Vegetarianism

Benny_Cake

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Vegetarian avoid animal rennet, there are plenty of cheeses without. An annoying thing is places always having parmasan in their veggie option.

Restaurants could perhaps be excused through ignorance, but some recipe sites, such as BBC Good Food, include parmesan in their vegetarian recipes (despite it being pointed out to them). Any hard cheese does as a substitute as far as I'm concerned, most cheeses don't contain animal rennet.

eviltwin

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Vegetarians frequently have no problem eating eggs. Even though at hatcheries it's someone's job to differentiate between male and female chicks. Male chicks are discarded and ground up while they are alive as hatcheries are generally not in the business of producing chicken meat

Not all vegetarians are choosing that lifestyle from an animal rights pov. I'm veggie, I eat eggs, I eat cheese, I drink milk. The only reason I don't eat meat is becasue I don't like it.

My name is URL

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Vegetarian avoid animal rennet, there are plenty of cheeses without. An annoying thing is places always having parmasan in their veggie option.

I'm sure that's the case for most vegetarians, but I personally know a couple that choose to eat cheeses which do contain animal rennet.

What's the deal with labeling btw? If cheeses use animal rennet are they required to state that, and are they allowed to claim its suitability for vegetarians?

eviltwin

My name is URL wrote: »

I'm sure that's the case for most vegetarians, but I personally know a couple that choose to eat cheeses which do contain animal rennet.

What's the deal with labeling btw? If cheeses use animal rennet are they required to state that, and are they allowed to claim its suitability for vegetarians?

They usually have the stamp to say they have been approved by the Vegetarian Society

ScumLord

weisses wrote: »

What other omnivore need to cook their meet (killing a lot of the nutrients in the process ) to make it eatable/digestible/tasty ?? for my amusement

What a nonsense argument. What herbivore has to ground it's food down into a fine powder and combine it with other processed plant materials then invent ovens and cook their food for half an hour. What herbivore has to invent a modern transport network which include gigantic ships and flying machines so it can get enough vitamin C in it's diet?

Processed food is not a human invention, that's something else a primitive ape came up with long before humans were around.

You can't argue that meat is harder to prepare, bread was one of the major food sources out of farming and that's very labour intensive.

Zillah

As a vegetarian I would just like to distance myself from people making the following claims:
- Humans are naturally vegan/vegetarian.
- Vegetarians are inherently more healthy.
- Meat is objectively aesthetically unpleasant (this doozy was in the OP article).

A simple grasp of biology tells us that humans have been omnivores for millions of years. Eating meat is natural. But then again, so is rape, murder, cancer and motor-neuron disease - I don't see anyone singing their praises. Vegetarians might tend to be more healthy due to lower cholesterol, but a meat eater could be in perfect health too, and another veggie could be morbidly obese from eating cake and sugar. And aesthetics are subjective.

I don't eat meat because I think raising and killing animals so that we can eat their flesh is petty and vicious and an abuse of the extraordinary power that we have over them. I know there's an animal cost to some things but I'm trying my best to minimise it. I'll probably go vegan eventually.

Finally, I find cooking as a vegetarian to be really easy, I don't know what those people are talking about. The washup in really easy too - something I did not expect - due to their being no animal grease covering things.

--Kaiser--

Zillah wrote: »

As a vegetarian I would just like to distance myself from people making the following claims:
- Humans are naturally vegan/vegetarian.
- Vegetarians are inherently more healthy.
- Meat is objectively aesthetically unpleasant (this doozy was in the OP article).

A simple grasp of biology tells us that humans have been omnivores for millions of years. Eating meat is natural. But then again, so is rape, murder, cancer and motor-neuron disease - I don't see anyone singing their praises. Vegetarians might tend to be more healthy due to lower cholesterol, but a meat eater could be in perfect health too, and another veggie could be morbidly obese from eating cake and sugar. And aesthetics are subjective.

I don't eat meat because I think raising and killing animals so that we can eat their flesh is petty and vicious and an abuse of the extraordinary power that we have over them. I know there's an animal cost to some things but I'm trying my best to minimise it. I'll probably go vegan eventually.

Finally, I find cooking as a vegetarian to be really easy, I don't know what those people are talking about. The washup in really easy too - something I did not expect - due to their being no animal grease covering things.

Well, I consider an ideal human diet to include meat ( I won't get into nutrition at this juncture ) so I don't see anything wrong with raising animals humanely for slaughter. If we didn't raise most of these animals then they wouldn't exist outside of zoos. So are they better off never having existed than alive? Consider someone who eats pasture fed beef and lamb and free range organic chickens. They have a largely stress free life and are killed humanely. What's wrong with that? Compared to a life of a field mouse that is eviscerated by a combine harvester used to harvest grain (you'll rarely find a vegan who eschews grain products, quite hypocritically)

Pumpkinseeds

Zillah wrote: »

As a vegetarian I would just like to distance myself from people making the following claims:
- Humans are naturally vegan/vegetarian.
- Vegetarians are inherently more healthy.
- Meat is objectively aesthetically unpleasant (this doozy was in the OP article).

A simple grasp of biology tells us that humans have been omnivores for millions of years. Eating meat is natural. But then again, so is rape, murder, cancer and motor-neuron disease - I don't see anyone singing their praises. Vegetarians might tend to be more healthy due to lower cholesterol, but a meat eater could be in perfect health too, and another veggie could be morbidly obese from eating cake and sugar. And aesthetics are subjective.

I don't eat meat because I think raising and killing animals so that we can eat their flesh is petty and vicious and an abuse of the extraordinary power that we have over them. I know there's an animal cost to some things but I'm trying my best to minimise it. I'll probably go vegan eventually.

Finally, I find cooking as a vegetarian to be really easy, I don't know what those people are talking about. The washup in really easy too - something I did not expect - due to their being no animal grease covering things.

+1 on that

Zillah

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Well, I consider an ideal human diet to include meat ( I won't get into nutrition at this juncture ) so I don't see anything wrong with raising animals humanely for slaughter. If we didn't raise most of these animals then they wouldn't exist outside of zoos. So are they better off never having existed than alive? Consider someone who eats pasture fed beef and lamb and free range organic chickens. They have a largely stress free life and are killed humanely. What's wrong with that? Compared to a life of a field mouse that is eviscerated by a combine harvester used to harvest grain (you'll rarely find a vegan who eschews grain products, quite hypocritically)

Unfortunately a large number of animals are not raised humanely and frequently endure nightmarish deaths, whether through incompetence or outright cruelty. I've seen how people behave when they get bored of their jobs, and I've seen how people behave when they think no one is watching, and there's footage to prove it.Footage of animals screaming and bucking in terror and agony while men deliberately and casually try to kill them to put pieces of their bodies on our plates. Its true horror, what we do to them, knowingly and deliberately, for the sake of appetite. I don't want to be complicit in that. I also couldn't reconcile that with the affection I feel for other animals, and indeed the lengths I have gone to ensure the feelings of a dog. It's wildly inconsistent what most people claim to feel about animals and what they choose to be complicit in.

Even in a world where no animals endured such torment I'd still maintain that killing something to eat its flesh for no reason other than pleasure is abhorrent. And it is just pleasure, we don't need to eat them for sustenance, certainly not in the affluent west. The whole "but what would happen the animals without farms?" thing is, frankly, both a red herring and entirely academic. There could be an interesting discussion to be had about what a post-carnivore rural landscape could look like, but it's not relevant to your's or anybody's reasons for eating meat.

As for the field mice: That sucks, and I hope they try to minimise it. But there is a huge moral difference between deliberately killing something for the express purpose of eating its flesh, and something accidentally dying as a side effect of a process. In the same way that shooting someone in worse than driving a car when people die on the road ever year.

BlaasForRafa

Zillah wrote: »

As for the field mice: That sucks, and I hope they try to minimise it. But there is a huge moral difference between deliberately killing something for the express purpose of eating its flesh, and something accidentally dying as a side effect of a process. In the same way that shooting someone in worse than driving a car when people die on the road ever year.

There's no moral problem at all with eating meat, except in vegetarians heads. Is it tasty is really the only question that needs to be asked.

And if vegetarians weren't so preachy then they wouldn't be so disliked by normal people.

BlaasForRafa

jonnyfingers wrote: »

As for some good veggie/vegan dishes, this is a sample of what I've eaten over the last week.

Veggie Chili, Spaghetti Bolognese, Tofu and Pesto Pasta, Chinese Veg Stir Fry, Sweet Potato and Kidney Bean Curry, Seitan Stroganoff, Artichoke Heart Salad, Carrot and Parsnip Soup, Aubergine, Courgette and Pepper Jalfrezi and a Veggie Burger and Curry Chips .

And all of those with perhaps the exception of the soup would be vastly improved with the addition of meat.

Zillah

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

There's no moral problem at all with eating meat, except in vegetarians heads. Is it tasty is really the only question that needs to be asked.

All morality is in people's heads.

And if vegetarians weren't so preachy then they wouldn't be so disliked by normal people.

I couldn't care less if you dislike me
And normality is entirely overrated.

lockon...

Do the vegetarians on this thread eat jelly babies or the many other products made from Gelatin?

Gelatin is derived from pork skins, pork, horses, and cattle bones, or split cattle hides.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelatin

lolli

lockon... wrote: »

Do the vegetarians on this thread eat jelly babies or the many other products made from Gelatin?

No, I don't anyway.

gobnaitolunacy

News just in, traces of animal DNA found in Quorn products.

judgefudge

The thing that frustrates me is that I have been reading about vegetarianism/veganism for a while and on every single forum i have read there are meat eaters blathering on about how preachy vegetarians are. when in reality it is the meat eaters that try and ram their opinion down the throats of others.

Dont get me wrong, i am currently a meat eater. but the attitudes of some meat eaters is appalling. Why can't they listen to an alternative opinion without getting defensive and writing it off as preachy. It's so frustrating argh!

I am doing a phd in animal nutrition so naturally it's an area that interests me.

lolli

judgefudge wrote: »

The thing that frustrates me is that I have been reading about vegetarianism/veganism for a while and on every single forum i have read there are meat eaters blathering on about how preachy vegetarians are. when in reality it is the meat eaters that try and ram their opinion down the throats of others.

Very true! I've been vegetarian for 18 years and I have no problem with cooking meat for people and I certainly don't make comments about the fact that they are eating meat. I cook dinner everyday for my own family. It drives me mad though when I go to someones house or out for dinner and I am being showered with numerous questions about why, when, what do I eat etc. Then I have to listen to people going about reasons why they couldn't be a vegetarian. Each to their own I say.

Bad Santa

Popinjay wrote: »

Are you serious? And if so, has the lack of meat and essential Omega 3 damaged your brain meats?

Interesting.

You suggest that my brain is not sufficiently nourished due to an avoidance of eating meat and yet, from the very post you quoted I say:

Bad Santa wrote: »

I eat steak..

Says it all

Jev/N

Eating is very enjoyable for me and veganism/vegetarianism just takes some of that pleasure out of the whole experience personally.

I try to vary my diet and balance the amount of red/white meat and fish as best I can, along with a healthy approach to the rest of my intake.

I don't really care about the health benefits of the alternatives as the (somewhat) decrease in enjoyment would put me off.

In a nutshell, it's simialr to the fact that I drink alcohol notwithstanding that it may be healthier for me not to drink (albeit debatable in some studies) but it's less enjoyable all the same.

Pumpkinseeds

I've been a vegetarian for 4 years now, I cook meat for my husband and I have no issues with anyone eating meat. I don't mention that I'm a vegetarian unless its relevant or it comes up in conversation.

Its astonishing to look at the attitudes meat eaters have about vegetarians, we just do our thing and yet we are the ones being attacked over our decision not to eat meat. These threads are generally started by people thinking of becoming vegetarians or who have a gripe against vegetarians.

I'm not sure what the issue is.

Tar.Aldarion

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Well, I consider an ideal human diet to include meat ( I won't get into nutrition at this juncture ) so I don't see anything wrong with raising animals humanely for slaughter. If we didn't raise most of these animals then they wouldn't exist outside of zoos. So are they better off never having existed than alive? Consider someone who eats pasture fed beef and lamb and free range organic chickens. They have a largely stress free life and are killed humanely. What's wrong with that? Compared to a life of a field mouse that is eviscerated by a combine harvester used to harvest grain (you'll rarely find a vegan who eschews grain products, quite hypocritically)

It's not hypocritical at all. Most people I would know of are vegetarian/vegan to reduce the amount of harm they personally inflict on animals, to reduce suffering.

By being vegetarian they reduce this, by being vegan more-so, people are just doing a certain amount to help out in the reduction of the amount of animal deaths that are caused by their lives. If you gave money to charity because it prevented the deaths of people, would it be hypocritical to not give more money, to not give all your money?

As a vegetarian animal suffering is not alleviated as much as a vegan, or somebody that lives in the forest at one with nature or some such but as a vegan animal suffering is not completely alleviated either, is it hypocritical to not go even further? Animals do die for the crops a vegan eats (harvesting and other reasons), for the products they use, for the lifestyle they live. This is a simple fact due to the civilization we live in, others suffer, the extent varies. If a vegan were to go and live in nature, such as a tribe in a forest, or grow their own foods and so forth, the amount of suffering they cause to animals would be lessened further, are they hypocritical for not doing so? I don't think so. People should do what they feel for a cause they believe in, with what they are comfortable in doing.

lockon... wrote: »

Do the vegetarians on this thread eat jelly babies or the many other products made from Gelatin?

No, all vegetarians I know of tend to avoid these. I would.

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

I've been a vegetarian for 4 years now, I cook meat for my husband and I have no issues with anyone eating meat. I don't mention that I'm a vegetarian unless its relevant or it comes up in conversation.

Its astonishing to look at the attitudes meat eaters have about vegetarians, we just do our thing and yet we are the ones being attacked over our decision not to eat meat. These threads are generally started by people thinking of becoming vegetarians or who have a gripe against vegetarians.

I'm not sure what the issue is.

The issue is we choose something which inherently says that something they do and have done their whole lives is wrong. So they get defensive. There may be a few preachy vegan types, and I hate them myself, but far more people that eat meat will pester any vegetarian they come across. Some are very aggressive because what we do says they are wrong. However a lot simply just want to know why, do you eat fish, do you not miss it, what do you eat etc. I don't mind answering that, but you get it every day from everybody. You can't eat without being asked a million questions.

Tombo2001

jonnyfingers wrote: »

I went from full on carnivore to vegan at the start of the year. Just coming up on a month being mostly vegan, with the occasional vegetarian day (chocolate.....mmmmm). I decided to make the change after watching a very good documentary, Vegucated, on Netflix which made convincing arguments for the health benefits of a vegan diet, and the economic benefits too which I wasn't so aware of.

.

I have heard it said that a vegetarian who drives a hummer has a lower carbon emissions count than a meat eater who drives a Prius.

Seperately, on cheese....there is a tofu product I get that has basil in it, I use it in tomato dishes, its quite like cheese. Fools the kids anyway.

Ush1

Just so people know, wild animals that aren't eaten by humans don't just fall over and die peacefully. Most will die horrific deaths and live a much more fearful existance than most animals in captivity.

smash

Ush1 wrote: »

Just so people know, wild animals that aren't eaten by humans don't just fall over and die peacefully. Most will die horrific deaths and live a much more fearful existance than most animals in captivity.

More importantly, they'd probably be extinct as they wouldn't hold a real purpose.

HTML5!

A lot of interesting replies! Thanks.

Well I've been mulling it over and I think it would be hypocritical of me not to at least try it for a while given how I feel about animals.

Also I want to see if my health improves. I've had some minor issues lately for the last few months so I'll be interested to see what a vegetarian diet does for me personally.

I'll try it for a month starting tomorrow and see how I get on.

I've just been looking up some recipes. I need to get a lot more creative, but cooking interests me anyway so I think I'll enjoy it that aspect of it

I don't think I'm ready to go vegan just yet!!!!

Zillah

HTML5! wrote: »

A lot of interesting replies! Thanks.

Well I've been mulling it over and I think it would be hypocritical of me not to at least try it for a while given how I feel about animals.

Also I want to see if my health improves. I've had some minor issues lately for the last few months so I'll be interested to see what a vegetarian diet does for me personally.

I'll try it for a month starting tomorrow and see how I get on.

I've just been looking up some recipes. I need to get a lot more creative, but cooking interests me anyway so I think I'll enjoy it that aspect of it

I don't think I'm ready to go vegan just yet!!!!

Honestly, go into the veg section in a supermarket and grab one of everything. Get some nuts and seeds too. Toss them into a frying pan with some oil, splash in some soy sauce, basil, garlic, whatever. Fry 'em for ten minutes or so, make sure you don't overdo them, they should still be a bit crunchy. Done. I honestly don't get what people are talking about when they say cooking as a vegetarian is hard. Toss in some quorn mince for extra protein. The quorn products are hit and miss but the mince is amazing, and convincing. Add pasta/rice/potatoe/chips on the side for bulk if you like. Sometimes I do toast. It's yummy.

You can start getting more adventurous with lentils, quinoa and chick peas later too

HTML5!

Zillah wrote: »

Honestly, go into the veg section in a supermarket and grab one of everything. Get some nuts and seeds too. Toss them into a frying pan with some oil, splash in some soy sauce, basil, garlic, whatever. Fry 'em for ten minutes or so, make sure you don't overdo them, they should still be a bit crunchy. Done. I honestly don't get what people are talking about when they say cooking as a vegetarian is hard. Toss in some quorn mince for extra protein. The quorn products are hit and miss but the mince is amazing, and convincing. Add pasta/rice/potatoe/chips on the side for bulk if you like. Sometimes I do toast. It's yummy.

You can start getting more adventurous with lentils, quinoa and chick peas later too

Going to do a bit of a shop tomorrow and get some Quorn stuff and veg, especially lots of spinach!

Bad Santa

HTML5! wrote: »

I've just been looking up some recipes. I need to get a lot more creative, but cooking interests me anyway so I think I'll enjoy it that aspect of it.

Good simple dish for transitioning is Thai Green Curry or just Thai food in general actually.

The base of much of them is just coconut milk and thai curry paste. Just add your favourite veg, simmer till done and serve with rice.

Some nice Indian beg dishes also. Love Onion Bhajis with Saag.

Canis Lupus

Zillah wrote: »

Honestly, go into the veg section in a supermarket and grab one of everything. Get some nuts and seeds too. Toss them into a frying pan with some oil, splash in some soy sauce, basil, garlic, whatever. Fry 'em for ten minutes or so, make sure you don't overdo them, they should still be a bit crunchy. Done. I honestly don't get what people are talking about when they say cooking as a vegetarian is hard. Toss in some quorn mince for extra protein. The quorn products are hit and miss but the mince is amazing, and convincing. Add pasta/rice/potatoe/chips on the side for bulk if you like. Sometimes I do toast. It's yummy.

You can start getting more adventurous with lentils, quinoa and chick peas later too

I think your stirfry is missing some chicken.

blatantrereg

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Just the type of gibberish post I'd expect from a vegetarian. Humans are not modified herbivores (neither are chimps for that matter). Meat eating shaped our evolution for hundreds of thousands of years, allowing us to grow such large brains (meat being the best 'bang for buck' food around) and to devote less time to finding and eating food (as herbivores generally spend a lot of their day eating because food is so nutrient light).

Meat eating didn't shape our evolution much - if it did at all. We're physiologically only slightly different to herbivores. [many comparisons are online - eg here]. Eating meat doesn't influence brain development. The elephant is one of the most intelligent animals, and it is a herbivore. There is a theory that eating fish might have shaped our evolution significantly however, including influencing the development of our brains. I posted a link to it here before your reply.

We only got to spend less time finding and eating food with the development of agriculture. The development of the first civilisation in Egypt was facilitated by fertile floodplains in the Nile basin [as well as the concentration of population that resulted from having that in the middle of a desert]. It takes more time and resources to farm crops to feed to animals also being farmed. Better to just grow crops for direct consumption.

If we are not designed to eat meat, explain why we have meat digesting enzymes? Or why Vitamin B12 and Omega 3 fatty acids are so essential (neither of which can be found in significant amounts in plant foods)?

Plenty of herbivores can digest meat. They even consume it on occasion.

I already provided a comparison above for physiological differences/similarities, but I can add to it. If rabbits are supposed to be human food, why don't we salivate when we see them. Doesn't matter how hungry you are, you don't salivate when you see a rabbit.

We also would never get heart disease from eating cholesterol. Omnivores don't, no matter how much cholesterol they eat (even if it is 100 times what humans do). Herbivores develop it pretty easily if they are fed food high in cholesterol or saturated fat. These facts were published in The American Journal of Cardiology. They are in themselves proof that we are not natural meat eaters.

Vitamin B12 is a bacteria found in dirt and bugs. Human ancestors didn't require meat for it as they would have consumed dirt and bugs with vegetable foods. Meat eaters today get it by eating animals that eat dirt and bugs.

Omega 3 fatty acids are not generally found in significant levels in meat. They are actually found in higher levels in plant foods than in fish. However the plant based ones are ALA omega 3s, while DHA and EPA are the beneficial ones. Humans can convert the former to the latter, but we are not hugely efficient at doing so. There's no requirement to consume DHA and EPA directly, though it is probably beneficial to do so.

A diet including fish and no meat has historically probably been the healthiest. Today vegetarians can supplement with DHA and EPA from algae, and fish is increasingly contaminated by pollution: So vegetarianism might now be a healthier choice now.

I could go on but I've come to the conclusion that vegetarianism is a kind of religion and I'd be wasting my time

You haven't stopped going on since you posted that, I see from reading through the thread. You opened your reply to me with an insult and have ignored evidence contradicting your opinions. Pot kettle black tbh.