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Ling
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#26
Old 04-26-2010, 12:30 PM

I always thought it was strange how chicken and fish can be included in a vegetarian diet...one of my friends who claims to be over-vegetarian because the only animal product she consumes is free range eggs, says that vegetarians usually have dairy, honey and eggs, but that once you start eating chicken and fish it becomes a non-vegetarian diet. This makes sense to me.

Darcs Delmarcs
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#27
Old 04-26-2010, 06:27 PM

True, true...
Anyway, I can't call myself a vegeterian, nor am I a vegan... it's not like I consume those [which I listed earlier] all the time or on regular bases...
It's just that whenever I feel like it, I have some...
But my lunch usually includes rice/pasta/bread/etc with some salad.

I still need to know, why vegans don't eat eggs or have proper milk... -too nosey-

Ode
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#28
Old 04-28-2010, 02:59 AM

@Darcs - a lot of reasons...many can be seen watching the movies in the links section of the thread if you're interested enough to take a look. The short one called "Truth or Dairy" answers the question well enough. The reasons are mostly likely to be more interesting to those already vegetarian. I don't eat eggs for many reasons, the biggest being that the commercial egg industry operates off hens in battery cages where they can't move their entire short lives until they are killed anyway. Some eggs are used, obviously, to create more chickens. But you can't tell whether the chicken will be male or female from looking at the egg. So some are born male. Those chicks--which are born--get thrown away. Literally. I mean within a few moments to a few hours after being born, they'll be thrown sometimes still alive in bags into dumpsters to suffocate their lives away. To me, and hopefully to other omnivores who can appreciate the sacrifice of the animal that ends up as their dinner (like the Native Americans and other similar cultures), this death was not justified and it was a respectful death. Other than the case of the baby chicks themselves being thrown away, the battery hens do not live out their full years, are disfigured, obscenely large or malnourished, and sometimes diseased at the time of their death. I live in VT so a lot of people up here do not treat their animals like this--but more likely than not that's what you're getting when you go pick up eggs from the supermarket.

As for milk, there's even more issue. Vegetarians or others who feel sickened by the thought of veal production should absolutely protest to "proper milk." First of all, I don't drink milk because of tests and data (some would say inconclusive, but still studies nonetheless--again check out the links) that say milk and other animal proteins can actually speed up certain diseases. Also, most people, believe it or not, ARE lactose intolerant to some degree or another. Most cultures cannot properly digest milk. We don't see this often though because I believe Eastern Europeans and decedents are lactose tolerant. We usually forget about the rest of the people in the world. It's actually not natural to be lactose tolerant:

Quote:
Lactose intolerance is the inability to metabolize lactose, because of a lack of the required enzyme lactase in the digestive system. It is estimated that 75% of adults worldwide show some decrease in lactase activity during adulthood.[1] The frequency of decreased lactase activity ranges from as little as 5% in northern Europe, up to 71% for Sicily, to more than 90% in some African and Asian countries.
- Wiki "Lactose Intolerance"

Aside from that, milk production, for most vegetarians, is pretty cruel. Some claim that cows would be stuck with all that milk if the farmers did not milk them, that they'd suffer. This is not true. Cows only produce milk when, like humans and other mammals, they get pregnant. So they're inseminated, given hormones so their udders grow huge (mastitis), and produce calves. Of course when the calves are born, like all babies, they want to be with their mother and feed. Most calves are taken away from their mothers within 24 hours so they don't get attached. Many cows actually grieve for their lost calf, some even STOP milk production during this grieving process because they know their milk is not going to the child. What happens to the calf is the luck of the draw--if it's a female, maybe milk production/eventual slaughter. If a male, most likely they go to veal production. They die within the first couple years of their life, still technically babies. Normal milking cows get killed in their "teenage" years if we put their lifespan into human years. Either way by drinking milk vegans would be supporting the meat and veal industries which capitalize on the physical and emotional pain of our non-human friends, and that would be unacceptable to us.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, again check out the vids/sites if you're interested!

Also, a vegan diet, with proper watch of nutrients is the healthiest diet ANYONE can have. Check out the links. And actually, most people have HORRIBLE diets. Normally when one thinks of the "average American diet," terrible images come to mind of junkfood and "comfort food," and younger and younger people becoming diabetic (I know some personally, people I am close to...I hate that they kill themselves with food...but what can I do?). I am the healthiest I have ever been in my life. I'm 22 and I am healthier than I was as a teenager. I have hardly been sick...in fact, not at all, really...

and proteins, you'll be happy to know, are in TONS of foods. It doesn't take a rocket-scientist to figure out if you're getting proteins every day! And omega 3 fatty acids that are found in fish you can find easily in many food items other than fish!

Quote:
* Canola oil
* English walnuts
* Flax oil*
* Flax seed (ground)*
* Hemp beverages (hemp "milk")
* Hemp oil*
* Hemp seed / hemp nut (ground)*
* Olive oil
* Leafy green vegetables (small amounts, but a good omega-3 to omega-6 ratio)
* Pumpkin seeds
* Soybeans
* Soybean oil
* Supplements
(Read more at Suite101: Vegetarian Omega-3 Sources: The Best Fish-Free Fatty Acids http://vegetariancuisine.suite101.co...#ixzz0mMQa1HAt)


Also...chicken and fish usually aren't included in a vegetarian diet, just as Ling said. ^^U

Last edited by Ode; 04-28-2010 at 03:11 AM.. Reason: also

Darcs Delmarcs
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#29
Old 05-01-2010, 04:39 PM

...erm...that sounds pretty interesting >.>
and to be honest, I never actually bothered look up anything about vegetarians/vegans, and that whole thing sounds new to me... fairly interesting too!!!
I never knew they were that cruel to animals >.<

Guivre
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#30
Old 05-01-2010, 06:12 PM

Darcs, it's really incredible how terrible factory farms are to animals. D= Even farms where organic meat, eggs, dairy, etc are cruel, but the animal that belonged to the average piece of meat you see in the store went through a whole lot of pain and suffering. Farms are meant to be profitable for the people running them first and foremost, and that's where the trouble starts.

For the record, I'm not a vegan/vegetarian myself, though I keep my amount of animal products very low. I think when you're not growing your own food or are self-sufficient it's really hard to know exactly what you're buying/eating.

Ode
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#31
Old 05-08-2010, 04:59 AM

@ Guivre - being conscious of what one eats is a very good step toward understanding how humans interact with other animals (yes, other animals...humans are animals too, how often we forget!). I live in Vermont so...not a lot of factory farms and animals are usually treated kindly and appropriately, animals roam free over the land, etc. It's just that many animals are not treated with the same respect, as you said, in factory farm conditions--even so called "organic" or "free range." You're right about cost being more important than the product, too. But this is not just seen with how people treat animals--it's also seen in how humans treat other humans! Businesses often decide to save money by not adding safety features to their products because it's easier to have people get hurt and for them to sue the company and be bought off, or have people die as a result and having the family cash-in on the tragedy because it's actually CHEAPER to have people die or have a miserable accident than it is to ensure all their products are safe. That's kind of a tangent, but it's true...something to think about!

@ Darcs - Aha, sorry, you just asked twice so I thought you really wanted to know! But that's basically the long and short of it...it's not really a one or two sentence answer. Vegetarians and even health-conscious and ethical omnivores think A LOT about what their food is really saying about themselves and how they live life. Some say it's silly to put so much emphasis on food. Again, it's just another way to see and live life. :)

I never knew it was so cruel either...then again, I didn't really think about it. Just kinda ate whatever my mom made or whatever they served me, not thinking where it came from, if it was pumped with drugs, if it had diseases before it got killed (ie chicken cancers, pig pneumonia, and something you might have heard of, mad cow...which we're all still at risk for because of how cows are slaughtered--bits of brain get sent into the body when they stun them). Just kinda...ate whatever. So it was interesting to think about--that's why I made this thread. If no one decides to follow a different diet because of it, meh, I don't really care. It would be great, but I'm not going to fret over it. But if people come by and say they've learned something new, then that is REALLY amazing to me and makes me happy. :) So, I'm kind of glad you're interested (perhaps a bit freaked though by the facts, but that's a natural reaction).

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#32
Old 05-08-2010, 06:03 PM

@Ode, yeah those all are small parts of what adds up to the bigger idea of people exploiting others.

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#33
Old 05-20-2010, 03:13 PM

Thinking about attempting to go vegan (I've been lacto-ovo vegetarian for about seven years). I'm a terrible cook, which has been my main obstacle to dropping milk, eggs, cheese - it seems like it would be all but impossible to eat out or buy prepared vegan meals. :(

Ode
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#34
Old 05-21-2010, 03:34 PM

Wow seven years! I actually just became a vegan overnight (as in, omnivore to vegan)...but I'm a very strange case. It doesn't really depend on how well you cook, though I love to cook. Everything can be made vegan. There are few prepared vegan meals I gu(aka tv dinners) but there are plenty of things you can just buy and throw together (Amy's Soups, for example, yum yum!). Eating out is a bit harder, but I do it all the time, even at places that have nothing "vegan" on the menu. (I ordered eggplant parm without the "parm" part, haha...) I might have unintentionally eated something non-vegan here and there, but as long as I try my hardest, I'm not going to let it stop me from going out and getting food.

But I'm a bit biased since I LOVE to cook my own food and I have no money to buy expensive prepared foods (5-7 bucks for a little tray of food? I could make myself dinners for a week on that!) OR eat out (only on special occasions, and then I go to veg-friendly places). So...it's usually pretty easy to make food for myself, haha.

I'd hope you'll make the attempt at least, instead of "thinking of attempting." You could always go veg for a day or a couple of days and see if it works out? Saying "it's too hard" is like giving up before you've even started! I wish you luck if you decide to explore being non lacto-ovo! :)

Thanks for stopping by~~

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#35
Old 07-13-2010, 07:40 AM

Hi!
I've been a vegetarian for 4 years almost. At the beginning, I could eat certain meats if it was the only thing available, but now I don't even have the enzyme required to eat meat anymore and just feel all weird and queasy if I accidentally eat it.
For the first 3 months, I was actually vegan, but then I decided to be vegetarian instead.

Cardinal Biggles
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#36
Old 07-13-2010, 07:45 AM

:O I can't believe I haven't seen this before. I too am a vegetarian. I've been one for over a decade now. I am a lacto vegetarian with vegan tendencies, although I think I have been a bit lax lately, eating cookies that may have eggs in them. Eep.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Liath View Post
now I don't even have the enzyme required to eat meat anymore and just feel all weird and queasy if I accidentally eat it.
You know, the same thing has happened to me. Damn hidden bacon bits in salads. The good that came out of the situation (and by situation, I mean that I assume I have lost enzymes too) is that I was able to vomit it up.

Last edited by Cardinal Biggles; 07-13-2010 at 07:48 AM..

 


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