So for all you angst ridden angry anti-'touchy feely' people who like to slam vegan and vegeterian lifestyles here's your chance.
Basically I stopped eating Beef and Pork last June, for weight issues, and then because of family pressure I ate some beef on christmas day and was sick the next day. But that's not why. I've been reading this site:
http://www.peta.org/ and somewhere about when I was reading about how chickens have their beaks burned of with a hot metal rod and etc I almost lost my stomach and then I also saw a chicken ranch on television and how they butcher chickens, and how they live and I just honestly I can't deal with it anymore. I don't think I could eat any chicken right now if I was forced to, that's how sick I am. On the other end of it, I've known that it's more energy efficient to not eat meat because of the calorie loss that happens - there's that 10% rate that occurs during energy transfer - Jarkiri may know better than me. Basically of the 100% energy the Sun radiates on plants 10% of the calories are absorbed, then of the animals that eat these plants, they in turn absorb 10% of the calories the plants 'store', then carnivores eat the herbivores, and they in turn absorb 10% of the herbivore's calories. Or something like that, I remember it from Anthropological ecology course. So it's more energy efficient to just eat vegetarian, then isn't it? But I don't really care about this issue enough to actually make me want to change my diet.
My concerns are: health - I don't believe it's healthy to be a vegetarian. Is that true? My other concern is my wife, how will she react? Will she be supportive in the long run or get tired of me? I don't care about reactionary types accusing me of over empathizing with animals and anthropomorphizing them. That argument holds little sway with me, anyone who's been around animals long enough knows they feel both physical and emotional pain (and pleasure).