Heh, you know what? in a roundabout way I was too :) That's how I first recall learning what a vegetarian was - I was watching Roseanne and had to ask my mother what it meant! I must have been five or six at the time, and it stuck in my head.

I've been a vegetarian since I was 12, with a six-month period before that when I still ate fish. That makes it nine years this November. I'd never enjoyed meat, only really eating it to keep my family happy (hence the fish phase). Eventually I just said enough was enough, I couldn't justify it to myself, knowing what I was eating and how the animals were treated.

My family are fine with it, especially seeing as I cook for myself and don't give them a hard time for their carniverous nature (any more, at least). My ex-boyfriend was suprisingly tolerant, given that he's a butcher, though he did make like to wave bits of animal at me :S

I Have also found a myspace Site about Vegetarian/Vegan Gothic Movement:

/vegangothics is the Site Name.

There are some vegan/vegetarian Bands in the Top List.
my favourite myspace (after my own)
They are not yet known very good. So I think, soon there will be more of those Bands.

I can't entirely understand the vegan logic.

It's the end result of an overdose of the Amphetamine Logic. ;)

What I don't understand is why vegans want EVERYONE to be vegan.
It couldn't happen without tons of people dying of starvation.

being Vegan i think is just stupid no offense to anyone here its your choice but our bodies were designed to have a mixed diet from animal and plant sources.

Not really. We evolved from herbivores into carnivores. Meat is naturally only a last option for whether it's the most plentiful resource available. The first humans to come to America used to hunt big game. Yet the Mississipian civilization lived mostly on corn.
And also, no, not many people would die of starvation. Except for the occasional cattle farmers and hunters in the third world, meat is still a luxury. Really, the only ones that would see a drastic change in their diets if the world became vegan would be the first world countries and any place where McDonalds is readily available.
What I don't get is the vegan ethical logic.

Vegans are like ultra conservative millitant christians of the food world.

If that clarifies anything.

LOL!

I've heard otherwise; we don't have the room to grow enough of the food if everyone only ate plants.

I have no problem with vegatarians or those who choose not to wear animal fur or leather or those who do not use cosmetic products tested on animals. I don't eat much meat myself, as I enjoy fruits and vegatable considerably more, but a BALANCED diet with meat and vegatables is healthy. As is a completely vegatarian diet along with soy products and beans.

I do, however, have a problem with "vegans" who claim that they never use anything related to animals at all. Many vegans (not all, though) seem to be very ignorant about the medical field and how many of our modern day treatments come from animals...

Example: Most people do not keep on their tetanus shots. As a result, if you get cut with a rusty blade, you should get a tetanus injection STAT, otherwise lockjaw might be in your near future. With a short timespan like that, if you were to receive the normal immunization for tetanus, your body wouldn't have enough time to create antibodies against it. What will be in the injection you receive in that case?

A horse's pre-made antibodies against tetanus. What is a vegan to do then? Get lockjaw and stay true to their lifestyle, or be injection with something that came from an animal's body?

We didn't evolve into carnivores. Our dentition isn't correct for a purely meat based diet like cats for example. We have developed molars for chewing and grinding plant material, and incisors for cutting/severing plant stems and tougher material. Also, human beings have cooked their meat for thousands of years, which makes it softer, so we don't need a mouthful of canines to rip at it like carnivores do.

I don't think a totally vegan world is really that feasable. Meat and animal product consumption, be it via farmed animals or hunting, is too ingrained in human beings for it to completely stop. I do think that we eat too much meat compared to people in developing countries .

I have thought for a long time that farming really needs to be scaled right down to local levels and made organic. This would be better for both the environment and the welfare of the animals.

Anything that the vegans say, I see it all inclusive within the freegan lifestyle. So why not become a freegan rather than a vegan? It is much more ethical and productive, in fact.

Omnivores would be a more suitable definition in my opinion. Both pure animal and pure vegetable diets can lead to deficiency diseases, and our teeth supports both kind of nutrition pre-processing.

True, sorry about that. Solely the word 'carnivore' doesn't fit into the context of my post anyway.

I've been vegan about a year and a half now. It's super cheap, as long as you avoid the processed soy stuff. I almost never buy it, but sometimes other people will feed it to me. Grains, legumes, nuts, fruits & veggies is all you need. Dairy and eggs are completely optional, and of all the "vegetarian" foods, dairy is probably the most expensive (especially cheese). Eggs are cheap, but oatmeal is cheaper still. Peanut butter is cheap too. So if it's a cost issue, don't let that stand in your way, just learn some basic cooking so you don't depend on the expensive processed foods. Your family can eat veg food too, maybe add some meat if they want it, so you won't have to cook two meals every time (unless the're the KFC-McD's type).

As for health...in a balanced vegetarian diet, you will not lack any nutrient. However if you're a girl you can become anemic if all you do is cut out red meat. I did that once, even eating some turkey and fish didn't cut it. Just read up on nutrition or ask a vegetarian you know. It's easy once you figure it out, and if you learn to cook you can make tasty new things for your family too. Also, you can get a good multivitamin for not much money (the cost is defrayed anyway by vegan food being cheaper). I would get one for vegetarians (in fact, I did), because it might be formulated a bit differently.

Vegetarian, vegan as soon as I can.
SO many reasons to veg out.
Ethic reasons? Mostly ethical. I can't stand the fact that so many people just take animals totally for granted. I can't do that. I like most animals much better than most people, honestly.
Medical reasons? Obesity runs in my family, as does high cholesterol. I'm trying to offset that.
Flavor reasons? Vegetarianism teaches you to think outside the box when cooking and eating out. When you take meat out of the picture, all the other food groups are magnified and you see foods you never would have thought of before.

I was a pescatarian for 3 years. I recently went vegetarian.
I don't have a real reason for it, I just felt like it.

I realize this might be a dumb question but even if it is I still want it answered: Can one live off of oatmeal?

Actually that's a damn good question. I don't think so though. Nothing, not even soy or oats, can have all the nutrients we need, can it?
Maybe the two combined, though...
I don't know.

Oatmeal and vitamin water I'm sure. But why would you want to?

It reduces the amount of money you spend in food and doesn't consume as much time as other meals.

Well yeah. Obviously.

Yeah, but oatmean is pretty high in fiber. Eat enough of it and your life is going to consist of visiting the various bathrooms of your area. If you're still ok with that, then maybe a diet with it as one of the staples would not be so bad. Maybe make the oatmeal with milk, instead?