I became a vegetarian about a half a year ago. I've never really liked meat however it was still difficult to cut it out of my diet completely. Food is often connected to nice memories from our life. I still remember how we were sitting by the fire with my family and roasting the mackerels, how my grandpa used to make the best chicken nuggets in the world or how we always had fish and potato salad for every Christmas dinner. Am I going to be a vegetarian until the end of my life? I don't know. I can't say anything for sure, because I have no idea what I'll be thinking about in ten years, one year or one week from now. It's not an easy decision to become a vegetarian, but right now it makes perfect sense to me ...
1. Create relationship with animals
Our dog is my biggest "motivation" to stay vegetarian. When I see him happy, upset, angry, tired. When I see how happy he is when we come back home and how sad he is when we leave the apartment. When I see him sleeping on my bed, breathing just like human and barking in his sleep because he had a nightmare ... It's enough motivation for me.
Animals don't think like people, they're not awere of themselves and they don't understand the time as humans do. But in any other way, they're very similar to us. They feel pain, they have emotioins and the fact that they're biologically on a lower level than we are, doesn't mean they're worthless. For me, vegetarianism is not about discipline. It's not about strong will that helps you to remove meat from your diet. It's the relationship with animals and the compasion that should be your biggest motivation.
2. "Eat dogs and cats"
Except some asian states like China or Korea, cats and dogs are seen more imporant then other animals. We have them at home, we love them, we care about them ... When we see a cow or a pig, we look at them differently - as if they weren't living creatures, but food.
People usually have dogs and cats as their pets. We meet these animals more often and our relationship with them is stronger. You don't meet a cow or a pig in the city. If you saw somebody hurting a dog, you'd protect him or you'd at least feel bad about it. But it people see videos from slaughterhouses, they may not be so disturbed because they don't have such a strong relationship with these animals. However emotionally they're not different from our pets.
So when you're eating a meat, try to imagine that the meat could come from your pet. I know it's pretty morbid, but it really works sometimes. You may not feel like eating that steak on your plate after you imagine that ...
3. Watch Earthlings
Movies had an important impact on me when I was starting with vegetarianism. I've seen many of them (Forks over knives, Cowspiracy, Vegucated, ..), but none of them affected me as much as Earthlings. The documentary shows how people hurt animals - through meat, dairy and egg iundustry, leather factories, through entertainment (bullfighting, circuses etc.). During those 130 minutes I realized many thingsand used many paper tissues.
Nobody can convince or force someone to become vegetarian. I believe that everyone has to make this decision on their own. If you think about becoming vegetarian, you may also read a post, about why I became vegetarian, on this blog :)
1. Create relationship with animals
Our dog is my biggest "motivation" to stay vegetarian. When I see him happy, upset, angry, tired. When I see how happy he is when we come back home and how sad he is when we leave the apartment. When I see him sleeping on my bed, breathing just like human and barking in his sleep because he had a nightmare ... It's enough motivation for me.
Animals don't think like people, they're not awere of themselves and they don't understand the time as humans do. But in any other way, they're very similar to us. They feel pain, they have emotioins and the fact that they're biologically on a lower level than we are, doesn't mean they're worthless. For me, vegetarianism is not about discipline. It's not about strong will that helps you to remove meat from your diet. It's the relationship with animals and the compasion that should be your biggest motivation.
2. "Eat dogs and cats"
Except some asian states like China or Korea, cats and dogs are seen more imporant then other animals. We have them at home, we love them, we care about them ... When we see a cow or a pig, we look at them differently - as if they weren't living creatures, but food.
People usually have dogs and cats as their pets. We meet these animals more often and our relationship with them is stronger. You don't meet a cow or a pig in the city. If you saw somebody hurting a dog, you'd protect him or you'd at least feel bad about it. But it people see videos from slaughterhouses, they may not be so disturbed because they don't have such a strong relationship with these animals. However emotionally they're not different from our pets.
So when you're eating a meat, try to imagine that the meat could come from your pet. I know it's pretty morbid, but it really works sometimes. You may not feel like eating that steak on your plate after you imagine that ...
3. Watch Earthlings
Movies had an important impact on me when I was starting with vegetarianism. I've seen many of them (Forks over knives, Cowspiracy, Vegucated, ..), but none of them affected me as much as Earthlings. The documentary shows how people hurt animals - through meat, dairy and egg iundustry, leather factories, through entertainment (bullfighting, circuses etc.). During those 130 minutes I realized many things
Nobody can convince or force someone to become vegetarian. I believe that everyone has to make this decision on their own. If you think about becoming vegetarian, you may also read a post, about why I became vegetarian, on this blog :)
Great article. Glad to find your blog. Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you :)
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