I am a garden variety vegetarian, mostly for ethical reasons, but the health benefits are, indeed, a benefit.
I try to live by the philosophy of trying to do the least amount of harm, while not having to commit suicide to keep myself out of the equation, while still living, somewhat peacefully within a society that often looks upon me as strange.
What I mean by not committing suicide, is that obviously, if I am going to exist in our world, I have to eat, and I have to eat something, but eating plants, in my opinion, is doing a lot less harm than killing animals, which are sentient beings, like us, where plants are not. We don’t need to eat animals, so I don’t.
I also understand that I live in this world, and this society, and that most people around me do not look at things the way I do. I don’t make attempts to get other people to eat a vegetarian diet, I only offer advice to people, when they are interested to try a vegetarian diet, otherwise, I leave everybody’s dietary choices to themselves. Although there are some exceptions. I have spoken out about trophy hunting.