The American Dietetic Association notes that a vegetarian diet reduces the risk of many chronic degenerative diseases and conditions, including heart disease, cancer, obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.

It's in my belief that any animal is the same as one of us. I don't kill people, so I don't kill animals if I can help it. I have more respect for animals than some people I know. With that being said, I love the taste and the texture of meat of mammals, and I eat them often. How do I face my conscience about that? Well.... I don't if I can avoid it. Will I become a vegetarian in the future? Likely.

PETA - People for the Eating of Tasty Animals. Lets see how long it takes for me to get bashed for this one.

UPDATE: My fiancee bought be a People Eating Tasty Animals T-shirt, I'm wearing it today for the first time.

Mmmm... steak.

UPDATE: Its particularly good with the right marinade...

My days of weeping over a pot-roast are far behind me...

Wait a minute. On second thought, I never had those days.

The best, hello, I love a big juicy steak, ham, roast, burgers, the list goes on. I fell sorry for vegans, first, animals hunt for meat themselves,
try telling a hungry lion he can't eat meat, oh because the animal is so cute or has rights, the lion would eat you instead! (A Lion feast- a PETA members in pita bread.)

"We are nothing more than parasites and Neanderthals."

C'mon buddy, what kind of claim is that? I do respect your claim that we shouldnt eat other sentient beings, but you should realize those sentient beings are stupid as Fuk and taste delicious, if a tiger saw you in the wild and was hungry you would be dead, if the chickens we are pumping hormones into and making sit in cages their whole lives could kill us, they would. So lets conk them over the head before they conk us and enjoy some cooked flesh!

If not for the fat content of various meats, you wouldn't have enough insulation on your nerves to allow you to experience conscious thought. We humans exist (according to theorists) because of meat added to our diet as we exited the trees for the open grasslands. Our teeth are designed with meat in mind, not just veggies. Find a healthy balance in your diet and enjoy some tasty dishes. :)

Mankind has moved on in so many ways and yet is still living off other living, sentient beings. We are nothing more than parasites and Neanderthals. Even now when it is well known that meat will cause cancer, heart attack, and so many more health problems, the lowest common denominator of mankind still shovels the flesh of others into their guts. Time mankind learned that the other species needs to evolve also. It seems that most of mankind are still savages and evolution has come to a dead halt in their case.

Don't usually eat it, but not because PETA will shave my head and force me to watch "Splash!" over, and over, and over, and over...you get the picture.

In general I tend to cut people slack, especially if they aren't hypocrits about what they preach, but I think PETA is in danger of losing whatever credibility they had with this constant barrage of save the animals crap, from apes to roaches.

Don't know why but they always remind me of that "Seinfeld" episode when Kramer pissed off a monkey at the zoo and the zookeepers wanted him to apologize to the monkey.

Jerry: C'mon Kramer, he's just and innocent primate.
Kramer: So am I!

The one meat that has to go though is liver. I don't give a rats ass what you wrap it in to try to cover up the taste; bacon, cheese, fifty dollar bills, that shit is nasty!

People Eating Tasty Animals...

I doubt I'll be in the PETA Hall of Saints any time soon. Nothing, but nothing, beats a well-prepared steak, with a bit of marinade, seasoned well, and grilled correctly (not as easy to get right as you might think: high heat, just the right amount of time on each side). Many side dishes are possible, according to one's taste.

It's not eating meat per se that's the issue but what is eaten, how it's reared and slaughtered and how sustainable it is. If livestock has been allowed to graze openly, if they are fed well and are killed quickly and humanely and all the parts are used that's fine. Industrial type animal rearing, which produces low quality meat and only serves to profit the producers and retailers is utterly vile. The hunting of endagered species just for luxury food is also reprehensible.

I love my meat. I like my veggies too but don't plan to give up meat.

If you don't want to eat meat, then don't, and leave the meat eaters alone. If you want to eat meat, eat it. If you want to protect animals from abuse and mistreatment, well, that is an honorable cause, that most of us can get behind, but maybe you never knew that, killing an animal, so you can eat and nourish yourself, well, thats not abuse, it's called survival.

I am a major meat eater, no one can take this away from me

I am happy to be living in a time and place where it is no longer necessary to rely on mammals for food. It has become a question of choice, not necessity. This is not the case in all countries, nor was it always the case in Western countries, but the fact that for the majority of us now it is a choice, and not a necessity for survival, does put the topic into a different perspective. Culture typically dictates which mammals are acceptable as foodstuffs, and in what preparation. This was clearly illustrated in the list of disgusting foods that was so popular on RIA a short time ago. All mammals feel pain and possess basic instincts of self-preservation, so for me, considerations related to the quality of life and the nature of the death of the mammal in question are more important than the species to which the animal belongs or the taste of the animal. However, I do have a sliding scale in my attitude to meat eating. At the top, the utopic picture of a hunter, living in the wild and compelled through his environment to kill for food - this presents no real problems to me. Any animal that is hunted and killed humanely for food has not really had it that bad - it has lived its life free and has died as it probably would have died anyway at the 'paws' of some other animal. Sliding down to the bottom of the scale, you have factory farm produced meats, produced from animals who have had a short miserable life and died in great distress. Better they had not lived. UPDATE: Ah, Lance and cutegurl have prompted me to make a response, even if it is slightly off topic: Just to ward off any potential for confusion or even total logical disconnect here, I don't think that anyone is trying to attribute the full suite of rights afforded to a US citizen to an animal. To my knowledge: - nobody thinks that donkeys should be allowed to vote or run for public office, - few people are concerned about the widely reported polygamous practises of roosters, - seldom does anyone fuss about a pig's freedom of speech. As I understand it, the general understanding is that the rights inferred in the term 'Animal Rights' are far more basic, and in keeping with the nature of the animals. If you want to dive deeper, you might consider looking at http://www.aldf.org/petition.asp?sect=action, on the website of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, which has drawn up an 'Animal's Bill of Rights'. There you might well ask the question Well, which animals do they mean? . If you find out, let me know, because that question troubles me too.

Why do I love cows? Because I love a good medium-well steak, perferably marinated in some sort of marsala or Italian dressing and flame seared. Animal rights activists can complain all they want, but the fact remains that you must be human to be a citizen of the United States. Therefore you must be human to have the rights a citizen would have and therefore an animal has no rights because they are not citizens! Do I think animals should be caused unnesscary harm, no, but do I think it is right, moral, and good to go about the eating of cow, chicken, pig, deer, ect, yes, absolutely.

This is the only reason I love animals. I never have, nor will I ever understand all these animal lovers who spend their time worrying about the fabricates rights animals apparently possess in their fantasy land. My only concern for animals is what condiment compliments their dead bodies once they're cooked.

Yum! Animals are sooo tasty. I don't blink an eye over any 'guilt' of eating animals and don't understand those who do. I save my emotions for my wife, kids, and puppies- that's it. Oh, and the last 15 minutes of The Deer Hunter. . .

If we lived in a perfect world, everyone would raise their own meat and take only what they needed and this way a lot less would go to waste. Unfortunately, most of the meat wasted is right in the stores, when it's not purchased by the due date. The only problem with this is, not everyone has space to grow their own meat. Until we figure out a solution to this, more cows/chickens/pigs are slaughtered, than need be. Not to mention are being raised in subpar environments. What's that expression the Indians had? Something to the effect of after all the fish have been caught, only then will they realize money isn't everything

I'm one of those folks who get on a guilt trip if I think too hard about where my meat is coming from. But, I do feel better that at least we're not wasting the animal, and I get a little annoyed when I see people wasting food (you don't have to eat it all in one sitting, but we have these wonderful things called refrigerators now that we can save food in.) In response to louie's comment, there's a big difference in letting something live its life in relative peace before killing it quickly and humanely and torturing a creature throughout its lifespan before slaughtering it. It's called 'respecting life'; it's called 'empathy'; taking only what you need and not needlessly causing something else pain. Yeah, it's going to end up dead, but life is worth more than just its last moments.

Inhumane?We are killing and eating these animals!How much more inhumane can you be?Well we will treat you like the family pet for a while and then you are going to be a steak.Give me a break.

I was born and raised on red meat and my palatte desires it. Though I am sometimes conflicted about it, because I have worked on various dairy and meat farms in my life and I have seen first hand how poorly they are treated. And I know that the human body is probably better off not consuming red meat. I have often considered eliminating red meat and chicken from my diet altogether, but probably not until I suffer my first heart attack ... I figure that would be a good indicator.

I am a meat eater and make no apologies, but the inhumane meat factories are a disgrace and should be regulated out of business. Spend a little more money for the free ranging, organic food, and you can help out.

I'm sorry to admit this. Earthbound and magellan are great guys whom I like a lot, but I never, ever think about that stuff when I'm eating a good steak. I'm way too selfish, fishing for compliments on how the steak was cooked. Call me irresponsible.

I love burgers, steaks, meatballs, and other wonderful meals that come from the cow. I was rattled for about two weeks by the descriptions of the slaughterhouses that I read in a book called My Year of Meats, but fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, i got over it. I try and spend the extra buck or two for organic / free range stuff now - you just don't like to think of animals living in boxes, being fed their own stool to preserve profit margin, and living hellish lives just so I can have a cheeseburger. I think that food production (especially as it relates to the treatment and execution of livestock) is one of the areas that unfettered capitalism falls flat.

You two! I do enjoy a good steak myself on occasion. I prefer fish, shellfish and chicken though. I remember a passage from the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, where he described a scene at a slaughter house as cattle were being moved along peaceful to their fate, ambling one behind the other without the slightest knowledge or worry about what was going to happen to them. Some softly mooed as they moved, but every so often, perhaps ever 50th other cow or so, he witnessed one that suddenly stopped and showed fear and tried to run from the line as if it knew what lay ahead. I think of that at times. As for other mammals, pork yes, lamb on occasion, rabbit sometimes, veal never (treatement of these young cows is too inhumane), the rest, no.

What Numbah said, Ditto!