As N=1, I became vegetarian in 7th grade. Extreme levels of disgust-sensitivity [PETA is good at this] fueled this decision and I feel like I want to puke if I taste meat (I suspect disgust-sensitivity isn’t as big of a factor in utilitarian EAs who go veg*)...
The factors were:
personal interactions with chickens I had when staying over at a Woodinville farm (and then personal interactions with a Bellevue Chinese restaurant where I felt angered at how insensitive people were killing the aquarium fish right on site just for dishes (I was seeing murder at site). I stopped eating fish/chicken first, before I stopped eating all the other meats.
PETA [and other veg*n advocacy sites] successfully grossing me out (eg “poop-contaminated meat”) to the extent that I could not stand the taste of meat anymore. I did try fish once for the hell of it last year (when food was low) and still disliked the taste
I was kind of obsessed with animals (Wildlife Factfile, Grolier, watching Wild Discovery, a book on fish my mom once checked out of the Redmond library which gave me intense appreciation of all the different species of fish [1]) and environmental protection even in my very early years [eg I was a super-notorious environmentalist in 2nd grade, and started freaking out about climate change in 5th grade due to an unusually hot summer in Denver]. This is partly because of the green (or at least pro-animals) messages that are sent in a lot of children’s reading material
Intense rage/hypocrisy at how humans were treating animals in general. Also me being mad at my parents for how little they cared [even though I didn’t mind it as much in friends if they didn’t go veg]… (contrarianism against parents...)
a Seattle Times article about calorie restriction (and vegetarian diets are very obviously lower in calories). Along with all the health reasons (eg no saturated fat). Health factors were not the primary factors back then, but I would say that they are overwhelmingly the reason I now stay vegetarian (ofc to me there are still a million arguments for and almost none against, so it doesn’t make sense for me not to be veg*).
During 7th grade, I remember all the vicious vegetarianism debates on Age of Kings Heaven/HeavenGames [lol @ f18fett’s weird arguments against vegetarianism, as well as all the right-wingers who were against it], especially when I joined in with the other compassionate/left-wing forumers on those massive debate threads.
Going vegetarian + going to college early were the two kinds of contrarianism that I took that I am proudest of.
[1] Never realizing that it would cause intense amounts of family fighting when I finally took the plunge and became vegetarian. Ofc, this was not the end of family fighting over food (when I later also decided to turn against rice)
Thanks for sharing your experience on becoming vegetarian! There were also several people in the survey who said things such as just finding it disgusting.
As N=1, I became vegetarian in 7th grade. Extreme levels of disgust-sensitivity [PETA is good at this] fueled this decision and I feel like I want to puke if I taste meat (I suspect disgust-sensitivity isn’t as big of a factor in utilitarian EAs who go veg*)...
The factors were:
personal interactions with chickens I had when staying over at a Woodinville farm (and then personal interactions with a Bellevue Chinese restaurant where I felt angered at how insensitive people were killing the aquarium fish right on site just for dishes (I was seeing murder at site). I stopped eating fish/chicken first, before I stopped eating all the other meats.
PETA [and other veg*n advocacy sites] successfully grossing me out (eg “poop-contaminated meat”) to the extent that I could not stand the taste of meat anymore. I did try fish once for the hell of it last year (when food was low) and still disliked the taste
I was kind of obsessed with animals (Wildlife Factfile, Grolier, watching Wild Discovery, a book on fish my mom once checked out of the Redmond library which gave me intense appreciation of all the different species of fish [1]) and environmental protection even in my very early years [eg I was a super-notorious environmentalist in 2nd grade, and started freaking out about climate change in 5th grade due to an unusually hot summer in Denver]. This is partly because of the green (or at least pro-animals) messages that are sent in a lot of children’s reading material
Intense rage/hypocrisy at how humans were treating animals in general. Also me being mad at my parents for how little they cared [even though I didn’t mind it as much in friends if they didn’t go veg]… (contrarianism against parents...)
a Seattle Times article about calorie restriction (and vegetarian diets are very obviously lower in calories). Along with all the health reasons (eg no saturated fat). Health factors were not the primary factors back then, but I would say that they are overwhelmingly the reason I now stay vegetarian (ofc to me there are still a million arguments for and almost none against, so it doesn’t make sense for me not to be veg*).
During 7th grade, I remember all the vicious vegetarianism debates on Age of Kings Heaven/HeavenGames [lol @ f18fett’s weird arguments against vegetarianism, as well as all the right-wingers who were against it], especially when I joined in with the other compassionate/left-wing forumers on those massive debate threads.
Going vegetarian + going to college early were the two kinds of contrarianism that I took that I am proudest of.
[1] Never realizing that it would cause intense amounts of family fighting when I finally took the plunge and became vegetarian. Ofc, this was not the end of family fighting over food (when I later also decided to turn against rice)
Thanks for sharing your experience on becoming vegetarian! There were also several people in the survey who said things such as just finding it disgusting.