not have a problem with that and I don't think the cows do either.</p>
<p>My son is now 18 and pizza and pasta are his favorite foods. I sometimes get the vegan cheese but he likes the dairy cheese much better. He is already so different in so many ways (homeschooled, spiritually eclectic, no organized religion, no junk food, no meat, long hair, etc.) that enjoying cheese pizza from Pizza Hut with his friends is one of the few things that he can do that is rather 'mainstream.'</p>
<p>Everyone has to find their own balance. I am now leaning back towards veganism, and even beyond that into a diet of predominately raw foods (now THAT'S hardcore!) which I'd dabbled with many years ago. But, for my son, I am just elated that he has no interest in eating dead animals. I know that many vegans consider dairy to be in the same category as meat, but to me, I would never be as strict on the dairy as I am on the meat. To me, the avoidance of the meat is the most important thing.</p>
<p>I do respect veganism, but I also understand that it can become a dogma. I know that I made it into a religion at one time.</p>
<p>I just feel that veganism is a HUGE life choice...one that should be made at an appropriate age and after a lot of thought. I was raised in a very laissez fair enviroment where I was told to make my own decisions. </p>
<p>Now, at the age of 17, I am very opinionated, and a lot of my beliefs coincide with those of my family....but there are some things that we differ greatly on. My father encourages this, but sometimes struggles with letting go of "his little girl". College is something we fight about daily. </p>
<p>Anywayyssssssss...I just don't think it is right for someone to deny their child meat for their entire life. Same with religion. And politics. Etc..</p>
<p>I don't eat meat, but I am not a vegan. I eat cheese, ice cream, pizza, cookies, pizza, etc. I don't anything with gelatin because the thought of animal bones in my food almost makes me gag. I also hate the taste of regular cows' milk so I don't drink that either.</p>
<p>I became a veg 8 years ago. The last meat I gave up was chicken. I gave it up after driving by a live poultry shop and realizing the impending fate of the chickens inside. It made me feel very guilty knowing that I was partially responsible for the death of these animals because I still enjoyed chicken nuggets. My brother, who was 4 at the time, also stopped eating meat. My mother, who has been a veg since 1988, didn't force us into the vegetarian lifestyle, although she certainly hinted that it was what she would want. Still, the choice to go veg was mine and the meatless lifestyle is worth all of the ridicule that I may receive.</p>
<p>As for junk food, I do eat it. I like my chips and chocolate, but I try to eat that type of food in moderation. I did eat too much of it at one time and was once a chubby kid, despite the fact that I was a veg. Vegetarianism doesn't make you immune to weight gain. It just reduces the risk of it. At the beginning of 8th grade, when I was at my heaviest, I was 5'4" and weighed 124 pounds. With my mother's help, I cut down on the junk and I lost 20 pounds by the end of the year. If I wasn't veg, I would probably have been 30 or 40 pounds heavier at the beginning of 8th grade, making the weight loss much more daunting.</p>
<p>Today, I am a lean 17 year old (6'1", 155) and I am still veg.</p>
<p>I've been vegetarian since age 7, and vegan since I was 13.
it was completely my own choice, not pushed on me by my parents. (even though my mother is vegan)</p>
<p>I have always had a bit of an obsession with pigs, so I never ate pork...but after disecting a pig in 10th grade, I swore off all meat for nearly a year. Today, I eat red meat occasionally, and poultry daily (i LOVE turkey bacon), but I still haven't touched the pork. </p>
<p>I am thinking about swearing off all meat again though. What kind of vitamins should I take to supplement the loss of protein. Oh and I don't eat nuts or fish either.</p>
<p>I don't take any vitamins...
now everyone's going to go crazy saying I can't possibly be alive without vitamins, but I think I'm healthy enough without them.</p>
<p>"I just don't think it is right for someone to deny their child meat for their entire life."</p>
<p>Do you think it's right to deny your child cigarettes?</p>
<p>i dont take any vitamins either, but i eat a ton of cereal. these days just about all of the 'healthy' cereal is fortified with the necessary vitamins and minerals that one needs. my blood work is always totally normal.
i also dont feel like i'm giving anything up- i go to the same restaurants as my friends do, and even if there is nothing appealing on the menu, most chefs are more than happy to and used to making special requests. for them, being a vegetarian is just like having someone with allergies to leave out that particular ingredient.</p>
<p>"i feel sorry for kids who are raised as vegans....just like i feel sorry for kids who are raised with religion."</p>
<p>ooh, surfette, I think we might be twins separated at birth.</p>
<p>HAHAHA I missed the subtle insult toward vegs from the 1st post. But I think it's safe to say that meat pushers push meat because vegs are funny, while vegs push veggies because they think they're saving earth.</p>
<p>You know, I actually am glad that my parents raised me in a secular environment. The only way I could rebel was to embrace religion.</p>
<p>Fides, what did you think of those bible quotes? I don't think they are entirely conclusive but could certainly be legitimately debated.</p>
<p>All we need to know is that in Christianity -- Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism -- meat-eating is not a sin and neither is vegetarianism. (There is nothing more to discover about the contents of the Bible that have not already been discovered by Biblical scholars over the last 2,000 years.) The only sinful activities possibly related to both are, respectively, (1) torturing animals or otherwise causing them needless suffering when slaughtering them for food; and (2) viewing animals as being on the same footing as human beings (or higher) in terms of value or sacredness. So, while eating meat or not eating meat is a choice that is left to the personal conscience of each individual Christian, one can fall into danger of sin following either path.</p>
<p>As for the Bible specifically, since you asked, evidence can be found in the Old and New Testaments for supporting both meat-eating and vegetarian lifestyles. The important thing to know is that the Scriptures do not advocate one way above the other. Finding "pro-veg" passages in the Bible and using them to assert that the Bible advocates vegetarianism would be, while not false, a failure to recognize that there exists quite a lot of passages that advocate the eating of meat. It's an uneducated way of using the Scriptures. It's how fundamentalists read Bible passages: without context. </p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Since I don't follow the bible, I don't really care what it says about vegetarianism. I agree with you that one can find scriptures both for and against vegetarianism. Same with reincarnation.</p>
<p>I was curious what you thought about the commentary regarding those scriptures. I found that commentary to be quite logical and supportive of the idea that God preferred that humans be vegetarians, but only tolerated meat-eating at certain times. Especially the part about the people 'lusting after meat.'</p>
<p>You had said that you liked to research on your own, rather than just blindly following the religious leaders. Or so I thought I remembered you saying that at one point. Are you now saying that there is no possibility of anyone ever getting a new revelation from God? That all the scholars have already figured everything out? So we should not question or seek guidance on our own, or bother trying to interpret anything on our own, but just accept what the authorities have to say?</p>
<p>Fides, I want to emphasize that I completely agree with you that it is not a 'sin' one way or the other. I think there are a great many reasons to go veg., but avoiding 'sin' is not one of them. I know plenty of beautiful, spiritual people who eat meat. I don't think being vegetarian is a prerequisite for enlightenment. (Although some people, myself included, have experienced a feeling of 'lightness' and 'clarity' after giving up meat. But that is entirely subjective.)</p>
<p>Anyway, I am just trying to understand your comments about the scholars already having figured everything out and reconcile that with your previous comments.</p>
<p>For those who are interested in doing their part to prevent an ensuing ice age caused by global warming, check this out:</p>
<p>"...Many people are trying to help reduce global warming by driving more fuel-efficient cars and using less electricity, but by far, the most effective thing that you can do to fight global warming is to go vegetarian.</p>
<p>The billions of chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows who are crammed into factory farms each year in the U.S. produce enormous amounts of methane, both in their digestive processes and from the feces that they excrete. Scientists report that every molecule of methane is more than 20 times as effective as carbon dioxide is at trapping heat in our atmosphere.45 Statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency show that animal agriculture is the single largest cause of methane emissions in the U.S.46 Raising animals for food is causing global warming.</p>
<p>A recent report by EarthSave International, based on the work of leading climate scientists, shows that adopting a vegetarian diet is far more effective at reducing global warming than is reducing emissions from cars or power plants. This finding was confirmed by a groundbreaking study at the University of Chicago, which detailed the enormous environmental advantages (as well as the personal health benefits) of adopting a vegan diet. Read an article about the University of Chicago study, or read the study in its entirety.</p>
<p>Although methane makes a larger impact on global warming than carbon dioxide does, curbing carbon dioxide is also important, and animal agriculture is a major source of this gas as well. A calorie of animal protein requires more than 10 times as much fossil fuel input—releasing more than 10 times as much carbon dioxide—than does a calorie of plant protein.47 Feeding massive amounts of grain and water to farmed animals and then killing them and processing, transporting, and storing their flesh is extremely energy-intensive. In addition, carbon dioxide is released from animal manure. While driving a hybrid Toyota Prius instead of a “regular” car saves the equivalent of just more than 1 ton of carbon dioxide a year, a vegan diet generates at least 1.5 fewer tons of carbon dioxide than does the average American diet.48 Adopting a vegan diet is more important than switching to a “greener” car in the fight against global warming.49 ..."</p>
<hr>
<p>It's those cow farts.</p>
<p>"You had said that you liked to research on your own, rather than just blindly following the religious leaders. Or so I thought I remembered you saying that at one point. Are you now saying that there is no possibility of anyone ever getting a new revelation from God? That all the scholars have already figured everything out? So we should not question or seek guidance on our own, or bother trying to interpret anything on our own, but just accept what the authorities have to say?"</p>
<p>I think you really have to have a deep understanding of Catholicism to understand this, but I assert that believing what the Church teaches to be the truth is not a blind acceptance of what "the authorities" have to say. As a faithful Catholic, my view of the Church is that it is above and beyond the human beings who have been entrusted with the day-to-day running of it. The reason for this, among other theological truths that are kind of complex to be getting into here, is that the core teachings of the Church -- those on faith and morals -- do not change with the authorities charged with keeping them. They are unchanging -- the only things that change are the outside threats toward them from secular and/or anti-Catholic cultures. </p>
<p>If the pope or my cardinal-archbishop or any other leader of the Church began preaching things on faith and morals that were false or not in line with official Church teaching, you can rest assured that I (and millions of other faithful) would call them out and reject their ideas on the spot. The faith is above them; their job is merely to defend it. Thus, my obedience is primarily to God, and is only extended to men if they are reinforcing what God has revealed to us through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and they have been authorized to do so through apostolic succession (bishops).</p>
<p>As for receiving new revelation from God, well, Christianity, in Catholicism anyway, is kind of firmly established. All that we really need to know has already been revealed to us. Of course, there are a great many fine points regarding the faith that deserve further reflection, clarification, and re-explanation. This is the task of theology. For instance, it has been revealed to us that there is a place called Heaven and that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ; in theology, we do research and ask questions like, "But what is Heaven like?" and "But how is the Eucharist the Body and Blood?" </p>
<p>Maybe vegetarianism is just waiting for the next great theologian to come along and show us that God never wanted us to eat meat, but my thinking is that if being vegetarians is what God wants all of us to be it would have been revealed to us already. For one thing, Jesus would have probably distributed lettuce to the masses instead of fish.</p>
<p>Fides, with all due respect, and I have made it clear that I DO respect your views, but I have already addressed these points in other threads. You forget that I was raised Catholic. You are a new Catholic and simply have a different perspective. I'm honestly glad for you that you have found a religion that you feel good about and really works for you. I really am! I just wish you could understand that it is not the right path for everyone.</p>
<p>Re: veg. and the bible: As I said in my previous post, I would not use the bible to conclusively dictate whether humans should eat meat, any more than I would use it to conclusively determine whether we live one life on Earth or many. My point was that there are enough contradictions in the bible to effectively argue either side of both of those debates. You mention the single scripture about Jesus and the fishes, but there are numerous other scriptures that contradict that. One could find plenty of scriptures to justify satanic ritual sacrifice, war, vengeance, slavery, adultery, bigotry, genocide, prejudice, and lots of other nasty things. The bible is NOT clearcut and easy to understand. You have just chosen to accept what the leaders of your chosen religion have told you. That is certainly your perogative, just as it my perogative to not accept it. What I'm trying to say is that I respect your right to follow the Catholic Church, but you don't have to defend it because to defend it by saying 'Well surely they are right because God wouldn't have let them mislead people all these centuries' may make perfect sense to you, but not everyone sees it that way.</p>
<p>We just see it differently, ok? For me, Catholicism is a 'been there done that' sort of thing. I prefer to keep seeking truth, and I trust the Living Spirit that dwells inside of me more than another human or organization. To me, faith is an intensely personal quest for truth. </p>
<p>Your quest has led to the Catholic Church. Mine has led me away from it. Neither is good or bad. Neither is better than the other. We are just in a different place.</p>