I noticed this part of the forum before I signed up and am just now dropping in.
I use the term "bleeding heart" frequently, because I am one. Typically my dad-in-law either calls me Rite Aid or Tree Hugger. And will start a phone conversation with "I'm surprised you were able to let go of your tree long enough to answer the d*mn phone" followed by laughter on both sides. He used to be a hippie :shhh: so I know he uses these terms endearingly.
When I met Jer, I was a vegetarian, and had been for several years. Not born into it, but evolved into it after moving out. Really, it had nothing to do with how animals were being treated (at the time, I didn't know what I do now), I just didn't dig the flesh. I suppose I was more vegan than vegetarian, now that I look back on it...but "vegan" was a word that no one understood back then so "vegetarian" made more sense to them.
Anyway, eventually, after an illness and marriage :eye-poppi I went back to eating meat. Not pork. Never pork. But chicken (more) and beef (less).
It wasn't until recently that Jer understood why people do this (he didn't "get it" when I told him I didn't eat meat or like fur or leather, etc...) and the look on his face when he learned the horrors of what really happens to these "farm" animals surprised me. I assumed he knew all of this.
So, while I'm lurking through here preparing to go back to my old ways, I'm also in search of some information that would benefit him as well. You know...bring him to the dark side.
It's nice to look in a veg*an section of a forum and not see people screaming their heads off at us that still have Neanderthalian blood creeping through our veins.