Any animal part.
To prevent animals from suffering or dying. Vegetarianism seems inevitable to me as I work to bring my behavior in line with my values.
Very strictly; I won't eat it as a guest, if hungry, or by not checking questionable dishes.
Yes.
Very rarely, and with limited success. I do encourage my friends to think about it if they're receptive, and I'll certainly talk about it if they want to, but I ultimately think that outside help can only go so far, and people need to reach conclusions on their own if they're going to stick.
I'm not as systematic about this as I should be. Lentils?
More restrictive: I admire vegans, and aspire to veganism (again for animal-suffering reasons), but I'm finding it very hard since the link to animal suffering is not as inevitable. Less restrictive: I generally think that people will eventually agree with me and become vegetarian/vegan, but I don't experience "hot" emotions towards non-vegetarians.
Became vegetarian a year ago.
I used to really enjoy all kinds of meat, and I still want to eat it pretty often. I'll most likely eat artificially-grown meat if/when it becomes available.
I don't eat clams or oysters even though I'm not too confident that they suffer or care about their own lives, since I'd rather be safe than sorry in this context.
Since you said you welcomed discussion, I have a few questions. I've been thinking about this topic occasionally, with some curiosity and some (mild) moral concern.
To prevent animals from suffering or dying.
It's not clear to me that my deciding to switch to a purely vegetarian diet would have the consequence of preventing the suffering or delaying the death of even one animal. (I can even think of relatively likely scenarios where it would make matters worse.)
How did you arrive at your decision? (To put it somewhat bluntly, did you first decide for emo...
I have noticed that among philosophers, vegetarianism of one form or another is quite common. In fact, I became a vegetarian (technically a pescetarian) myself partly out of respect for an undergraduate philosophy professor. I am interested in finding out if there is a similar disproportion in the Less Wrong community.
I didn't request that this go into Yvain's survey because I want more information than just what animal products you do or don't eat; I'd also like to see nuances of the reasons behind your diet. There are a lot more shades than carnivore/vegetarian/vegan - if you want to be a vegetarian but are allergic to soy and gluten, that's a compelling reason to diversify protein sources, for instance. I'd also like to hear about if you avoid any plant foods (if you think they're farmed in a way that's environmentally destructive or that hurts people or if you have warm fuzzy feelings for plants, maybe). Here are some questions that come to mind: