Any vegans or vegetarians here?

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There is supposed to be a book on how people with different blood types require different ratios of the various food groups. I don't know how accurate that is, but I know people who are perfectly happy eating vegetables most of the time. However, I also know people who have to have meat with their meals. I am numbered among the latter.

I don't mind vegetables. I even like steamed vegetables and such. However, it just isn't a "real" meal to me without some type of meat on my plate. I find myself hungering for meat daily and my lunches and suppers almost always have some type of meat or fish in them.

I'm working on becoming a raw food vegan, but I slip sometimes, and it's really hard to find good lean protein sources with this food plan. I work out quite a lot and need my protein. Soy has natural enzyme inhibitors which make it, contrary to popular belief, not a good source, and a lot of soy products are genetically modified which is not good at all for your body.

Going on a date is mucho hard when it comes to ordering food off the menu, and I'll usually end up having fish. At this stage of my development, however, I would never eat beef, and certainly not young animals like lamb or veal or pork, yet I respect anyone's desire to do so.

That's normal. Everyone craves the foods they are accustomed to eating. I craved meat for the first year that I went without it. Then I started craving beans and soy products instead.

I've also read a book called "Eat Right for Your Bloodtype". A housemate bought it at a yardsale and insisted I read it. It asserted that bloodtypes are also correlated with personality types. Some of the personality types were far more positive than others, leading me to suspect that I could guess the author's bloodtype. It wasn't based on any real scientific evidence. It sounded like fantasy to me.

There is also an "eat right for your body type" ideology. Like the bloodtype idea, it correlates personality characteristics with body types, saying that the most slender people are have the most energy and are the most extroverted, while heavier people are slow, cold-blooded introverts. Once again, this is a bunch of BS, not based on any scientific evidence.

Many people enjoy systems that allow them to simplify their world and categorize people based on simple physical characteristics. It is no longer socially acceptable to overtly rely on that long list of -isms. Therefore books like these become popular as new ways of stereotyping and discriminating.

I'm a vegetarian. . . but not a strict one.

According to a lot of things I've read, plant protein takes a lot less resources to come up with than animal protein- pollution, land and water use, and such whatnot.


However, if I'm in substantial need of protein and meat is the only thing available, I'll eat it.


Recommended diet is

No more than about a third calories from fat

Around 15% calories from protein

and the remainder, carbs- preferably complex carbs, from whole grains, fruits, and veggies.

Add to this an aversion to excessive salt, sugar, and trans and saturated fats.

It's the opposite for me. I'm so indecisive that having very few options makes ordering off a menu a lot easier. The other night, I went to a bar and nearly had an anxiety attack because they had 24 beers on draft. That should be a good thing!

We're omnivores. We have canine and wisdom teeth for a reason. That is my opinion.

When you see meat in butchers, supermarkets, normal markets, etc, it's already dead. Hell, I feel a bit guilty if I don't buy it.. it'd mean that poor animal was slaughtered for nothing. A few veggies aren't going to change the slaughtering industry.

Plus, I like my bacon butties waaaaaaaaay too much.

I don't ever use products tested on animals though. But I think that's practically a given.

My sister is a vegan, i.e., she eats no animal products (including dairy and eggs). However, I am a lacto-vegetarian (vegetarianism plus dairy but no eggs).

I have gone back and forth over the years between eating and not eating meat. However, I find that, when I am a vegetarian, since I cannot eat most junk foods, I eat more healthfully all around.

My partner is a lacto-vegetarian. Our youngest daughter (11 mos. is as well). The eldest is gluten and dairy free with limited meat and well, I have always been flexible...

These days making meals in my house means at least 3 different variations and I AM EXHAUSTED WITH IT!

So, instead, I have conformed!

But loving it much better.

We were out for a VERY NICE vegan meal last night. Everything was tapas sized and we ordered near everything on the menu:)

Better lacto-vegetarian than raw-foodist. I have a friend who follows a raw food diet. Between her juicing and cooking foods to a maximum temperature, preparing food is, for her, almost a full-time job. (The term "raw-foodism" is actually not technically correct. One can be a raw-foodist and eat cooked food - but only to a certain temperature.)

i'd like to go on a vegitarian diet, however changing your diet is pretty hard, i wont stick to it

a few thoughts. ..

I once read in a running book that people who've really been consistent runners for a long time, have fallen off and then started again an average of eight times before they really stuck with it long term.

Every time I fall out of practice of something I feel is important to be in the habit of, I just think, "well, that's one more mess up down I guess I have seven to go." . . well, you get the idea.

Also consider that whatever your reasons, every piece of meat you don't eat contributes that much to whatever you wish to accomplish- it's that much cholesterol not in your blood stream, or that much money not gone to the cattle industry. .. If you eat half as much meat next month, you've still had a 50% impact. That's pretty good.

Lastly, you might try making smaller changes first- you might try giving up red meat, and start getting accustomed to a few vegetarian dishes. Then, when that's a solid habit, you could cut down further in some way, or make a goal to eat a variety of vegetarian foods more often- so as to crowed the other out.



good luck with whatever.. .

Personally, I never found becoming a vegetarian difficult. If you really miss meat, there are a lot of products you can make or purchase (mostly from soy/tofu or other kinds of beans) which taste just about the same as meat.

The change for us has been fairly smooth.

We have had some difficulty finding certain veggie products, etc in Canada and my British partner has asked family to send us things like veggie gravy, but apart from that... there are soooooo many meals we have come up with.

I just made a tofu turkey for Thanksgiving! It was AWESOME!! ! Looked like a turkey and tasted WAY better!

I have even made nut roasts, which are also amazing!

Tell me this meal doesn't look appetizing!!

I'm a vegetarian, but I promise not to try convert any of you to my weirdo hippie cult

Last edited by Cheerlessleader on 16 Oct 2007, 9:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

I was a vegetarian for about 11 years....or at least I very much tried to be..little did I know that a certain long-term boyfriend's mom was slipping animal products into meals she insisted were vegetarian, and also that waiters will lie....

I read Diet for a New America....and my mom had become a vegetarian a few years before I did and my original motivation was partially based on animal rights and an aversion to factory farming....it also had great health benefits for me, as I was a very overweight child and once I became a vegetarian I lost ALOT of weight with seemingly little effort.

At first, I tried to cut out all flesh and cheese that contained animal rennett...and all products that contained animal byproducts etc....I still ate soy cheese, which generally contains dairy...and stuff that contained whey and also eggs...but gradually I slacked off, so that i simply didn't eat flesh.
Also, I did not always have the most wholesome diet, though I did eat better than many.

I started eating meat again around the age of 25-ish....and immediately developed an intense craving for red meat...
I quickly gained alot of weight and redeveloped other health problems as a result....but just could not help myself...it was like a Pandora's box...of meaty goodness...nice tough chewy fajita was my favorite...It was horrible....

Since then, I have waffled....i am now mostly pescatarian with the occasional red meat endulgence once in a blue moon. I have made several attempts to revert back to vegetarian, but I never last very long. I lack the determination I started out with the first time.

I agree that the whole factory farm system is a mess....it is a problem with most of the foods that was eat..animal and vegetable.

Organicly/ethicly produced meat...and organicly grown veggies, although more readily available now than in the past, still are not the status quoe for the majority of the population (esp. in the US)
I don't see any fast food resturaunts going out of business...so the use of tons of natural resouces towards the factory farm production of the majority of the meat we eat is still an unfortunate reality...not just a stereotype...

I did happen to observe when I went to Mexico a whole lot of free-range cattle....( I was almost trampled by some of them)

All I can say is that cows that are allowed to wander around on mountainsides before they are slaughtered, taste distinctively better than the ones that come from the feed lots....go figure....