I stopped eating meat at the start of this year after reading "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Saffran Foer. My primary concerns were ethical. I'm not necessarily morally opposed to eating meat, but I am opposed to the inhumane conditions of factory farming.
I am shocked at how easy it was to stop. I always pictured some long and tormented inner battle, but the book made the necessity of the decision self-evident. I eat meat maybe once per month now, a 99% reduction in intake, with no significant physical or psychological struggle whatsoever.
I stopped eating any animal products after that ordeal and realized I don't need to. There are so many problems with the meat industry anyway, so I am pretty much relieved to not have to think about it.
The documentary Meet Your Meat. It was hard to watch, but I'm glad I did. Haven't eaten meat in a decade and I won't ever again.
The hardest part was eating meals with others, as virtually every adult eats meat. I cut out meat cold turkey:) but there was for sure a period where I was tempted despite ethical concerns.
Did you actually manage to convince anyone to stop eating meat, who wasn't already having major doubts about what he was doing to begin with? If so how?
Stopping world cultures from eating meat is a huge problem. But what about at a personal level: With this information you now have- are you as an individual willing to go stop eating meat?
I would argue that on an individual level it actually is pretty darn easy - especially with all the alternatives popping up the last 5 years.
For the longest time I was an avid meat eater. I would make all the jokes about vegans and vegetarians. But when I started looking into homesteading and raising food at home I started to realize that I liked these animals. When my dad killed the rooster after it attacked mom and I saw how much it hurt him to do it. I kind of realized I didn't want to do that anymore.
I understand why people eat meat, and why meat is important in our history. But I would rather just not do it. I feel much better just not participating. I'm happy that maybe someone doesn't have to kill cows for me anymore.
I completely agree. The primary reason to not eat meat is that it's inherently unethical (factory farm or not). But a lot of people don't feel that way, so any argument that will persuade them to eat less (or no) meat works in my book.
I can relate to this, except the last sentence. Taking advantage of the privilege of living in a society where meat alternatives and other sources of
protein are abundant, my delayed reaction to witnessing animal slaughter was to quit eating animal products altogether. The only real cost of it has been in dealing with colleagues in the UK, who enjoy questioning me about my dietary choices (at best), or persistently try to convince me to eat meat (at worst).
That perfectly sums up why I stopped eating meat. There was no great moral outrage, and I don't yell at friends who eat meat. I just decided that I was no longer comfortable with my money funding processes that I found objectionable.
Animal torture (seeing trucks with bleeding pigs on the highway) and not liking meat very much anyway. These days I can add environmental concerns (I was a bit ignorant about that 20 years ago). I just quit cold turkey 20 years ago and I don't miss it. Sometimes I try it (only when travelling; we haven't cooked any in our home for 20 years) and then remember that it wasn't great in the first place; it is ok in an indian or thai curry but then I don't really see the benefit over vegetarian options either.
I like to cook and always have so I had never any issues making exciting food without meat. Most things we cook with we grow in our garden; we could stand a very long time without buying food if we would try which I find another advantage as for meat we would need a lot more land and effort than we have now.
I stopped eating meat for ethical reasons, and after a couple of decades it makes me ill, presumably because my gut flora no longer tolerates it. So any reason to not eat meat can become a health-related specification, given time.
From the sounds of it I'm nowhere near as sensitive to it as you and bifrost.
To make an orthogonal point to yours: I gave up meat a few years ago and this has lead to (more than) a few friends either giving up meat themselves or reducing their meat consumption now that they've seen (because of _my individual action_) that it's a viable option.
Personally I don’t agree. I used to eat meat, then decided it was evil, then later stopped eating meat. There was a long time there where I kept doing it out of habit and laziness even though I thought it was wrong.
We don't have to stop eating meat. Reducing consumption goes a long way already.
Here's my story. I noticed that I was eating far more meat than I actually wanted to. It happened out of habit and because it was just there. That means I had been "mindlessly" buying meat while shopping instead of having a plan what to do with it. Once I stopped shopping like that, I found that I craved meat less often than I had expected. When I now do, I actually have meat and that without feeling bad at all. I consume far less meat than I used to, without actually missing anything. I consider that a success and one that is sustainable for me on top of that.
I am shocked at how easy it was to stop. I always pictured some long and tormented inner battle, but the book made the necessity of the decision self-evident. I eat meat maybe once per month now, a 99% reduction in intake, with no significant physical or psychological struggle whatsoever.
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