Vegetarian or Vegan?

[purplebunny]

I know there are some other vegetarians and vegans here. As some of you know I'm a vegetarian. How about coming here to share recipes, difficulties we sometimes face and just to chat?

[Hedge Munos]

I get the following questions a lot:

Do you eat eggs?

How do you get your protein?

[purplebunny]

Fellow Veggie Max?

Someone at w*rk AFTER asking what I had for lunch last week (it was home-made egg fried rice and other stuff), asked me do I eat eggs? After me telling them I was eating egg fried rice! *sighs*

Yeah I get "so what DO you eat excatly?" I'm a strict vegetarian who doesn't take cold cow's milk, eats no msg, or yeast. The poor meat & fish eaters think I mustn't eat much food! lol

[Nimrodel]

I am a vegetarian. :3 eat confectionaries with eggs. but not eggs in any other form. eat all milk products.

[purplebunny]

I eat no confectionaries, or chocolate. Very little caffeine intake for it to be worthwhile, ditto on eating biscuits (cookies). I don't drink alcohol. I drink soya milk (continued use means am drug free for my hayfever). I only eat yoghurt that is vegetarian friendly (of course!), I eat butter and we use vegetarian margaine in cooking/baking. I make my own bread, because store bought bread has yeast in it. I don't eat ice-cream or jelly (jello). I either drink mostly water or herbal/fruit teas.

Despite all that, I do eat a varied and balanced vegetarian diet

I love my eggs Nimrodel Love egg fried rice and eggy bread

[dst]

What I always wanted to ask is why? Why would you become a vegan/vegetarian?

[Jubaris]

Each individual has his own reasons, but I personally would step into it because of the disgust I have in the whole concept of "farming" animals, making them live them a specified amount of time then slaughter them for food. It's not a nature thing, chain of food, kill how much you need to survive, it's 'genocide'.

Imagine someone assembling a group of people in a prison just so he could eat them, take their organs, etc.

The reason I'm not a vegetarian is because I'm lazy. I'm lazy as it is with the 'normal' food, now I should add a factor of buying specific food?? Cooking it, making it? Who will wash the dishes? Who, I ask you?!?!?!?!

[dst]

[quote name='Rhaegar Targaryen' timestamp='1360142285' post='132155']
The reason I'm not a vegetarian is because I'm lazy. I'm lazy as it is with the 'normal' food, now I should add a factor of buying specific food?? Cooking it, making it? Who will wash the dishes? Who, I ask you?!?!?!?!
[/quote]

ME has a MAID!!! Yay!! My old dream became a reality few months ago!
Now, back on topic: I love meat and meat products. The best vegetable is the pig. I can't go a day without eating meat.
I haven't crawl on top of the food chain to eat grass.
However, I do admire the ones that are able to survive without meat. I would never be able to do it nor do I want to.

[purplebunny]

dst: I'm meat & fish intolerant. Can't eat any meat, poultry, fish, seafood etc or by-products. That is why I'm a vegetarian.

Edited February 6, 2013 by purplebunny

[Dragual]

Rhaegar, I can see these points very clearly. However, I wonder what you would have society do instead? Clearly humans are omnivores. Our bodies are designed for meat. Yes, the current method is rather... Distasteful. But the alternative is that we hunt down our prey ourselves instead of buying prepackaged foods. Or, at least, this is the only alternative that I see other then removing meat from our diets all together.

[dst]

I am sorry to hear that purplebunny. I never thought you HAVE to be a vegetarian (I had no idea people can be meat intolerant). Meh...

[Pipstickz]

If I were to be a vegetarian, my best reason would probably be that I can't deal with small bones or other bits I can't chew in meat. If I get something like that, I'm pretty much guaranteed to start gagging until I get it out of my mouth, after which I look at it and gag a bit more. Yes, I'm a bit of a baby. Other than that though, I have no real reason not to eat stuff.

[Shadowseeker]

Not a vegetarian, but surprisingly the easiest/fastest dishes I sometimes make for myself don't always contain meat. Probably because I can mix it in for certain ones if I want, but am lazy to do so or lack ingredients

Pancakes- with..whatever you like. Nutella, sugar, etc, etc 10minutes at most if I don't bother making them super fluffy
Scrambled Eggs- I've been experimenting with herbs and spices lately, I enjoy having a slightly peppery taste to them or mixing them with onions. 5 minutes. This sort of leads into another dish you described,
Egg Fried Rice- Good by itself, but also pretty neat with ketschup (don't judge me before you tried it) Rice takes the longest, if I don't have to cook that 10mins at most.
Tomato Soup- 100% tomato juice, pepper, salt, some basil? (whatever it's called in english), 2 minute dish
Egg Toast, or even just Sugar Toast- one of the best snacks ever for inbetween, lots of variety for how you cook it too. Slice of bread, fry it. Oily, but..yum. 5 to 10 mins.

I'm pretty sure there are many other dishes out there, maybe you have a few ones that you can recommend and are fast and easy to make?

[Change]

I'm vegan because I saw Scott Pilgrim and I don't drink coffee or tea so...

My reasons:[list]
[*]I'd be able to more legitimately argue that I don't support enslaving millions of creatures for food (against an alien who wanted to enslave me).
[*]The stuff that they put in animals these days is.. icky.
[*]I'm too lazy to go out of my way to get healthy, non-GMO/drugged meat when I didn't eat it often before I went vegan.
[*]Other than milk, I don't particularly like dairy products that much. I drank milk a ton before, and I'm glad that I've stopped (I feel a lot better).
[*]It forces me to read the ingredients on everything, which has driven me to buy things with fewer/no ingredients.
[*]I can deceive strict ethical vegans into thinking that I'm on their side.
[*]It greatly increases my prospects in dating other.. vegans.
[/list]
On an unrelated note, I'm possibly deciding that I'll go vegetarian when I'm out at friends places/restaurants that don't have vegan options. Why don't I go vegetarian at home? Because I don't particularly like cheese, yogurt, or dairy products, and so the only benefit would be being able to buy tons of processed junk which I'm better off without.

As for recipes, I mainly just make variations on pasta/beans+tomato+vegetable+ginger+hotsauce/ketchup for dinner, some sandwich for lunch with vegetables, and cereal/oatmeal for breakfast. When I'm exceedingly lazy, my meals consist of energy bar+fruit drink with 6 servings of fruits and vegetables+Mr. Noodles.

If you haven't guessed it, I'm a university student. I do occassionally make proper vegan recipes out of a book, but they often require quite a lot of different ingredients.

[purplebunny]

dst: not a problem, the stomach specialist I saw at the time said it was unusual but not unheard of.

[url="http://bunnysveggiepatch.blogspot.co.uk/"]here[/url] is a link to my veggie/vegan recipe blog that all recipes have been tried and tested. I hope I'm not overstepping the mark by posting the link to my blog. if I am, just say so and I'll remove it.

I don't eat processed food. Every meal I eat is prepared fresh. It isn't that difficult to do and some meals are quick and easy to make as well

Edited February 7, 2013 by purplebunny

[Chewett]

[quote name='purplebunny' timestamp='1360243547' post='132257']

[url="http://bunnysveggiepatch.blogspot.co.uk/"]here[/url] is a link to my veggie/vegan recipe blog that all recipes have been tried and tested. I hope I'm not overstepping the mark by posting the link to my blog. if I am, just say so and I'll remove it.
[/quote]

No issues at all provided its on topic as it most certainly is.

[BFH]

[quote name='dst' timestamp='1360143970' post='132160']
ME has a MAID!!! Yay!! My old dream became a reality few months ago!
Now, back on topic: I love meat and meat products. The best vegetable is the pig. I can't go a day without eating meat.
I haven't crawl on top of the food chain to eat grass.
However, I do admire the ones that are able to survive without meat. I would never be able to do it nor do I want to.
[/quote]

I'm with you.

[Prince Marvolo]

I'm too lazy to be a vegetarian

I once lived a week on fruit alone though, and it was a wonderfull week. Anyone else tried that?

[dst]

You have a maid too BFH? O.O CONGRATZ!

When I was a kid I used to fast one week before Christmas and one week before Easter. Orthodox fasting means you are not allowed to eat any meat or anything coming from an animal (this includes eggs and dairy products + milk). It was...awful. Absolutely awful.All I could think off all day was what I would eat and in what quantities. Christmas and Easter days were a real feast for me. Once I was finished with the meals (usually lunches) you could roll me around the house . I was like one of the kids from Biafra: skinny kid with huge belly!

So there! That was my experience with vegan/vegetarian meaning I kind of know how it is.

[Fire Starter]

Sadly, I have a friend, who has to be vegetarian too... He used to eat all sorts of stuff, a former basketball player. But now the closest he gets is yellow/white cheese and fish. The system just rejects it. The most disturbing thing is that even if the food has been in touch with meat, the reaction is the same. Unpleasant...

About me? Nothing really, I am still at my o'clock diet - I eat everything all the time. Gladly I still move around enough to be able to use my old clothes

[purplebunny]

Your friend Fire Starter isn't a vegetarian then, just unable to eat meat. Sorry everyone to be so petty but it irks me, when people say they are vegetarian but they still meat some meat, or fish etc.

Taken from the Vegetarian Society website:

"[size=4]The Vegetarian Society defines a vegetarian as: "Someone who lives on a diet of grains, pulses, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruits with, or without, the use of dairy products and eggs. A vegetarian does not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish* or by-products of slaughter." [/size]
[size=4]*Shellfish are typically ‘a sea animal covered with a shell’. We take shellfish to mean;[/size][list]
[*][size=4]Crustaceans (hard external shell) large – e.g. lobsters, crayfish, crabs, small – e.g. prawns, shrimps [/size]
[*][size=4]Molluscs (most are protected by a shell) e.g. mussels, oysters, winkles, limpets, clams, etc. Also includes cephalopods such as cuttlefish, squid, octopus.[/size]
[/list]
[b] [size=4]There are different types of vegetarian:[/size][/b]
[list]
[*][size=4]Lacto-ovo-vegetarians eat both dairy products and eggs; this is the most common type of vegetarian diet.[/size]
[*][size=4]Lacto-vegetarians eat dairy products but avoid eggs.[/size]
[*][size=4]Vegans do not eat dairy products, eggs, or any other products which are derived from animals."[/size]
[/list]
Using the above I'm a Lacto-ovo vegetarian.

[Fire Starter]

Hmm, interesting info purplebunny. Never really looked at it that way. About the real vegetarians I mean, I know my friend is forced to.

[Hedge Munos]

[quote name='dst' timestamp='1360140260' post='132152']
What I always wanted to ask is why? Why would you become a vegan/vegetarian?
[/quote]

My parents are vegetarians, so I was raised one.

[Grido]

I'm not a vegetarian, but much like Shadowseeker, I find it massively easier to not cook with meat, so I tend to only eat it when I go out places, aside from the odd sausage or kiev.


Something that got pointed out to me a little while back, was that if we didn't eat meat, or meat products, as a society we would have very little use for the animals and they would likely start to die out, or worse, be culled because of expense to maintain.

[Change]

[quote name='Grido' timestamp='1360363185' post='132306']
Something that got pointed out to me a little while back, was that if we didn't eat meat, or meat products, as a society we would have very little use for the animals and they would likely start to die out, or worse, be culled because of expense to maintain.
[/quote]

It's like Dubois's 'A Mild Suggestion', or like Swift's more popular, but less similar, 'A Modest Proposal'. It's more cruel to prolong an animal's life if it's going to be full of misery than to keep it alive. At least for animals in modern factory farms, I'd think they'd be better off extinct than them living the lives that they currently do.

If meat from ethically treated animals was as easy to come by as vegan products, I might eat meat again. However, I don't care for meat that much, and checking the ingredients on processed foods is much easier than finding an ethical source for a food that I barely eat. To each their own.

Plus, I hear promises of eternal youth and elven life spans, and I'm a gambler so I'll take it!

Edited February 9, 2013 by Change