I've decided to become a vegetarian

[nerd]

I've tried vegan 'cheese' and done the whole soya/rice/oat milk thing. Nothing - NOTHING - works with hot drinks so I not only gave up milk but also tea/coffee. Even when I made coffee with luke warm water, the milk-substitutes curdled. I found oat milk perfectly fine with cereals but found not having coffee (I'm not a big tea drinker) was a deprivation too far.

 

If you're serious about being vegan, you struggle to live in today's society! No honey, yet a lot of veggie foods include honey. No furniture polish (a big thing in our house, ahem) and of course no leather shoes.

 

Eggs are in things that make vegetables more interesting - like mayonnaise. And cheese - geez, without cheese, what do vegans eat? I was struggling to keep the calories up - all you can eat with your fruit and vegetables is olive oil (otherwise you get tripped up with rapeseed issues).

 

Being a vegetarian is bearable, being a vegan is very very difficult in today's industrialised society.

 

The trick to stopping your milk-substitute curdling, is to put a metal spoon in the cup as you pour you boiling water in. Leave the spoon in the cup for a minute or so to heat up. Then turn the spoon over and leave the tip of it in the black tea/coffee. Pour your "milk" over the back of the spoon, not directly into the beverage. Et Voila, non-curdled

[nerd]

I remember when I went veggie when I was 11. My Grandma was furious, she told people I was suffering a mental illness. When I didn't eat the meat she put on my plate she held my nose until I had to open my mouth to breathe and then rammed it in and held my mouth shut! Oh well. She came round in the end and started using veggie sausages for me instead of meat when I went round.

I stayed fully veggie for 12 years, but then I was strongly advised by my consultant at the hospital to start eating chicken and oily fish occasionally (I have a digestive disorder) so I tend to eat a portion of fish or chicken once a week now.

I have lived totally without milk and dairy for about 6 or 7 years now, I have not had even a trace of the stuff and I have found plenty of substitutes that work fine for me. Things like tofu contain a lot of calcium - just make sure you have enough vitamin D or you can eat all the calcium in the world and your body won't be able to process it. The thing I really miss is cheese though. Oh, for some creamy buffalo mozzarella, or some grilled halloumi...or even just straight cheese on toast with ketchup on top.....

[artisan]

Dont be a fool.

The human is what is known as 'hunter gatherer'

That is we eat everything that comes our way.

We require to keep us alive, vitamins and fibre.

Along with the rest of our food to supply energy, these can only come from meat and vegatables.

That animal is going to die anyway, as people like me are going to eat it.

You will not save it by being some kind of an abstainer.

It will only mean a bit left over for the dog meat.

[artisan]

It depends to what degree you want to become vegetarian.

 

I would have said that as long as you're not eating Meat and Fish then you could call yourself vegetarian.

 

Not eating Cheese (and by extension Dairy and Eggs) would make you Vegan, which is a very difficult lifestyle to live!

 

I dont really understand, now that we know plants suffer when being cut, how you can eat vegatables.

You are sadists in the extreme.

How can you possibly eat a plant that you know is alive Or if you have cooked it, that you have boiled it alive.

I dont know how you live with yourselves.

[plekhanov]

Dont be a fool.

The human is what is known as 'hunter gatherer'

Really? When was the last time you hunted or gathered anything? We may have evolved as hunter gatherers hundreds of thousands of years ago in Africa but as you may have noticed we've things have changed somewhat since then.

 

That is we eat everything that comes our way.

We require to keep us alive, vitamins and fibre.

Along with the rest of our food to supply energy, these can only come from meat and vegatables.

This is patently false the large numbers of people living healthy vegetarian lives is irrefutable evidence that our needs can be met from vegetarian and even vegan diets.

 

That animal is going to die anyway, as people like me are going to eat it.

You will not save it by being some kind of an abstainer.

It will only mean a bit left over for the dog meat.

Do you honestly think that the millions of people around the world who choose not to eat the flesh of animals have no affect upon the demand for and hence supply of animal flesh and inevitably the numbers of animals raised & killed for their flesh?

 

But even if they didn't so what? Are individual people not responsible for their personal conduct even if that doesn't add up to much in the greater scheme of things?

 

Even if Caitlin_E's choice to become a vegetarian has little or even no overall affect upon the total amount of pain and suffering inflicted upon animals by humans it will at least mean that she has acted like a responsible moral being and done what she can to at-least minimise the suffering that she is responsible for.

[plekhanov]

So the other day i saw some images and videos which wil never leave my mind until i die.

 

So since yesterday ive turned vegetarian.

 

I mostly understand what not to eat eg. Meat, Fish, Gelatine, Rennet.

But can someone fill me in on what else like is cheese ok?

Whether or not cheese is ok is for you to decide. Do bear in mind though that feasibility is an essential part of any reasonable system of ethics. Going straight from meat eater to full on vegan in a single bound is difficult and in my experience after a brief period of vegan fervor a significant proportion of those who do so backtrack completely to eating meat.

 

As such I'd recommend that even if you think about the issues and decide to go vegan you might well have a better chance of sticking with it if you ease yourself into things by first going vege for a while and then taking the much more difficult step to vegan later once you've already learnt to cook decent meat free meals but have enjoyed cheese & eggs as a fall back.

 

Im quite surprised about how unsupportive people are being about my decision

Don't worry about it, many people are threatened when others have the courage to take moral stands, you'll just have to learn to shrug it off.

[cooljules]

i have a friend whos a veggie, nightmare to cook for him (but i do) usually a egg and some noodles while the rest of us eat pork, duck (my fave meat!!!!). i had to cook for him n 30 other meat eaters, had to do him seperate veg and gravy cos i use gooses fat on my veg and make gravy from giblets.

 

i love nothing more than eating meat, and its very rare, maybe once a week where i havent eaten meat 2 or 3 times a day.

 

And yes i have seen how the animal are killed (and killed many animals to eat myself)

 

If someone wants to be a veggie i dont have a problem, as long as they dont tell me about the little fluffy animal running around maybe a week before

[EdnaKrabappe]

http://www.vegsoc.org/newveg/index.html

 

 

Here's the link to The Vegetarian society and there's some useful help on there, including a diet sheet (I wish mine was as healthy as that! - goes back to Sunday morning cinamon toast and juice:hihi:)

 

i was having a quick browse through it myself and here are some useful pages

http://www.youngveggie.org/being_veggie/questions.html#shoes

http://www.vegsoc.org/info/vegan-nutrition.html

 

http://www.vegsoc.org/info/definitions.html

 

Also a little bit of history reading about Quorn which I really remember was a revolution when it came out - no more boiling water for my TVP!

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

[Tipex]

Eat plenty of cereal and soya milk

[artisan]

i have a friend whos a veggie, nightmare to cook for him (but i do) usually a egg and some noodles while the rest of us eat pork, duck (my fave meat!!!!). i had to cook for him n 30 other meat eaters, had to do him seperate veg and gravy cos i use gooses fat on my veg and make gravy from giblets.

 

i love nothing more than eating meat, and its very rare, maybe once a week where i havent eaten meat 2 or 3 times a day.

 

And yes i have seen how the animal are killed (and killed many animals to eat myself)

 

If someone wants to be a veggie i dont have a problem, as long as they dont tell me about the little fluffy animal running around maybe a week before

 

If he eats eggs in what fashion is he a vegetarian?

He is eating animal foetuses.

That is worse than eating the dead meat of the grown animal.

Very few of us eat wild animals, I dont think I have ever eaten the meat of one.

The animals we eat are bred for the purpose, slaughtermen and butchers do our dirty work for us.

My meat is given to me, at the butchers counter, as a piece of meat.

Dont think where it came from, get it eaten, and enjoy.