Vegetarianism

Are there any vegetarians here? I'm kind of vaguely contemplating becoming one but I don't really get how it works. Can you really feel full and healthy without eating any meat or fish? Do you spend your whole life thinking about meat or do you end up forgetting about it after a while?

It all seems so difficult. :s

Do whatever your Rulebook tells you to do.
Sometimes its handy to have access to several books.
Or listen to your stomach, he knows what he wants.

I wouldn´t rate fish as meat, more like somewhere inbetween.

Not a vegetarian myself, but from some of my friends, I can tell you a few things:

1) Most people don't consider white meat or fish as meat. Make sure to be specific before you order food.

2) Don't go eating, say, a whole fish if you have been vegetarian for some time. You'll feel sickly for quite some time.

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Lachdanan wrote:

Do whatever your Rulebook tells you to do

I don't have one. I understand that the idea its ok to eat other conscious beings comes from a time when there were solid reasons for needing to, but I don't think we do anymore. The only modern justification for eating concious beings is religion, which usually says God put animals here for us to eat, which I don't believe.

I'm not really sure if I can ethically justify eating animals anymore, and I'm unsure as to whether I even need to bother trying to justify it. I could just not eat them and leave the justifications to someone else. That falls apart if I don't include fish or certain types of animals though, because then there has to be some justification for the distinction between them.

Idk. I think the problem is I like meat too much and I don't like most of the vegetarians I know :(

Note that when i originally tried to submit this post, the button stopped working and eventually errored out. Perhaps i should reinspect the later stance. Maybe...



The whole idea of not destroying/killing innocent beings is respectable.

But you have to remember, animals are bred specifically to be eaten. The life they live is all that they know. Neither better nor worse than any other. We view through the lens of our own ideologies.

Look at it objectively. Extending our ethics onto beings which dont have the capacity to understand harmony or the greater good is a mistake. Just as it is so with inanimate things.

The day i see an animal protect or save a human, is a day i stop eating that type of animal.

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MonstaMunch wrote:

The only modern justification for eating concious beings is religion, which usually says God put animals here for us to eat, which I don't believe.(

You can also argue with nature/evolution/etc.:
- we are omnivores like rats, pigs etc. (we are able to digest meat)
- the placement of our eyes and shape of our teeth are typical for predators
- ...

There are a lot of good ethical arguments for not eating meat. But I'll continue to do so, simply because I can. :P

Oh wait, yes,
i can see how that slipped into this direction,
what i actually meant was maybe you try different rulebooks


I have a good reason for you that justivies your omnivore beeing even further:
-The human tamed the wolves to dogs
-The wolves stoped eating deers
-The deerpopulation increased by alteast 400% compared to 500years ago
-Too many deers haunt the forests
-Congratiulations, you now have to shoot the deers to maintain a certain balance.

My bro shot a boar yesterday. Yay !

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I do feel very full when eating my veggie chicken nuggets, veggie meat balls and veggie sausage and such fancy stuff. Yes it sounds odd to you but its all tofu and looks like the "real" thing. tastes awesome too, depends heavily on the right manufacturer though. Some are tasty, some are not, others are expensive, others are totally cheap. I get my veggie nuggets for 1.99 compared to the other version for 3.99. If youre price conscious, check other stores.

Please don't get me wrong, not a flame, just curious:

Why do veggies eat tofu stuff that imitates the look of meat dishes?

I've been vegetarian for about 2 years now. I've gone through different phases of vegan, raw vegan, vegetarian, fruitarian ect.

First thing I'd recommend is baby steps if your thinking of switching. The easiest way to do this is simply have 1 meal a day that consists of nothing but fruits and vegetables. For me breakfast was easy I'd simply eat 5 bananas (500 calories) and that would be my breakfast. You don't feel full in the normal sense if your used to eating meats or foods with more fat in them but after a while you get used to it. You can tell when your full even though your body and stomach may feel "lighter" to you than if you had just eaten a meal of whatever your diet is currently.

Second thing to watch out for is over doing it on fats like nuts. A lot of people want the old "I'm full" feeling they are used too on a non vegetarian diet and they gorge themselves on high calorie high fat nuts and end up getting sick or gaining a lot of weight.

Third if anyone ever tells you you can't build muscle on a vegetarian diet simply bring them here http://www.greatveganathletes.com/vegan_athlete_patrik-baboumian-vegan-strongman

You can get all the same macro and micro nutrients from fruits and vegetable as you can with a diet that includes meat with the exception of vitamin b12. You'll want to take a multi vitamin to get that or if your one of the vegetarians that still eats eggs you can get your b12 from them.

Thai restraints will be your best bet for eating out as most Thai restraints allow you to substitute tofu for any meat and most dishes are rice and vegetable based.

My wife and I became vegetarian after they found a mass on her thyroid that could have been cancer. It turned out to be nothing but it was a bit of an eye opener as we were both under 30 years of age at the time. We did a lot of research and found that that countries that ate the least amount of meat had lower heart disease and cancer rates than others. I am not against eating meat but I will no longer have it with every meal and I will only eat meat that was hunted in the wild or if I know who where and how the animal was raised before it was slaughtered. Needless to say it's very rare that I am able to enjoy a steak maybe once a year.

Let me know if you've got any more questions or you can always pm me if you'd like. I'd post more info but I'm on my phone right now and it's a bit of a pain.