If you're against torturing animals, then you should be against the meat industry. Cows are hung upside down with their throats slit, left to bleed to death. Chickens have their beaks removed without anesthesia because they live in such cramped quarters that otherwise, they would attack each other. Veal calves are forced to live their short lives in stalls that aren't big enough for them to move, stand comfortably, lie down comfortably. Pigs are often killed by having their skulls smashed with blunt objects, a process that due to the lack of caring and knowledge of the slaughterhouse staff, often takes a long time. Lobsters are boiled alive. Did I cover enough of the meat industry to make clear the torture involved? Should I go on?

Wet noodle...interesting. Well, my brain hasn't had meat in 13 years, so here's the wet noodle talking back. I believe what you mean is that the iron and protein, as well as other nutrients, are key for optimal functioning, so it should be noted that any nutrients found in meat can be found in other sources as well. As for fight vs. flight, and your supposed lack of energy, I'd like to add in the concept of fitness and overall health. Vegetarians typically have lower cholesterol due to the lack of meat in their diet, so while fighting or fleeing, we'll keep going while you're keeled over from a heart attack.

If a vegetarian had to make a choice between a human dying and an animal dying they would kill the animal.

--It totally depends on the dying person...

Hunting is something done mainly for recreation and is outside the scope of vegetarianism.

--It shouldn't be. Anyone eating meat should kill the animal themselves. There would be significantly more vegetarians.

It's true that animals are not equal to humans. In some ways, they are significantly better than us. They kill out of biological need or out of defense. We kill for a perceived need or just because we feel like it. We torture animals in useless experiments because we believe we have the right to, even though the results of such experiments are often useless, if the results matter at all. We torture each other, again because of our own desires. Some animals are considered to be more intelligent than us, many use tools, many have familial societies, they can feel pain, they can feel love, they can feel grief. Some even have biological abilities to protect their living environment, while the human race seems set on destroying it. It seems that maybe humans should feel a little more responsibility towards those we so often deem as "lesser".