Is becoming a vegetarian/vegan worth it?

[scrapking]

curl-6 said:

scrapking said:

With research, it's relatively easy to avoid all of those animal-infused products.  Product labelling is getting better all the time, too.

And the fact that growing plant crops destroys natural habitat, etc., is one of the strongest arguments in favour of going vegan.  Do you think the majority of the animals people eat are roaming free?  Nope, they're eating farmed food.  Wheat, corn, soy, you name it.  60-80% of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is because of animal agriculture.  45% of ice-free land is devoted to animal agriculture.  A third of the world's grain goes to feeding livestock.  I could go on.  70 billion land-based food animals are killed every year (and that doesn't even include seafood).  So, yeah, your concerns are a strong argument for people going vegan.  Thank you for sharing them!  :)

No offense, but I find it extremely hard to believe that you don't own or consume anything at all in which production involves the harming of animals. Even a vegan diet involves crops and pest control. The computer or phone you are using now probably has some plastic or adhesive derived from an animal.

Personally, I'm okay with animals being killed to support my way of life. It may be politically incorrect to say so, but I don't place an enormous amount of value on the life of a cow or a chicken.

Re-read my quote.  Nowhere do I say that I don't own or consume anything at all in which the production involved the harming of animals.  I have many things I've owned since before I was particularly concerned with this topic, and have possibly unknowingly purchased some since.  I'm not trying to say I'm perfect, as I ain't perfect.  I'm so imperfect, I just typed "ain't"!  ;)  I do strive to be constantly better.  And by better, I mean working to bringing my actions more in alignment with my beliefs.  So it's not about me making myself better than someone else, it's about making myself better according to my own standards.  I respect the fact that others have other standards.  As such I've almost entirely kept ethics out of this discussion, as it's not for me to tell people what to believe.  I have kept my comments almost entirely to correcting (what I believe to be) misinformation.  If people are to make informed decisions, they need the correct info.