why are you vegan/vegetarian/dairy free/vEGGan?

[Ecrewe]

@1cock2hens
I agree that PETA and other activists can exaggerate and even lie- which is certainly not ethical. But I believe that if we don't need to meat to survive then why kill? Obviously, our own lives and those of our species should always come first and foremost, but we should take other species into account. For example, in my area we cannot live long lives if we do not kill mosquitoes, but if we don't kill animals and eat their meat, most studies suggest there's no harm done and others even points benefits (i.e. low cholesterol intake).

 

[1cock2hens]

we don't need meat I agree.. It's all about propaganda, the cattle industry/ poultry industry etc have lobbied to have this country brainwashed for years to believe that meat is the best source of protein and milk the best source of calcium etc.. Same reason certain other things are illegal and people blindly do as they have been told/taught by the government. when I tell people i'm vegetarian( or vegan when i'm vegan) fist thing they say is either they love cheese too much to be vegan lol or they say where do you get your protein? where do you get calcium if you don't drink milk? they are ignorant to the fact that you can get everything they need without an animal as the source.

 

[rjohns39]

@rjohns39
Could you please explain how they go to sleep- do you use some sort of gas? Is it safe to eat them afterwards?
Thanks

It's important to minimize stress, so I move them to the processing area the night before. I'm calm and gentle when I pick them up and place them in the cone. The squeezing motion of the cone relaxes them. Then I gently extend their neck and will rub the side of their neck to clear feathers and identify my target. This process puts them to sleep. Their eyes will be closed and they are totally calm. Then with one quick and deliberate slice with a very sharp knife I cut the blood vessel through. When I do it right, they will never wake up and their eyes will never open. It takes more time and patience, but IMHO it's the right thing to do.

 

[Ecrewe]

Interesting! Thank you for sharing.

 

[VeggieGoneEggie]

Hello everybody! I wanted to see if there are any other vegans/vegetarians/whatever elses out there who can share their stories on why they cut out animal products. I'm not vegan nor will i ever really be, i have chickens and I'm not about to let all those eggs go to waist but I've been dairy free for six months now and i am starting to cut out more and more, this month I'm cutting out red meat, next month is white meat, and then finely the next month will be seafood.
I am going vegan (or i guess you could say vEGGan, if you want to be specific *snicker*) for ethical reasons now but I'm wondering what made all of you go vegan too for inspiration. I grew up on a meat and cheese based diet, so it's going to be super hard cutting out literally all of my favorite foods. If anybody has any plant based recipes as well I'd love to hear them.
Ok here's my quick story it's nothing spectacular but i figure why not.
The way it works in my house, you have breakfast usually with cheese and eggs, luch usually a cheese sandwich, then finally dinner, usually something with cheese in it. I had heard about the dairy free lifestyle but never looked into it much because my parents told me that cows liked to be milked so i just never second guessed it. Then i watched a video on YouTube called "dairy is scary" and i went cold turkey the next day. My best friend went dairy free with me and my parents went along with it thinking it was just a phase, i haven't had dairy since.
My family (cousins aunts uncles grandparents) were all very opposed and a few of them made fun of me for being "too sensitive". Now I'm taking the leap and cutting out all animal products except for my chickens eggs (i can't wait to see the haters faces). My parents are taking it seriously this time since i proved them wrong with the dairy thing.
So there, now i want to hear why you cut out animal products, or meat or dairy. You don't need to be vegan to participate either feel free to leave your thoughts.

Kudos to you on taking this step!

I went vegetarian (cut out all meat) about 8 years ago. I actually gained some weight/felt worse and realized it’s because my diet shifted to a LOT of fried potatoes and pasta with cream/cheese based sauce, which kickstarted me going vegan (cut out dairy/eggs) about a year after that. I started out primarily with ethical reasons - and then enjoying the health and environmental benefits afterward, too.

Since making chickens a part of my family, I have dabbled in their eggs because I see no direct harm - though many vegans have legit reasons for disagreeing with me. I probably eat 0-3 of their eggs a week.

For me it all comes down to this: Death and suffering is pretty universally considered a horrible thing. We don’t like to kill (or at least don’t start out that way), we teach children not to hurt and kill others, and we know you shouldn’t hurt or kill an animal for no good reason. SO...there IS an aspect of death or suffering in food production. And if you can EASILY forgo that aspect and choose to simply eat something else, why wouldn’t you?

In other words, if you need to get from Point A to Point B, and you’ve got a choice of a road covered in alfalfa and a road covered in rabbits, with all other factors being the same, why wouldn’t you run over the alfalfa and spare the rabbits?

It can get more complicated from there when people have special health issues and other dietary restrictions, and when you think about many communities across the world struggling to produce and transport food - but for many people, it’s a pretty straightforward simple choice we make.

There’s also no perfection, and I refuse to take or impose purity tests. Simply by *living*, we impact the world and everyone else in it, positively or negatively. So for me, it’s all about doing the best you think you can to cause the least harm without becoming a miserable suffering person yourself.

I also grew up on meat and potatoes, come from a hunting/farming family background, so it’s hard for the elders to understand and not take your decision as a personal judgment on their life/culture. But stay gentle, accommodating, and self-focused, and they come around or learn to just quietly let you do your thing.

 

[Jemma Rider]

I always thought of vegans an unpractical, emotional bunch of hippies- that was until I started keeping my own chickens and had to kill the darling babies I'd hatched when they gang raped my girls. It broke my heart- but it had to be done or the girls would have died miserably.
I've only been a vegan for less than a year- but I'm definitely not looking back. I found out that veganism was actually a practical solution to a lot of global problems-not just limited to violence and cruelty. (In South Africa we are in the middle of terrible drought and the news is full of stories of how much less water a vegan diet uses)
Has keeping chickens changed your diet?
Do you think killing is cruel? Or, do you think it can be humane?

I eat alot more eggs, every morning with dairy free cheese and imitation lunch meat. I make like a little pizza with the eggs and cheese, all my own eggs. I personally have no problem eating animals, it's just the fact that we treat them so horribly that put me off. My family has always tried to buy the best cruelty free stuff we can but we simply don't have that much money and that stuff is so expensive, and still how can we be sure the animals were treated right. If i had the stomach for it i wouldn't have a problem with raising my own livestock, but I'd get attached very quickly. I always thought that as well, it's what my parents taught me and what their parents before them taught them. My dad is a hunter, but he never kills any young animals so I've never had a problem with eating his meat. I just have lost all taste for it. My mother deep fried ribs in an attempt to lure me back so i had some yesterday since she bought the meat from the amish but i was sick to my stomach the whole time and felt guilty the rest of the day. If the animal was treated correctly up until the time of death i am fine with it, but it's easier to just cut it all out instead of trying to find good sources.

 

[Jemma Rider]

Kudos to you on taking this step!

I went vegetarian (cut out all meat) about 8 years ago. I actually gained some weight/felt worse and realized it’s because my diet shifted to a LOT of fried potatoes and pasta with cream/cheese based sauce, which kickstarted me going vegan (cut out dairy/eggs) about a year after that. I started out primarily with ethical reasons - and then enjoying the health and environmental benefits afterward, too.

Since making chickens a part of my family, I have dabbled in their eggs because I see no direct harm - though many vegans have legit reasons for disagreeing with me. I probably eat 0-3 of their eggs a week.

For me it all comes down to this: Death and suffering is pretty universally considered a horrible thing. We don’t like to kill (or at least don’t start out that way), we teach children not to hurt and kill others, and we know you shouldn’t hurt or kill an animal for no good reason. SO...there IS an aspect of death or suffering in food production. And if you can EASILY forgo that aspect and choose to simply eat something else, why wouldn’t you?

In other words, if you need to get from Point A to Point B, and you’ve got a choice of a road covered in alfalfa and a road covered in rabbits, with all other factors being the same, why wouldn’t you run over the alfalfa and spare the rabbits?

It can get more complicated from there when people have special health issues and other dietary restrictions, and when you think about many communities across the world struggling to produce and transport food - but for many people, it’s a pretty straightforward simple choice we make.

There’s also no perfection, and I refuse to take or impose purity tests. Simply by *living*, we impact the world and everyone else in it, positively or negatively. So for me, it’s all about doing the best you think you can to cause the least harm without becoming a miserable suffering person yourself.

I also grew up on meat and potatoes, come from a hunting/farming family background, so it’s hard for the elders to understand and not take your decision as a personal judgment on their life/culture. But stay gentle, accommodating, and self-focused, and they come around or learn to just quietly let you do your thing.

I try to be one of those non-preachy vegans who respect other people's choices, but it is incredibly hard, especially when friends taunt my beliefs and lifestyle. I already had enough crap to take from them about my chickens and reptiles giving me diseases, i went a whole year being called salmonella girl, i don't need crap on what they think is healthiest and what is not. And i am very proud that i haven't just screamed at one of them yet, especially while they taunt me while they are eating meat and ice cream and I'm just like whatever i have better stuff at home. My favorite thing to do is bring a huge tub of my vegan mac and cheese to a party and watch it disappear, and i love people's faces when i tell them that it's a vegan recipe. It's marvelous. Recently i went to a dairy farm with a friend, who was on and off dairy free, and we saw three veal calves locked up in tiny crates and half starved, my friend hasn't even touched dairy since. Amazing how seeing the process with your own eyes can change your perspective.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

i saw something that made me think, i was on the web and reading about pets and animal abuse, and where does that line end, where animals become food and products?

and i think that is for each of us to decided, i also so a video which made me think again the other day, it was about a man eating road kill turkey talking about when does meat become food to you? i can thank and think about the animal am eating, i feel sorry for them, mainly the factory farmed ones. they never got a chance to live. but i understand that nature is not as nice as we like to Believe, animals are eaten alive every day.

now i have seen the videos of Peta (which i find most just propaganda i mean they kill more animals/pets then save and they have been shown to fake videos)

 

[IslaBean]

I’m currently a vegetarian, but an aspiring vegan. My road to becoming a vegetarian was very gradual. I didn’t want to eat meat that was factory raised, so I started to only eat meat that came from local farms. This way I knew that the meat was humanly raised, which was all that mattered. But this soon lead to me not eating any meat when our local farm stopped selling meat. I didn’t really eat meat much after that. Soon I stopped eating meat altogether. I was vegetarian for a few years until I realized that eating eggs and dairy from factory farms was still supporting animal cruelty. This was when I started my own backyard flock. I have no problem eating my own chicken’s eggs. This isn’t hurting them in any way. However, I still eat dairy. I really don’t want to, but I just can’t stop myself, it’s in everything. I hate the fact that my consumption of dairy is leading to the abuse of cows. My goal is to completely cut out animal products except my chicken’s eggs. I only wish that animal products didn’t come from factory farms.

 

[Dani4Hedgies]

I am working my way towards the "clean living" that was mentioned in the 2nd post as we are putting together our new farm house and planning out what animals we will have and how we will raise them to be food but to be food that has lived it life as it should. No cow will ever have its calf taken from it we don't need that much milk. Currently we live in the city where the best I can do is to raise my own chickens, turkeys and ducks. However once we are able to move we will be raising cows/goats for milk, cheese and meat as well as we have 3 lakes that will be stocked with fish for our table as well pigs for our meat as well as we have plenty of deer and will be raising rabbits for both meat and fur as well as have over plenty of room for our veggie garden planted to ensure we all can live clean and off the land.