Why Vegetarian?

I get asked why I'm a vegetarian. Why anyone cares is beyond me, but hey, some people care who other people want to go to sleep with also.

So, why have I chosen to eat veges and not meat? Many reasons. The main one? Because eating other earthlings makes me want to vomit! I mean seriously, why would I want to eat one of my fellow creatures? Because they can't talk; because they can't say, "Hey, I don't want to die"? Because I have opposable thumbs and they don't? Because supposedly I am "better" than they are? Or more "important" in God's eye? Who said? God certainly has never told me I am any more important than any of his other creatures. He did say to take care of them. I just don't believe eating them is what he meant by "taking care of them"; sounds a little "godfatherish" to me: "Hey, Stanley, I want you to take care of that guy."

Another reason... Factory Farms are Mean and Nasty! And, unfortunately, most of the meat products found in our local stores comes from factory farms. These are cruel places where unspeakable things happen to animals. Don't think so? Watch the movie "Earthlings". You can find it on Google for free.

Why else? Because as a scientist I understand the benefits of being a primary consumer. I realize the benefits of eating those primary producers (plants) whose cells produce all those energy rich organic molecules that my body needs, without having to first pass through a herbivore (cow) and loose so much of that available energy. Hello! The available energy decreases at each step! I'm staying close to the original energy source (the sun).

If that's not enough, how about land use issues. We only have so much land available to produce food. It takes a whole lot more land to produce a pound of cow than it does to produce a pound of vegetable! It takes a whole lot more energy to produce a pound of chicken than it does to produce a pound of vegetable! More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals. According to scientists at the Smithsonian Institute, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed every minute, much of it to create more room for farmed animals. Of all the agricultural land in the U.S., nearly 80 percent is used in some way to raise animals—that's roughly half of the total land mass of the U.S.

Then there is the whole global warming issue. A 2006 United Nations report found that the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined. Greenhouse gases cause global warming, which studies show will increasingly lead to catastrophic disasters—like droughts, floods, hurricanes, rising sea levels, and disease outbreaks—unless we drastically reduce the amounts emitted into the atmosphere. Many conscientious people are trying to help reduce global warming by driving more fuel-efficient cars and using energy-saving light bulbs, but they could do more simply by going vegetarian.

So there you have it. This is why I'm vegetarian. Do I care one whit if you are? Not so much. I don't care who you are sleeping with either, but that is a whole different topic.