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I've given this some thought. What I finally came up with was that: 1.) there is no possible way to live without hurting other animal species. and 2.) every living thing has to die eventually anyhow, so it might as well nourish another.
Silly though it sounds, my main impetus for avoiding vegetarianism/veganism comes from Steve Irwin. In an interview once he pointed out that although proponents of vegetarianism will say you use up more resources with meat animals than crops, many more species can live in the same space with the meat animals than the homogeneous area used for one crop. And then I read somewhere that millions of small animals are killed during the harvesting of crops -- mice, squirrels, voles, etc., anything that happens to be in the way, so how can you claim a mass-harvested vegetable crop to be more humane than, say, a professionally slaughtered cow?
So I'll enjoy my steak, thank you! I still would prefer to get my meat from local farms where they're grass-fed and treated well, vs. factory farms, but that's something I'm working on. Time and expense are factors.
Up till this fall though we did raise our own egg-laying chickens. But alas they have stopped laying; too old I guess. We're down to two out of an original six and may or may not repopulate the hen house; haven't decided yet! I can't stand a regular grocery-store white egg now, though!
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