I trust what my body seeks out. It's not stupid. When I was largely vegetarian as a kid, it was because at that age I could not digest red meat properly. When I had an eating disorder I was craving meat from a lack of protein, my hair and nails suffered at the time. When I eat too much carbs, I naturally don't think about eating much the next day. When I eat too much junk, I start craving vegetables and healthy stuff.
In the end the best balance was struck by eating once a day, eating some meat protein with almost every meal, salad or vegetables with it, and limited refined carbs like bread. Red meat is the type I eat least, white meat next, and fish most of all.
My body seems to know what it needs and how much of it, and I've always been pretty healthy when I actually follow its instincts.
Moral philosophical arguments for veganism never held up for me. Maybe because clearly human beings do not have the digestive systems of strict vegetarian animals. Maybe because I studied biology and saw that everything is interconnected and everything consumed by everything else, and life always returns to be used again by something else. My abstaining from eating an animal isn't going to change that. If anything, being omnivorous was probably what enabled human beings to become as intelligent as they are and reach the evolutionary stage we have. A hunter needs a more complex brain, social and organizational structure than a grazing ungulate, a big brain needs protein and good fuel like meat is far more efficient than spending 12 hours a day collecting and eating leaves, and a big brain devised ways to make life easier for our species. If we had been like the cows grazing on the grass in the early stages of our evolution there would have been little incentive and push to have become more intelligent and evolve a highly complex brain. So I can't see the issue there. The only issue I have is that animals should be kept and slaughtered in a way that inflicts the least suffering and stress on them during their lives. So I don't eat foie gras etc. I also believe the "halal" method of slaughter is not a good one, compared to one that should be used in my country which is usually disablement by boltgun. Having experienced a traumatic brain concussion myself as a kid I can say that it was frankly a peaceful experience with no panic and no pain. It was a dreamlike state. Having your throat cut while aware and alive however is clearly not. So I'm certainly against the spread of halal slaughter techniques in the UK on moral and scientific grounds.
