The Only Thing You Will Hear Me Say About Food and Ethics

[all_hallows07]

This is probably the only thing you will ever hear me really say about vegetarianism. I just want to get it out of my system, and the LJ-cut means that you don't have to read it if you don't want to. And at the end, a vegan Q&A! And below that, one day's food intake with a nutritional summary.

I know that people have lots of excuses and scenarios

Comments

[saturnine_1500]

First of all, thank you!!! One of my favorite questions to ask, is (of vegetarian/vegans) "Why are you such?" This was very informative and I appreciate your honesty and insightfulness (sorry if that sounds cheesy--ha! No pun intended! Wowwwww). I have some beef (HA! AGAIN! I ROCK!) with your Simon-argument though. Although we meat-eaters do reap the fruits (God, so many food references) of animals' persecution, we ourselves are not torturing anyone. What is done, is done, and my resisting a spicy chicken sandwich will do no good for the chicken. Also, if animal were raised (as on a farm) to live a healthy life, only to be slaughtered after it had experienced...? I know that, especially in the gimme-gimme-now society, we don't "have time" to properly care for our animals, especially not when Beefeater Malone is rippling his jowls in distaste. But to equate a meat-eater to an animal-torturer doesn't jive with me. Thoughts?

[all_hallows07]

I do equate meat-eaters to animal torturers. You may not be torturing the animal yourself, and you may be repulsed by the idea of animal torture, but by eating meat you are saying that it is okay for an animal to live in awful conditions and die a painful, gruesome death because you like the way it tastes. Not only that, most meat-eaters prefer to know nothing about how their food lived and died because it makes them uncomfortable. That, in my opinion, is cowardly and often hypocritical. I want people who eat meat that they haven't hunted, fished, or raised themselves to really confront what goes into their spicy chicken sandwich and say "Yes, I am not opposed to animal torture

[aillychan]

Where do you draw the lines between vegan, vegetarian, and meat-eater? Judging by the PopTarts thing the other day, I guess it's at different places than I do, which I totally get. I know there's plenty of people who wouldn't consider me a true vegetarian, but I'm not veg. for their sakes anyway. My distinction was always that not eating meat made you veg., and then not eating or using any animal products made you vegan.

Also, I would suggest that Simon's answer would more properly be "because there is a great profit in it and it's tasty," because only meat manufacturers actually deal with the process.

Definitely an interesting read.

[all_hallows07]

Vegetarians don't eat things that came from the dead body of an animal. Yeah, gelatin is one of those things, as per the PopTart conversation. Being extracted from bones, I wouldn't call it any less significant a product of animal death than flesh. But if a person just doesn't eat animal flesh and calls themselves a vegetarian, I'm not going to tussle with them, really

Help Veg Friend

[anduhm_yeah]

Nadia-
One of my friends came back from the summer announcing she's vegetarian. She started out 4 months ago. At the time, a food service was making all her food and so she was healthfully. For the past two months, however, she's been eating poorly and doesn't really know how to balance her diet. She can feel that she's not eating right, because she's tired more than she should be, etc. She's also hypoglycemic. Anyways, I told her that you'd know some good books to get her headed off in a more healthful direction. Any ideas?
~Merinmel

Re: Help Veg Friend

[all_hallows07]

This site (http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/) has articles about nutrition concerns for pretty much all stages of a vegetarian life, and I use it a LOT when I'm looking to answer somebody's veg nutrition question. Most of the books I know of are either cookbooks or books that are more politically-oriented, so the internet is probably going to be the best place for helping your friend with eating right

[toxagra82]

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