hellyes!! wrote:
been vegetarian for 8 + years now. my motivation was not animal rights but rather health reasons. i had a lot of stomach problems and so a friend suggested that i try a vegetarian diet since it had worked for her.
personally, i like the lightness and energy of a good vegetarian meal as opposed to that heavy, bloated feeling one gets from meat.

that's about all i have to say about it. really i don't think anyone should have to justify their reason for being vegetarian, no more than a meat-eater should have to justify themselves.

Right on. Not crap.

I recently went back to being a vegetarian because of health reasons also. I would get heartburn a lot (esp w/ chorizo or red meat) and decided it wasn't worth it anymore.

Also on what hellyes! said, I love the fact that you can eat a nice, hearty vegetarian meal and get the feeling that you're full but not that have that greasy/bloatedness that you have with eating meat.

I didn't eat meat for about 7 years. Various reasons, including health. Once I got back into cooking on a professional level, I had to taste what I was cooking and that included meat.

After the seven or so years of vegetarianism, I gained weight and my skin broke out. I couldn't lose the gut even with working out 4-5 times per week and working on my feet and doing a lot of physical activity. Someone suggested to me this "blood-type" theory, which I didn't buy into. But I thought I'd try it anyways. I started eating meat again. I lost about 8 pounds in the first week and my skin cleared up. I felt better in general.

So I've been eating some meat, mostly free-range/organic/game since then and I feel great. The most militant vegetarians I know gorge themselves with cheese and ice cream. So healthy.

As for the "bloated" feeling, etc. You can get that from eating too much cheese, rice, beans whatever as well.

Eat what you want, don't preach to me about it.

zom-zom wrote:I didn't eat meat for about 7 years. Various reasons, including health. Once I got back into cooking on a professional level, I had to taste what I was cooking and that included meat.

After the seven or so years of vegetarianism, I gained weight and my skin broke out. I couldn't lose the gut even with working out 4-5 times per week and working on my feet and doing a lot of physical activity. Someone suggested to me this "blood-type" theory, which I didn't buy into. But I thought I'd try it anyways. I started eating meat again. I lost about 8 pounds in the first week and my skin cleared up. I felt better in general.

So I've been eating some meat, mostly free-range/organic/game since then and I feel great. The most militant vegetarians I know gorge themselves with cheese and ice cream. So healthy.

As for the "bloated" feeling, etc. You can get that from eating too much cheese, rice, beans whatever as well.

Eat what you want, don't preach to me about it.

Just goes to show....everything in moderation. A little quiet, hidden asceticism does a body good too sometimes. It's how you eat, not what you eat.

I see the whole "no meat" ideology as a spectrum: Mild vegetarianism is a benign foolishness----->militant, quasi-religious veganism is a malignant idiocy.

if you are a vegetarian for health reasons and don't mouth off about it, then fine. if you are a vegetarian because you believe that animals are people too and don't mouth off about it, then fine. if you want to be a vegetarian for whatever reason and you don't EVER lecture everyone about why you're morally/physically superior then fine.

but i have a major fucking problem with vegetarians/vegans who fucking shite on about the undigested red meat in my colon/the conditions of mass farmed chickens/the advantages of kidney beans and lential soup etc. they can fuck right the fuck off.

i don't know about where you guys live but here there is an incredibly pissy little scene of militant anarchist vegan punks who have more rules than the fucking Nazis. each and every one of them is the same as the next, the single most homogenic group of people i've ever met, and they make MLK look like an amateur when it comes to preaching. i HATE them. not because they're vegans but because they are assholes and walking stereotypes.

This has happened like 5 times in the last few months....
Bunch of people all going out to eat, we all decide on a place everyone is happy...then oh guess what? There's a fucking vegetarian coming, so we can't go there we have to go to some shitty super expensive place that serves vegetarian bullshit and nobody is happy except the vegetarian.
They always extoll the virtues of some vegie burger of some shit, saying it's better than a real burger and wait till you try it you'll never eat a real burger again...then you get there and it's a fucking rock hard black straw and dirt flavored hockey puck on some kind of fucked up bun that tastes like styrofoam.

Marsupialized wrote: it's a fucking rock hard black straw and dirt flavored hockey puck on some kind of fucked up bun that tastes like styrofoam.

And it's $13. Ever try a seitan Rueben?

clocker bob wrote:And it's $13. Ever try a seitan Rueben?

mmmhhhhhmm seitan!!!!

Marsupialized wrote:This has happened like 5 times in the last few months....
Bunch of people all going out to eat, we all decide on a place everyone is happy...then oh guess what? There's a fucking vegetarian coming, so we can't go there we have to go to some shitty super expensive place that serves vegetarian bullshit and nobody is happy except the vegetarian.
They always extoll the virtues of some vegie burger of some shit, saying it's better than a real burger and wait till you try it you'll never eat a real burger again...then you get there and it's a fucking rock hard black straw and dirt flavored hockey puck on some kind of fucked up bun that tastes like styrofoam.

I can't imagine many restaurants that wouldn't have something a vegetarian would consider edible besides a steak-house. Would it kill you to not eat meat for one dining out experience?

Militant anti-veg is just as bad as the militant vegan assholery.

zom-zom wrote:I can't imagine many restaurants that wouldn't have something a vegetarian would consider edible besides a steak-house. Would it kill you to not eat meat for one dining out experience?

Militant anti-veg is just as bad as the militant vegan assholery.

Indeed. I never tell anyone what to eat -- you like it, then eat it. I will go to just about any restaurant other than a steakhouse or fast food place, and I only wont go those places because I'll be left sucking on ketchup packets all night. For some reason that doesnt stop folks (friends, enemies, acquaintances) from telling me what an asshole I am for not eating meat. See matthew above calling me somewhere between benignly foolish and malignantly idiotic for what I choose to eat, as though there is only one clear path and it's paved with bacon. This is a more regular occurrence than one would believe. Eh.

People are terribly threatened by food choices that have literally no effect on them. It's baffling to me.

clocker bob wrote:And it's $13. Ever try a seitan Rueben?

The Chicago Diner has one, and it's delicious.