SC - Not eating cute furry animals

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

>  > Often the ones using the "cute" criterion use their emotions rather
>>  than their brains.
>
>What makes "cute" or any other reason for vegetarianism any more
>emotional than choosing your dietary restrictions for religious
>reasons?  Would you tell someone who chose to eat kosher that he was
>failing to use his brain?  How about someone who is vegetarian because
>he is a Buddhist?  In my experience it's a very small minority of
>vegetarinas who use "cute" as a predominant factor.  I know many
>vegetarians who will joke about "cute" animals the same way meat-eaters
>joke about ripping carcasses apart with thier bare hands.  Neither is a
>serious statement.  Why can't people accept the idea that a person just
>might choose vegetarianism for a well-thought-out, rationalized reason?
>
>-Magdalena
>who really tried to stay out of this, really, really, but is getting
>sick of these snipes.

Yah, know, i feel i must respond, since i made the quoted comment 
that begins your response.

Religious reasons are rather different than the "but it's cute" 
reason. I certainly made no remarks about religious reasons for being 
a vegetarian being emotional or invalid. I think you're being a bit 
oversensitive, which is only natural, since you say you are 
constantly hassled where you live for being a vegetarian.

In fact, the very next sentence after the one you quote in your message is:
>  Some folks don't eat things for other reasons, which i can respect.
>  "Because they're cute" is not, to me, a rational reason.

So your barking up the wrong tree if you think i'm attacking 
vegetarians or people who dislike or won't eat certain foods for 
specific reasons.

The "but it's cute. They have such big eyes" is a reason i have heard 
primarily from teen age girls and 20-something women. I'm female, so 
i know that being female does not automatically mean one is a ditz. 
I've met plenty of males who don't seem to be making full use of 
their brains either. But this is where i hear the "cute" reason. I 
certainly never said it was very common or all-pervasive. But i do 
think it is a really stupid reason to be a vegetarian.

One of the young females i know who doesn't eat animals because they 
are cute, and is by test scores very intelligent, is very into 
plastics and synthetics, which are not very good for the environment. 
When i pointed this out to her, she looked stunned. It had never 
dawned on her. She used the poor treatment of animals along with 
their big eyes as a secondary reason for not eating meat, so i would 
have thought that she might be aware of the degradation of the 
environment due to "factory farming". Naw, big eyes and cute 
appearance take precedence over other reasons.

I, too, was often had problems because i was a vegetarian. One 
instance stands out. It was the late 60's and early 70's and i was in 
college and looking to share a room in a house or apartment. One 
place seemed fine. Then the other roommates asked if i was 
vegetarian. I said yes, and they said they were sorry, but they 
didn't want me to move in. I explained that what they ate was their 
choice and not a problem for me. Then they explained that the person 
who'd just moved out had been a vegetarian. Whenever the other 
roomies cooked meat, he'd go into the kitchen, sniff the air several 
times and intone "I... smell... death". That rather put them off 
vegetarians.

Then i moved into a house with 3 other people. They wanted us to all 
eat together. So i cooked my own food and ate dinner with the rest of 
the roommates. One guy kept after me at every meal, why wouldn't i 
eat what they were eating. I certainly never bugged them about their 
food choices, but if they asked me questions, i would respond. After 
a few months i was asked to move out. It seems that this one guy just 
couldn't stand that i wasn't eating the same food. The other two had 
no problem with me, but one was the guy's brother, so he felt he had 
to side with his brother. And the other was odd man out, so he felt 
he had to go along with the other two.

In the late 60's and early 70's it was really really really difficult 
to eat vegetarian in a restaurant, and believe me, eating with 
relatives could be even more difficult.

People thought i was a wacko or that i couldn't possibly be a 
vegetarian and be healthy or that i was in some cult... stuff like 
that.

I am no longer a vegetarian, but i only eat meat at one or two meals 
a month, if that frequently. I almost never eat beef, because i no 
longer like the taste - although i have to say the BSE problem 
concerns me a bit, too. I know that they're feeding animal-derived 
products to herbivores here in the US and the same problem could 
arise. It only takes one contaminated animal...

I rarely eat pork products, although i confess a weakness for bacon, 
which is not a very healthful food. More often i eat chicken or 
seafood. And once or twice a month isn't very often.

So, no, i'm no longer a vegetarian, but i have been one and i rarely 
eat meat. My daughter is a vegetarian and i support her choice.

I have chosen to eat meat rarely for environmental reasons, and i'm 
particularly concerned about the way most food animals are raised in 
the US. But that's a whole different discussion that i don't want to 
get into. It certainly is far from how animals were raised in 
Medieval and Renaissance times.

I certainly have no problems with people's food choices and try to 
make sure my feasts will accommodate most people. There were people 
helping me out at the Boar Hunt who were Kosher. I made sure they 
didn't have handle the pork and that there were other meat options. I 
cooked my vegetables in vegetable broth rather than meat broth so any 
vegetarians present could eat them. One grain was cooked with dairy, 
but the other grain was cooked with almond milk so people avoiding 
eggs and dairy for whatever reason could eat at least one.

Before the feast i asked people with special needs to contact me, but 
no one did. I posted a list of ingredients in the hall. So i am aware 
of and try to be sensitive to people's various food needs.

Therefore, leaving out the part of my message that supports religious 
choices for being vegetarian, then quoting only one sentence from my 
post that has nothing whatsoever to do with religious choices and 
suggesting that i am intolerant of religious choices is not an 
accurate representation of my attitude.

Anahita