River Cottage

There are other reasons to be veggie. I am nearly veggie but my reason is I don't like eating animals. But I am an animal person and not ignorant about the farming business. One who likes to make meals from scratch using natural ingredients, including meat for OH, produced by British farmers by choice, (or myself!) and avoiding anything with "vegetable fat" or palm oil, wherever possible.

For many years I earned my living from hunting farmers. Don't agree with hunting either....for me (and yes, I have been and understand why people do it, it was an amazing experience, but no fox killed on this occasion) So it would be rather silly to not eat meat for the reasons given in previous posts. Just because it is not for me doesn't mean I think it's wrong.

I'm not precious about cheese, though given a choice I would rather eat veggie. Genuine Parmesan is always made with animal rennet. And my dreadful feet need leather shoes, and my horse needs leather tack (alternatives are not all they could be.) I have had most of it for thirty years, well looked after.

So I describe myself as a nearly veggie.

dairy production has always been a problem ethically for me. but what can you do? I don't have a local dairy herd and am not sure that goats milk is any better now. Soya milk is undrinkable so what do you do? I am not a veggie because I eat fish. My ethos is if it was running wild before it was killed i will eat it. Therefore fish and game are well fair game. eggs come from local secure production methods farmed meat is off the menu but milk is a real dilemma. Can you have bulls as a redundant by product? what do you do with them? My suggestion would be that because petrol is now so expensive we ought to strap a couple of bulls to the front of my VW and let them earn their living pulling me to work everyday. The kids at my school would love it.

Or you could buy a bike ! 

If you let ethics get in the way of free thinking, then you cant really call yourself open minded either and subsequently where do you draw the line ? If you do draw a line somewhere then morals and morality rule you.

If you object to something then the majority of the time (not always) you are mostly in a minority.

Piper your not a veggie because you eat fish & meat (game) your an omnivore !

How many vegetarians get the bone china out to eat off at Christmas lunch. ??

I tend to think if you are a thinking eater, and are comfortable with the decisions you have made, then attempting to justify yourself to the self-appointed moral guardians is a waste of time. I have to live with myself - them I can tune out and ignore.

Ideally my dairy would come from animals i raise myself, breed myself and slaughter myself. I don't have time to do that with a full time job half a State away so I compromise. Come the day I can be financially independent of a workplace then I will buy a goat and do my own thing. And yes, I will eat the male kids when they are old enough to make it worth my while, and the female kids will either be sold or kept to add to/refresh the herd. Hens, well I eat them quite happily as it is so no problems there (well apart from having had to get rid of them temporarily due to the work situation).

Cow or sheep? We rarely use intensive farming methods in Australia (though it does happen so please don't leap around to point this out to me). And since i live in the country I can point to the little black angus I want to eat out in the paddock and be fairly sure he is the one on my plate and in my freezer.

Attaching a couple of bullocks to a bike sounds a bit dodgy but I am willing to give it a go

I never said I was a veggie, and an omnivore suggests that I eat anything. That does not cover me either. What I am is a thinking consumer. I attach some ethical dimensions to my food choices. I am not an 'out of site, out of mind' consumer but I am realistic. I work a 70 hour week and have very little time to research the provenance of everything I eat so as a rule of thumb, I don't eat meat. However, when I have the time to properly consider my options I will eat meat as long as I am confident it conforms to my personal set of ethical standards.

I am not against farming in any shape or form, I live in Suffolk and love the county with all of its production. But when I see farmed animals being herded for slaughter I feel uneasey no matter how well they have been husbanded. I have seen people treated in the same way and it is hard not to anthropomorphize the stock.

If you work in a town you will see people herded that way every day, and they are none the worse for it.

I think the final out come for the people is very different.

I suppose at least for the animals the death is quick as opposed to the long drawn out suffering of the commuters

There are certainly far worse fates than a quick knife in the throat  ...