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From: stimac@tymix.UUCP (Michael Stimac)
Newsgroups: net.veg
Subject: non-veggies questions and attitudes
Message-ID: <186@tymix.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Feb-84 18:53:39 EST
Article-I.D.: tymix.186
Posted: Thu Feb 23 18:53:39 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Mar-84 07:47:31 EST
Organization: Tymshare Inc., Cupertino CA
Lines: 32

First, I want to thank Sharon for sharing the comments she's heard over
the years from non-vegetarians. Most all of them rang a bell with me.

My favorite is "What made you decide to become a vegetarian?" usually
asked somewhat ernestly. I always find this difficult to answer, because
I don't feel like I "decided" or that something MADE me decide. I've
never enjoyed the prospect of killing animals, ever since I was a small
child. I hated fishing for that reason, deplored the stories my father
used to tell of beheading chickens on the family farm when he was a boy
(ych!!!), and avoided thinking about how sausages were made.

If I think the questioner has any sense of humor, I just tell them
that I don't like eating  dead animal flesh. If they don't get 
it, I just ask them how they'd like to eat a dog's brain. After they
stop barfing, I explain I feel the same way about cow muscle. More often
I just tell people that I don't like to kill animals and also don't want
to pay someone else to kill them for me. (It took me a long time to
realise that by buying meat someone else had killed I was 'voting' for
killing animals).  Shortly after becoming vegetarian I was driving in
Phildelphia and saw a truck loaded with sheep. It felt really good to
see them and know that I was not contributing to their slaughter (yes,
I felt sorry for them, but that is another story).

The first time I visited my grandmother after becoming vegetarian, I
found that she was really upset about my diet. She insisted that I would
become sick (probably this very afternoon) and after several days SHE
was becoming a nervous wreck. I finally realized that everyone would
be much happier if I let her do SOMETHING, so I let her go out and buy
a nice lake trout and saute it for me. She was delighted, and I made
her day thus. Her family had always been a meat-and-potatoes (but
mostly meat) family and the concept of vegetarianism was just too
threatening to her belief system, I guess.