1 and 3). I'm mostly vegetarian. I eat fish about once a week. I eat air breathing animals' flesh when I think it is otherwise going to waste or (very rarely) when it is merely very inconvenient to be vegetarian. On the margin, I make a small attempt to reduce my intake of dairy and eggs. I eat refined carbohydrates, and quite a bit of soy, but try to avoid eating extreme amounts for health reasons.
2) I do this to prevent, and to signal concern about, unnecessary animal suffering. I would have no qualms about eating animals if they were certifiably raised and slaughtered under ideal conditions.
4) I will raise my children to eat similarly but let them make their own choices.
5) I gently push meat reduction rather than abstinence. Limited success.
6) I make an effort to get protein from many sources. I take supplements, flax seed and calcium daily, somewhat less frequently: glucosamine-chondroiton, multivitamin, b-12, fish oil, creatine, resveratrol.
7) I respect people who are more strict vegetarians if their reasoning is similar to mine.
8) I gradually became more and more vegetarian after choosing to live with vegetarians four years ago.
9) I loved meat, but it turns out I don't miss it much.
Agree with #1.
I apply the Golden Rule: I personally would rather live a good life into my prime and be humanely slaughtered and fed to some higher life form, than never exist at all. For the most part, the animals I eat would not have ever existed had the demand for meat not existed as well. To this end I prefer Kosher and free range animal products.
However, I don't eat, for instance, monkeys or octopi. Both are highly intelligent and currently live lives that don't depend on a market for their meat.
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: