Veg*n Became vegetarian when I saw fried GPs!

You made a good choice for yourself to becoming veggie. But everyone eats different things.

My physiotherapist from India put it best "If you eat any animals, you have no right to say another person eating a different animal is wrong. Your people eat cows. Where I come from people don't eat cows. Is your culture barbaric then? If you don't eat any animals, well you have every right to say it is wrong."

It is true. I have seen and pet pigs (oink oink pigs), cows and sheep at the agricultural show. I want a pet chicken someday (cruelty free eggs and a bird that can't fly all in one I don't like flying birds. They tend to scare me when let loose) So to me those animals are not any less important then cats, dogs and piggies. (the wheek wheek kind)

I think eating of guinea pigs is disgusting. :expressio People have been for awhile though. Different cultures...

Yeah, I agree with Sabriel. It still grosses me out though, knowing that people eat... what we consider pets, in addition to endangered and loved animals worldwide. I became vegetarian after my friend gave me a perspective about how dogs are no different from cows or pigs. It's culture, not morality.

www.goveg.com and (broken link removed) are two great sites for vegetarianism. Congratulations and good luck. =)

Certain animals are actually unhealthy to eat. For instance primates or even humans (canibalism) which was practised by some ancient cultures but very few modern ones. You can get some pretty nasty diseases by eating an animal's brain, or by eating any part of a primate, etc. I think with cattle they always try to be very careful that no part of the brain is mixed in with the meat as that is how 'mad cow' disease is passed on.

Dogs and cattle are different in that dogs and man have existed side-by-side for a long time. Just as horses were bred specifically by man, so to were dogs, many breeds for a specific helpful purpose. Modern cattle breeding / ranching is a recent thing, prior to modern-day cattle were raised primarily 'free-range'. Only today have modern, overcrowded ranches become the norm.

People eat horses too. And it's not like they don't ride them where they eat them either.

Just becuase they were bred for food or for companionship really doesn't make them all the different in the end. Women and children were treated like property for a long time. We got over that bad habit.

I just meant that one evolved due to or in nature, the other evolved primarily due to breeding by man. Were it not for man, dogs as we know them would not exist.

I used to think the same way i.e eating animals such as guinea pigs is gross. Then I thought well I eat pigs,cows and sheep etc so what's the real difference?
Well there isn't one! I am now vegetarian as after I thought about it like that I just couldn't face eating meat again. It felt like I was betraying my animals somehow.
I think unless you are veg then you can't really say that eating cavies is gross and expect everyone to agree whole heartedly with you. To a lot of people eating any animal is gross regardless of it's connection to a person or how domesticated it is.
I guess what I am trying to say is that everyone has their own opinions and cultures, and my opinion on this is that an animal is an animal however it is bred and kept, therefore to eat any animal is exactly the same in my eyes.

There is this great line in the novel "Congo" that speaks of a cannablistic tribe seeing no difference in consuming people or farm animals because we were all the same. Not that I am condoning cannibalism by all means, but it was interesting to see their perception and mentality. (I believe the line was quoted in the back of the novel but it has been years since I have read it.) My point is that they respected animals at the same level as they respected people. They could not see a difference. Now if they could only be turned into vegatarians......

O.O Wow...go you! *clapping*