BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Vegetarian Why are Meat Eaters so hard on Vegetarians?

Recently I was in Bolivia a big meat eating country who love their beef) when I told them I was a vegetarian mostly the response was not defensive aggression like here in the States but rather...pity! :) Its hard for meat eaters to understand that my choice to not eat meat is NOT a constant battle to refrain from eating something delicious but rather I find it baffling now how anyone could put something that smells so disgusting in their mouth. Its like being a non-smoker in a world of smokers they just have no idea.

My family lives in Texas and since it is a big beef producing state, it's very hard to get a good veggie burger there-lol. Things are changing however, and there are more vegetarian options in restaurants.

My husband can't give up meat either, altho I could easily and I try to get most of my protein from other sources. We do buy our meat from local farmers, however, who raise their meat ethically.

I have to say, I raised chickens several years ago and loved them. They were pets, however! I could never bring myself to eat one of them and had no wish to. We did enjoy the fresh eggs from our own free range chickens.

I think if more people were aware of the way commercial animals were raised and pretty much tortured, and the fact that living a healthy lifestyle means more plant foods, not meat, maybe things would change.

I am trying (again) to be a non-meat eater and I am not hard on vegetarians - never have been. In fact, I have admired them and need to try harder to be one of them.

Some people really feel it is "not normal" to avoid meat. After everything I have read in the literature I have handed out (yes, hanging my head), I know you should avoid meat.

Do you know what your meat ate before it died?

There was a new Candid Camera episode many years back where Roseanne Barr was married to Tom Arnold. It was when they were losing weight. The joke was on Roseanne as Tom and Candid Camera were behind it. They went to a restaurant to eat and they were introduced to their live meat before the animals were "butchered" for dinner. (They really didn't butcher those animals as this was a prank)....but the idea of it all has stuck with me.