Vegetarianism is a dietary choice, yet more so a change in one's lifestyle. Being a vegetarian includes excluding the eating of meat from animals, including beef, poultry, fish or their specific by-products. Vegetarianism can be practiced with or without including dairy products or consuming eggs. The choice to include and exclude foods varies greatly for vegetarians, as additional exclusions are vast. By choice of the individual, products derived from animal carcasses such as lard, tallow, gelatin, cochineal and rennet can also be boycotted.

Leaving Meat Out Of Things

By leaving meat products out of dietary plans, one would assume vegetarians are left with very little options of what they can eat. But, this assumption is utterly absurd and wrong. This said, vegetarians, if eclectic in their selections, have quite a diversified diet, one that primarily consists of vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts and beans, -and depending on individual tastes or practices- and also such animal products as milk, cheese or eggs.

What Drives or Motivates Vegetarians?

There are a plethora of reasons why vegetarians choose to live and eat the way they do. For rationals ranging from personal to environmental, vegetarianism is a dietary option and lifestyle decision not empty in practice. Rather it is quite full of justified and intelligible logic constituted of partaking peoples among a larger portion of the world.

Below are 4 listed reasons and/or motivations that drive vegetarians to keep with what they practice:

Environmental Concerns:

As a widespread reason for vegetarians, the environment is of primary concern. Vegetarians, specifically "Environmental Vegetarians," grasp strongly to the sheer fact that animal and meat product production, presently and with future projections, is environmentally unstable and unsustainable.

This is so through means of vigorous Industrialization, particularly taking into account and paralleling exhaustive farming techniques and high animal protein diets spread among developed nations, specifically within the United States.

Physiological Reasoning:

Based on studies conducted by experts, it is clearly stated that, as humans, we are better suited anatomically for sticking to a non-meat and vegetarian diet. This said, take into account the life expectancy rates in nations that partake in vegetarian or semi-vegetarian ways of living compared to animal and meat diet nations; life expectancy is significantly prolonged where vegetarian or semi-vegetarian diets are adopted and utilized. Additionally, it appears that through scientific studies, humans are built -not just better suited- for vegetarian-focused diets.

Psychological Inferences:

The mind is a funny thing. Not saying it's hilarious, but more so implying humor in how brains think, function and effect us in the process. From a vegetarian mindset, it is utterly foul and unappetizing to think about and/or ingest meat products and their by-products, whether from aesthetically or morally grounded stances.

Advocates of vegetarianism strongly believe that we, as human beings, are not driven by instinctual means to pursue or consume living or already dead meat in a natural setting.

Food Safety Concerns:

Many vegetarians choose their lifestyle to avoid meat eating scares, such as lingering and easily transferable diseases or conditions brought on through various microorganisms typically located within animal products and the like.

Such conditions or diseases can include any of the following: cattle-based BSE -known as Mad Cow Disease-, poultry-derived avian flu, sheep spread 'foot-and-mouth,' and usual salmonella on eggs.

Clearly, vegetarianism is a lifestyle choice based off viable reasoning. Whether one opts to adopt such a lifestyle is solely up to the particular individual whom is interested. But now, at least knowledge of a few facts and an awareness of the vegetarian perspective -both necessary in familiarizing and positioning one's self to see where one sits in dietary terms- have been established.