Essay-Question Poll: Dietary Choices

I'm here to strike a blow against selection bias: I eat anything.

1. I don't eat meat.
2. Ethical. If I wouldn't want people torturing dogs, I have no justification to be okay with people torturing cows, pigs, and chickens, and from what I've seen conditions in a lot of farms and slaughterhouses are tantamount to torture. Even though animals can't think verbally, they still have some level of awareness and the ability to feel pain, so causing them suffering is verboten. I am kind of sympathetic to the argument that free range meat raised with the animals' welfare in mind isn't so bad, and to the argument that if we weren't raising these animals for food they'd probably be endangered or extinct. But free range is only a small percent of meat products, and there are major environmental costs anyway, and the meat-farming industry just does so much damage in so many ways that I feel I need to do my part to discourage it. Right now my goal is to aim for zero meat and accept the inevitable lapses when they come as not being an ethical disaster.
3. I'm not too strict about it. When I'm traveling or a guest somewhere it's pretty tough to avoid meat, so I let myself get away with it.
4. Hard to tell. I think I'd at least share my reasons with them, but if they didn't want to that's their choice. As long as they can provide a rational explanation, of course :)
5. Never tried.
6. I eat a lot of Quorn when I'm in the British Isles, and soy products when I'm elsewhere. Quorn is better, but I haven't been able to find it outside Britain and Ireland.
7. I'm pretty live-and-let-live about this.
8. Became a vegetarian in elementary school, I think, maybe middle school. Gave it up on three or four occasions for a few months, usually after moving and not being able to find good vegetarian foods there, but always went back. Sometimes give it up for a few months when I go back to my parents' place, because the food there is too good and I don't have as much control over my diet.
9. I love meat and I want it all the time.
10. I don't really eat many fruits or vegetables. I hate them to the point where I have trouble keeping them down. This doesn't apply as much to salads. So I kind of live off of grain products, with some milk and eggs and Quorn thrown in. There are a lot of diet theories that suggest I should be very fat right now, but I'm actually pretty thin. Go figure.

Interesting thread. Looks like people are still responding to it from time to time, so here are my long-winded (sorry, can't help it :P) answers.

1. I do not eat any animal products other than honey (which I don't use much, but don't morally object to in the same way that I do other animal products). I also don't usually use animal-based materials like wool or leather, with some minor exceptions (see my answer to #2). On that basis, some would call me a vegan and others would not. I do call myself a vegan.

   There are probably some plant foods that I should give up (or only buy domestically/locally), in order to avoid contributing to anything that harms the environment or workers, but I don't know enough about this issue to be able to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable plant foods.

2. I want to avoid causing suffering in entities that can reasonably be said to suffer. I feel pretty confident about mammals and birds; not quite as much about fish, but enough that I don't want to take the chance.

   Having been raised vegetarian, all of my justifications (for vegetarianism at least, not veganism) necessarily came after the fact; my first attempt, as a small child, was deciding to believe that all animals were exactly like humans (in intelligence, emotional depth, social organization, etc.) but different in physical form and without speech, and were therefore deserving of all the same rights and protections as humans. I'd like to think I've come a long way since then — I'm fairly convinced of my current rationale based on the idea that different kinds and sizes of animal brains have the capacity for varying degrees of suffering and other emotional experience — but I have worried at times that I'm just getting better at coming up with less-stupid-sounding rationalizations for an ultimately arational belief.

   But I've done my best to honestly probe at the underlying values that make me care about this, plus the factual reasoning about degrees of capacity for suffering, and I think it holds up about as well as it should. (I felt a little bit validated when I read about Douglas Hofstadter's transition to veganism for very similar reasons.) In any case, I would bet my life that a mushroom or a soybean or a carrot does not experience anything we would call suffering — I'd be nearly as confident that they don't have anything we'd call experience in the first place — but I'd be significantly less confident making those assertions about fish. I'll do my best to be open to the possibility of evidence that should make me change my mind.

   That also leads me to why I don't avoid honey or silk, and why I don't mind swatting flies and ants. I wouldn't say I'm life-bettingly confident that insects do not suffer in any way worth empathizing with, but in that case, I easily find it unlikely enough that I don't feel bad about exploiting or killing them.

3. I will not make an exception if I'm served any of those foods as a guest, so I try to let the host know in advance.

   It is arguable, I suppose, that if I'm already being served something with meat, eggs, or dairy in it, rejecting it will not prevent any suffering, as it'll either be eaten by someone else or thrown away. My rationale there is that I don't want to give myself advance permission to break my rules, because then that exception becomes part of the rules; I don't want to get used to making exceptions like that. And I don't want people to think I'm the sort of person who is willing to accept those foods for free or when I have already paid, because then they may take that into account when deciding what to serve me in the future, possibly leading to preventable demand on my behalf for those foods.

   I must admit that on the rare occasion that it comes up, if I'm really, really hungry, and I'm at a restaurant or some other public place serving food, and the only things available are likely to have eggs or dairy, I'll choose not to ask. I usually regret it afterwards, but I would probably regret starving myself even more. However, when I already know for sure that something has eggs or dairy (or especially meat) in it, I haven't been able to (nor have I desired to) put that knowledge out of my mind, no matter how hungry I am. (And if I'm not starving or if there are other options, I'll always ask before ordering or eating something.)

   If I were stranded with absolutely no other way to survive, I would eat animals, assuming I could figure out how to kill and cook them before starving to death. I would try my best to minimize any suffering I might cause them, but ultimately I care more about humans than about animals.

4. If I ever have children, I expect I will impart my values to them as much as any parent would, but I would not resort to coercion. I would not pay for or cook with non-vegan foods for them, but I would let them try it elsewhere if they chose to. (I'm hoping that meat from animal sources is obsolete by then anyway. Research into growing meat in petri dishes appears to be going well.)

5. Everyone in my immediate family is vegan. (Including my cat! Don't worry, it's a specially formulated expensive vegan cat food, which we've been feeding her for about 7 years, and she's very happy and healthy (not to mention cuter than babies). You're still free to laugh at me for bothering with that, though.) I have some vegetarians and vegans in my extended family, and in my circle of friends, but to those who aren't, I don't try to evangelize anymore. It's not that I don't care about it — I do, I really would prefer if everyone were vegan when possible — I've just found that it's too easy to come off as annoying and presumptuous, and there's the usual difficulty with persuading people to change their values.

6. I take a few vitamin supplements. I eat a lot of soy and legumes and gluten as sources of protein and deliciousness; thankfully I don't have any allergies to those. (Except for lentils. I was pissed when I found out I was allergic to them. Lentils rock.)

7. I don't hold fruitarianism, etc. in very high regard, because the only justifications for it (unless there are nutritional or environmental reasons I haven't heard about) seem to be new-age concepts or other nonsense. That goes doubly so for the people who anthropomorphize trees to the point where they'll only eat fruit that has naturally fallen off. (Apparently some people actually do that, wtf.) I feel the same way about vegans who have similar rationales, actually. I'm certainly glad when I hear that someone is a vegan, but if they go on to say that it's because all animals have metaphysical souls, bestowing upon them the same absolute and universal rights that we humans have, or if they say it's because Adam and Eve and all the animals in the Garden of Eden were vegetarians before the Fall, then I have to judge their rationality negatively, even if I approve of their actions. I'm a little bit more sympathetic to raw-foodists, though the appeal to nature fallacy still seems to rank highly among the usual justifications for it. Meanwhilst, there are also the "freegans", who, if I understand correctly, only eat non-vegan food when they feel there is no chance of it contributing economically to the industries in question. I guess I have no moral objections to that, if they're really careful not to indirectly create any demand, but that can lead to an odd primitivistic lifestyle that can be immoral in its own ways. I once knew a freegan who subsisted mainly on theft and dumpster-diving. I didn't doubt her good intentions, but I found the whole thing to be too weird for me to respect.

   In the other direction: I have to admit that, yes, I judge meat-eating to be less moral than vegetarianism. That seems to cause a bit of indignation when I mention it (so I don't usually mention it), but it doesn't seem like it should be surprising. I'm not saying that meat-eaters are Innately Evil, but there's nothing in my own values that says that it's wrong for me to do it but okay for others. That would be a weird value system. Still, since meat-eating is still the unquestioned norm in most of the world, I don't judge individuals on that basis, and I'm usually quiet about it.

8. I was raised vegetarian (both of my parents had been for many years), and I went vegan some time around 2002 or 2003, I believe. A few years later I decided I didn't care about avoiding honey, which made almost no difference in practice.

9. I miss egg dishes sometimes. I miss not having to worry about whether things have eggs or dairy in them before ordering. I miss not knowing that a lot of Thai dishes are made with fish sauce that they don't mention on the menu.

   I was once accidentally served bacon at a restaurant. I liked the taste (had a few bites before I noticed it didn't taste like tempeh), but didn't see what all the fuss was about.

10. Growing up vegetarian was very easy for me, because I happened to be born with a vegetarian cookbook author for a mother. So I never felt deprived or forced or jealous; good food was always in abundant supply. (My parents actually used the same strategy that I described in my response to #4, but I never had any desire to try meat anyway. There's probably an element of reverse psychology in there.) It's been a little harder now that I'm living on my own — I never really learned to cook, and I don't have enough money to eat out as often as I'd like — but I've not been tempted to give up any aspect of my veganism. I have, however, stopped bothering with organic ingredients (which my parents used, so I was used to them when I lived at home). I'm not convinced that their alleged benefits have enough evidence to justify the added cost.

Well, you're certainly going to get some selective reporting from this poll. Personally, I love eating meat. If it isn't sentient now, isn't going to become sentient in the foreseeable future, and is owned by me, then I have no moral problem with killing it. In fact, I think I could eat venison while watching Disney's film Bambi, without it bothering me.

Several vegetarians have mentioned health benefits as a reason for choosing a vegetarian diet. I'd be interested to know what the health benefits they have in mind are. I've been adjusting my diet recently to incorporate more red meat and saturated animal fats because of the increasing evidence that they are beneficial (I was previously eating less than I would choose to on taste grounds because of a belief that they were unhealthy).

The claimed health benefits of vegetarianism that I'm aware of seem to be based on the low-fat/high-carb theory of a healthy diet which is increasingly discredited by the research. I'm curious if vegetarians dispute the newer research, are unaware of it, or have other health reasons that I'm not aware of.

1. I'm trying to cut back on sugar and refined or processed foods.
2. Health reasons
3. Not very strict.
4. Yes, hopefully by the time I have kids, I'll have moved away from the crappy college student diet.
5. Most of the pressure with regards to vegetarianism has been in the reverse direction. All three girls I seriously dated are vegetarian, so I've had serious discussions about the subject (this also created a weird subconscious expectation that all women are vegetarian by default).
6. NA
7. I have no issues with what other people eat. I happily eat meat (though wondering about its moral status), but I wouldn't question someone else's choice.
8. Diet became substantially worse when I moved to college; slowly getting better.
9. I'll reverse the question. How much would I miss animal products if I stopped eating them? Some, but I could easily do it. Right now, I am a vegetarian six days out of the week. Since my wife is vegetarian (out of preference, not for ethical reasons), it's easier to cook what we'll both eat.
10. I don't think there is anything wrong with eating animal products per se. I don't even have ethical qualms with cannibalism, assuming the meat were procured consensually. I do wonder whether animals experience substantial suffering when raised on farms or killed. Fish do not have the mental capacity to experience pain, so I see not problem there. Fish react to harm, and even remember it, but I don't think they are even conscious enough to call this pain. On the other hand, most mammals, some birds, and possibly cephalopods probably do consciously feel pain. The amount of suffering these animals feel should be minimized. However, aside from dolphins, apes, and elephants, these animals lack a long-term conception of self. As such, I don't think it is wrong for them to be humanely killed. Feedlots and factory farms do cause unjustified suffering, but otherwise, I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the meat industry.

For background, I was raised on a cattle ranch. I might be biased in support of my parents livelihood, but I did experience ranching first hand. At least on our ranch, I don't think the cows lived that bad of lives. They would spend half the year on open range in a forest and the other half in pasture at our home. Once a year, they'd clearly suffer as we corralled them to vaccinate, brand, and tag them. Otherwise, they had plenty of space, food, and medical treatment. The end result is the year-old calves being sold for slaughter of course. Any comment by vegetarians on beef raised like this?

I also hunted as a teenager, shooting an elk, an antelope, and some game birds. I definitely don't think sport hunting should be encouraged, and will never do it again, but don't think it is that bad for similar reasons. If a freezer full of elk steaks trades off against a feedlot raised cow, that's probably an improvement.

Inspired by mattnewport's comment, here are additional questions for any vegetarians: if vat-grown meat were developed, would you eat it? Would there be any ethical issues with eating it?

1. I don't eat meat (including fish). I also try to avoid eggs that are not free-range wherever possible.

2. I think that while it's possible to live perfectly happily and healthily off plants, there's just no need to inflict pain and death on animals. There are other factors (most of them on your don't-include list) that are not reasons per se for vegetarianism but do contribute to making it an easier choice for me: the fact that I don't like meat all that much anyway, and the fact that vegetarian food is generally cheaper than meat.

3. These days (see question 8) I avoid them fairly strictly. I've had the odd lapse by accident, for example eating a chocolate mousse that I didn't realise contained gelatine after not checking the ingredients thoroughly enough, but nothing more than that in recent times. I'm less strict on the eggs thing: if I'm buying eggs, they are always free range, but if I'm buying an egg sandwich (for example) that doesn't indicate whether the eggs are free range or not, I don't let it worry me too much.

4. I don't have children and don't plan to.

5. My sister has been vegetarian far longer than I have (she was vegan for a while) and my mother has been a pescatarian for about equally long, so you might imagine they would be the ones convincing me rather than the other way round; it didn't really happen like that, although I'm sure the usual absence of meat from our meals contributed to my going off it somewhat. I've never tried to persuade anyone else to become veggie, although I will happily extol the virtues of veggie food (rather than vegetarianism per se) when asked about it.

6. There are various meat replacement products that I like -- quorn, tofu, soy. All are pretty readily available here in the UK. Can't stand lentils and other pulses, which is slightly unfortunate.

7. Pretty laissez-faire. I admire the vegans: not sure that I could ever manage that! But nor do I see much of an ethical impulse to. I also particularly appreciate the attitudes of meat-eaters who go out of their way to source meat from animals that have been treated well, etc.

8. Most of my family went mostly-veggie when I was about nine or ten, so after that I ate a lot less meat (it was still available at home sometimes, and I would sometimes have it outside home). Between the ages of about fifteen and seventeen I gradually found myself eating less and less meat, and virtually never selecting it when given a choice. I finally decided to "officially" call myself vegetarian last year, when I was eighteen, and start additionally avoiding "non-obvious" meat-containing things like sweets with gelatine in. Since then I've had the odd accidental lapse, but nothing more than that.

9. As a kid I used to really like chicken, bacon and little mini-sausages, but had a pretty ambivalent attitude to most other types of meat. I would probably still enjoy chicken once I could got over the initial oh-meat-I-don't-eat-that-yuck impulse that I now have, but I really don't have any desire at all to actually eat some. The thought of red meat makes me feel slightly nauseous now (although weirdly, the smell of bacon is still really good!).

10. I'm a competitive swimmer, so I really do have to watch the protein intake and make sure I'm keeping it high enough. The only time I've found that to be a problem was on a training camp in Italy, where the catering for veggies was fairly poor. There was plenty of pasta and so on, but almost no protein, and doing that much swimming meant I really really needed it. That may have been one of very few occasions on which I came relatively close to eating some meat. I could feel that my body needed it, but I didn't really get close to actually having some because my brain still didn't want it at all.

I guess most people who will bother to speak out are those who do avoid some categories of food for ideological reasons. So here I'm speaking as a member of majority who doesn't do anything of the kind.

• For reasons of both taste and health I generally steer towards paleo or at least traditionally agricultural foods as opposed to modern industrial foods as basis for my diet. I'm not too serious about it.
• I understand that some people might not like meat due to taste concerns or (in my opinion misguided) health concerns. Ideologically-driven avoidance of foods feels like a disturbing pseudo-religion to me.

1 and 3). I'm mostly vegetarian. I eat fish about once a week. I eat air breathing animals' flesh when I think it is otherwise going to waste or (very rarely) when it is merely very inconvenient to be vegetarian. On the margin, I make a small attempt to reduce my intake of dairy and eggs. I eat refined carbohydrates, and quite a bit of soy, but try to avoid eating extreme amounts for health reasons.

2) I do this to prevent, and to signal concern about, unnecessary animal suffering. I would have no qualms about eating animals if they were certifiably raised and slaughtered under ideal conditions.

4) I will raise my children to eat similarly but let them make their own choices.

5) I gently push meat reduction rather than abstinence. Limited success.

6) I make an effort to get protein from many sources. I take supplements, flax seed and calcium daily, somewhat less frequently: glucosamine-chondroiton, multivitamin, b-12, fish oil, creatine, resveratrol.

7) I respect people who are more strict vegetarians if their reasoning is similar to mine.

8) I gradually became more and more vegetarian after choosing to live with vegetarians four years ago.

9) I loved meat, but it turns out I don't miss it much.

Did any useful knowledge come out of this survey? Is it summarized anywhere?

First thing you need to know as a vegetarian rationalist is that you need to supplement with creatine.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691485/

1. Vegetarian. There are some plants I do not like, but I do not remember which. At home i mostly cook/eat vegan. To list it out: no meat for me - that includes fish, and also chicken. (The mental images some folks have about vegetarians are odd.) I do not by any pure dairy products, but consume them as part of meals while eating out, or buy some products that contain them like pizza.

1. I became a vegetarian in about '94 due to ethical reasoning and the scare of madcow disease that was rampant in the German media back then. Both reasons have since disappeared. I stayed a vegetarian out of habit and taste. in 2009 I learned about the health effects of the diet, and switched to a more healthy and more vegan leaning style.

1. Strict about the vegetarian part. Except for rare occasions about once or twice a year.

1. Yes and no. There are benefits to a general healthy diet. But as far as I know the occasional sinning is not that bad. Not being used to the current amounts of sugar in products might lead to some bad side effects. In general I want my kids to eat the same diet I consider healthy, but if they choose to do otherwise thats up to them.

1. Tried and failed and gave up. I managed to get convinced of a healthy diet myself - which was hard enough. In general dieting is subject to the same mental processes as arguments about all other topics are.

1. I take B12 supplements - which seems to be good for everyone.

1. I do not see strictness as that important anymore. If you eat 80% healthy or 98% or 99,5% or 100% thats almost the same. I noticed the amounts of different views and reasons for nutritional choices and collected them for a while. Animal rights activists can be annoying at times. But I am happy that there is some infrastructure to provide vegan food - even if they do it for very different reasons than me.

1. birth-94 normal local food, 94-09 desert vegetarian with no meat, but also no interest in healthy foods. My main dish was pizza yogurt and cheese. In 2009 that changed to my current mostly vegan one with the occasional bit of other stuff. I still enjoy fast food a lot!

2. I forgot the taste of meat. I could not ever imagine to give up on yogurt, but forming a mental image of what it does to me helped a lot. I have not bought any in about a year. The same process seemed to also have worked for sweets more recently. I remember hating the taste of liver, and enjoying to eat the stomachs of chickens. (home slaughtering).

3. I will write up an LW article on what I learned. Nutrition is a highly loaded topic where very little reasoning happens. But it is possible to find some good information and apply it.

1. Any animal part.

2. To prevent animals from suffering or dying. Vegetarianism seems inevitable to me as I work to bring my behavior in line with my values.

3. Very strictly; I won't eat it as a guest, if hungry, or by not checking questionable dishes.

4. Yes.

5. Very rarely, and with limited success. I do encourage my friends to think about it if they're receptive, and I'll certainly talk about it if they want to, but I ultimately think that outside help can only go so far, and people need to reach conclusions on their own if they're going to stick.

6. I'm not as systematic about this as I should be. Lentils?

7. More restrictive: I admire vegans, and aspire to veganism (again for animal-suffering reasons), but I'm finding it very hard since the link to animal suffering is not as inevitable. Less restrictive: I generally think that people will eventually agree with me and become vegetarian/vegan, but I don't experience "hot" emotions towards non-vegetarians.

8. Became vegetarian a year ago.

9. I used to really enjoy all kinds of meat, and I still want to eat it pretty often. I'll most likely eat artificially-grown meat if/when it becomes available.

10. I don't eat clams or oysters even though I'm not too confident that they suffer or care about their own lives, since I'd rather be safe than sorry in this context.

1. I try to cut down on the meat of mammals. The few times it's come up, I've refused to eat octopus.

2. I find that if I eat beef without concern, I start eating it all the damn time. Like, multiple times a day. So, partly out of concern for my health, and partly out of a personal-bordering-on-ethical decision.

3. Not very strictly at all. I'll eat what I feel like, although I make a mild conscious effort.

4. I don't know that I'll have children, but if I do, they can eat what they please. Not that it'll be on the dinner table very often if it's not my thing.

5. I think that's sort of rude. My mother is a vegetarian and so are many of my friends, and I don't like it when they proselytise to me.

6. There's nothing I outright avoid that I especially need to eat for health reasons.

7. I think there's something a little disingenuous about ethical vegetarianism. I don't believe for a minute that our global food industry causes less suffering to animals due to vegetarians, and our society and culture treat animals pretty poorly whether we're eating them or not. It seems to me like a form of 'signaling', as the lingo around here goes. But, the signal it seems to send is "I disapprove of your lifestyle, meat-eater, so feel free to ask me annoying questions about why I think you're evil."

8. I only started thinking about my worrying meat-eating habits maybe three years ago. I've taken the issue semi-seriously ever since, although there was a time when I'd explicitly tell people my intentions not to eat beef; these days I don't bother.

9. I never liked pork anyway, so that was pretty easy to give up. I still gravitate towards beef when presented with a menu, and I like it as much as I ever did. I have eaten cephalopod a couple of times, and I don't think I'll miss it significantly.

10. Hanging around so many vegetarians, I end up eating vegetarian a lot, and it's not bad. I could manage a vegetarian life, if I were committed to it.

I'm another paleo dieter. It seems like that diet is overrepresented among rationalists and individualists from my experience, but that is just personal empiricism.

I take a positive view towards the morality of meat consumption. We are doing it because it is practical and delicious - we simply have a weaker preference for not doing unnecessary harm to animals. Once vat-grown meat becomes widely available, I predict that our cultural sentiments surrounding meat consumption will rapidly change such that only vat-grown meat will be acceptable to eat.

Not a vegetarian. Eat and enjoy most types of meat and seafood (and would have no problem trying fried locusts). I don't think animals have rights but I do have a preference, all else being equal, not to cause them unnecessary suffering so if vat grown meat is ever developed that is demonstrated to have the same nutritional value and texture, flavour and appearance as real meat then I would probably consume it in favour of the real thing.

1) I try to avoid refined carbohydrates and sugar. Generally try to eat along the lines of the paleo diet.

2) Health concerns.

3) Currently, not very strictly. More strictly when I was actively trying to lose weight. I would eat them if they were served while I was a guest. In a restaurant I will try to choose menu options that don't contain such foods and will sometimes ask to substitute them for an alternative (e.g. switch mashed potato with green vegetables).

4) I would encourage my children to eat healthily.

5) No, but I have given details of my dietary choices when people have asked (as quite a few did when I lost a lot of weight when I started eating this way).

6) Don't avoid any foods with valuable nutritive content.

7) I think people's dietary choices are their own business. I do find it a little irritating if someone tries to proselytize though. I also have a pet peeve about 'fussy eaters' - by this I mean people who are very picky about what they eat for reasons other than health or ideological choices. I recognize that as just a personal quirk however.

8) I originally started eating like this in an attempt to lose weight. After dropping about 45lbs I started to be a bit less strict. In the last 18 months I've regained about 10lbs and am currently attempting to tighten up again.

9) I did enjoy foods containing sugar and refined carbohydrates. I've never had a particularly sweet tooth though and would rarely eat a dessert after a meal or snack on chocolate or other sweets. I got into the habit of drinking a lot of Coke at work which was quite difficult to give up.

10) I'm skeptical of the health benefits of organic food and don't tend to buy organic, although many variants of the paleo diet suggest preferring organic.

1. I avoid the meat of any sort of mammal

2. Moral and ecological. I may eventually also give up all fish save for those that are sustainably farmed, although I do not have much regard for the welfare of fish. Giving up sushi would be a hell of a wrench though.

3. Very strictly. I will sooner go hungry or offend a host than eat red meat in any quantity.

4. If I had children, I might suggest that they follow similar restrictions, and would probably not prepare such foods for them.

5. I haven't pressured them, but I've made suggestions to that effect. Many of my friends are vegetarians or vegans, and some adopted their restrictions after I did, but I don't know how much influence I had.

6. It's not hard to get complete protein from an entirely vegetarian diet, but I still eat poultry, and do not intend to give it up. Chicken is more ecologically sustainable than red meat or fish, as well as being so witless that they don't get any dumber when you cut their heads off

7. Mostly positive, but I find it silly when full vegans refuse to "exploit" animals such as bees, which hardly even have basic self preservation instincts.

8. Hasn't changed since I adopted my restrictions about four years ago.

9. I enjoyed red meat quite a lot, and occasionally still regret not having tried a number of types before I gave it up.

10. I support research into the development of in vitro meat, and would at least try any type of meat tissue cultured in such a way, including human.

1. None. There are animals I wouldn't care to eat (e.g. primates), but none of them are on offer where I live.

2, 3, 4: N/A. On (3), though, when I have to avoid things that personally disagree with me, I don't expect a waiter to be able to definitively answer questions about the precise ingredients of a dish. I guess conservatively from the menu description.

5. No, I don't try to persuade anyone to omnivorousness.

6. N/A.

7. I might ask them why. Or not.

8. Brought up as an omnivore.

9. N/A.

10. My metabolism appears to be several standard deviations removed from the norm in several ways, so I pretty much ignore all dietary advice beyond "a little of what you fancy". It works, so I don't fix it. No strong moral attitude.

1. None
2. N/A
3. N/A
4. No
5. No
6. N/A
7. I'm okay with all of them as long as they're okay with me!
8. N/A
9. N/A
10. I tried to be vegetarian for several months at the suggestion of a friend. Went back because I felt "meh" about the whole endeavor and it wasn't making me better off in any perceivable way. Also I'm very picky with regard to food: when I go to a new country, I often find that I cannot eat any local food there, and have to survive on familiar processed food from stores. Later I find a couple dishes that I'm okay with, and stick with those forever.

1. None. I'm ~vegan mostly for amoral reasons- I love wheat, am somewhat miserly, am lactose intolerant, live alone and so prefer to cook smaller meals, and so on. I get a bit of warm fuzzies from the trophic level of my food- but that's a tertiary reason, at best.
2. Not really relevant.
3. I will eat meat at most restaurants because it's the menu item I like the most. (Not a fan of salads, restaurant pasta tends to be terrible, and so it's pizza or chicken.)
4. Not sure. It seems easier to switch to meat for developmental reasons and ensure they get everything they need to (I'd probably go with fish for the other benefits), but I might just stick with my normal diet.
5. I have gotten a few people to try the weird flavor combinations I've preferred. Mixed results. I haven't done any evangelizing.
6. Mostly hope. I've started turning to more and more varieties of grain and branching out when it comes to vegetables (the addition of sweet potatoes to my diet ~4 months ago was a great plan, and now cucumbers are moving in), but I've always had a long history of ignoring dietary concerns and remaining healthy. I live a sedentary lifestyle, which most likely helps reduce my various protein needs.
7. I prefer not to judge people based on their dietary preferences.
8. My diet contracted when I started cooking for myself (and meat went from a daily thing to a monthly thing), and has slowly expanded since as I've found more things I enjoy eating.
9. I have a poor sense of smell; I cannot tell much difference between steak and chicken. I vaguely enjoyed them, and I do not miss them.
10. In food science there's something called the "triple point," if I remember correctly, which is the right balance of salt, sugar, and fat. People will eat foods at the triple point until they are physically incapable of eating more. I have that response to the bread that I bake, which is just King Arthur Bread Flour + yeast + salt + water + time + heat. I don't know how to explain this, especially since varying the flour (adding whole wheat flour, quinoa flour, etc.) will put the flavor off a bit and it'll just be good instead of "yeah, I think I'll eat 3/4ths of the loaf instead of the half that would fill me up."

I very much enjoy eating meat. However, animal suffering concerns me. Pigs pass a variation of the mirror test.

But I don't see any incentive to become a vegetarian when my decision will not change aggregate animal suffering or even prevent a single pig from being born into an existence of pure suffering. Their existence is so bad it's almost like they're not even alive. In the documentary Food Inc, the farmers refer to "growing" chickens, never raising chickens.

Is there any logical inconsistency here? It seems oddly convenient to be able to accept animal suffering yet be able to completely ignore it.

I evidently missed this post when it appeared. Nonetheless I'll put some thoughts on the record:

#7. Although AlexU expressed it a bit more rudely than I would have, I basically share his opinion. This is somewhat delicate, because, as you can see, I do move in circles where vegetarians are not uncommon. Nevertheless, I am allergic to sanctimony in all its forms, and vegetarianism does strike me as a form of sanctimony. In particular, even quietly practiced private vegetarianism seems more effective as a social signaling device than as a means of actually relieving any animal suffering. (Compare with personal conservation as a form of environmentalism: it simply doesn't make enough of a difference.)

My feelings on this are somewhat complex, to be sure. I'm certainly not unmoved by the plight of suffering animals, and I have to admit that contact with vegetarians probably brings this issue to a more prominent position in my consciousness than it would otherwise have occupied. (Though I still occasionally eat veal, I don't do so without a momentary twinge as I think of the horrid conditions of the veal calf.) But I can't help thinking that the efforts of my vegetarian friends would be better spent directly lobbying the meat industry to change its ways, or supporting the development of synthetic meat. This is not to say that some don't already do these things, of course. But these are in any case the things that really matter; personally abstaining from meat "on ethical grounds" is hardly more than a feel-good gesture.

As a side note, where do some people (including, apparently, the author of the post) get the idea that fish meat somehow isn't really meat? It's one thing for Christian churches to make such a mistake, seeing as how their traditions were established in times of utter zoological ignorance; but surely we here are capable of recognizing that the morally relevant category here is not the nature of an animal's habitat (terrestrial versus aquatic) but rather that of its nervous system (whether it is capable of "suffering" as we humans would understand it). On this score, fish, being vertebrates, would seem to fall into a similar classification to that of many land animals considered morally problematic.

1. I avoid foods with certain preservatives and flavourings (aspartame and MSG). I avoid foods high in carbohydrate. I moderate my red meat intake.

2. Health. (I take it that 'general' health concerns are acceptable?)

3. I don't make a fuss about it.

4. I'll explain the health benefits and influence them somewhat.

5. On occasion, sometimes.

6. Ortho Core multivitamin supplement.

7. They'll lose some expected life span and quality of life but there are dumber things to do.

8. Somewhat recent.

9. I am still tempted.

These surveys are fun!

1. Fast food e.g. McDonalds
   1. Concerns about low nutritional value and food safety.
   2. If I have been drinking I will happily enjoy a fast food burger
   3. My son is going to be one of those kids who never gets to go to McDonalds unless its for a birthday party.
   4. No.
   5. N/A
   6. If their reasons seem rational I think that's cool. If their reasons seem to be founded on a selective evidence and hippy crap I think they are stupid.
   7. Friday nights are the killer, see question 2.
   8. Warm cheeseburgers taste good.
2. I enjoy organic and free range animals, especially pest game like wild pigs and rabbits. It seems more noble to take animals randomly from the wild like natural predators do. I'm ok with non-cruel farming though.

As a general rule I try to avoid foods made with additives or processes that originated from modern science, because I think overall the selection of cultural traditions over human history is more effective at eliminating non-obvious harmful practices.

I'm not strict about this, I only apply it to things I eat regularly. I don't try to convince anyone and I only mention it if it comes up. If I have children I'll feed them the same way and explain why, but I won't pressure them about it once they get old enough to procure their own food.

In most cases I have no opinion about other people's diets.

I dislike excessively cruel animal raising practices such as packing live chickens together so tightly that they can't move, but I'm not willing to devote my life to stopping it and anything less would have negligible effects in the absence of mainstream concern.

1. I avoid all meat, as well as milk. I'm working to reduce other dairy products, but cheese is proving stubborn.
2. Environmental and efficiency concerns are my main motivation, particularly GHG emissions. I have no particular concern for animal welfare.
3. I have three general exceptions. The first is that I'll try types of food that I've never eaten before if offered the opportunity. (I would totally try fried locusts.) The second is that I'll eat things that I or a close friend or family member has caught/killed (non-farmed). The third is that I'll eat meat to avoid serious social awkwardness. I've also thought about making an exception for food that would otherwise go to waste, but decided that it could create bad incentives.
4. Any kids would presumably be raised as practical vegetarians, because that's what I (and my partner) cook.
5. I've encouraged others, with some success, to reduce and/or change the mix of meats they eat. (I've not really tried to convince anyone to become totally vegetarian.) I've found that non-vegetarians tend to be more open to my reasons for being vegetarian (which are fundamentally anthropocentric) than to concerns about animal welfare.
6. I do the standard stuff to keep up proteins: legumes, soy products etc.
7. My attitude to others doesn't depend much on their dietary choices. (Some of my best friends are omnivores.) My attitude to others' dietary choices depends on their reasons for doing whatever it is they do. Difficult to give a general answer.
8. I've been vegetarian for a little over two years. I've had three "lapses", one for each of the exceptions listed in 3.
9. I used to enjoy meat a lot, but except for seafood, don't really miss it at all. In fact, the longer I go without eating it, the less appealing it seems. I really enjoy good vegetarian food.

1. None.
8. Went vegetarian for two months last summer to see what it's like. Conclusion: it's considerably cheaper than meat, but lower calorie density means I have to eat and poop more stuff. I ate little meat while I was unemployed. Now I eat extra meat because I'm weightlifting.

I eat anything too. I know a few vegeterians (including my dad), and don't mind them.

I'm fairly militant about eating anything that's tasty. (I suppose I'd draw the line at chimpanzee or nonconsensually-killed human.)

1. I don't eat: All sorts of meat, including seafood.
2. It's healthier. Also, eating animals sounds disgusting.
3. Very very strictly. Never eaten meat in my life.
4. I might encourage it.
5. Never tried.
6. I think my diet gives me complete nutrition.
7. Don't care.
8. Always the same. Since the beginning.
9. Doesn't apply.
10. Nope.

Avoiding creepy foods like balut or fried locusts counts as "culinary taste".

I'm a lifelong vegetarian, raised by non-vegetarians, but my "rationale" falls squarely into this category, so I guess I can't answer these usefully. I don't see what's so creepy about eating fried locusts compared to eating flesh. Or, for that matter, what's so creepy about eating human flesh compared to the flesh of other mammals.

In (1), did you intend not to exclude things like allergies? Questions 4, 5, and 7 suggest that you are asking about dietary restrictions that one thinks a good idea for people in general.

1. I don't eat any kind of meat.
2. I avoid meat because I suspect that even most animals have a capacity to suffer. [Edit: or more directly because I experience pangs of guilt when I consider eating meat.]
3. I would eat meat if I had a plausible reason to fear that I would starve to death or go hungry for long enough that I would suffer greatly.
4. I don't want children (this would be an interesting survey too btw). If I did, I would explain to them why I don't eat meat, but leave it up to them.
5. I never talk about it with my family. They know, but for some reason my mom still insists on serving me meat when I visit. She always pretended she didn't hear me when I told her I don't eat meat. I no longer mention it.
6. I get protein from other sources, plus I take a multivitamin.
7. I don't really care what other people eat.
8. I stopped eating meat when I was 18. (3 years ago) I have had some meat since then, but not intentionally/consciously.
9. I loved processed meat but couldn't eat anything like lobster or whole turkeys.
10. I don't think so.

Do you want any information on other unusual diets? (I consume raw meat and eggs, for example.) Your post title implies that you're only looking for information from vegetarians.

My own data point:

1. I don't eat any air-breathing animals or cephalopods; I still eat non-cephalopod seafood.
2. I am concerned about animal suffering, environmental impact, food efficiency, and health. (Cost and ease of preparation are also factors.) I can enjoy an excellent quality of life with this restricted diet.
3. I do not eat meat when it's offered to me, and so far have not been hungry enough to eat it for that reason. (If I were stranded on a desert island, I would eat animals.) I sometimes order soup in restaurants without asking what kind of stock it was made with.
4. I hope to have children and would attempt to raise them pescetarians, although I would not object if they wanted to try out meat once or twice after they got old enough to understand the reasons not to.
5. I occasionally make attempts to convince others to cut down on meat consumption, but have met with no success.
6. I eat an assortment of soy products, other legumes, eggs, and dairy to get my protein, and take iron supplements.
7. I have considerable respect for people who are more restrictive than I am, until you get as far as fruitarians and the like who don't seem able to get adequate nutrition. My reasons for being a pescetarian allow that many less restrictive individuals wouldn't be well-served by changing to a diet more like mine, although I do think there isn't enough thought about the possibilities among meat-eaters.
8. I became a pescetarian when I was seventeen, and decided a few months ago to stop eating cephalopods (although I haven't, since that decision, been presented with an opportunity to eat squid or octopus).
9. I was never a big fan of meat in general, although I enjoyed certain dishes. The only meat that still even looks like food to me, much less appealing food, is chicken fingers.
10. I tried to become a vegetarian when I was sixteen, but found that my limited range of tastes and reliance on school cafeteria food had me eating very poorly; this lasted only a few days. My more permanent switch came when I developed a taste for vegetables and started to learn to cook.

What are people's reasons for not eating eggs and would you eat the eggs of your own pet chickens that you were raising?

(Avoiding foods that are considered revolting or just non-food in your culture of origin, like balut or fried locusts, counts as "culinary taste".)

With such a broad definition of "culinary taste", my answer is “None”; but I think it is way too broad. (Do you really want to consider --say-- a Saudi Muslim's refusal of eating pork if she's never met anyone who eats pork to count as a culinary taste?)

Hence, questions 2), 3), 4), 6), and 9) are N/A, 5) in my case would mean “have you tried to convince someone to eat food they have avoided so far?“ and the answer is “no”; 7) That's their own freaking business, excepting extreme cases such as cannibalism (and in cases such as coprophagia, I'd rather they didn't do it in front of me) -- I'd like my severely obese grandmother followed a weight-loss diet but I know there's no way I could convince her so I no longer even try; 8) I used to avoid meat from land animals on Lent Fridays; 9) I agree with A Hacker's Diet that so long as you're eating the right number of calories per day and you don't have a deficiency or excess of any particular nutrient or any significant health issue, what you eat is not that important -- and given that I take a multivitamin a day, I don't think I'm likely to have a deficiency any time soon.

I'm a vegan. I have not yet considered fully whether or not the beliefs behind it, and this specific course of action based upon those beliefs, are rational.

It seems to me that it would be against my personal morals to assume that I have the right to enslave or take effort from a creature whose intelligence I cannot, at present, measure or determine. I'm not sure if intelligence should be the basis for this decision.

From what I've seen and read of the meat industry, it does seem that this specific industry and way of doing things is one I wish to avoid partaking in as much as possible.

I'd very much like to hear from people who have considered this issue rationally and indepth, as it is one that is very difficult, for me at least, to discuss without bias.

To add; for me, health is a lower priority to the concerns mentioned above (to a certain extent; I'm okay with operating at less than optimum health, not okay with actually dying), though I do aim for health within the constraints decided on by higher-priority choices.

No one has described my particular situation yet, so I'll give it a shot:

1. I do not eat junk food. No potato chips, cookies, desserts, candy, ect.
2. I do this primarily for health reasons, but also just to prove I can.
3. I will occasionally eat pizza and other borderline-junk food if there is no alternative. (I'll drink Gatorade if there's no water, or order a breakfast pastry if fruit isn't an option). I won't eat candy, desserts, or anything with trans-fats regardless of whether there are alternatives.
4. I know a few people whose parents prohibited them from having sweets as kids, and they ended up with cravings for sugar, a habit of deceiving people about their eating habits,, and no willpower. I think I'll let my kids have desserts in moderation, and keep junk out of our house but let them have it when we're out.
5. Most people who hear this think I'm insane; one friend attempted it for a week and gave up. I've never tried to convince anyone beyond describing how i did it.
6. N/A
7. I also don't eat meat from mammals, for moral reasons, but there's no moral judgment attached to this diet, so i can't say I've ever had any attitude towards people who are less restrictive.
8. I started this in 2009 for Lent (I had a friend who tried to convince me that non-Catholics just didn't have the willpower to give something up for all of Lent), and kept going after Lent through the next 18 months. I quit briefly at the beginning of this year, feeling I'd proved my point to him. Eventually I decided to start again for the health benefits, but allowing myself home-baked 5-ingredient cookies occasionally. That's where I'm at now.
9. I loved chocolate when I ate it. Loved it. Addicted to it. I also ate lots of other candy, but mostly because ti was there rather than because I liked it. The first few months I missed things all the time; now it doesn't bother me.
10. Having religious people bet you that you can't have willpower without God is an immense willpower boost. I highly recommend it.

1. I avoid unergonomic / "low-usability" food, that is, anything with inedible elements like bones, cartilage, shells, scales or fruit stones, or just hard eat. Examples include chicken, bony fish, shrimps, cherry, watermelon (though I've recently found a way to deal with watermelons safely), and generally unwieldy food like this hamburger.

2. Why? Because I just want to eat the food, not to "deal with" it. Also, when I eat, I prefer my hands to be dry and clean, so when I deal with messy food, it is not uncommon for me to go wash my hands in the middle of a meal.

3. Not very strictly. I'll eat such food if it's served by my host or when I'm hungry -- though I won't order it at a restaurant if an ergonomically-safe alternative is available.

4. Speaking of children, the only thing I'm really concerned about is safety -- e.g. I avoid giving my four-year-old daughter bony fish unless I pre-process it myself.

5. No, never tried.

6. In my case it's easy -- I just replace it with a less messy / higher-usability dish.

7. Indifferent.

8. I've had these restrictions since childhood.

9. I do enjoy the taste, I just don't like the process.

10. I'm a meat eater, but I'll switch to in-vitro meat as soon as it becomes available.

1. None.
2. -
3. -
4. -
5. No.
6. -
7. From neutral to slightly negative, depending on degree. If somebody restricts herself/himself strongly enough to have difficulties in maintaining these restrictions regularly, or negative health effects thereof, I consider that irrational. On the other hand, cannibals are barbarians to me.
8. -
9. -
10. No.

1. I avoid eating human, dog, cat, horse, dolphin, and anything cute. Otherwise, my policy is "I'll try anything twice", especially while traveling.
2. I avoid eating things that humans can regard as friends. (dolphins are in the 'gray area' here.)
3. I would avoid them even as a guest or if hungry (if literally starving, though, all bets are off)
4. Yes.
5. only when it comes up. No, I don't think I've ever succeeded.
6. not an issue - cow is a fine substitute.
7. folks with more restrictive diets are silly. Less restrictive are gross. That's about it.
8. Pretty much forever.
9. n/a
10. 'cute' is a relative term that I expect to shift over time. Bunnies are definitely off the menu.

Hmmm.... I just noticed that these questions are all about dietary restrictions, as though a normal diet is unrestricted. But in my case, my dietary distinction is that I eat things that "normal" people don't, not so much a restriction from the normal diet. But oh well, here goes:

1. I don't avoid anything for reasons other than taste, cost, health, or convenience. Cooked meat I avoid for both "health" and "taste"; I can eat it, but mostly prefer raw or seared just enough to warm and soften the fat. Highly-processed foods I also consider less-than-tasty most of the time.

2. Answered above

3. Answered above

4. No plans, but if I did, I would.

5. Not really.

6. I don't really avoid any class of foods.

7. I think they're either missing out on tasty things (raw meat) or eating crap (over-processed foods).

8. Restrictions not relevant.

9. I sometimes like cooked or processed food, but I nearly always regret the sluggishness the day after.

10. Eating raw meat put me more in touch with my inner animal. ;-) There's nothing quite like grabbing a piece of it with your bare hands and tearing off chunks with your teeth. Also, based on taste my guess is that early humans wound up cooking when they tried to warm up their cold leftovers, or to improve the taste of rotting meat. (Most meat I see in the supermarket gets too rotten to eat raw a few days before its official expiration date.)

I eat anything. Make a conscious choice to eat healthy stuff and avoid junk food and simple carbs when convenient. Preferred eating pattern is to basically graze all day long. That, as well as a general indifference toward food (I find eating to be a bit of an irritating necessity, and never have cravings for anything) are enough to keep me trim. Probably worth noting that I wasn't always this way; up through college, I loved eating crap foods, sweets, carbs, soda, etc. Permanent preference changes take time, but can happen.

Most vegetarians/vegans strike me as sanctimonious twits, who are more often than not no healthier than anyone else.

1: None.

2-4: -

5: Only when it impinges on health effects.

6: -

7: Shrug?

8-9: -

10: Yes.

isn't it funny how often we vegetarians get asked this question? i have a hard time even answering people anymore b/c i am bored of my own story. my standard answer is that i am just about as laid-back-a vegetarian as can be - ovo/lacto/pesca, whatever. lard in the refried beans, chicken stock in the rice, etc, when served to me in a restaurant or at someone's house is totally acceptable, although i'd rather not know about it and when presented with vegetarian options instead, i'll take it/them. my vegetarianism started when a peta representative spoke to my sociology class at the university of texas (modern protest movements) and made the environmental/food efficiency argument, which made a lot of sense to me, so i decided to cut back on meat. after a couple of months i found myself eating no meat at all...then one day on the way to work, i saw a possum smashed on the side of the road and its flesh splayed out just like the way meat looks at the store. my stomach turned, and from then on i decided that i didn't want that nasty stuff in my mouth. and chickens are ugly and dirty and stuff. however, i know i'm not going to die or get sick if some meat or meat products become a part of my meal, which i why i'm laid-back about it. i also know i'm not going to change anyone else's mind about this since it's mostly an emotional thing for me now. it's less like i "love animals" and more like i think animals are dirty and you shouldn't eat them. it's like eating a scab or something. i think picky eaters are annoying...also annoying are people who think that i have no idea about alternative sources of protein. i'm very irritated by people who get excited and think that i am picky and need a "special' plate or dish at a party. worst case, i skip a meal, no big deal, although i've never had to do that, even when going to a barbeque joint. they have beans and potato salad, or i can fashion a tomato sandwich or something. finally, although i know it's crazy, i have this idea in my head that eating meat is for boys and is therefore un-lady-like. overall, i just think meat is gross like some people think broccoli is gross. it's dead flesh. i also don't think that other animals should eat meat, like squirrels or raccoons or birds. that is also gross. if i had a hankerin' for a beef burger, i would totally just go for it...but i don't see that happening. lakshmi's carl'sjr ad is really gross.

I thought I was just being evil by eating meat until I started reading this. Hat tip to PJ Eby.