Are Elves vegatarian?

[Orphalesion]

Originally Posted by Elmo

Dunno, in Valinor which is paradise, do they really need to hunt and kill for food? Hunting in Tolkien's day wasn't really seen as that bad a thing.

I assume so, I can't really picture Yavanna or Orome zapping freshly cooked roasts onto the plates of the Elves. Likewise I also think they still had to build their own houses, grow grain, farm animals, weave cloth, tan leather, forge tools etc. They just had an easier time doing these things than humans or even their brethren in Endor.

Originally Posted by Elmo

Though, Nimrodel despised the 'Elves of the West' for bringing war and strife, perhaps hunting is a sign of this. The Eldar really weren't one with nature especially compared to the Avari/Silvan Elves. Not very natural living in big stone towers and wearing steel armour.

I don't really see "hunting" as equal to war and strive, rather I think that Nimrodel had lived through the War of Sauron against the Elves as well as the last Alliance and blamed the Eldar for Sauron's presence so close to her home, perhaps believing that he had followed the Eldar from Beleriand.
I'm pretty sure the Sylvan Elves hunted already, the Eldar that had come to Mirkwood had adopted Sylvan culture, still they hunted and ate meat.

Personally I think the Green Elves of Ossirand were just their own culture and had developed their ways of not hunting animals and cutting wood for dwellings only after Denethor had died in order to be as invisible to intruders as possible. If these aspects were really true for all of the Green Elven tribes (which probably were very disconnected from one another) Calling the humans "murders of animals" can mean a lot, perhaps the Elves just meant the men were hunting more than they needed to survive?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Orphalesion

Personally I think the Green Elves of Ossirand were just their own culture and had developed their ways of not hunting animals and cutting wood for dwellings only after Denethor had died in order to be as invisible to intruders as possible. If these aspects were really true for all of the Green Elven tribes (which probably were very disconnected from one another) Calling the humans "murders of animals" can mean a lot, perhaps the Elves just meant the men were hunting more than they needed to survive?

It seems to me that the Green-elves saw Men as more guilty of 'disturbing the peace' than any more substantial crime. They probably saw the potential Men had for rapidly increasing their numbers and settling nearby, and were just looking for some excuse to pawn them off on Finrod, and hope he would take them out of the area.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Consider the Plains Indian reaction to the white buffalo hunters. It wasn't that the Sioux and Arapaho had any objection to hunting buffalo, per se......

[Morthoron]

Would elves be vegans if they ate ents? Or aint ents edible?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Would elves be vegans if they ate ents? Or aint ents edible?

Of course. Skin-bok choy and Quinoa-beam were on the Isengard dinner menu. Saruman just wanted to turn over a new leaf.

[Alfirin]

Well, Skinbark is supposed to be sort of like a birch tree, so I imagine his blood/sap can be boiled down to syrup, or used to make "hard" birch beer.

Actually I think you can make syrup out of oak sap too (I know you can make honey out of it, via aphids and sapin) so Treebeard and Leaflock may be at risk too (Leaflock is an oakish ent, right. He looked oaky in the PJ movie, but I seem to remember something about him actually being meant to be like an ash, or a beech.)