The Vegan/vegetarian thread
 

Hello this thread is for Vegans and vegetarians, people who are thinking about becoming vegan or vegetarian or people who want to know what the heck either of those two things are.

please post things like recipes, life style tips, or why you became Vegan/vegetarian

I'm hoping this will help people like me who live in small towns and don't know others with alternative eating habits :blush:

i'm vegetarian. i don't think i could ever be vegan though, i love dairy too much. i became veggie for ethical reasons - against eating animals as unnecessary but also cruel farming practices and practices that damage the environment.

Yeah finding anything without egg or cheese in it has been difficult and really miss takeout pizza. I became vegan for more or less the same reasons plus it forces me to be more concuss about what I put in my body.

also have you seen these recipe sites before? (I just thought I would show them because their funny)
http://theveganzombie.com/
http://theveganstoner.blogspot.ca/

Hii
I'm vegetarian because the thought of eating flesh repulses me and I can't eat meat without feeling sick.
I would love to be vegan but I eat cheese too much :P

I've been vegetarian since birth. I still eat dairy but do try and limit the amounts I consume. I could be a vegan if cheese didn't exist!

I'm vegetarian for 6days in a week..

I was a vegetarian when I was born. But then I wasn't.

Then I was vegetarian for 9 years and then I wasn't because bacon.

Have you tried Daiya cheese its slightly oilier and a little bland compared to real cheese but it doesn't have the same grainy texture as other soy cheeses

To be honest, all the fake cheeses I have tried have been absolutely minging. I've not tried that one though.

I'm a vegetarian-semi-vegan. I'm still working on going vegan, but I'm almost there!!

Do it Irene!

With leather, it's better from an environmental perspective to keep using what you've already got, so all it means is no new leather and leather lasts ages!

As for loving meat based dishes, which ones? A lot of the time you can replace the meat with something, but obviously if steak tartare is your favourite dish, then it's a bit harder to replicate!

So tempted to highjack this thread with chicken nuggets!

Deepest apologies. I don't think I have the self control to be vegetarian even though the thought sometimes it crosses my mind.

I totally agree with this ^ it makes more sense to keep using what you've got and it's petty easy to make a lot of meat based dishes vegetarian, especially as there's so many meat substitutes around, Linda McCartney even do "prawns" as well as their extensive meat free range.

I've been vegetarian for almost 15 years, I've considered being vegan but for various reasons I don't feel it's for me, I'm happy being veggie for now.

I personally see no difference in eating a chicken or pig, to eating a dog or cat, and how we socially deem some animals edible, and some not, has never made any sense to me, so I decided to become vegetarian for that reason really. I'd never eat dogs I've owned, so I didn't see that there was any sense in me eating a pig, or cow, or fish. But those are just my personal thoughts :)

I'm vegan for environmental reasons so if I wouldn't mind eating bugs if they were prepared in a way that didn't make me gag of course.

I also found this recipe using [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhhPm_OvkC0"]crickets[/ame] if anyone whats to try that. it uses bacon and cheese but those are pretty easy to substitute

Do you not have a local butcher? The butchers in my town have their own farm and all their produce come from their farm, so you know the source and can ask about treatment.

I'm not a vegetarian but I also don't gorge myself on meat all the time. In my family we would have meat with a meal maybe a few times a week and that's what I got used to. It was weird when I moved out and realized how normal it was to have a large portion of meat with almost every meal. Also that people tend to dislike (or say they dislike even if they have never tried) vegetarian food. I really like tempeh and garden burgers and the like and often choose that over meat. I get asked if I'm a vegetarian every time I choose I non-meat option for a meal. (Because apparently it's impossible to ever like something that doesn't contain meat if you're not a vegetarian?) I know there's a huge difference between eating some meat and not eating any meat, but not being a vegetarian does not mean you eat all the meat all the time.

I have thought about becoming a vegetarian for environmental reasons but there are soooooo many unethical/environmentally harmful things happening in the food industry. While I would like to support all of them and eat all local farm fresh organic stuff, it's simply not feasible. I do make an effort when I can, but I also have to live my life and I can't feel bad every time I consume something that might not be environmentally friendly or ethically sound.

Sorry for the rant, I just always feel I have to defend myself for being eco-conscious and not a vegetarian. I tend to get heat from both sides, either I'm weird because I don't eat meat all the time or I must not truly care about the environment or ethical treatment of animals because I do eat meat. So there it is.

I've been veggie since I was a teenager and I don't miss meat or fish at all. I don't eat meat substitutes (fake meat) as I don't want to eat something that resembles meat in taste and texture as it makes me all icky. but on the other hand, I'm glad that there is a good alternative for those that miss meat.

I think it helps if you are a good cook and have some interesting recipes. It can also be cheap and healthy.

Does anyone else get frustrated when eating out, when there's only one vegetarian option on the menu and nothing for vegans? If I was with other veggies, I would choose somewhere vegetarian/ vegetarian-friendly? But when I'm with meat-eaters, I'm jealous at their wide range of choices when I'm stuck with one or two options.

I'm a vegetarian since I was born. My whole family and extended family are vegetarian - religious view but we wouldn't want to eat meat- meat is murder.

I agree with others in that I'm not all that into meat substitutes now, although I did find them very helpful to begin with to adjust to being vegetarian, but now I tend not to eat them very much really. Sometimes I can find it a little disconcerting to eat something that tastes and feels like meat lol.

Although, with a lot of the meat substitutes around now I'm not sure if they're much like meat or not, because my memory of meat textures and flavours isn't as clear as it's been so many years since I ate meat. Someone asked me if the Linda McCartney fish-less prawns tasted like prawns, and I had no idea really, so I just said they tasted nice and that I probably wasn't the best person to answer the question :laugh: