How to be a vegetarian? (And also, why to be one?)

[CapnAwesome]

This is just slacktavism to feel good about yourself.

I find your attitude of -- apparently -- dismissing any ecology-inspired changes in personal behavior as "slacktivism", very problematic, even stupid. As if it didn't matter what the 7 billion people on this planet do. Liking a page on a facebook for saving starving children in africa, that's slacktivism. Changing your behaviour to reduce your footprint is not slacktivism, please!  Insinuating that all these people do it for selfish reasons and can therefore be dismissed might just be a bit of a selfish excuse on your side not to change anything about your habits. I'm not saying that it is.

Well I didn't really have time to go into details but what I mean is that people have to be realistic about what they are actually doing. I hear vegetarians all the time make outlandish and untrue claims about what vegetarianism does. In the opening post the person said that they are a vegetarian because they want a clean and healthy environment and a rainforest still there for their children. I'm sorry, but by being a vegetarian you are not accomplishing that. Especially if you still own a car and generally partake in a first world lifestyle. Most people who think they are saving the world are still part of the consumer culture and are pretty badly deluded about what their real footprint looks like. As for me personally, everything I own can fit in a backpack. I don't take part in a first world lifestyle as part of an intentional choice and am not part of the consumer world. So I don't have existential guilt that I need to alleviate by adopting some goofy diet that really doesn't do much. If you want to save the rainforest, you need to go down and save the rainforest. If you want to smugly feel superior to those around you, vegetarianism might be a good way to go.