to the non vegans

if you don't want to get preached to, don't read this. i'm not really trying to sound preachy, but just to explain a vegan's standpoint. i don't really know how to do so without preaching. i'm just explaining my views, though.

when you say "i would like for animals not to be tortured, too, but we can't control that" i laugh. that is so far from being the only reason why people are vegan or vegetarian. it's also an ethical reason. for some people, it has to do with health issues and whether they like the taste or not. but a lot of the time, it's ethical.

people don't want to place things that were once living into their mouths, and under no circumstances would they consider a fried piece of flesh "food." it's just disgusting and repulsive to them. and when it comes to veganism, the same thing applies. we just don't think it's morally correct to consume things that rightfully belong to an animal. the cow produces milk for its calves, the chicken lays eggs for the same reason we pop babies out of our vaginas.

the fact that free range eggs and milk exist is comforting to some vegans, but on others like me it has no effect. it's still a part of an animal, and whether there was an inkling of torture during the process or not, we just don't believe it should be put in our mouths. it's 2010, and there are other ways to get protein, iron, calcium, and b12 than to have to force livestock to eat dogs and wheat and grain in order to get fed back to us. there are plenty of children and families in poverty that grain could do good for, and yet we're forcing animals to eat it because we're laboring under the delusion that it is necessary.

it's not.