Argh - suddenly tempted by meat!!!

If you eat chicken then you are a carnivore - end of. You can't "become" one. You either eat meat or you don't! ?

I don't eat meat because the animal had to die. My H bangs on about organic meat (which is all he eats) and happy lives and blah blah blah. For me - it died. That's enough for me to know I can't eat it.

But I do know what you mean. I love the taste of meat and it can be tempting but I always resist.

Why is a fish so different to a bird? If you are happy for one to die then why not the other?

See I don't actually object to the eating of meat per se. I think it's fairly natural - animals are part of the food chain (just as we would have been too in days gone by!) What I really object to is intensive farming methods, particularly battery chickens etc. I'm not quite sure where I stand with fish now though because some of that is also farmed!

I cook meat for other people but I try whenever possible to buy free-range/organic (can't always get that though). I always buy free-renge or preferably organic eggs.

I've just never really missed meat or fancied eating in - until now! I don;t think I could ever bring myself to chomp on a bloody steak or anything, but the chicken did look tempting.

so where is the big dilemma? ?. You don't have a moral objection to meat if it's happy, and you found it appealing - so eat it! ?

Because I haven't eaten it for about 19 years and because at the back of my mind I would be thinking that I am eating an animal which does feel a bit wrong somehow for me! I found it hard to start eating fish again - had to get over the thought of what I was actually eating - but I do really like fish and it seemed worth it. I know it seems really illogical but eating meat would just make me faal a bit like I was giving up my principles (even though I'm not even entirely sure what they are and are probably a bit lax anyway)? I know it should be straight forward but there's some kind of mental block there!

<pedant> you wouldn't be a carnivore, you'd be an omnivore because presumably you wouldn't switch to eating only meat to the exclusion of veg and grains etc. <pedant>

I was veggie for a number of years, I can't remember why, I think I was 14, I just didn't eat meat. I think I did eat fish all along (which Julie Burchill would call a 'Fish and Chipocryte'). One day when I was...23 maybe I was working in a restaurant and had the overwhelming desire to eat some left over turkey. I did it, and have loved meat ever since. Weirdly though, I ate a lot of turkey for 6 months and can't eat it now, can't digest it for some reason and get awful stomach cramps.

I am a firm believer that your body will tell you what it wants/needs. But if you have a moral objection then tell your body to shut up.

Edited to say Sorry, that potted history should have gone onto Higo Brambles' thread really, but I've only just come across it.

Full marks to you. Many veggies only serve up veggie food whether those eating it like it or not. You have done meat for your carnivore family and assumedly done a seperate veggie dish for yourself. It can't be easy.

I was a veggie for a few years as a teenager but fell off the wagon when i was in Oz at a sheep farm, the lamb smelt just so good (and tasted fantastic) i'd seen how it was reared, seen it killed and it's all part of life.

we eat happy meat, and i think that it's all part of the food chain, the thing i can influence is how the animal was treated. if i know the farm it's from even better.

do you mind how the fish are kept/ bred/ killed or is it different from say a chicken?

My H was veggie 25 years, but now he eats chicken, fish and ham/bacon.

He stopped eating meat for animal welfare reasons, but became tempted by the meat I eat. Now, if he knows it's happy meat/fish he will eat it. We still eat veggie most of the time as we both like it, but meat is definitely back on the menu.

I don't quite get this ? So despite someone being vegetarian for morals reasons they should throw all these morals out of the window so that they can cook meat for others? Many veggies only serve up vegetarian food because they are vegetarian. Everybody eats vegetarian food, it's just not labelled so.

Broccoli is a side-dish, folks, always has been always will be.

Eggplant tastes like eggplant. But meat tastes like murder and muder tastes pretty god-damn good.

[/end denis leary]

I don't see the problem. You aren't a vegetarian, you eat fish. Is it always substainable? At least you know your chicken is happy, so feel no guilt.