Once
people spend time with farm animals in a loving way... a pig or cow or a little
chicken or a turkey, they might find they relate with them the same way they
relate with dogs and cats. People don't really think of them (that way) because
they're on the plate. Why should they be food when other animals are pets? I
would never eat my doggies.
It
was a lot easier for me to lose the weight rather than putting it back on when
I had to start shooting Spider-Man 2 because I'm a vegetarian and it feels uncomfortable
if you feel you're eating too much.
I gave up meat when I was twelve ... One day I was cutting up a chicken for
my mom, and I hit a tumour with the knife. There was [pus] and blood all over
the place. That was enough for me.
I think and speak clearer since I cut the dairy out. I can breathe better and
perform at a better rate, and my voice is clearer. I can explore different things
with my voice that I couldn't do because of my meat and dairy ingestion. I am
proud and blessed to be a vegetarian, everything became clear.
“I've been a vegetarian
since my thirteenth birthday.”
“My friend gave me all these leaflets, probably about McDonald's meat
processing, and how they kill the chickens, and slaughterhouses. So I stopped
eating meat, and since then it's been a gradual road to being a vegan.”
What made me go vegetarian? I was always sick when I ate meat. When I went vegetarian,
I immediately felt better and looked healthier. I was at first concerned about
not getting everything I needed from my diet, I worried about getting sick all
the time, but the exact opposite happened to me. I never looked back, it was
never a problem straight off. Becoming a vegetarian was one of the first decisions
I made to not be part of this system. I don't want to be part of this system.
The only way you ever make a difference is when you personally do something.
Intellectually,
human beings and animals may be different, but it's pretty obvious that animals
have a rich emotional life and that they feel joy and pain. It's easy to forget
the connection between a hamburger and the cow it came from. But I forced myself
to acknowledge the fact that every time I ate a hamburger, a cow had ceased
to breathe and moo and walk around.
Being
a veggie is so easy and great, I'm against live transportation and animal cruelty
so it fits in perfectly with my beliefs. I have been a veggie for 11 years and
now it's just part of my life, veggie food is yummy, my mum makes a mean veg
lasagne!
I'm picky when it comes to food - as long as there's no meat in it
“It
started out about the animals but the more educated I've become, I realize it's
also for the planet, the environment and my health. The fact that I really haven't
been sick since I've been a vegan is an obvious benefit. You can still feel
and look good, and stay healthy without eating meat. I still go crazy on stage,
and stay in good shape. It isn't that hard!! It is absolutely the right thing
to do. Teenagers and young people are the future. I see so many kids that are
more compassionate than their parents. The old school of thinking that meat
has to be a part of every meal is out the window. It's really about educating
kids because I don't think schools really do.”
“It's
too easy for people to just pick up hamburger and have no idea that it was a
living cow at one time. People don't assimilate the two.”
“Very simply – if you love animals; don't eat them.”
About
20 years ago, my wife and I were driving to work at the Royal Bolton Hospital
when we got stuck in traffic beside a lorry carrying battery chickens to their
final destination.
The hens looked terrified and tortured and had injuries incurred, either by
the journey or their previous year in the battery cages. They had few feathers,
injured, bloodied feet and damaged beaks and I thought, `How can we do this?
How can we justify this treatment of innocent creatures?' By the time we got
to work we had decided to become vegetarian."
If it were my last day on earth, I'd probably go for a great [vegetarian] meal.
I
became a vegan when I was 13 years old, and it's the best thing I've done in
my life. I was a smart kid. I didn't have the best education money could buy,
but I knew that I could get all the nutrition I needed without partaking of
the flesh. It's so cool, I eat my meals knowing that no animals have died for
my vitamins, that's liberating for me, and liberating for them. One more thing,
vegan kisses taste nice.
I've been a vegetarian since I was about nine. I just feel like you can't make
a hierarchy among different beings in the value of life.
If you love animals, obviously it doesn't make sense to hurt them. I always
looked at animals and thought they were very much like children and they looked
to us always to help them and save them and protect them.
