Vegetarians

Pooky said:
Yes vegetarian food can often be very very nice and I have often considered becoming a vegetarian as I don't like the idea of things dying.

But food like sushi and prawns and amazing meat dishes I just cannot not eat.
I think vegetarians miss out on a lot of different taste.
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Not true. I think that since becoming a vegetarian I've been exposed to amazing dishes that, as a meat-eater, I would never have even heard of.

I used to love spareribs, my mother's Christmas gammon and... funnily enough, that's it. There was always the convenience of popping into a KFC and getting one of those delicious twisters. In all honesty, I have no regrets and as much as I used to love spareribs and my mother's Christmas gammon, I will never eat meat again for so long as I live. It's just not worth it and there are much, much better guilt-free alternatives.

And.. lol... If you want to eat sushi, prawns and other amazing meat dishes, then that's your prerogative. The choice of becoming a vegetarian was purely my own because, perhaps as silly as it sounds, my conscience weighed heavily when I realised what animals actually have to go through. From that point onward, the decision was easy. Funnily enough, I went black-and-white vegan when I made my first step and after a year I settled on vegetarianism instead.

jak3 said:
Well yeah, i get the health motivations, but from where i'm sitting, all food(and the multitude of ways it can be prepared) is worlds better than being limited to a certain grouping.

I'll stop borderline trolling now. :)
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Health motivations, sure. However, just because you're a vegetarian doesn't mean you won't pig out on chocolate, ice-cream, cookies, pizza, soda or chips.

Funny question: I wonder how many vegetarian dishes you've actually exposed yourself to as a meat-eater. Probably not that many, eh? Sure, you can have a vegetarian dish any time you want, as a meat eater, because you can, but you have absolutely no driving force that pushes you to try new vegetarian dishes, experience new vegetarian dishes and keep at it. So your limitless freedom to eat whatever you want, I think, does more to actually limit you than not.

Just a thought.

And for the record, I'm finding it difficult to post today (I can't hold my concentration) thanks to some painkillers I'm currently popping. Yippee! So, sincere apologies if I'm making about as much sense as the toothfairy.
 
Lycanthrope said:
Uhm, you realise that eggs are basically chicken period, right? Almost all eggs sold commercially are unfertilised (i.e. no animal is being harmed or killed in the process).

I'm a vegetarian and I agree with you, if you buy eggs and dairy, make sure it's free-range. Granted, you can't always be certain. As for leather, well, I think that depends on the person. Once again, there is such a thing as cruelty-free leather. The fact that you still drink milk and/or eat eggs means that you're still living partly off animals in captivity which will, eventually, die. When that happens, why should their skin not be put to use, it's just as much a part of them as their milk and/or eggs. Do you sleep with feather pillows? Down blanket, perhaps?

For me, the buck stops at killing an animal either directly or indirectly. The rest of it is a very grey area which is a choice you made the moment you became a vegetarian and not a vegan. If you want to have absolutely zero negative influence on the animal world then become a vegan, wear cotton, rubber shoes and learn to sew hemp.

I'm in complete agreement with the animal rennet, gelatine, etc that you've mentioned, although, I've never met an actual vegetarian who didn't make sure their food didn't contain any. People who eat meat of any kind and refer to themselves as vegetarians do more damage to the cause actual vegetarians have made a personal sacrifice for than any meat-eater ever could.

I do believe that as a vegetarian, as I said, you walk a very grey path. You accept your nature (you're an omnivore) and you accept that your life will never cost another living creature theirs. From that point onward, the decisions you make and rationalise are entirely your own. Some will still wear leather (like myself--cruelty free ftw) and others will refuse it. The only thing vegetarians agree on completely is that we will never eat another animal (which includes animal rennet, gelatine, etc).

People who refer to themselves as vegetarians when they are evidently anything but are nothing more than attention-seeking morons.
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Agreed. On a practical level most of us cannot escape the reality of our influence on the animal world and it all depends on how far one chooses to go (no hemp sewing for me :p). I have no problem with people eating free range eggs and or wearing cruelty free leather but on a personal level I avoid them because as you stated you can never be 100% sure. No disrespect to them but most of the vegetarians I know are that way because of religious reasons and they are usually more lax when it comes to being vegetarian especially if they are born into it. I rarely meet any like-minded vegetarians like you guys so I tend to be a lot more angry at fake vegetarians, a lot more of the time.
 
Lycanthrope said:
And for the record, I'm finding it difficult to post today (I can't hold my concentration) thanks to some painkillers I'm currently popping. Yippee! So, sincere apologies if I'm making about as much sense as the toothfairy.
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Nothing a nice steak won't cure.
 
fish and chicken are walking/swimming vegetables, I don't see the issue.
 
Lycanthrope said:
Funny question: I wonder how many vegetarian dishes you've actually exposed yourself to as a meat-eater. Probably not that many, eh? Sure, you can have a vegetarian dish any time you want, as a meat eater, because you can, but you have absolutely no driving force that pushes you to try new vegetarian dishes, experience new vegetarian dishes and keep at it. So your limitless freedom to eat whatever you want, I think, does more to actually limit you than not. .
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I agree with that to an extent. You would be forced to experiment a lot more.

But for me, i've began to realize food is one of the key joys in life, and so by not pushing yourself to explore you invariably miss out. I'll rather explore the full gamut of foods than limit myself.

If you can make a potato taste nicer, well the same can be said for a piece of meat.

mmmm foood
 
I'm all for eating various animals but not while they're still alive like DJ does

Rib-eye_03.jpg
 
Alan said:
Nothing a nice steak won't cure.
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The word "nice" really doesn't come to mind when I think of steak. Eating something that was alive and felt pain / fear is just strange to me. Like Lycanthrope, I don't have any regrets. I've never craved meat since becoming vegetarian and have found that much of the taste that people associate with meat actually comes from spices and sauces. Meat is actually pretty gross if you watch the slaughtering process and see the feces drip from the innards onto the steaks that you later put in your mouth. That's besides the disturbing abuse that so often happens, or the fact that some animals are still alive by the time they start dismembering them.

It's all about your motivations for stopping. If you stop for ethical reasons the chances of you ever describing a steak as "nice" is practically 0.
 
Alan said:
Nothing a nice steak won't cure.
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Actually... no :D

Aqua_lung said:
fish and chicken are walking/swimming vegetables, I don't see the issue.
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Sentience :D

Zombrainy said:
Agreed. On a practical level most of us cannot escape the reality of our influence on the animal world and it all depends on how far one chooses to go (no hemp sewing for me :p). I have no problem with people eating free range eggs and or wearing cruelty free leather but on a personal level I avoid them because as you stated you can never be 100% sure. No disrespect to them but most of the vegetarians I know are that way because of religious reasons and they are usually more lax when it comes to being vegetarian especially if they are born into it. I rarely meet any like-minded vegetarians like you guys so I tend to be a lot more angry at fake vegetarians, a lot more of the time.
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I agree. I appreciate when people try to minimise (I spent the last five minutes typing 'minimalise' and retyping it wondering why it looks so wrong before realising that there is no such word -.-' Ugh... I am so out of it) their impact on the animal world but if you eat meat, you're not a vegetarian, regardless of how you look at it. Funnily enough, I would even be mostly fine with (most) meat-eaters if they made that conscientious choice to go for cruelty-free products. The thing is though, they just don't care. If it doesn't affect me, why should I bother?

I think that the worst is when supposed animal-rights activists have a huge issue with beating an animal to death but in the next moment they're chowing down on a chicken that spent its last few days alive having its rectum pecked open by other chickens, or a cow that had been battered and bruised to within inches of its life. But I appreciate any attempt at giving animals some dignity.

And yeah, there are choices you make in life which, if you don't make them for yourself, they're not really your choices so much as they are just lifestyles you adopt because of habit. I'm not terribly good at explaining right now, but I think you know what I mean.

jak3 said:
I agree with that to an extent. You would be forced to experiment a lot more.

But for me, i've began to realize food is one of the key joys in life, and so by not pushing yourself to explore you invariably miss out. I'll rather explore the full gamut of foods than limit myself.

If you can make a potato taste nicer, well the same can be said for a piece of meat.

mmmm foood
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I agree, I love food. It's one of those things that make me feel happy and tingly and just euphoric. Again, I don't need to be responsible for the death of a living, sentient creature to enjoy my food.
 
I see squirrel is becoming a bit of a fad in the U.K.

Do they come with "This product could contain traces of nut" warnings?
 
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