vegans and vegetarians

i became vegan in 1996 after learning that the practises involved in the production of eggs and milk are also pretty hideous. it's a decision based mainly on compassion - which leaves me open to charges of sentinmentality as i'm well aware. there are also pretty hardcore ethical and economical reasons for being vegan, but as far as i'm concerned these are bonus reasons. though it's good to have them to hand when people start laying into you for being vegan - why do many people do this? it makes me sad.

Went back the next day and read Sinclaire's The Jungle from cover to cover. Yuck!

I don't miss big, bloody steaks. The only meat cravings I ever get are for weird, strange, artificial meat product things like swedish meatballs and chicken nuggets and fast food hamburgers. I thank the lord every day for giving me QUORN to solve this dilemma.

(p.s. Tompaulin were the best I've ever seen them on Wednesday. The album's just arrived at work! I can make all my colleagues listen to it! Woo!)

I am scared that I'll throw up if I meat though for the first time, it has after all been about 8 years!

(there's still some with your name on it at my house, Mr Brown...)

Plus I'm starting to feel like organic meat might be an option (it was always the rearing aspect rather than the cuddly cute factor that put me off.) as it's more available.

Part of me does still squirm at eating meat though, I would appear to be a mess of contradictions on the subject.

*Which took me ages, partly cause my favourite food was always a) a tomato sandwich and b) beans on potato waffles. But partly because conventional British cooking was so meat-centred, I didn't know where to start.

I can cook a lot of things too, it's just that it's not exciting me much anymore, the last food I ate that really excited me was a bowl of Cinnamon Grahams for the first time in ages :(

ha ha ha ha ah ah h ah a cough cough splutter. I used to be quite thin, now I'm a fat bastard and veggie. Maybe if I start eating meat I'll lose some weight?

Damn -- I know it when I see it at the store. There's a brand that comes in a little brick that's pretty good, and there's also a brand that comes in shredded form that tastes pretty good. If I can remember I'll post it/them.

I used to be quite thin, now I'm a fat bastard and veggie. Maybe if I start eating meat I'll lose some weight?

Well, if you're replacing meat with cheese and Doritos, it ain't gonna work out too well. :)

Main reason I did? Laziness. We eat out all the time and it's hard to be veggie when you never cook. I can do it and have done it but I just got tired of it. And fast food hamburgers are sooo good. Really, i think if US fast food chains served veggie burgers like in Europe I'd probaly be okay. alas . .

I'll probably go meatless again someday. I still think it's a healthier diet and a much better way to live. I guess I'm just an ethically defiecient, un-discplined slob. . .

I'm having my doubts now...I feel like I can't stay at the no-meat stage, I have to become either vegan so that I won't have any hypocrisy (is tranquilizing animals and then killing them worse than making them produce eggs and milk for human consumption? a little but i'm having trouble with it) or I have to give up vegetarianism altogether. And almost everything I eat has cheese in or on it, so I cant even imagine going vegan.

I whole-heartedly agree. _The Jungle_ was a travesty of a novel and I am very pleased that I never had to read its racist rantings ever again.

I need meat so badly. Yesterday I was out at freebie pissup and there were many things to eat, but nothing meat-based at all, and I began to feel cold-turkey symptoms akin to those in Trainspotting in a skag stylee.

I was so desperate, I even ate squid.

My dad got cross and sent me to my room. He thought I had done it because I was fed up of eating turkey sandwiches. But when I decided I was serious, he thought it was admirable. My mum found it a bit more of a pain. She still worries about it causing problems if I meet a lovely omnivorous girl.

I never got around to giving up fish (originally a concession to my mum but now I can't live if living is without prawns).

I'm sure just like vegetarians have meat cravings most meat eaters have moments where they think meat is disgusting.

Oh, to answer the question, the PETA propaganda got me when I was 13. I've always been an animal lover and all the other reasons made a lot of sense to me too. I don't know if I'm really making a difference, and I certainly don't believe that it makes me some nobler breed of being, but I do feel comfortable with my actions. Except when I break down and buy leather boots, as I always do.

Canadians eat more than twice as much meat as the global average. Along with Australia and the United States, we consume more meat per person than every other country in the world. In 2000, we consumed 99.8kg of meat per person, which amounts to a daily consumption of about 10oz (275g).

An Oxford University study showed that in comparison to meat eaters, vegetarians had a 24 per cent reduction in mortality from heart disease even when other lifestyle factors such as smoking, exercise, and socio-economic class were taken into account.

Another reason to reduce meat intake is to limit your exposure to chemicals and antibiotics fed to livestock.

The salty smell of a fish market is much more tolerable. And a vegetable and fruit market is a pleasure to the senses.

In industrialized countries we have no idea of what we actually eat and have a pretty foggy notion of what happens to our waste.

Haven't had a craving for meat since. Haven't missed it at all.. except maybe pepperoni and any meat dish I get a whaff of at an Ethiopian restaurant. Then again, them soy fake meats are suuuure great. :)

Depends... I actually find that pretty yummy.

(I should stay out of this thread)

So, the following year I went to study in England, and on a whim decided on the plane there to finally give it up. (The last meat dish I had: a Philly cheese steak at the Philadelphia airport.) I had some trouble at first, but it had less to do with missing meat than with justifying such a dramatic lifestyle change beyond "My friends are doing it." Ultimately, I decided that, even if I didn't have a single, definitive reason to do it, that the overall reasons against eating meat outweighed the reasons for it. Which then worked. And since then, I have developed more concrete beliefs -- i.e., I'm much more aware and concerned with animal rights than I was then.

Anyway, I'm happy. It's been four and a half years.

I've been veggie for 10 years. REPRUZINT!!

BOOYAH!!!

(I've had too much sugar this morning - apologies... Sugar is vegetarian)...

So, these people at work ordered Chinese food for lunch + they were like, "Sarah? Do you eat Chinese? Is it vegetarian?" What dumbnutz!

I just had some dee-lish tofu bi bim bop from the Chinese restaurant down the street.

Search -Tofutti products (the cream cheese, sour cream, ice cream and ice cream sandwiches are fab. better than the real thing even). Sour patch kids, Droxies (like Oreos but vegan), Vitasoy Milk (the best for smoothies) SpiruTein Soy Mix (for the smoothies, the best flavors are raspberry and cappucinno).

Destroy - Soy cheese or rice cheese (don't even bother, it'll only taste good baked in lasagna)try to sprinkle nutritional yeast on top for a cheesy flavor.

Guinness and Bass are not vegan. If you are strict don't bother but if you want to enjoy go ahead and live.

(Haha! "Meat is Murder" just came on my shuffle-play iTunes!)

I do portabello mushrooms, brocolli, red onions, pinenuts and fresh basil all sauteed in balsamic vinegar and garlic before adding to the filling. You can add sauce to it in the inside before folding or you can serve it on the side (sauce I think makes it a stromboli if on the inside, I don't know that always confused me).

Then you just fold over the other side, so it's a crescent shape, tuck the flaps so that it's closed and you can brush margarine and add more garlic to the top. Oh and make a few slices in the top so it doesn;t explode. Bake at 350 degrees (not sure of the English equivalent) or until golden brown.

That's basically the jest of it. I don't really have recipes I just know what I like and what tastes good together so I'll just throw them all in a pot.

I'm cool with vegans despite not being one myself, but a long-time friend just made the leap a couple months ago and has since turned into the most preachy nuisance in my life and I just want to know how long the veganism honeymoon period is supposed to last.

'bout an hour and a half

it took me a lot of years to calm down - for some it has the strength of a religious awakening. it's a conviction, and when you sort of go "ok, if we're being completely honest about how animals are treated, what's the situation" it can have a profound effect on you. I don't know of any way to convince people to mellow out though. you sort of age into it.

Thanks! I'll just nod my head and keep trying to change the subject.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/world/europe/new-five-pound-note-uk-vegetarians.html

LONDON — When it released a new 5-pound note in September, the Bank of England said the polymer bills were stronger, safer and better for the environment. One thing they are not, it turns out, is meat-free.

To the dismay of vegans and vegetarians across Britain, the Bank of England has confirmed that tallow was used in the base of the new notes, worth about $6.25.

It is some forward-looking from the royal mint, when we get hit by hyperinflation and famine we will at least be able to eat the currency.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5b/Eat_The_Rich_(song).jpg

Ya, it's the polymer

Same with the canadian banknotes

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/theres-a-minute-amount-of-rendered-animal-fat-in-canadas-banknotes-bank-of-canada-confirms

This sort of thing is like moral objections to honey. By making ethical vegans look like kooks, it makes it easier for omnis to ignore the moral implications of their own decisions.

I try to minimize my suffering and environmental impact. I'm glad that there are more active vegans out there willing to point out to beer producers that there are ethical alternatives to isinglass, etc. But I realize that a world with 10% of the animal exploitation as present is a lot better for all of us (including ourselves and our children) is a lot better than where our concerns are viewed as irrelevant.

Personally, I'd point out to the treasury departments involved that cocoa butter is an excellent source for the stearic acid (and derivatives) that are commonly used in everything from plastics to shampoos. I'd help them work through the issue that few chemicals have ethical annotations.

xp. ive been doing an unconscious ethical vegan boycott of canadian $ for years by never carrying cash

i've known a lot of people in the animal rights movement over the past decade or so and many of the most successful and prominent of them have realized the pitfall of objecting to things like honey or isinglass or even encouraging people to go 100% vegan

yes you catch more flies with honey

I've been vegan now for 13 years and I don't even think twice about it anymore.

The honey thing I've p much given up on although I continue to avoid it out of pig headed orthodoxy