Vegetarian?

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

I love Cauldron foods sausages (tofu and herbs, or things like cheese and leek) - and I also know a few meat-eaters who prefer them to pork sausages. Some of the Quorn ones are nice, too. And of course, sausages (veggie or not) cut in half and grilled are an almost perfect size to go into a crispy baguette spread with onion marmalade.

Blast - I'm hungry now!

As far as meat substitutes go, I do eat a lot of Quorn, mostly because the yeti isn't vegetarian, so it makes doing veggie meals easier for him However, the products he prefers are the ones that don't actually taste of anything much beyond whatever I cook them in, so it's not the taste of meat they're replacing for him - more having something that looks like meat on his plate... We both think the ones that are supposed to have a pronounced meaty taste to be far too chemically and unpleasant tasting!

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i wish we did have quorn here ; i keep hearing about it and i would like to try it.

If I ever make it over to Paris, I'll bring some with me

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

I love Cauldron foods sausages (tofu and herbs, or things like cheese and leek) - and I also know a few meat-eaters who prefer them to pork sausages.

I think maybe some of your meat-eating friends are just being polite

[Donnageddon]

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

On the conscience side, I have no objections with animals being raised to provide meat etc, but I do object to them not having a decent quality of life beforehand which factory farming does not provide.

I am the opposite. I do not want to eat a creature that is happily free ranging around, enjoying life... then killing it!

I want a creature that is terribly abused, tremendously unhappy, and basically begging to be put out of its misery.

Then it is like I am doing them a favor by eating them.

[lilac_jive]

I'm in no way a vegetarian, but my 13 year old sister has been for about two months. Being the good sister that I am, I keep tempting her with delicious bacon.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

I think maybe some of your meat-eating friends are just being polite

I might agree with you if I didn't have good reason to think otherwise

Actually, that got me thinking, and I don't think I have any friends who'd say they preferred something just to be polite. I sometimes wish I did - it would make choosing where to go for dinner a lot easier sometimes!

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

I am the opposite. I do not want to eat a creature that is happily free ranging around, enjoying life... then killing it!

I want a creature that is terribly abused, tremendously unhappy, and basically begging to be put out of its misery.

Then it is like I am doing them a favor by eating them.

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

I'm in no way a vegetarian, but my 13 year old sister has been for about two months. Being the good sister that I am, I keep tempting her with delicious bacon.

I had people trying to do that when I became vegetarian. As I never liked bacon when I was a meat eater, it failed dismally The smell of frying bacon often has me craving toast and marmite though...

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

I had people trying to do that when I became vegetarian. As I never liked bacon when I was a meat eater, it failed dismally The smell of frying bacon often has me craving toast and marmite though...

Oh my sister does like bacon, unfortunately. I wouldn't do it to an adult or friend, but hey, she's my little sister.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

Actually, that got me thinking, and I don't think I have any friends who'd say they preferred something just to be polite. I sometimes wish I did - it would make choosing where to go for dinner a lot easier sometimes!

In our family, when it comes to picking the restaurant, I hold out my veto rights. I may not have a strong preference for where we go, but sometimes a particular restaurant is just *not* acceptable.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

Oh my sister does like bacon, unfortunately. I wouldn't do it to an adult or friend, but hey, she's my little sister.

And she'd probably think you were either ill or plotting something worse if you didn't

[carld]

Vegetarian for 30 years, and nearly vegan for most of that time.

[Laz116]

I'm not a vegetarian, but my wife is. So I only eat meat perhaps once or twice a week.

On the bright side, it has really expanded my food horizon. Having grown up in a typical meat and potatoes home, I never thought chick peas would be a favourite ingredient in my food (I didn't know what it was until I met my wife).

However, I'm not a big fan of vegetarian meat substitutes. Vegetarianism doesn't have to indicate that there is a lack. It's an entirely different mindset towards food. So no tofu-chicken for me please. But lots of exciting salads and I'm quite content, although I do sometimes overcompensate by having a meatfeast in such an extent, that you can almost visibly see the arteries clogging.

But really there's no argument against vegetarianism. Except that meat can taste so darn good.

Other than that, I think vegetarianism makes sense regardless whether we talk about co2, health (for you or the animal), having enough food for everyone on this planet and so forth.

The moral stance is to be a vegetarian imo. I just like to be immoral at times.

[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

Oh my sister does like bacon, unfortunately. I wouldn't do it to an adult or friend, but hey, she's my little sister.

Using Photoshop, or GIMP, or any other photo-editing software, create a fake logo and package.

ToFU ChAN's Tofu Bacon Strips! Tastes so much like bacon, you'll OINK!

Buy some REAL bacon and throw out the package, or paste the new package over the original. Start cooking the bacon. When she comes into the kitchen, ask her if she'd like some, and show her the package. Tell her you saw them in (some health/natural foods store far away). If she really loves bacon, she'll be surprised at how much like real bacon it tastes.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Laz116

I'm not a vegetarian, but my wife is. So I only eat meat perhaps once or twice a week.

On the bright side, it has really expanded my food horizon. Having grown up in a typical meat and potatoes home, I never thought chick peas would be a favourite ingredient in my food (I didn't know what it was until I met my wife).

However, I'm not a big fan of vegetarian meat substitutes. Vegetarianism doesn't have to indicate that there is a lack. It's an entirely different mindset towards food. So no tofu-chicken for me please. But lots of exciting salads and I'm quite content, although I do sometimes overcompensate by having a meatfeast in such an extent, that you can almost visibly see the arteries clogging.

But really there's no argument against vegetarianism. Except that meat can taste so darn good.

Other than that, I think vegetarianism makes sense regardless whether we talk about co2, health (for you or the animal), having enough food for everyone on this planet and so forth.

The moral stance is to be a vegetarian imo. I just like to be immoral at times.

completely agree.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by Laz116

snip...

The moral stance is to be a vegetarian imo. I just like to be immoral at times.

Hmmm, sorry, I can't accept that being vegetarian is a more moral choice than not.

I think it's exactly that kind of statement that can give vegetarians a bad name. It's every individual's right to choose their own life-style, but to claim the moral high ground because of your choice (and I mean that generically, not 'you', laz) is just unacceptable.

When my wife was at University, I often used to visit her. At the time she lived with two vegetarians. These two girls would sit and watch me disapprovingly every time I made a bacon sandwich, pointedly fanning the air, tutting, that kind of thing, drove me mad.

In short, everybody has the right to choose their own life-style. They do not have a right to try to impose that on others, not do they have a right to claim that their life-style is intrinsically more 'moral'.

NB. Both the girls mentioned above took a summer job in a meat-packing factory rather than in a school's summer camp (they were training to be Primary School teachers) because it paid more money" So much for principles!

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

what ?? no more bacon for you ????

i'm a vegetarian, have been my whole life. i don't eat "anything with a face" as a friend once put it. i do eat eggs and dairy products ("i like cheese." ).

i have three reasons for this choice which probably are equally weighted :

• habit. it's how i've always eaten so it's quite natural for me, i don't have to think too hard about it.
• ethics. i am very uncomfortable with the human-centric point of view of many people and i consider that animals deserve respect and good treatment just as much as humans do. and most particularly i find factory farming practices to be barbaric and i refuse to support them. i buy only organic eggs from chickens who are living outside, and try to buy "small producer" milk and cheese products from local family farms. they are a bit more expensive, but i think it's worth it.
• taste. as a vegetarian, you get a lot of meat-eaters telling you "you don't know what you're missing !" or "how can you give up such delicious food !" so to shut them up at various times i've tasted some kinds of meat, and i can therefore confirm that i don't like it. i've never tasted fish or any kind of crustacean, because the smell and sight of it alone are enough to turn my stomach. even if i weren't a vegetarian, i wouldn't eat fish.

i don't proselytize and i get very annoyed by people who try to convert me, particularly with such spurious arguments as "but they're just animals / fish / birds, they're MADE to be eaten !"

I'm entirely on your side, and I can quite easily follow point 1 and 2.

However regarding to taste. It's quite rare that we humans like something (that is not sugary) on the first go. Normally "experts" talk about how small children needs to taste something up to ten times before they get used to it. And it should be even worse for adults. So when you don't like meat, it's probably mostly because you're not used to the taste.

I have the same problem about dioxins and the likes as you have. As I don't eat a lot of meat, I would like to only eat meat from ecological (organic (crappy word since all meat is organic)) farming. But it's not easy: The supermarkets may have 15 different types of chicken, but you have to be lucky if just one of them is "organic". The diversity is just more of the same it seems.

Needless to say there are moral questions, along with the personal health concerns, involved buying a 2£ chicken which has had a life span of 40 days opposed to the typical 90 days life span of an organic chicken. In Denmark, where I am from, a farmer was given about 23 pence for a chicken in 1950. Today they are given about 20 pence. No wonder we eat crap. And there are only two to blame: 1) Us, the consumers, who really don't care, as long as it is cheap, and 2) the government who should have regulated the food industry much more to protect animals as well as the consumers (because the food industry has a lack of transparency, it's difficult for the end consumer to make qualified choices).

Even if you only buy food labeled "organic", you cannot be sure that you are getting a reasonable product, since there are different rules for the use of such a label in different countries.

Phew /rant off.