I have been vegetarian for 9 years, not because I don't believe humans should eat animals, but i object to the cruel way in which animals are bred and farmed. I eat fish and very occasionally free range meat (i.e at xmas) if it is truly free range and I am sure the animal had a happy life.
My sister has been vegetarian for 12years, she doesn't believe humans should eat meat...plus she went off the taste of meat a long time ago and it just disgusts her now.
My mum has been veggie for about 8years, she believes that if you couldn't kill it, then you shouldn't eat it.
My brother has never been interested in being a veggie....infact when my sister became veggie he became a carnivore to 'balance things out' which lasted about a week (he was only 12).
Anyways about 2 months ago he decided out of the blue that he would become vegan and is now trying to convince us to go vegan as well.
Now I would love to not eat dairy products because I believe that the way that the animals are farmed is cruel.
I can live without milk, and butter, but I really don't know If i could manage without cheese, or chocolate.
We have our own chickens and have no problem with eating their eggs, but eating non-free range eggs when I am out or egg containing produce, does bother me.
For my birthday my brother bought me a huge hamper of vegan food and is going to cook vegan for us for the week he is home.....so I have agreed to try veganism for a week.
Today at work I had toast with marg and jam (instead of scrabbled egg on toast) + tea with soya milk for breakfast. For lunch, vegan 'cheese', tomato and humus sandwiches and some pringles (apparently some crisps have milk in them!?!?) and for dinner I had some cous cous, and vegan choccy biscuits.
For my first day it wasn't too bad, but I can see my menu options becoming very bland and repetitive.
To make it worse I've just got back from the dam and brought back a load of yummy cheese, chocolates and advocat (egg nogg for americans)

Will see how the week goes....
Anyways I was wondering if there was such a thing as cruelty free diary products? advocate it quite easy to produce free-range once happy meat produce, but is it even possible to produce cruelty free milk, when it is really only a by-product of constantly getting cows pregnant, taking their babies away and stealing their milk?
On a side note, it was quite an eye opener today to see how many people I work with have no idea what veganism is. "No milk? no eggs? no cheese? no chocolate? why? I don't understand? "