stavy asks:Are you a vegetarian by choice?

For me, it's a health and humane issue. It makes me feel better knowing that I can sustain myself without eating meat, and I also worried about the hormones in meat and what they were doing to my body. I ate meat for almost 20 years and thought nothing of it until I did more research, so it was a personal choice to stop and I haven't regretted it.

I speak for myself when I say it's a matter of choice. I love animals and interacting with them just made me feel so sorry about the state of their lives. Perhaps I just saw more that I should have to allow me to be comfortable eating meat.

Lots of people would say I miss out on a lot when I don't tuck into that juicy steak but I think I'm doing fine...

I've been vegetarian off and on for the past 10 years. I only do it to boycott the methods in which they treat animals before slaughtering them. It's also better for the environment not to eat meat.

However, If I don't eat meat I get really low energy.

Although our choice to become vegetarian way back in the late 1970s was based more on ethical and spiritual concerns than it was on health issues, my husband and I both saw our health improve dramatically when we cut meat, fish and fowl from out menu. We still feel better.

I made the deliberate choice to eschew consumption and use of all animal flesh and animal byproducts because I believe it is wrong to take a life for unnecessary pleasures and alleged nutrient intake. As a woman, I can relate to the viewing of animals as 'lesser beings' therefore worthy of being used to our liking just as women were viewed not to long ago (and still to this day in some parts of the world). Being born of another species (or sex) other than human (or male, or more specifically white male) does not make one less worthy of life and liberty. All living beings deserve to live with the assurance that they won't be lined up, waiting to die in mass slaughter capacity, or treated as 'things' instead of living entities with thoughts, feelings (emotional and tactile), and worthy of the life they are given. To me, the only choice was to be compassionate to all forms of sentient life - everything else is simply hypocritical.

personally i am a carnivore, and i do not think i could ever give up meat... I do try to buy products that are more ethically produced, such as free range eggs and chicken, and free grazing beef etc.. I feel no guilt at eating what is obviously meant to be food for humans. (although i realise this will probably open up a can of religious worms)

I'm doing some research to see if I could try it out.

A particularly poignant moment came when we took our kids on an outing to the Santa Monica pier. My son watched intently as a fisherman pulled in a fish, then missed the bucket and the fish lay gasping on the wooden planks. Even at his young age of six, he realized without being told that the fish was suffering.

I became a vegetarian and subsequently a vegan for moral reasons. The lives that these animals are forced to live are absolutely horrid and should occur to no creature on earth. No animal should be made into a commodity so that people can get pleasure from consuming flesh. Meat is not necessary for a well balanced diet, and quite frankly it is detrimental to a well balanced diet. Grains, beans, nuts, vegetables and fruits offer a plethora of eating options, my meals are never boring.

For me it started as a simple adolescent way to break from authority, but I've been a vegetarian now for seven years and I feel healthier and oddly, kinder when I do not eat meat. It has actually turned into a spiritual preference.

I see eating meat as an inherently aggressive act, and when I refrain from that I feel more I have a more friendly, open disposition. Perhaps it now goes hand-in-hand with my choice to become a buddhist, but in all I realize it is a healthier lifestyle. I am more aware of what I am eating, seeing as I have to be sure I ingest enough iron and protein, and that has led to better (and more inventive) meals on my part.

I do not need meat to live, and therefore it becomes not a necessity, but a choice in itself. With a natural taste for all things vegetable, I don't miss meat much at all, and even my omnivore friends have responded well to my veggie dishes. I think going vegetarian is something everyone should at least try once in their lives. It makes a real difference in the way you relate to your food.

I still eat meat, but I've definitely cut down on red meat. I plan the meals in our house and I include more fish and chicken than beef and pork. I do sympathize with the animal rights concerns, and I'd like to continue to reduce our meat intake.

In India alsmost 80 % of people are vegetarian and therefore I really fail to understand why novegetarians think that the act is so difficult. The nutirents, taste, food value, everything is umpteen times better than non veg food so why not.