If you tell people, that you're a vegetarian, they automatically feel the need to defend themselves. The number one reaction is:

"I hardly eat any meat myself."

Why is that? I really don't get it. You either eat or you don't eat meat. From my point of view it's sad that you do, but appart from that: Feel free to eat an elephant a day, it's dead anyway.

But there is that little voice in your head that tells you, the person you're talking to is gonna judge you for your lifestyle now. Most vegetarians really judge meat- eaters far less than meat eaters "judge" vegetarians for "being so damn pesky." - Which we really aren't. It's just, that the sentence "I'm a vegetarian." kind of puts an elephant in the room.
It reminds meat- eaters, that there's something wrong with how meat is produced these days- let's face it, everyone knows it. (If you really don't: Watch "If slaughterhouses had glass walls") So they think about how they would really have to change their habits in a fundamental way- and nobody likes that.

So... does the sentence above translate:
"Yeah... damn... you got me, I really loooooove meat and I can't live without it but I want to get you off my back."
or do you really eat very little meat?
I just recently read that "eating an unhealthy amount of meat" is considered  "200g or more per day". So a normal amount would be less than that  and very little... would be like 50g? That's three slices of salami... every salami- pizza has more than that.

I'm not disappointed or judgemental and I'm not trying to preach, when people eat meat. It's delicious, I know. But why do people feel the urge to either pick on vegetarians or to earn a "meat- eater's halo" for eating "hardly any meat at all"?

I think we like to think of ourselves as "ethical beings" and we don't like this image to be smudged. There is so much more to this than just eating meat. We don't like to be reminded, where our clothes come from. We don't like to be reminded of animal testings, especially on cosmetics. We don't want to hear about our cars polluting the environment and we don't like to turn off the TV when football is on, just because that Ucranian lady is imprisoned.
But while we consider ourselves rather ethical, we also live under the impression, that our lives are hard and that we deserve a little luxury once and again- and we do... I just think we have to accept - and not deny- that very often our luxury is directly connected to the suffering of others. If we accept that and feel fine with it, we might as well relish it. If we don't, we have to change something. And this is always difficult.