I'm still studying the issue of vegetarianism/veganism

So, I found a mormon vegetarian facebook page and I'm a member of it now. It's awesome to see so many people that share the same beliefs as I sharing also the same dietary way of thinking.  But there's this one guy that writes on that facebook page every now and then that seems to just want to put down the idea of vegetarianism and to cause contention. He tries to write in an intellectual, politically correct way but it's clear that his intentions are merely to ridicule the mormon vegetarians in that group.
I believe that we are all entitled to personal revelation and that one's diet can fall under that category. I don't make anyone feel inferior or wrong about eating meat, and all I ask is that others give me the same type of respect.
One of the members of that facebook group wrote the following regarding the comments by that one brother who seems to want nothing but contention:
I don't think vegetarian/veganism requires doctrinal basis to be one's choice. While one might say that the scriptures encourage a certain dietary balance, at no point is it succinctly encouraged or forbidden to eat meat. Personal choice and conviction must sometimes remain exactly that, -personal-. I would not be ashamed to stand in front of God and defend my choice to abstain from eating His beautiful creations. In my view, we will be required to account for the status in which return our stewardship (i.e. the Earth and its inhabitants) to Him and how responsibly, compassionately, wisely we used it. I think there will be a lot to answer for.

I don't see it as prudent, or useful, to go further dividing ourselves against one another over whether we can doctrinally defend our choices as vegetarians or not. I don't think there's much point. If you're ashamed of your choices, perhaps you chose wrongly. On the other hand, if you're comfortable with it, what others think and how they act really won't matter. When it comes right down to it, I don't care that we're (my son and I) are the only vegetarians in our ward. Vegetarianism is not mainstream in our culture, why would it/should it be in any sub-section whether secular or religious?

I agree with her.
I found these quotes on a blog (http://www.jordanriveryoga.com/What_We_Eat_Matters.html)


Many volumes have been written on this subject, and it is too broad to do justice to in one column, so let me just make a few points and let you, the reader, investigate further on your own if you wish.

* It requires 5000 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef for human consumption, but only 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat.  (You save more water by skipping four quarter-pounders than you do by not showering for an entire year.)

* 260 million acres in the US have been set aside to grow grain--to feed livestock animals.  (We'd have plenty of farmland in the world if it were used to grow crops for people.)

* The Framingham Heart Study found that vegetarians have the lowest coronary rates in the population, and 40% of the average cancer rate.  (Other studies have found that vegans have the lowest diabetes rate as well.)

* If you are concerned about global warming, a 2006 United Nations report found that the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, trucks, cars, planes, and ships in the world combined.  (Eating 1 lb. of meat is roughly equivalent to driving a SUV 40 miles.)

* Many dairy cows in the US are fed Bovine Growth Hormone to increase milk production.  (It has been banned in Canada and Europe because of human health concerns.)  With the increased milk production comes increased incidences of mastitis, for which those same dairy cows are regularly fed antibiotics.  Both the BGH and the antibiotics are in the beef, veal, and dairy products sold in stores.

And none of this addresses the animal cruelty issues.

The statistics above were obtained from GoVeg.com.  Other sources of information are:

The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, 2006.

The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone, 2009.

Eat To Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, 2005

There Is a Cure for Diabetes by Gabriel Cousens, 2008

drfuhrman.com

greensmoothiegirl.com

fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org

earthsave.org

just random

You can eat something bad and beat yourself up and then soothe yourself for that with some more bad foods. Or you can eat something bad and then do something good to balance it out, like drinking a glass of water and doing 20 minutes of exercise. As humans we can't be perfect all the time. But at the end of the day, if you've done yourself more good than harm, you can maintain your balance and keep on riding in the direction you want to go in!