Let me begin with a small anecdote. My office colleagues and I were in a lunch meeting. One of my colleagues ordered a "sushi" dish that is basically made up of fish. In an attempt to tease me being vegetarian she exclaimed "I love fish" only to receive my polite smile as a reply. As I was about to begin my Garden Veggie sandwich her dish was on the platter. Trying to act smart and garnering support from the rest of the crowd she remarked ,"See. This fish is so tasty..!! Its my favorite. Sad that you do not like it." I could not suppress my tongue in the pretext of courtesy and was quick to retort saying "Who said I do not like fish ?" and then realized I had taken the entire crowd by surprise that thinks that I am a strict vegan. I paused and said, "I like it swimming in that tank (pointing to a fish tank in the corner of the restaurant) than it being on your plate". I am sure I embarrassed her this time and exceeded limits of courtesy but felt happy about getting my point across. (I wanted to do this at least a twenty times before...!! to ten different people). I am not a fanatic by any chance but quite strong on my principle of "Live and Let others live".

This made me think! Do I have a convincing argument for being a strict vegetarian. I personally view vegetarianism as a trait imbibed from birth and strengthened through mental and physical growth. To me it is more of an ethical issue. Is eating an animal eating a dead body ? Why is it barbaric to kill a human being for food while, killing an animal is forgiven. An animal does all that humans do. They give birth, they live, they make noise, they cry in pain, they love fellow beings, they reproduce and they die. I do not see any difference in the normal life chain of an animal that is slaughtered for food and a human in that aspect. With trees and plants, its leaves and fruits in no way affect the well being of the tree. The seeds of the fruit need to go back to the soil for their reproduction which is matter of time and will happen as part of the food cycle. Extending this logic to animals, I will accept milk products as vegetarian because we are not in any way endangering the very existence of the animal. I am reminded of one other incident that my friend narrated to me. He was in the Frozen section of supermarket. Chicken breasts were strung in display. A mom and her kid walked by and the mom was checking out the price of chicken. The smart kid asked her mom what was she looking at and the mom in an educative tone said "She was thinking of buying chicken". The kid became more inquisitive and trying to use her kinder garden education asked, "Mom..! How did the chicken come here and Why is it here?" and the mom still very patient in her reply said." It is dead and so is in the store for sale!." The kid did not think much to leave her mom speechless with her next set of questions. "Mom...! How did it die..? Who killed it ?Was the killer punished ?"

I read this counter-argument from a religious propagandist. "God created plants and he also created animals. He did this for the sake of man and there is nothing wrong in eating animals." I just have append my answer by saying "Sticking to vegetarianism becomes a matter of prudent choice" when survival with just plants is possible why impose the pain to an animal.

And to dear meat-eaters who say claim bacteria as meat, think twice before you pull in science about the bacterium. I have more scientific reasons such as hygiene, easy access to a balanced diet, calorie and other economic and spiritual statistics to support my practice.

to MOKSHYA:
"plants do not have pain receptors"

Corollary: So if we were able to silence all the pain receptors in animals that we slaughtered, would that mean they are like plants then. man! that would be quite a business in a semi conservative society like US. Appeal it has on the mass of buying meet of painlessly killed animals! Anybody interested?

Good for you VEGAN Don Corleone. For the most part I could not agree more with you. But I would like to focus on the ambiguities associated with the logics that you have articulated.

Humans are considered advanced animals. So, the adjective “advanced” would put us right up there at the top of the food chain and the same adjective could be used to qualify the way we use different techniques to kill animals or even humans in some cases. Cannibalism is not that rare in animals and presumably not in advanced animals by the name of humans.

You wrote that “vegetarianism is a trait imbibed from birth and strengthened through mental and physical growth.” It is true to an extent but there are person who are vegetarian not by birth but by choice. If I am not mistaken you seem to be vegetarian by birth, if so, lots of the reasoning that you have presented are mere coincidental to your personality.

Now the use of the term “ethical issue” doesn’t fit the bill in your case because you are not vegetarian by choice but by birth or in other words you did not have the choice of eating meat in you earlier days. “Is eating an animal eating a dead body?” I would say for the most part yes, unless you gorge on the animal alive and make no mistake the dead body that I am implying here is not human body. Just because you don’t see the suffering of plants doesn’t mean that they don’t have the sensation of pain. I agree that the suffering is more visible in animals but it doesn’t mean that the things you don’t see don’t occur at all.

Let’s not bring god into this equation at all because it would be trite as we are not sure of the absolute truth. If you are spiritual or practice meditation or something along these lines you might know better than rest of the people otherwise we are in the same plane of consciousness.

Make no mistake, you have some valid points.

I am vegetarian (since birth) too…

Initially it was based on religious beliefs, cultural and family upbringing…..
Now, I am used to with it, personally, I am satisfied with what I am doing and never get temptations to eat or try meat and alcohol. Nowadays, I am vegetarian not because of religious and family and cultural reasons but due to health benefits and some kind of self-realized commitment to keep something that I have been doing so long. But the fact is that I am enjoying it. So, I never thought about abandoning vegetarian way of life.

keep it up nut....

well done guys you all give a really good arguements, i was wondering what has happened to the people in sajha ,all they seem to do in the recent is curse each other or
polititians, by the way shiv i am not the sambhu from california, as a matter of fact i name is not even sambhu.lol

Veg or non veg ? personal choice but dont force yourself to be either non veg or veg, as simple as that.

What is vegetarian food? Material-things made out of vegetables.

Most cows, sheep, lambs, goat etc eat grass so their meat is vegetarian meat.
Meat of those animals who eat meat are non vegetarian meat.