Are you Vegetarian?

[Spud]

I recently went three days one week without eating meat, to see if I could stay healthy on just a vegetarian diet. I felt pretty rough, though to start with I was thinking, this vegetarian food is yummy! I found that in order to get enough protein I was eating way too much carbohydrate, which made me feel bloated. When I tried drinking loads of milk, I got the runs.

So I'd like to know how it is that some people can survive without eating meat? One option I suppose would be to google it.

Also I found out that although hens don't have to suffer for us to have plenty of eggs, male chicks get slaughtered in their droves because they aren't useful except as food for other animals. Similarly male cows are routinely slaughtered because they are too expensive to rear.

So there really wasn't any way I could become a vegetarian on compassionate grounds, since even eggs and dairy protein cause suffering.

[jeremyp]

There are other sources of proteins than just meat. Mostly it boils down to (sometimes quite literally) beans or peas or other pulses in one form or another.

Oats seem to be quite good too.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/protein-for-vegans-vegetarians#section13

If you are concerned about the slaughtering of the unneeded male chicks and oxen in dairy and egg farming, you should probably become a vegan.

[Spud]

I did try beans, peas, pulses etc but they were no good for giving you that satisfied feeling where you know you've had enough and can wait until the next meal. They go through you too fast. But I will read the link. I gave up fishing because I didn't like hurting fish, and thought I'd have a go at giving up meat for the same reason. I guess it made me more aware of the real cost of me staying alive!

[Steve H]

If you object to animals being killed for food, you should really be a vegan, but lacto-vegetarianism is a lot better than nothing. It doesn't make you a hypocrite, unless you tell everyone you're a vegan but secretly consume dairy products and eggs. Some people don't know what "hypocrisy" means: it isn't just inconsistency. I'm an omnivore, but don't eat very much meat, and do eat quite a lot of vegetarian and vegan dishes.

[Spud]

Blokey,
I was just surprised to find I wasn't able to stay healthy without meat, and that other people apparently can. But at the end of the day, even a vegan diet involves shedloads of insects dying, as fields are ploughed up for growing crops. Any human diet involves animal death. So all we can do is campaign for animals to be reared and killed humanely.

[Steve H]

Blokey,
I was just surprised to find I wasn't able to stay healthy without meat, and that other people apparently can. But at the end of the day, even a vegan diet involves shedloads of insects dying, as fields are ploughed up for growing crops. Any human diet involves animal death. So all we can do is campaign for animals to be reared and killed humanely.

No, it isn't all we can do. That's the "we can't do everything, so let's not do anything" fallacy, which probably has a formal name which NS or BHS will be able to provide, no doubt. Veganism involves a lot less animal suffering than lacto-vegetarianism, which involves a lot less suffering than omnivorousness. We do what we can, or are willing to do. I'm thinking of becoming a full-time ovo-lacto-vegetarian again.

[Aruntraveller]

No, it isn't all we can do. That's the "we can't do everything, so let's not do anything" fallacy, which probably has a formal name which NS or BHS will be able to provide, no doubt. Veganism involves a lot less animal suffering than lacto-vegetarianism, which involves a lot less suffering than omnivorousness. We do what we can, or are willing to do. I'm thinking of becoming a full-time ovo-lacto-vegetarian again.

I agree with so much of what you said here. This household almost without knowing it has got rid of meat from its's diet almost completely - still have fish though. The important takeaway (no pun intended) here is that if you can change your diet in even small ways it can have an effect that is much larger if everybody is making similar small changes.

[Maeght]

I recently went three days one week without eating meat, to see if I could stay healthy on just a vegetarian diet. I felt pretty rough, though to start with I was thinking, this vegetarian food is yummy! I found that in order to get enough protein I was eating way too much carbohydrate, which made me feel bloated. When I tried drinking loads of milk, I got the runs.

So I'd like to know how it is that some people can survive without eating meat? One option I suppose would be to google it.

Also I found out that although hens don't have to suffer for us to have plenty of eggs, male chicks get slaughtered in their droves because they aren't useful except as food for other animals. Similarly male cows are routinely slaughtered because they are too expensive to rear.

So there really wasn't any way I could become a vegetarian on compassionate grounds, since even eggs and dairy protein cause suffering.

How did you decide how much protein was 'enough'? Most people eat too much protein anyway. Drinking lots of milk isn't typical for vegetarians so think you need to look at vegetarian diets online and go from there.

[Owlswing]

I worked, for about eleven years, with a militant vegetarian as my supervising manager.

She would always bring her 'breakfast' into the office.

I have no problem with anyone eating their breakfast in the office as long as they don't sound as if they are actually eating chunks of broken glass or thin sheets of plastic, and then spend ten minutes plus swallowing various tablets of supplements to ensure that they get all the things they need in order to stay healthy that are not in the food(?) they have just eaten!

   

[ad_orientem]

I'm not a vegetarian and never could be because I love meat. However, I am of the opinion that we seriously need to reconsider the way we produce our food. If that means we end up eating less meat as a result, then so be it.

[Steve H]

A friend of a friend once went to some do or other where there was a lavish buffet on offer. She praised some meat item or other to another woman, who replied snootily "Actually, I'm a vegan". "Well, fuck off back to Vega, then", said the foaf.
That, however, is the stereotype. Most veggies and vegans aren't like that, and are not forever telling people that they're a vegan/veggie, contrary to what Clarksonistas and gammons claim. They, on the other hand, are forever telling us how much they love meat, especially the least healthy of all, bacon and sausage. Ironic, what?

[jeremyp]

A friend of a friend once went to some do or other where there was a lavish buffet on offer. She praised some meat item or other to another woman, who replied snootily "Actually, I'm a vegan". "Well, fuck off back to Vega, then", said the foaf.
That, however, is the stereotype. Most veggies and vegans aren't like that, and are not forever telling people that they're a vegan/veggie, contrary to what Clarksonistas and gammons claim. They, on the other hand, are forever telling us how much they love meat, especially the least healthy of all, bacon and sausage. Ironic, what?

I don't know how you can live without bacon mmmmmmm...

I have no problems with vegans telling me they are vegan, especially if I'm about to cook them dinner (maybe we won't have the foie gras and the suckling pig). If anything, it's the recent converts that wind me up. They seem to bang on constantly about how much healthier they feel and how vegetarian food can honestly be really nice and they don't miss meat at all. I think it sounds more like they are trying to convince themselves than anybody else.

[Steve H]

it's the recent converts that wind me up. They seem to bang on constantly about how much healthier they feel and how vegetarian food can honestly be really nice and they don't miss meat at all. I think it sounds more like they are trying to convince themselves than anybody else.

How many recent converts do you know that bang on about it?

[Owlswing]

How many recent converts do you know that bang on about it?

Just about every one that I know of who have converted in the last nine months or so. They are more evangelical than the bloody Mormons and JW's!

[Steve H]

Just about every one that I know of who have converted in the last nine months or so. They are more evangelical than the bloody Mormons and JW's!

I wasn't asking you, but both you and Jeremy seem to meet a heck of a lot of new veggies and vegans. I never meet any knowingly.

[ekim]

I don't know how you can live without bacon mmmmmmm...

Bacon is OK, provided the pig it came from was a vegetarian.

[Steve H]

Bacon is OK, provided the pig it came from was a vegetarian.

Pigs are omnivores, but the general rule in nature is that carnivores eat herbivores, not other carnivores.

[Owlswing]

I wasn't asking you, but both you and Jeremy seem to meet a heck of a lot of new veggies and vegans. I never meet any knowingly.

I'm so terribly sorry BM, I had not realised that the 'rules' of this Forum had been amended so that we are only supposed to respond to posts directly addressed to us.

Thank you for this update which will, I have no doubt, be published by the Moderators in the very near future!

On the point, however, it would appear that vegetarianism is, in my area at least, seen as a possible method of avoidance of Covid. Go figure. 

[Spud]

No, it isn't all we can do. That's the "we can't do everything, so let's not do anything" fallacy, which probably has a formal name which NS or BHS will be able to provide, no doubt. Veganism involves a lot less animal suffering than lacto-vegetarianism, which involves a lot less suffering than omnivorousness. We do what we can, or are willing to do. I'm thinking of becoming a full-time ovo-lacto-vegetarian again.

As I said, whatever you eat, you have to kill something, whether its thousands of creepy crawlies (when ploughing) or a few pigs. So shouldn't we just eat what we like the most, and try to farm humanely?

[Steve H]

As I said, whatever you eat, you have to kill something, whether its thousands of creepy crawlies (when ploughing) or a few pigs. So shouldn't we just eat what we like the most, and try to farm humanely?

Not necessarily. As I said, vegetarianism, while not avoiding animal suffering completely, involves much less than omnivorism.

[Spud]

How did you decide how much protein was 'enough'? Most people eat too much protein anyway. Drinking lots of milk isn't typical for vegetarians so think you need to look at vegetarian diets online and go from there.

Yeah, I had the feeling I didn't know enough about veggie food to have the right food to hand at the time.
I know we can digest a limited amount of protein in one go (about 20g?) so it needs to be spaced out.
I think if I did go veggie I'd have to do it very slowly.

[jeremyp]

How many recent converts do you know that bang on about it?

Three, which is all the people I know who have converted recently. There's a similar effect with people who have recently converted to electric cars.

[jeremyp]

Pigs are omnivores, but the general rule in nature is that carnivores eat herbivores, not other carnivores.

Is that a rule? I'd not heard it before.

[Robbie]

No, it isn't all we can do. That's the "we can't do everything, so let's not do anything" fallacy, which probably has a formal name which NS or BHS will be able to provide, no doubt. Veganism involves a lot less animal suffering than lacto-vegetarianism, which involves a lot less suffering than omnivorousness. We do what we can, or are willing to do. I'm thinking of becoming a full-time ovo-lacto-vegetarian again.

That is what i am Bloke & have been for some time. It's not difficult when you put your mind to it.

"We do what we can, or are willing to do."

That's it, precisely.

[Owlswing]

 To - Blokey McBlokeface

Your lack of response to my #17 in response to your #14 says so much to me about you and your attitude to those who do not grovel to your obvious view of your own magnificence and your total lack of manners.

I shall, of course, comply with your wishes and respond only to posts addressed to me in the hope that they are minimal in both number and, in line with the rest of your posts, manners and any content of interest on the subject under discussion, unless, of course, the subject is you and your view of your own magnificence, which, I regret, I cannot see.


Bright Blessings, Love and Light, and may the Old Ones watch over you and yours always.

)O(