Vegiterianisem

[TransplantShock]

:lol: I mean is anyone here a vegitarian? I have decided to make a concious effort to leave the meat behind (all but fish) Not trying to go vegan. so far I've done it for two weeks and have no meat cravings...I never really liked red meats anyway but I will miss chicken. :rolleyes:

[DandyLioness]

"Vegetarian" in Native American, means "Bad Hunter". :lol:

I was a vegetarian for 4 years. Got to the point where NO ONE could even use ANY of my pots and pans to cook meat! I felt guilty preparing mushrooms because they had a "meat-like" texture. <_<

I was in a pretty remote area where there was basically one store to shop. YOu can cook cauliflower and broccoli a thousand different ways, until you get really bored of it! I finally resorted to canned vegies.... then ended up with anemia.

So, when I visited my Mom for Xmas and that overwhelming smell of leftover turkey hit me the next day... I thought... awwww.. what the heck. The End.

[MaryG]

We've started having more and more vegetarian days although we still eat meat, just not nearly as much. We have about 3 nights per week that are vegetarian.

Tonight we had baked tofu, steamed rice and celery sticks. It doesn't sound too exciting but was quite good.

[DandyLioness]

.... and vegetarian cooking is much more time consuming....

[bluedog]

I worked for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) one summer during college. I remember my last hamburger (I ate it the night before my first day of work). Then, I abruptly and not happily, became a vegan. It actually lasted a few months but I never learned to like soy milk or rice milk so I started using organic - free range dairy and then eggs. That stage lasted years. Then I decided wild-caught fish was okay as long as dolphins and sea turtles weren't hurt (I got a list from Greenpeace). My problem was more the way the animals were treated during their lives then the fact that they were killed. Which then led me to the next step, years, later, of eating free range poultry.

I've been at this stage for a long time now and don't find it too tough (and my favorite dish was veal piccata before I knew any better). The big 3 to give up would be baby animals (veal and lamb), pork (they are as smart as dogs but treated worse than pigs), and non free range dairy/eggs (very long-term confinement).

For your health, it is also very important to eat organic animal products. Even more so then iwth other foods. When animals eat nonorganic products themselves, they concentrate all the pesticides and other toxins they ingest in their tissues. When we eat meat, milk/cheese, eggs, we are getting all that crap in concentrated form. Then add to that the antibiotics and hormones they cram into the animals.

Aside from working for PETA, I was also Philosophy major with honors in my thesis on Animal Rights, and am now a veterinarian. You could say I've given the topic a bit of thought. I'd be happy to expand for anyone interested. If it was more than you wanted to know..what can I tell you? Best to make an informed decision.

p.s. I still really miss bacon :(

[MaryG]

Dandy do you find vegetarian cooking more time-consuming? I find it less so. I especially love to cook up a big wok full of mixed veg and serve them over pasta or rice and love making veg soups crammed with lots of good things.

[DandyLioness]

Well, when I used to make my veg version of things like pizza, lasagna, curried dishes, etc etc... I found that it was much more time consuming, because I had to use several vegetables to substitute for one particular meat.

I did have some meat-eaters over for my vegie spaghetti dinner.... and when it was over. The wife (who knew that it was a vegie dish) asked her husband (unsuspecting) how he like the dinner and he said it was great. THEN she told him that it was a veg dish! :lol: To which he replied....."I thought that there was something missing!" :lol:

[boo]

I've been a vegetarian for over 11 years now, but my parents knew I was going to be one long before that when I would sit at the kitchen table gagging on steak. :lol: ^_^ I love animals too much too eat them.

The kicker was watching a program about Chrissie Hynde. She was talking about her role with animal rights and I believe she is with PETA too. Anyway, the program aired some pretty graphic stuff. No where near as bad as it can get, I'm sure but what they could play. That was enough for me. I knew I didn't want to be responsible for doing that to an animal. I'm sure I'm a hypocrite in other areas such as the cosmetics I use, or antibiotics I take, but I try.

TransplantShock, after a couple months the big difference I noticed was a clean feeling. I'm not sure if its the body being cleansed from all the meat or all the drugs they have pumped into the meat. You'll feel a difference though. Be careful cravings for sugar don't take over. Yep, its not meat but.... :rolleyes:

[terese]

I've been a vegetarian for about 14 years; over half my life. Lacto-ovo-vegetarian for about 5-6 years and now i'm a pesco-vegetarian. ^_^

[boo]

Love the google ads for Buffalo Steaks. :blink:

[terese]

MmmmmMmmm! :blink:

What do they think....vegetarians wont eat beef but buffalo's okay?

[Rich]

What really riles me is that restaurants have a vedgynutter meal, but I really have to struggle to find anything to eat.

I don't eat salads or vegetables, horrid foul tasting things. Garnish not food, but I'm expected to go without. I get steak and chips (fries), I don't get offered extra because I'm not having everything.

I also have a low cholesterol count, thereby proving that veggys and salads are what give you cholesterol, not fried bacon, red meat etc. The experts are wrong.

[Nettle]

hello, my name is nettle and I am a vegetarian...lalala!
well, I am a vegetarian for some years now, I didn't count them. I don't miss meat, cause I cook great food without meat. Everybody, even meat cravers love my dishes. I started being a vegetarian the day I saw (again) on TV how they transport animals to the slaughterhouses. How they treated them. How they tortured them, like things without feelings. How can a single human be like that, act like that, so respectless and brutal? Its was horrible, it still gives me nightmares.
How can somebody really love his/her pet and spoil it with good food and tenderness and then let other animals suffer, for just a full stomach?
And I cannot understand peeps saying things like Rich, sorry, no offence.
Meat is full of hormons (watch your own tits, guys), meat is full of chemicals and other yucky things. Well, veggies are too, if you're not careful selecting them, but you can get good food (bio) now everywhere, if you're keeping your eyes open.
Well, Rich, yep, you blood maybe ok, and I am glad about that.
Thats what all the men are saying, btw, and they keep dying so early, eh?
It is a very old and genetic thing.
In the very early days, men went out hunting, killing and eating the animals, the woman stayed at home, and lived on cereals and veggies while their men were away.
Well, guess who lived longer?
My blood is great, btw. I am healthy and I feel clean in and outside. My skin is without wrinkles...etc.... get the idea?
And to those who love eating meat. Take a knife, go out there and kill a pig yourself the next time you are craving for meat. Meat is not growing on trees, meat was something that lived, breathed, felt cold and felt the warm sun on its back, enjoyed good food, enjoyed live. Like me.
Thats why I cannot eat meat. Thumb up for you, TSP.

[gardenlady]

i am not toughing this topic. love you all ;)

[Rich]

Last week I got out of my car and there were four cows looking at me Mooing. Isn't that a beautiful sound, their big beautiful eyes were looking at me as they fluttered their long eyelashes. It really started my day off well, I just love cows :wub:

Just think. If the veggies had their way there wouldn't be any cows or even those jolly jokers of the farmyard the pigs.

So I say, If you want to keep animals alive. Eat them.

[digiflower]

Good Luck TPS I sure hope it works for you. :D

Me well I like my meat :rolleyes:
I grew up on a farm and saw first hand how things work. But I still like meat.

[Ginny42]

It's all a cycle of life. Ex: Those lions do a pretty good number on those wildabeasts and such too, those things are eaten while still alive. :o I have my days when I don't feel like eating meat and days when I do. ;)

If you feel the need TP then go for it! Don't forget to get your proteins somehow. ;)

[Nettle]

I am not preaching here, far from it. My DH is no vegetarian and I am not blaming anybody who likes meat, but one should be reasonable, and should have meat as a special dish and not a daily routine. Its the mass production, thats making this treament of animals cruel and terrible. Why having meat everyday? Why eating it without thinking that something very alive had to die for it?
Its what I see in my surrounding. Peeps are consuming meat like bread....tons and tons. The pig stables gettin bigger, the pigs less place to move, and and, you all know the game, I hope. Its because some folks need to have meat on the table, 3 times a day.
I]So I say, If you want to keep animals alive. Eat them.[/I] if that wouldn't be so sad I would have laughed.
Don't eat so much meat and they wouldn't have to build so huge stables for all the fast growing, genetisch manipulated creatures, which are far from normal animals nowadays. Btw, the cows, one is seeing in the fields nowadays are alibi-cows, displaying, how wonderful the life in the country is. Whereas its fellow cows are leading a miserable life in the stables, being fattened in very short time, with pills and jabs, artificial insemination/the works, and brought to death in less then a year. Yay, for gods creation.
nuff said.
Its a discussion I am constantly having with my entire family and its making me tired and sad aswell.

sorry, I will shut up from now on

[PRH]

Not going to touch on this topic at all!!! ( I have my reasons for that one )!!! :lol: :D
Phil :-) ;)

[bluedog]

I don't buy the "cycle of life" argument. Humans buy into cycle of life when it is convenient for them (e.g. eating meat) and not when it isn;t (e.g. polluting the environment). The difference between us and the lions out there is that we are "moral agents," they are not. We have a choice. They do not.

It is true that man was designed to eat meat (chimpanzees are omnivorous) but, like Nettle said, not 3 times a day or even every day. Eating meat is not necessary. It is not a right. Were animals raised organically, there would be a multitude of beneficial effects

- because it would be more expensive people would eat less of it thereby decreasing their risk of colon cancer, heart disease, and other LDL cholesterol related afflictions which cost millions of dollars contributing to the health care crisis in this country.

-because people would eat less of it , more crops would be utilized for growing soy and other produce. It takes about 15 lbs of plant energy/protien to produce one lb of muscle/meat protein. There would be a food surplus in the world rather than a shortage!

- Our soil and ground water would be less contaminated with the hormones these animals excrete. Additionally,we wouldn't be creating antibiotic resistance due to their overuse in the food animal realm.

-Becasue organic farming bans the use of hormones and antibiotics, the animals have to be kept in cleaner, less stressful conditions so as to sustain their health without these synthetic medications.

-Lastly, fewer animals would be killed because we would eat less meat.

There you have it.

[DandyLioness]

Yep, boo, you're right. A vegetarian's perspiration is so much more subtle then that of a meat eater. Been there - done that. -_-

When I decided to UNvegetarianize myself --- I had a HOTDOG! How good it THAT for ya??? :lol:

I hope that the vegie heads here aren't the type that go out and buy that phoney meat stuff??? :ph34r: Now THAT would be gross. A vegetarian eating "meat-wanna-be" items! <_<

[Rich]

A vegetarian's perspiration is so much more subtle then that of a meat eater

You may say that, but the expression worse than a vegitarians fart has real meaning here.

[bluedog]

I still stink if I don't use deodorant and even then, it depends how much gardening I've done that day!

I'm not a fan of the fake meat products. Morningstar Farms, though, sells "Bacon Strips" which I actually like alot. It might have something to do with the fact that bacon is the meat product I miss the most :(

[Rowan]

well, hot topic

for myself I am a vegitarian -- mostly ..... but I have, ethically, no problems with eating organicly raised meat occasionally (i.e. I will have a little turkey on thursday)

the difference between natural meat (wild or organic) and produced meat (injected canibalistic and imprisoned) is not just how the animal was treated by the industry, it is also about the health of the consumer. Nettle is right about excess hormones!!!

I accepted a long time ago that in order for me to live something (some food rather) must die, be that plant or animal.... Plants are majorativly cheaper and easier to obtain/grow myself, and are generally healthier (more organic choices available) so the bulk of my diet is plant based -- fruit, grains, nuts... however as I'm sure most of us here realize, plants are living things also and, to be eaten, must die. Studies show that lettuce screams when ripped from the ground. How much better, then, to eat the un-fertalized egg my rooster-free free-range chickens laid this morning? You see the dilemma.

and I must add that I always feel a sense of total irony to note that most of my vegitarian friends are completely anti-logging. Like trees and animals are worth saving, but the soya bean must be destroyed. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[PRH]

A vegetarian's perspiration is so much more subtle then that of a meat eater

You may say that, but the expression worse than a vegitarians fart has real meaning here.
I know I said that I wasn't going to touch this topic, but this one gave me a Grin!!! :lol: :D

[Ginny42]

I couldn't help myself but to laugh at that too PRH! :lol:

Now I'm really going to get tomatoes thrown at me......I eat deer meat! http://photobucket.com/albums/v174/GinnyNJ/smilies/th_tomato.gif About as natural as you can get. ;) :lol: Last Saturday my son filled the freezer for the winter.

But I love ya all no matter what you eat!http://photobucket.com/albums/v174/GinnyNJ/smilies/th_blowkiss.gif

[TransplantShock]

:lol: Thats ok, I would eat deer meat if I had a ready supply of it too. (I grew up on deer meat) Mostly I am doing it for health reasons. Meat has never been a big deal to me, except I do like some fishes and the occasional bird but other then that I can compleatly live without it. :blink: