"Why are you a vegetarian?"

Equally important and as commonly asked as the protein question (see post titled "Where do you get your protein?") is the why behind your decision to become a vegetarian. Not eating meat is a very personal choice as well as a loaded one, and you need to be able to explain it both for yourself and to those who ask about it. I suggest doing as much research about this lifestyle as possible (its benefits along with its drawbacks, its personal effects along with its larger implications) so that you can not only be comfortable answering the "why" question, but also be fully informed and educated about the food decisions you plan to make.

Whenever I get asked why I'm a vegetarian, I give the following three reasons. While they are by no means unique, they came about as a result of much personal reading, exploring, and contemplation:

(1) Health

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals. Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer." American Dietetic Association

(2) Environment

"Raising animals for food is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global...[Animal agriculture] should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution and loss of biodiversity. Livestock's contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale." The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (as quoted in Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer)

(3) Animal welfare

"Each year in the United States, approximately 11 billion animals are raised and killed for meat, eggs, and milk. These farm animals—sentient, complex, and capable of feeling pain and frustration, joy and excitement—are viewed by industrialized agriculture as commodities and suffer myriad assaults to their physical, mental, and emotional well-being, typically denied the ability to engage in their species-specific behavioral needs. Despite the routine abuses they endure, no federal law protects animals from cruelty on the farm, and the majority of states exempt customary agricultural practices—no matter how abusive—from the scope of their animal cruelty statutes. The treatment of farm animals and the conditions in which they are raised, transported, and slaughter within industrialized agriculture are incompatible with providing adequate levels of welfare." The Humane Society of the United States