twelvepoint wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 9:10 am As a follow up, I think everyone has some kind of hypocrisy in their lives they have to reconcile. I think that’s a natural thing, and makes us more humble and accepting of others.

+1

I've asked myself why I won't eat birds but still eat seafood and on rare occasion still eat beef and pork. This and the previous post summarize my feelings well. I acknowledge that I am at least a little bit irrational and hypocritical.

twelvepoint wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 9:03 am

enframed wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 8:38 am Also, I really do not understand the fish is ok to kill but all other animals are not. I fail to see why our ascribing intelligence ought to save one animal and condemn another. Death by suffocation.

I am pescatarian. This is precisely the point where my self-interest chooses to overlook that issue. There’s no excuse for it other than my own concerns about sustainability and animal welfare have limits and that’s presently the line I set. I may move that line at some point. Also, my experience may be - and likely is - different from others.

Also pescetarian and can only tell you my experience/thoughts. Everyone has their own limits and rationalizations. For me it comes down to this. I'm a mammal. My pet friends are mammals. Because I can see myself and my pets in the eyes of other mammals, mammals are off the table for me. It feels too close. Seafood is alien enough to me that I'm okay with it. One of my biggest complaints with red meat and poultry is the way it is raised/treated. I also try to avoid farmed fish.

Having cats, who are strict carnivores, it can be hard thinking about the canned chicken/turkey they get fed. My hands are kind of tied there. I'm not going to try to give a cat a vegetarian diet. Having said that, I'm not feeding them pork or beef because it isn't something they'd naturally eat. Here's the real hypocritical justification though. I'd probably be okay feeding them rabbit if it was more readily available, mostly because rodents (and birds) are what they'd naturally be eating left to their own devices.

I totally get the intelligence factor though, but admittedly the suffocation part I'm not 100% comfortable with.

dbl post

tommy wrote:Seafood is alien enough to me that I'm okay with it

You'd eat a tribble or E.T.? Monstrous.

I thought the pescetarian thing was weird for many years, however reintroducing (at first) shellfish made life a lot easier, especially traveling. We could then eat literally anywhere, and people were more accepting of it for some reason (cutting out red meat is perceived as a smart health move, vs. cutting out all meat makes you a crazy person). And yeah, I think it's understandable how humans can create more of a mental distance from sea life than land animals. (Octopus being an interesting case due to their intelligence. Thankfully they're gross..)

penningtron wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 12:55 pm (Octopus being an interesting case due to their intelligence. Thankfully they're gross..)

I’ve stopped eating octopus for that reason, though I did enjoy it.

twelvepoint wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 1:12 pm

penningtron wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 12:55 pm (Octopus being an interesting case due to their intelligence. Thankfully they're gross..)

I’ve stopped eating octopus for that reason, though I did enjoy it.

Same. I do love it grilled though. It, along with scallops, seems to have a very narrow window when it is great. Easily under and overcooked. I gave it up entirely for many years and then rationalized it being okay again once I learned they only live 1-2 years in the wild anyway. I've since gone back to avoiding it, but I'll occasionally make an exception in these 3 scenarios:
1) When traveling in certain countries that are super meat heavy and it poses itself as one of the few alternate choices.
2) Korean BBQ if they don't have shrimp as an option.
3) If it shows up in omakase unannounced.

I dated a gluten intolerant vegan for about a year, which really forced me to get creative when cooking for her. One day, I was heating up a Hot Pocket for lunch and it dawned on me that I get to eat all this junk food and what does she get?

So, that weekend, I made some gluten free pizza dough and some tempeh Italian sausage and made her some Hot Pockets using Daia mozzarella and my marinara. I still remember what a pain in the ass that was.

Some of you lot that have been at it for a while probably make these meals out of muscle memory; I, being a baby vegan chef, was breaking a sweat, reading the labels on everything for a year. Super-stressing about whether I was going to accidentally "dose" her with animal or animal by-product. I did, one time, I had forgotten that Worchestershire had anchovies in it. She was cool about it but I felt bad about it.

I asked her once if she missed cheese (sorry but vegan cheese is... an attempt, to put it politely) and she said no, that what she really missed was sourdough.

Personally, I went pollotarian for two years for my health and my wallet. I didn't really notice any changes in my health but I saved money not eating pig or cow. This also made me creative in the kitchen, like making an Italian sub using chicken and turkey instead of all that salty pork.

There was also a good stretch where, because I'd always forget to get meat out to thaw before work, I'd come home and just open a can of tuna (solid white albacore, of course). Tuna tacos, tuna marinara, tuna melts...

My partner and I are omnivores but lean heavily to pollotarian. Don't know if we could ever make the leap to vegetarian though we eat vegetarian twice or so a week, just some nights meat doesn't sound appealing. (I'm saying that as a guy who tanked a knuckle-to-elbow-sized cheesesteak this weekend and likes a steak and egg breakfast a couple times a year.)

I saw that octopus movie and I don't think it's as smart as that guy made it out to be. A lot of anthropomorphizing in that movie, IMHO.

Charlie D wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 2:32 pm tuna (solid white albacore, of course).

Not for me. Yellowfin is my favorite. Callipo (Italy) or Genova (Thai caught, canned in California) are my favorites, in olive oil, of course.