I'm not vegan because of any of the reasons Bill spoke of, though I have found that I'm healthier now. I used to be a perpetually sick person! Clint - maybe your grand daughters didn't substitute for protein and calcium and everything else that they were missing out on.

I don't really know how things are in the US, etc; My only source for the conditions there is the net, and judging from what I've heard, PETA isn't a very reliable source? I guess, unless it's factory farming, the animals might not be treated so terribly? I have actually seen the way animals are treated here in India though, and it's appalling.

It isn't so much the actual killing of the animals that I feel strongly about - more the amount the animal has to suffer before its death. I used to eat eggs earlier; I only stopped because I saw the way the chickens were treated *shudders*. I don't really care about the taking-a-life argument, and this isn't a religious choice. Likewise milk - the cows suffer ever so much.

Someone I know, who's into organic farming, and tries to live a "humane, environment-friendly lifestyle" has a couple of cows who have not been genetically-bred to produce more milk (and live a shorter life, often)... and who aren't fed any chemicals/anitbiotics. He lets the calves drink their share, and found that he got milk only a couple of months in a year... and hardly any of it. Which kind of shows that it isn't natural the way the cows are treated.

I'd also rather not drink milk, because I think it supports the meat industry - the male calves are almost always killed, because they aren't needed. Except for the few that become bulls for artificial insemination - which seems a pretty ghastly life too. And yeah, the cows wouldn't be there if they weren't milked - but I think not existing would be better than living a short, miserable life. And anyway, it isn't as if the whole world will turn vegan one day - and all the cows will be left with nothing to do!

The whole thing isn't about 'animal rights' or morality (for me at least). So, it isn't about animals having more right than a plant. It's just about my conscience... and what I feel. And I definitely feel that an animal would feel more pain than a plant. So, I'd definitely feel better eating a plant than an animal. Besides, that argument is quite irrelevant - because every animal you eat eats ever so many plants. So, if you're eating the animal - you're eating both the animal and the plants... and SO MANY more plants than you'd eat, if you were eating them directly.

I've been a vegetarian all my life, so I guess that's just the way I was brought up. And veganism made sense to me, so I'm now a vegan. I just don't feel the need to use something that I don't think was meant for me to use. It's just a personal choice, and I don't say that everyone else should be vegan too.