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AVEN Vegetarians and Vegans


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I think I've posted here before, but now I'm vegan, yay! 8) I'd been vegetarian for about 12 years, but only switched to vegan at the end of October. I've been learning how to cook some new things, which is interesting. I even made my own seitan, which is totally unnecessary, but it wasn't bad. :P

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  • 2 weeks later...
forbidden_moose

2.5 years of pure vegetarianism, and I try to cut back on non vegan foods. I will eventually become a vegan after I am fully grown at about 21, and living on my own. I do wear leather aand second hand fur products because leather is a biproduct of the cattle industry, the cow's death would be in an even greater degree of vain were someone not to use as many parts as possible of it, (as long as it isn't eating a part oh it, ew dead carcass) I wear secondhand furs only because I did not originaly buy them, they would again be a part of a dead animal gone to waste without the secondary consumer, and because it does not support the fur industry itself.

I chose to become a Vegetarian for health, ethical and environmental reasons.

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I'm mostly vegetarian for reasons of preference. That is, I've never particularly enjoyed the taste of meat. I crossed into the realm of 'mostly vegetarian' when I started preparing my own meals and realised I don't have to eat whatever's plonked in front of me. But part of it is also environmental concern: I'm grateful that I don't enjoy meat because it means I can easily reduce my meat consumption, as I believe most people should. The meat I eat has to be free range and ethically farmed or fished. I research my sources quite carefully, and don't mind paying more because I don't eat it more than three times a week (usually less).

I do have some ethical objection to the harming of animals, which is why I prefer ethically farmed and slaughtered meat. But I also object to the slaughter of what I consider more intelligent animals. Now, that is a sticky subject and I know it's very personal, so I don't expect anybody else to fall into my line of thinking or gladly accept being criticised for eating such things as chicken and fish. But I don't eat pig products, squid or octopus. Those creatures I have too much respect for. You may consider that pick 'n' mixing, and possibly it is, but no more than meat eaters who object to the eating of dog or cat.

I would quite happily venture into full vegetarianism and even veganism if free meals weren't so readily proferred to me. I already prepare a lot of vegan meals (especially cakes and biscuits) because my sister is lactose-intolerant and it's easier to search for vegan recipes than simply dairy-free ones.

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Turned vegetarian around a month ago! :D Mostly out of idealism, that is, disliking how the meat/fish industries work and the stuff that's put into our meat/fish. I don't have a problem with the concept of eating animals, nor a problem with the people who are against it, clearly. Ideally I'd like to eat meat that is, well, handled correctly. :\

I don't think I could ever become vegan though because of how much it would cost to buy foods that would supplement things I need. Unless I somehow become rich, which is unlikely.

I do have something to say about 'more intelligent animals' though. I think the entire concept is ridiculous, and anthropomorphizing. You're expecting animals to have human intelligence which is a classic mistake. Obviously a fish is not going to think like a human. It's not going to be able to do maths or science or logic in the way we do logic. Because it doesn't have to. We don't look at a fishes intelligence and calculate it towards what a fish needs to survive. We calculate a fishes intelligence by what a human needs to survive. But a fish doesn't NEED human intelligence, it needs fish intelligence.

Just to make sure my point is clear: a pig is better than a fish at doing what a human does. A pig isn't better than a fish at doing what a fish does. Why do we judge a pig's intelligence by what a human can do? Because we're human and clearly a pig needs to be human in order to be smart.

Furthermore, intelligence is a pretty ableist word. Why does an animal need to be 'intelligent' in order for us not to eat them?

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I learned something interesting on Ted the other day... It seems chocolate and tomato soup are full of bugs! I'm all for eating insects myself.

Ted Talks is crack for intellectuals.

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I learned something interesting on Ted the other day... It seems chocolate and tomato soup are full of bugs! I'm all for eating insects myself.

Ted Talks is crack for intellectuals.

Erm, most candy is full of bugs. Eat kosher food if you don't want to eat bugs.

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I HAVE VEGAN S'MORES. :D Too bad I can't share them with y'all, but oh well, more for me. 8)

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Stormy Wether

I learned something interesting on Ted the other day... It seems chocolate and tomato soup are full of bugs! I'm all for eating insects myself.

Ted Talks is crack for intellectuals.

Nobody factory farmed the bugs. I'm more offended by the milk that gets sneaked into "dark" chocolate.

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It's not a requirement of dark chocolate that there be no milk in it. It just has to have a higher percentage of cocoa than regular 'milk' chocolate - Everybody has their own recipe.

I would think eating vegan is much like eating gluten-free; you have to assume every food contains the unwanted ingredient(s) until proven otherwise.

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There should be vegan rabbis that have to supervise and approve vegan food. And vegan stamps on vegan food, and different kinds of stamps for different kinds of vegans.

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I've been vegan for about a year now (For mostly environmental reasons and then also health reasons...) and all of the sudden I am craving cheese :blink: It's quite awful because whenever I eat anything dairy I get quite sick.

Does anyone know of a way to phase out of veganisum into vegetarianism without getting sick?

haha, I hope there is a way... because I am wanting some dairy. :redface:

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Stormy Wether

You don't have lactose tolerance any more. It would be an unpleasant process to force your body to handle it again.

Try the different types of soy cheese to see if there's one that will do - what you can get depends on where you live. Sometimes avocado or peanut butter will help with a cheese craving (think smooth, fatty and salty).

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Stormy Wether

When I make nachos I skip the cheese and use extra guacamole, works well :)

If you want a sort of cream, soak cashews in water for 12 hours, put them in the blender with fresh water and whizz them really well. You can sweeten it for desserts or use it as a base for sauce and salad dressings - my vegan coleslaw kicks arse. Might help with your dairy cravings.

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:o That sounds delicious! I think I am going to soak the cashews tonight and try that, it sounds amazing! THanks so much :)

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:(I tried to be a vegetarian for nearly 6 years. My reasons were ideological, it felt wrong to support animal cruelty. I can't say that I really enjoyed the experience though.

First of all, I was constantly hungry. I had to eat much more often during the day. And because fewer things would be as tasty, I also had to spend a considerable amount of time cooking.

Secondly, vegetarianism killed my budget. I didn't realize before how much cheaper it is to eat meat. I had to go back to eating meat mainly for this reason, it was my 3rd year of university and, having to study nearly 80% of my spare time, I could not dedicate so much time to working and had no funds left to support my vegetarianism. Also I had almost no time left to cook or travel extra distance to find a vegetarian place.

Needless to say, it requires a lot of sacrifice.

Another thing is, it didn't seem to agree with my stomach. Throughout my years of vegetarianism I suffered terrible indigestion. On my 4th year I was actually hospitalized and diagnosed with IBS (which is really a diagnosis of exclusion. Also, psychologically I frequently felt anxious and panicky for no reason. Perhaps smoking was also one of the factors, but definitely not a major one.

2-3 months after I quit vegetarianism my physical and mental problems disappeared without a trace. I still smoke, but I no longer suffer from indigestion or anxiety.

So, I guess, my take on it is- I feel that morally, it is certainly a worthy cause.

But for some reason it did not agree with my physiology.

There are superior and far more ethical means to slaughter animals so not only that they'll feel no pain but even experience a sort of euphoria (research nitrogen hypoxia), - a way of euthanizing animals in laboratory settings. Not only do they not know they are going to die, they peacefully fall asleep while gorging themselves on their favourite food.

But for some damn reason none of the slaugherhouses use that method (it is actually cheap too,-nitrogen is abundant in our atmosphere). They won't use that method on humans (capital punishment)either, because, apparently, it is unfair to the victim's family if a criminal dies peacefully feeling no pain (yes, that is apparently the reason-that logic always freaked me out.

So the way I feel about it, - we can't all become vegetarians, as it won't agree with everyone's body. Also, - what would happent to meat farmers and their families if we all did (as some of you noted)?

So, to reach some kind of compromise, I think, that those who are meat eaters but, still concerned with animal cruelty, - write a letter to your President/Prime Minister, urging a change of traditional slaughter methods to Nitrogen Hypoxia :)

That way some compromise will be reached with respect to ethics of the matter.

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I've been vegetarian for 16 years. I don't do meat, fish or eggs. I work at an animal sanctuary and couldn't justify working for animals and eating them, it felt hypocritical.

I also subscribe to the spiritual belief that all living creatures have a soul and thus to eat them is not right.

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Wild_Goose_Chase

I was brought up a veggie, so I've never eaten meat, it doesn't look very appealing to me either :unsure:

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Turned vegetarian around a month ago! :D Mostly out of idealism, that is, disliking how the meat/fish industries work and the stuff that's put into our meat/fish. I don't have a problem with the concept of eating animals, nor a problem with the people who are against it, clearly. Ideally I'd like to eat meat that is, well, handled correctly. :\

I don't think I could ever become vegan though because of how much it would cost to buy foods that would supplement things I need. Unless I somehow become rich, which is unlikely.

I do have something to say about 'more intelligent animals' though. I think the entire concept is ridiculous, and anthropomorphizing. You're expecting animals to have human intelligence which is a classic mistake. Obviously a fish is not going to think like a human. It's not going to be able to do maths or science or logic in the way we do logic. Because it doesn't have to. We don't look at a fishes intelligence and calculate it towards what a fish needs to survive. We calculate a fishes intelligence by what a human needs to survive. But a fish doesn't NEED human intelligence, it needs fish intelligence.

Just to make sure my point is clear: a pig is better than a fish at doing what a human does. A pig isn't better than a fish at doing what a fish does. Why do we judge a pig's intelligence by what a human can do? Because we're human and clearly a pig needs to be human in order to be smart.

Furthermore, intelligence is a pretty ableist word. Why does an animal need to be 'intelligent' in order for us not to eat them?

People have problems eating "intelligent" animals mostly because those animals show signs of emotion, it seems. I guess that "emotional" would be a better term for the animals, though. If you yell at a dog, it'll probably cower or show some sign of fear, sadness, or shame. My dog knows when I'm angry or sad or sick and reacts accordingly. If you yell at a fish, it might react to the vibrations in the water and swim around, but it won't feel sad/angry/worried. It might feel some instinctual sense of danger if you suddenly shake the tank, but it doesn't have an emotional reaction, because as far as I know, a fish's brain isn't capable of producing emotions.

Also, judging by the article, I don't think that the actual word "intelligence" is ableist, but rather how people judge it and think of it. You can be musically or artistically intelligent. You can be intelligent in the sense that you live in the small moments of life. You can be intelligent in figuring out patterns or math problems. You can be intelligent by knowing what's in something just by tasting it. The most intelligent man I've ever met has that label not because of his ability to solve puzzles or do math quickly, rather because he notices every nuance of the human form and can replicate it so perfectly on paper with so few mistakes. I don't even know what his IQ is, and it doesn't matter, because he's incredibly intelligent visually and artistically. Intelligence as simply IQ or a test score is very ableist, but I think all people, no matter what their IQs are, are intelligent in some area. I think that people just need to see intelligence as something other than a number, because that's not realistic or fair, and instead respect people who show that they're intelligent in other areas, no matter what that area is, and actually look for where individuals thrive instead of just assuming that said individual has no intelligence at all because it doesn't present in a way that can be shown with a number.

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I've been vegetarian for 4 and a half months. I did it for environmental and ethical reasons. I eat dairy and egg products and use honey and beeswax, but I don't eat animal by-products like glycerol, glycerin, basically anything starting with gly-, lanolin, and all that stuff. I also don't use products with animal products in them or come from a company that tests unnecessarily on animals (learned about how big megacorps are from that. Unilevel makes EVERYTHING!). I think it would be really easy to take the leap to veganism.

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Haven't read the last few pages but I figured I'd post here. Yeah, I'm veggie, but I'm also conveniently lactose intolerant (and apparently soy intolerant to a degree) so I switched to almond milk and have since been fine. And rice cheese. I feel much better now.

And I'm veggie for animal rights/philosophical reasons, though the health benefits help. I was vegan for a little while but honestly was not prepared properly for the diet. If I tried again soon it would be much more responsible than it was when I was 15 and had no help.

I also refrain from leather byproducts and suchthings when I can, but I do collect fur and bones. I am extremely ethical about that, I personally know taxidermists who get sent roadkill to dispose of, so I make sure my bones and parts come from animals who were not killed by hunters/trappers or part of the fur market, which I abhor. (I practice Shamanism so a lot of the animal parts I have are spirits I work with in everyday practice.)

Edit: I've been veggie for going on 6 years now. Veganism was maybe a year.

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glycerol, glycerin, basically anything starting with gly-,

What? No liquorice? (Scientific name: Glycyrrhiza glabra)

... yeah, sorry, couldn't resist. Someone says something like that, I take it as a personal challenge. I'll just... go now...

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glycerol, glycerin, basically anything starting with gly-,

What? No liquorice? (Scientific name: Glycyrrhiza glabra)

... yeah, sorry, couldn't resist. Someone says something like that, I take it as a personal challenge. I'll just... go now...

:lol: That was really clever! Never heard that before. Gave me a good laugh! :cake: :lol:

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ChildOfTheLight

I'm not a vegetarian, though I'm often mistaken for one. (Seriously, someone once asked me if I was a *vegan* while I was buying eggs.) I do like many vegetarian and vegan dishes -- for example, a lentil soup which was one of my homemade staples for a while was vegan.

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ziggyplayedguitar

I've been vegetarian for around 10 years, mainly due to realising that it was hypocritical to be an animal lover and welfare campaigner who ate meat. I'm not so militant about it these days though, I see it as more a personal choice than a political statement. One day I hope to go the whole way and become vegan, but it's not financially possible in my current state as a poor student :P

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Oh hay, just remembered this. I had problems with certain fruit before--plums once made my lips swell up, apples made my mouth itchy and my throat burn. For a while I just avoided them, gave it little thought. Soymilk in cereal sometimes did this to me, as well.

Then I met my current roommate, who has a mother who is very food-conscious, vegetarian, and studying nutrition. She is very eco-conscious and gets organic food from a farm she helps to tend in the summer.

She went "You ever think you're allergic to pesticide?" Never thought about it.

Bought organic apples. Bought organic plums. Not a blessed problem. Same when I switched to Almond milk.

Scary stuff guys.

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