Vegetarian

Was trying to debate with myself : Why am I vegetarian? Would I recommend someone?

Let's start with : Why

It was really mind set
I grew up in strict vegetarian and highly religious family, and such rules were embedded into the mindset. It was quite simple : eating vegetarian is right and eating meat/fish is just wrong.

Then it was religion
There might be some credit to internal spirit (which I mostly call simply guts with experience), but region is just a plain bullshit . I was vegetarian in my early childhood mostly because of religious belief but in early teens I started having serious issues with religion and took me a while before I could finally ditch the whole concept about religion, God and their divine plan.

Then it was culture
(definition: the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture. ) I think I always had a problem with man made stuff - mostly to control human beings. Be it government, religion, society or culture. It does adds some values, but does a lot worse to humanity. Anyways, as was growing up, I become part of the culture around me and challenging the culture never went well with me.

Then it was just habit
Regardless habit is good or bad, it closely follows Le Chatelier's principle, and we mostly resist to the changes. Hence, being vegetarian was just a habit.

Then it was thought of animal cruelty
Yeah, saving the animals, and cruelty. Really? I saw somebody outside the zoo eating the hotdog and holding the poster to be worried that animal should be freed and doesn't have enough space to move. For me, this was quite obvious to laugh about. Well, but when I dig deeper I was no different than him. Showing off avoiding animal cruelty, and living the "civilized" life, where every single of my need causing direct or indirect harm to rest of the animals on planet.
E.g. deforestation to build houses or a industrial factory, destroying amazon forest to build corn for fuel, etc.. list just goes on and on..
It was not very hard to realize that directly or indirectly humans have just become greedy criminal highly consuming species, and every single one of them wants to produce two more!

Then it was confusion and may be regret
Yeah, I did. I think mostly when I was traveling and going for business dinners and ending up with fried or cheese plate, and someone else eating decent cut of salmon fish. It did make me feel really bad that sometime being vegetarian limits your options and that leads to rather unhealthy life style.

Then it was more purity (hope to remain that way)
Learning Gerson was life changing event. Earlier as Vegetarian, had no clue what was healthy. I could be enjoying healthy vegetarian Indian meal at Indian restaurant (cooked to the death and then added butter on top of it), or shopping through isles of Costco (highly processed or barely organic supplies), and having organic juices from isle, and considering living health life. I am not big organic food fan, but seeing what Monsanto does, Organic was not choice, it was a necessity. Fresh-raw/lightly cooked organic veggies, organic fruits, nuts, tons of sprouted beans, boiled sweet/regular potatoes have almost become 90% of my diet.

At the end it still comes down to mindset
I think eating a piece lean meat (or fish) could be much more healthier than over cooked, over heated, salted and/or fried veggies. And I think in general, specially western culture, veg - meat option are probably not a great idea - e.g. steaks, hotdogs, burger... I still think the Asian cooking style with tons of veggies and hint of meat, still seem to be a better and healthier style. With knowing what I know, I still prefer to be Vegetarian. 99% because of healthy style but 1% is still deep down because of mind set. It is just embedded in my brain's microprocessor in early childhood. I never my see myself eating meat/fish, unless one day it becomes life threatening situation.

So just wanted to see how far I can take this 1% of mindset. E.g. the person eating insect happens to claim the same things, why we are not eating insects - just mindset. How far it can go? Why we are not eating dogs/cats/rats? and brings up even bigger question: why not humans? Is it just a mindset? Religion and government has no problem killing humans as soon as someone comes on their way. (if you kill the cow, next thing you do, is you make the burger..). Well, I know I am way off crossing my humanity limits and being really disgusting, but hey, I thought killing fish/deer was also cruel and disgusting, but it still happens (actually for millions, it is a hobby..)


Would I recommend someone to be vegetarian

Nope, not really. But I definitely would recommend to understand all aspect of your life style (budget/location/traveling), and build set of rules to get best out of it. As vegetarian, I still built set of rules for myself and I could apply in pretty much all condition I have been to or plan to and I would still end up in OK state.