What prompted you to convert from non-vegetarian to vegetarian?

It was a gradual thing. I never liked the taste of red meat, but enjoyed fish and chicken. So I cut red meat out pretty early (as soon as my parents stopped making me sit at the table to finish the meal).

Later, as I learned more about factory farming and the treatment of chickens in factory farms, I stopped eating chicken and was just left with fish. And finally I learned more about fish farming and overfishing and decided to just remove fish as well. That full vegetarian switch happened over ten years ago now.

I'm currently finding myself in the midst of minimizing egg and dairy consumption as well. I don't buy normal milk anymore, having found a great alternative that I enjoy. I rarely eat real cheese, opting for vegan alternatives since there's quite a few great tasting options now. But I'm not super strict about it, especially when eating out.

Thought it ethically made sense since early teens (a childhood friend was very into animal rights) but never made a serious effort, just went with my habits.

Then in my early twenties, I went to a 10-day vipassana meditation retreat. During that time, we were only served vegan food. Once coming back I just didn't start eating meat (including fish) again, and haven't since. It happened pretty naturally with basically 0 effort-energy spent. The urge was just gone. Did the basic nerding down on nutrition and all that and now it's >10y later. To be ethically consistent I'd be going vegan (save for eggs sourced locally where I have insights into the welfare) and perhaps an occasional oyster (they lack a central nervous system) but a combination of laziness and external/environmental factors make me "cheat" and have regular intake of non-ethical eggs, and dairy. Had some vegan periods in the past. I recognize it as hypocrisy but it's what it is for now.

At this point I avoid talking about it and my only real frustration is social: It's not very common where I currently live and basically almost every first meal with a new person becomes an inquiry in my diet and precisely what I do and don't eat, and how delicious this and that are and how they couldn't live without eating that and every other time they segue it into questioning my motivations. Usually I'd prefer to just enjoy the meal and avoid thinking way too much about the food industry and animal ethics - it's gotten old at this point. If anything I can be a living example of how yes, it's possible to have a sustainable decently healthy diet while enjoying food, but other than that I usually try not to bring up the topic unless someone is pushing me to try foie gras or something.

Hard to remember exactly. I was a vegetarian for around 10 years and vegan for 5 now. I think initially on environmental grounds and later as I learned more about factory farming ethical grounds as well. The omni to vegetarian transition was gradual as I was living with a vegetarian ex-girlfriend at the time, and the vegetarian to vegan was an overnight change.

If you're at all into cooking, even if you eat meat, it's quite a good exercise to learn to cook a few vegan dishes and perfect them to work on the basics.

I think we need more people to not have absolutest/religious type positions on diet and just eat less meat.

I view meat now like I view chocolate. I am not self banned from eating chocolate but I certainly do not need to eat chocolate every day. I am basically sometimes vegetarian, sometimes vegan until I want to have "cheat meals" and sometimes enjoy meat like I sometimes enjoy chocolate.

I find the ethics of farming to be very difficult to live with.

I've been vegetarian now for long enough that I don't have any desire to eat meat and I am fairly grossed out by it. I am working towards vegan (again, the ethics), but it is proving to be more difficult. Perhaps my convictions aren't as strong?

My journey had several stops and starts. The best "trick" I have is to not stop eating meat, just start removing it from more and more meals. You just wake up one day and realize you haven't had meat in a year.

In my day to day, I don't really think about it anymore. I am always caught off guard when I realize other people are eating meat. It just isn't something that I consider now.

Guilt —- I was coming out of a lifelong emotional fugue state and starting to critically examine who I was, and I realized how wretched I felt for contributing to animal suffering. Started as vegetarian in February, went vegan a few weeks ago.

Animal torture (seeing trucks with bleeding pigs on the highway) and not liking meat very much anyway. These days I can add environmental concerns (I was a bit ignorant about that 20 years ago). I just quit cold turkey 20 years ago and I don't miss it. Sometimes I try it (only when travelling; we haven't cooked any in our home for 20 years) and then remember that it wasn't great in the first place; it is ok in an indian or thai curry but then I don't really see the benefit over vegetarian options either.

I like to cook and always have so I had never any issues making exciting food without meat. Most things we cook with we grow in our garden; we could stand a very long time without buying food if we would try which I find another advantage as for meat we would need a lot more land and effort than we have now.

Not a vegetarian, but recently (a couple of months) I had to eat much more vegetables and fruits than I usually do, due to digestion and other related issues. No more pure meat/steak for me, only a little of bird, for at least half a year, and then the prospect is still unclear. The journey included sleeping with an open window for a week or so, then I had to adjust my gut biome using antibiotics (non-systemic). Now I feel much better than right after the switch, but sometimes I just want to eat meat. One time that brought me to a clinic, but nothing serious as it turned out. From that experience, I’d suggest to not do it abruptly if you’re ~aged, as it shocks the system.

As for animals themselves, I feel sad for them when I think about it, but my escape valve is the fact that nature doesn’t feel for them either. Free animals are rarely happy things. They are infected with all sorts of parasites, live in constant fear of being eaten alive by predators or beaten/injured by competition, are always hungry because x’=rx(1-x), have no way to clean themselves up or access the medicine. Being a herbivore animal just sucks by design by human standards.

Global warming, to be honest.

I don't understand the question of how long it took; one day, we decided with my SO to stop buying meat and cook vegetarian dishes only. We searched for recipes, and that was that. We still eat the occasional sausage, but it's more as a spice rather than a full meat portion.

We have been vegetarian since 2018, so admittedly not that long, but the switch was really not difficult at all.

I have been uncomfortable with eating animal products, for both ethical and environmental reasons, for years now.

There wasn't one event that prompted the change, it was a very gradual process.

I'm not 100% vegan or vegetarian because I sometimes eat canned sardines and eggs but I'd say 95% of my meals are vegan. IMO it's not so helpful to think in terms of strict categories when discussing diet.

At first ecological, environmental issues. And then I started looking into animal treatment and felt really guilty about it.

It took me maybe 6 months to 1 year telling myself I was now eating vegetarian, while still eating meat more or less regularly. And eventually it became a habit. From a logistic point of view the switch is really simple if you live in a place where you can find alternatives, just stop buying meat and instead compensate with lot of vegetables, tofu, beans, mushrooms, soy-based meat-like alternatives, etc. And you save a good amount of money doing so (at least in Europe, I believe in the US meat is way cheaper because of government subsidies).

Though to be honest it's a bit frustrating if you like to cook because you won't find something that behaves/reacts like meat.

In practice I still eat meat <10 days a year, for example on vacation to a place where vegetarian food is difficult to find or when I join a family dinner and don't want to be annoying.

Moral consistency. If I wouldn't kill it with my own hands then I won't eat it. Spend any thoughtful time around "edible" animals and the alternative starts to look more and more barbaric imho.

Practically speaking though, just eat meat whenever you want to: it's not a binary process (unless you're doing it for the approval of others).

The Gamechangers

I'm not even joking. I recongise most of the documentary is heavily biased, i.e. erections. However, all four of my biological grandparents had heart issues. I'm in my 30's and have a "hefty" build. Being vegan on a whole food type diet would drastically reduce the odds of me dying from heart disease.

The documentary Meet Your Meat. It was hard to watch, but I'm glad I did. Haven't eaten meat in a decade and I won't ever again.

The hardest part was eating meals with others, as virtually every adult eats meat. I cut out meat cold turkey:) but there was for sure a period where I was tempted despite ethical concerns.

This was around 2010, although some of the motivations began in the several years leading up to then.

After eating chicken or ground beef, even if supposedly high quality more expensive offerings from grocery stores, my stomach would be upset (similar to how you might feel after eating four bags of fast food french fries).

Then around 2010, one after another big meat manufacturing recalls occurred in the US. Then I either watched a movie or read a book about a long time cattle rancher who became vegitarian, and his reasons. I forget the name, and I may not be remembering the exact background; but the gist was that this was a true meat person, and they left meat.

As I was serious about fitness at the time, particularly long technical single-track mountainbiking adventures, I wondered about how fitness might suffer without meat. I did some searches for professional athletes who were vegetarian, and I was surprised by the results. Suffice to say that not eating meat doesn't seem to prevent some people from being true top physical specimens.

So I went to the grocery store and decided to try no meat for a while. I started making big stir-frys in a wok, with lots of veggies. I got pretty good at that, and I could eat as much of that as I wanted without worry about calories. I also ate a LOT of salads.

I found it very satisfying, and I came to love veggies. I still love meat, but I almost never eat it... maybe once every few months, and usually just a small taste. No fish either, due to concerns of what's in fish and how it might be detrimental for my body.

I am not a fan of meat replamements. Those are often disappointing and relatively unehalthy (manufactured). And frankly, well prepared vegetarian dishes can be so good that my dining pleasure is at peak anyway... nothing would make me happier at the time.

Health-wise, there's strong evidence that cholesterol and other measurements which we think are important tend to be worse for meat eaters than vegetarians. So by not eating meat, I feel a bit less guilty sometimes eating some junk food. That's not my motivation though.

Lastly, I had a period of a couple of years after becoming vegetarian where I was doing pretty serious weight lifting. I was just shy of being at a competitive level. I did drink protein shakes a few times a week, but they were plant-based (not whey). Whether the shakes helped or not I cannot say; but being vegetarian didn't seem to prevent good quality muscle development.

Not vegetarian, but recently started reducing my meat intake:

1. For better health.

2. To help preserve the climate (I see it as a collective duty, and therefore I should fulfil my share of it).

What convinced me were two books:

- The Real Story of Money, Health, and Religion by Loren Howe.

- Le monde sans fin (French) by Jean-Marc Jancovici.

Not a vegetarian but eating less meat. For me it started with a change in lifestyle when I decided I should be healthy so less fast food but it also kind of naturally meant eating less meat too.

I started replacing the junk meals with meat-free/vegetarian options and then reduced the overall meat intake. Now instead of eating meat in some form at pretty much every meal, I probably do 3-5 meat meals a week. Which out of 14 isn't bad at all.

I won't fully convert because I just love meat way too much, but I do have to say that eating it less made it even better. It's like when you're on a harsh diet and then get to your cheat meal.

I started reducing meat for health reasons, then cut back even more after reading Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation. While I don't condone animal cruelty, I was even more affected by the human suffering involved in producing American meat at industrial scale.

Like many, I'm not an absolutist, and still use things like bacon essentially as a seasoning.

If you're considering this, I think you should consider it like any lifestyle intervention: every little bit helps towards your goal, and you need to find a way to make it sustainable and enjoyable, and not a chore you have to continue for the rest of your life.

On the transition - It’s much easier than you might think. Especially if the focus is vegetarian not vegan.

There are so many cheaper protein alternatives: beans, dairy, nuts, eggs, etc. And good subs like veggie burgers, non dairy milks, etc.

Instead of a meal with a meat protein and veg, you can easily sub beans or something with eggs. You also tend to load up more on veggies (like on pizza)

In fact I find it’s kind of easier to NOT eat meat. Less worry about foodborne illness or parasites. Lower cost.

Examining the figures in regards to carbon dioxide emissions. It was the simplest, most impactful change I could implement in my life to lower my carbon footprint.

I've thought about the ethical aspects but for me personally I've kind of reached the conclusion that humans will exploit animals capacity in some sense. For me I'm ok with keeping cows for milk, chickens for eggs etc. With this reasoning I'm also fine with hunting.

Two-fold Motivation: Diagnosed as pre-diabetic, reducing global warming

Recently learned that saturated animal fat is linked to a depletion of insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas (thus causing type II diabetes). For some reason everyone talks about sugar as the bad guy, but animal fat plays a big part.

This and of course, the huge cost of meat on our environment.

Went to apply for an animal college later in life. We went for lunch in the canteen, I was looking at what to grab and he side-spoke words "I couldn't justify eating an animal of an animal that you just saved".

Since then I've not eaten meat. My family and upbringing never had red meat. But always have had fish and chicken.

Wanted to impress my vegan partner and learned to cook a lot of fun, easy and delicious recipes. I’ve never learned how to cook non-vegan dishes so I wouldn’t even know when to start. Eventually it became so normal I stopped ordering non-vegan food when eating out.

we are mostly non-meat, not vegetarian per se. my daughter is a committed vegetarian on revulsion and compassion grounds. that caused the other family members to adapt. I used butter milk, chicken stock, but we never buy meat. I dont refuse meat when invited to dinner or at restaurants but we eat over 95% less than we did a few years ago.

It depends.Sometimes i convert because i want to take a meat break. Sometimes there is no meat in the fridge.