Being a vegetarian is not easy in a world of carnivores.

Meat-eating people usually know far too little about vegetarianism to allow themselves to pass judgement.

Yet they constantly admonish vegetarians that they get too few vitamins without meat. They think vegetarian food consists only of raw carrots and lettuce and have absolutely no understanding of the reasons why someone gives up meat.

In this article you will find the most common "arguments" of carnivores and how you can counter the argument.

If you don't eat meat, what do you eat??

As if there were nothing else edible in the world. For example, what about vegetables, fruit, bread products, pasta, cereals for the strict vegetarians and cheese, milk, yoghurt, eggs, etc. for the ovo-lacto vegetarians?

As I mentioned before, carnivores actually think that a vegetarian only eats carrots and salad. When I have parties with vegetarian food (no meat is cooked in my house), my guests are always surprised afterwards that the food was very tasty after all. It makes you wonder whether carnivores also eat vegetables at some point.

You are totally lacking in vitamins and minerals:

It's amazing that the common carnivore even knows that there are vitamins and minerals. He should actually be aware that vegetables and fruit are almost synonymous with vitamins.
Not to mention that vegetarians usually (have to) deal a lot with nutrition and almost always know more about the subject because they always have to defend themselves.
The fact is, for lacto-vegetarians, there is no vitamin or mineral that they cannot get from a plant-based diet or milk. Here is a short list of just one food per vitamin and mineral that it contains.

Vitamin A: Carrots
Vitamin B1: Whole grain products
Vitamin B2: green leafy vegetables
Vitamin B3: Whole grain products
Vitamin B5: Vegetables
Vitamin B6: Potatoes
Vitamin B12: Milk
Folic acid: dark green vegetables
Vitamin C: Citrus fruits
Vitamin D: Milk
Vitamin E: vegetable oils
Vitamin H: Cauliflower
Vitamin K: Spinach

Minerals:
Calcium: Nuts
Chloride: Bread
Potassium: Bananas
Magnesium: Bananas
Sodium: Bread
Phosphorus: Nuts

Trace elements:
Chromium: wholemeal products
Iron: Mushrooms
Fluorine: green tea
Iodine: iodised table salt
Copper: Nuts
Manganese: wholemeal products
Molybdenum: legumes
Selenium: Rice
Silicon: Legumes
Zinc: Cereal products

As you can see, every vitamin, mineral or trace element is present in a lacto-vegetarian food.

The only two vitamins that vegans do not get from food (i.e. they can take supplements) are vitamin B12 and vitamin D. Vitamin D is produced by the body itself through sunlight. Vitamin D is produced by the body itself through solar radiation.

If the carnivores need more solid "proof", show them a list on the internet of vitamins and minerals, such as atlantis-pharm.com.

Fitness and health:

We have just seen that our bodies can get all vitamins, minerals and trace elements from plant foods, with only one exception, vitamin B12, which we find in normal vitamin tablets.

We consume a certain amount of food. This amount hardly changes at all for the individual person, whether we would eat meat or not. So if someone eats 500 grams of food in a meal, they eat, for example, 250g of meat products and 250g of vegetables and carbohydrates as a meat eater. The same person as a vegetarian eats 500g of vegetables and carbohydrates. It's no secret that lots of vegetables are very healthy; with fruit and vegetables there is no 'too much', no overdose. So the meat eater eats less fruit and vegetables because part of his diet is meat.
In addition to certain nutritional values, meat also contains fat, of which we should only consume a limited amount if we want to stay healthy and fit. Meat products contain between 9 and 36 per cent fat. In the above example, the meat eater with his 250g of meat in one meal already consumes 22.5g of fat in the best case of 9 per cent, while the vegetarian consumes none.
Calculated over the course of a day, it adds up to quite a bit of extra fat that vegetarians save. So which is healthier?

For me personally, there is no question that vegetarian food is healthier. I noticed within a few days of switching to vegetarianism almost 20 years ago that I was much fitter and had a better condition.

There is also the cholesterol. Lean meat contains between 45 and 70 per cent cholesterol. The carnivore who eats 250g of meat in a single meal above has already eaten between 112g and 175g of cholesterol. With a recommended daily maximum of 300g, that is already about half. Vegetarians have to work hard if they want to raise their cholesterol level, because the only danger is too many eggs, which the carnivore also eats.

So if a carnivore comes to you with his health trip again, just ask him if he has ever seen a real overweight vegetarian.

Jokes about pets:

Isn't that funny when a carnivore says he'll eat your rabbit as a "joke". What a highly original and insightful joke. Has it not occurred to them that you give up meat because you love animals? Because you think of animals as friends and pets as family members? Why don't you ask him if you can try a piece of his sister's or, better still, his child's meat? See if he thinks that's funny.

I have rarely seen such inconsideration as from carnivores. I wonder if they deliberately want to hurt the vegetarians or are just selfless.

Animals are bred for slaughter:

...So that makes it okay to eat them. In other words, if we were to breed little children to slaughter them at the tender age of 3 or 4 and peel off their skin and process them as bags, that would be perfectly okay by that logic.
We humans should not forget that we should not play God.

After almost twenty years as an ovo-lacto-vegetarian, I have learned that there is little point in arguing with carnivores. After all, they are not arguing to have a meaningful and educational discussion, but to distract from their own bad conscience. They need to find reasons that justify in their eyes that animal life means nothing to them. It is always the same arguments they come up with, because they are not only stupid and selfish, but also unimaginative.

People who have become vegetarians show that they care about other living beings, that they respect life and have realised that this way of life benefits themselves. They are simply better people.