Any other vegetarians / vegans?

[Vraille Darkfang]

As someone who grew up in farm county, I find empathy for a chicken or cow hard. If D&D TRULY wanted to give chickens an accurate Int score it would have to be .0002.

If you really can't bear to eat meat do to empathy with your dinner, you then need to make sure any mouse you get in your house you live-trap and release into the wild, as any mouse is smarter and equally deserving of empathy as any farm animal.

(Not codeming vegetarians, just pointing out when you make a concious decision there are sometimes un-thought of conditons that happen. Such as no beef = no leather. Of if you think it is wrong to kill animals, that should apply to the little critter eating your flour & leaving little presents behind).

I've been decreasing the amount of meat in my diet (and choosing healthier cuts of the meat I still eat), but am trying to include more and more veggies in my diet.

This is easy where I live as we have lots of local farms to buy produce from. The vegetables in the supermarket ain't fit to eat, or goes bad in just a few days. We aslo get our meat from local farms. Open range-fed open meat is soooo much better than anything a factory farm can put out. However, those farms have meat 12 months a year. Veggies peter out around the end of Oct. I've never cared for canned/frozen, so our meat diet increases when all the vegtables go bye-bye.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

We run into it all the time when we ask if there will be vegetarian food for my wife to eat and someone will say "Sure, we have fish." When we try to explain that fish is in fact meat, we usually end up getting the confusion over the Catholic "no meat on Fridays but fish is perfectly OK" thing.

Wait, am I allowed to post here since I am technically not a vegetarian? I do the cooking for three of them, does that give permission to post and not be accused of threadjacking?

As I'm sure you know, the issue is not non-vegitarians posting to the thread, the issue is non-vegitarians posting "hell no I wouldn't be a vegitarian and here's why!" with the not so subtle implication that vegitarianism is a Bad Choice (tm).

If there was a thread about catholicism and I posted about my son's catholic baptism, that wouldn't be rude just because I'm not catholic. However, if made a post wth the sole purpose of saying, "no way, and here's what makes catholicism a Bad Choice", that would be very rude.

Unfortunately, it seems a given that all threads on veg* diet/lifestyle will lead to this. I've seen the same reaction to discussions of both atheism and teetotalling and I have a feeling that a serious thread about celibacy would provoke similar responses as well. My best theory is that there's something a little threatening about a person who does without that which you do not or cannot.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

If you really can't bear to eat meat do to empathy with your dinner, you then need to make sure any mouse you get in your house you live-trap and release into the wild, as any mouse is smarter and equally deserving of empathy as any farm animal.

(Not codeming vegetarians, just pointing out when you make a concious decision there are sometimes un-thought of conditons that happen. Such as no beef = no leather. Of if you think it is wrong to kill animals, that should apply to the little critter eating your flour & leaving little presents behind).

This is a false dicotomy. Empathy with animals is at least as conditional as empathy with humans, after all. Is it fair to say that if you don't believe in slavery due to empathy with the slaves that you need to make sure that there are no prisons? If you don't want to see forced gladiator battles does that magically apply to self defense on your way home?

Personally I would prefer to exclude mice from my house over killing them, but a critter eating my food and leaving presents behind is endangering my health and that of my family, its not there by my choice and I need to decide the best way to deal with it. There's just no comparison to the choice not to have an animal bred and raised for the sole purpose of killing and eating it.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

This is a false dicotomy. Empathy with animals is at least as conditional as empathy with humans, after all. Is it fair to say that if you don't believe in slavery due to empathy with the slaves that you need to make sure that there are no prisons? If you don't want to see forced gladiator battles does that magically apply to self defense on your way home?

Personally I would prefer to exclude mice from my house over killing them, but a critter eating my food and leaving presents behind is endangering my health and that of my family, its not there by my choice and I need to decide the best way to deal with it. There's just no comparison to the choice not to have an animal bred and raised for the sole purpose of killing and eating it.

1. Slaves & Prisoners are NOT the same. (at least in modern society). Although Prisoner can lead to Slave, that's not the point.

2. You are right about the self defence thing. A mouse in your house can be a health issue. I was more refering to a class of vegetarins (of which you clearly don't belong), who can't stand the fact that a living creature had to die to make a steak, yet are more than willing to poison a mole in their yard. If you can't eat meat because of the rights of living things, you can't really justify your own whole-hearted slaughter of creatures once they inconveince you.

3. You last sentence shows your personal beliefs about why you are a vegetarian. I wasn't targeting you. If fact, to a degree, I agree with you. The mass raising of animals in confined conditions soley for the purpose of getting them fat enough to slaugher I oppose.

I don't mind vegetarians, just don't try to impose your beliefs upon me (i.e lecture why meat eating is evil; INFORMING me about facts are just fine. I no longer eat poultry that could come from 'De-beaked' birds. It was a vegan who let me in on this little 'secret' of the poultry world.

Also, I hope I'm not coming off as condescending. If you choose to be a vegetarian (however you define it, from the 'Vegan' to the Everything but Mammels) is fine by me. I've gotten some good recipies off of veggie friends. I'm just saying you should consider, fully, your gastronomic choice. You've clearly done so. I'm still evaluating mine (I.e meat good, huge factory farms bad; it leads to me having to make a lot of hard choices in order to 'Walk the Walk'.

PS. Is the www.vegansociety.org the official vegan website (i.e where they define what 'vegan' means?. If so, you can go there to find out more about a meat/animal free lifestyle.

PS2. When does 'vegetarian' kick in for you. Several here indicate preety much anything in the Animal Kingdom. I know others who only kick out mammels, others who kick out killing the creatures, but their by-products (such as milk) are ok. Others kick out mammels & birds, but fish is OK. How low does it go?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Just to clarify, I am not currently a vegitarian, and I never made it all the way to being one. I just felt that your example was a poor one, and (while it seems you didn't mean it that way) looked like a projection of hypocrisy on any vegitarian who doesn't strain his tea for gnats. Which I have seen asserted and it bugs me.

Your second example I can get behind much more. If you are a vegitarian based on empathy for animals, that empathy should inform (but not control) other choices you make with regard to animals. You can also have empathy for animals without being a vegitarian, as I feel I do, and it sounds like you do. And of course you could be a vegitarian for non empathy related reasons. Just like there's a whole range of feelings on animal testing, its not a matter of "yum veal" vs st francis of assisi and anyone in between is a hypocrit.

About lecturing... While I may have a skewed perspective, I've encounter more lecturing, self righteous meat eaters (by an order of magnitude) than the stereotypical evangelical vegitarian. They're out there and I'm sure they would annoy me, but I consider them an anomoly amoung veg*s, not the default.

P.S. To add another layer of nuance, I'm quite comfortable taking sides between animals. I hate possums because they kill cats. Are cats "really" any better than possums? no of course not, but I like cats better and I'm taking sides. (of course people who let their cats out where they are at risk from the possums bug me too.... )

 

[jgbrowning]

About lecturing... While I may have a skewed perspective, I've encounter more lecturing, self righteous meat eaters (by an order of magnitude) than the stereotypical evangelical vegitarian. They're out there and I'm sure they would annoy me, but I consider them an anomoly amoung veg*s, not the default.

Me as well. I think it's because the instant you say you're vegetarian many people feel the need to explain why they eat meat and why eating meat is natural or good or whatever instead of just going, ok, you don't eat meat and leaving it at that. It seems like people view it as an invitation for discussion/debate rather than as something simply a matter of fact.

But that's human nature I think. Anything that appears as a challange to any belief, no matter how the said challange is stated, tends to put people on the defensive. And it's only viewed as a challange because there must some reason why the vegetarian doesn't eat meat and that must mean they think their choice is better than yours so the non-veg feels the need to assert their choice as just as better as the veg's choice.

Again, gotta love human nature.

joe b.

 

[Rel]

As I'm sure you know, the issue is not non-vegitarians posting to the thread, the issue is non-vegitarians posting "hell no I wouldn't be a vegitarian and here's why!" with the not so subtle implication that vegitarianism is a Bad Choice (tm).

I couldn't agree with you more, Kahuna.

I admit that there is something about being confronted by vegetarianism that I feel is a challenge to me as an omnivore and I experience an innate defensiveness when the topic arises. But I try to shut up about it unless somebody really does try and get in my face with the issue.

Too often I witness folks who are itching to catch a vegetarian in some kind of hipocracy as though they are somehow obligated to be inhumanly consistant in every one of their choices. I believe that so long as it isn't bothering me, people can make whatever dietary and fashion choices they want, no matter how much cow or broccoli must die in order to accomodate that. If you want to eat no meat at all yet dress only in leather and furs, that's fine by me.

Especially if you're a hot chick!

 

[talinthas]

as for leathers, well, india has a lot of cattle, and the reason they aren't eaten is because they provide us with milk and labor while alive, and leather after death.

of course, there is a whole class of people who are outside the caste system that deal with leather work and tanning and stuff, and they eat meat. but that's a whole nother debate.

but yeah, i'm passively vegetarian. i don't bring it up unless there's a reason to that impacts other people. but man, it sure riles up some folk right quick, and they start jumping on me with all sorts of ludicrous defenses and hypotheticals (what if you were dying of starvation and the only thing around was a cow? etc). Seriously dude, lay off. I'm not gonna take your meat away from you, and if i did, what would i do with it anyway?

 

[spider_minion]

I've been a vegetarian for nearly two years. Though I had been considoring it for a while, it was ultimately reading an essay from my ethics textbook (Vegetarianism and the "Other Weight Problem" by James Rachels -- http://www.stpt.usf.edu/hhl/eip/vegetarianism.pdf) that gave me the final push. Given that we didn't eat a lot of meat in my household, it wasn't hard at all to make the switch. I had to endured a bit of ridicule during the transition period while I explained the reason why I changed 'teams' (because I am opposed to animal suffering). Some people view this as threatening their lifestyle, so they give lame moral reasons to justify their meat-eating habits (“I'm an omnivore”). I certainly would like to see more people become vegetarians, but as long as other people aren't bothering me about my eating habits I'll do they same to them (not to mention it being a waste of time . . .). Since then I've become very comfortable with it and will probably never go back.

If anyone here is interested in the moral reasons behind vegetarianism, I'd encourage them to read the linked essay. The author makes a very thorough and readable case for it. Also, there are a lot of soybean-based alternatives to meat products that taste about as good as the real thing (if a bit more expensive). Other than chinese food and chicken-finger subs, there isn't much that I miss.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Other than chinese food and chicken-finger subs, there isn't much that I miss.

Chinese food is tasty because of the sauces and spices rather than the meat (this is true of most foods IMO). See if your chinese restaurant is willing to substitute tofu for the meat, especially if they have the fried tofu. True that frying tofu negates many of the healthy aspects of soy, but it makes a nice substitute. I have a friend who gets me the fired tofu from Chinatown whenever she goes there whic I use to make either my Kung Pao or my Sweet and Sour Pepper stirfry.

As for chicken-finger subs - have you tried making your own using the soy-based substitutes? I contend that the Morningstar Farms Chk'n nuggets are virtually identical to meat nuggets in taste and texture. Use them instead of chicken fingers (Morningstar Farms makes a soy chicken finger, but it is honey mustard flavored).