One of the biggest factors for me personally was going vegetarian, and then vegan. I didn't realize it for 30 years, but it's hard to feel connected to nature, animals, and the environment when you are eating something you didn't kill yourself. Once I made that move, it's a beautiful feeling and a kind of connection to animals and the planet I never knew before. I wasn't even much of a pet person before that.

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tock 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Would you be opposed to lab grown meat?

I was vegetarian for close to a decade and felt terrible. Slowly reintroducing meat back to my diet(especially red meat) worked wonders for me.

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pabs3 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Vegans are just as disconnected, especially when they eat things grown in vats. What brings connection is to have a garden and kill and eat the animals and vegetables they grow there.

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mmmllm 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The point is that you're not relegating another sentient being's life to lower than that of your own. You refuse to accept the torture and murder of another species.

In doing so, you dramatically expand your empathy and understanding of what it is to be a living thing, and hence you gain an inner connection to nature and animals that is hard to describe. At least that's my personal experience.

	▲	uncircle an hour ago \| parent [-]
		You can be empathetic about life and still recognise your biology and your place in the ecosystem. Usually cultures around the world celebrated this fact by being thankful and mindful of the food in front of them, especially if you yourself have slaughtered the animal. One should be free to avoid eating the meat of sentient life; but one should also be free to accept that their body functions best by eating like the apex predator they are. Seeing the world in black-and-white is what causes all the ills in the world: being human is accepting that we are a walking bag of paradoxes, and perfection is unattainable. The lack of judgement is why I personally admire self-described vegetarians much more than militant vegans, always trying to convert the world to their righteous image. Live and let live.

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AaronAPU 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Interesting. For me, eating the animal makes it feel more a part of me.

	▲	mmmllm 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, the animal died in an intensely stressful situation that you would probably struggle to even watch, let alone do yourself. I guess all that cortisol and stress is now also part of you.

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southernplaces7 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>I didn't realize it for 30 years, but it's hard to feel connected to nature, animals, and the environment when you are eating something you didn't kill yourself.

Really? I'd think that living surrounded by a modern society whose benefits you fully enjoy does a lot more to really disconnect you from nature than some notion of not killing the meat you ate.

You're still fully participating in the daily destruction of nature, animals and living things just about as much as anyone who eats meat, you've simply removed yourself symbolically a bit more from one specific expression of it, so you can (entirely subjectively) feel as if it somehow makes much of a difference for any real connection to the planet.

	▲	mmmllm 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		"You're still fully participating in the daily destruction of nature, animals and living things just about as much as anyone who eats meat" - I mean, that's categorically not true. All else equal the meat eater has a far more destructive daily impact on nature. I can also pet a dog with a good conscience, because I don’t turn around and eat an animal just like it. I don’t see one as a friend and the other as food just because society dictates that