(long ago and I don’t have it any longer) indicating that humans don’t produce a good combination of enzymes to digest animal flesh.
Well, not quite. As a matter of fact, its just one of the big differences between man and the rest of the primates. Our ability to digest meat, allowed us to leave the jungle, by eating animals when little veggie material was around during the winter while venturing into cold climates. Developing this ability, was extremly important to humans! Animals that are strictly carnivours may have “better” enzymes though.
And another thing to think about, is the fertilizer for all those little green veggies. Where do you think “Chemical Free” farms get there fertilizer? Mainly Cow S**t. And alot of it! If we just keep the cows to make fertilizer, and don’t eat them, that would be even more ineficient than it is now.
Is eating organically grown veggies, using only chemical free (animal waste) fertilizer, animal exploitation?
Do some vegetarians refuse to eat “organically grown” foods on these grounds?
Start screwin with the food chain too much, and it’ll come back to haunt you!
And yep, were part of the food chain.
It’s not nice to fool mother nature!
I could be wrong…it happend once before…
Well, chimps do eat some meat. there is that great film of a chimp running up to a small monkey (“OH look it’s so cute, they’re going to play”), then tearing it apart & eating it. Chimps also love insects, eggs, & lizards. Chimps are also our closest relatives extant.
We would prob all be heathier on the “chimp diet”, ie. all the fruit & veggies you want, some grains, insects, lizards (OK I’ll do lobster & chicken instead) and a very small amount of red meat.
Still you must kill things to eat/survive. I draw the line at sentient creatures. Some say no red meat. Some say fish is OK, some animal products but not animals, & vegans only plants & REALLY small animals. Still, living things die so that you may live. Until you can develope photsynthesis, you kill to eat. Thus, vegitarians ARE hypocrites.
IN some cultures, fish are not “animals” (yes, I know they are scientifically), and thus eating fish is still being a vegitarian. Some varieties of Buddhism follow this. If in their culture/religion, fish are NOT animals, who is to say they are wrong?
I have a friend who says she’s a vegetarian, but eats seafood. Why? I didn’t ask. Guess she likes it.
I say if it moves of its own accord, its meat!
Loved the remark about an egg isn’t a chick yet; it reminds me of the pro-lifers who say …you know.
But I do eat eggs, only becuase my cake needs them.
I once became a vegetarian. I t amazed me; the toxins that were in my body, they cleared up, my skin, everything. Partly because of the hormones and junk they put in meat.
Back in the days when people raised animals on their farms and ate them, it was probably much healthier to eat meat.
But not nowadays. I am thinking of becoming so again; however(sorry if I’m hijacking) I am trying to gain weight. What vegatarian foods could help me do that?
p.s.sorry about the sig
Donuts, and the promise of more donuts to come-Homer Simpson.
Not neccessarily! I’m a vegetarian and I wear Birkenstocks. I get them here: Vegan Birkenstocks
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From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion” the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t www.opalcat.com
I don’t eat anything that I wouldn’t be willing to kill myself. Plants? No problem. Fish and seafood? No problem. Birds? No problem. But could I bring myself to kill a cow or pig? I honestly don’t think I could do that, so I don’t eat cows or pigs.
Now someday, a cows might really piss me off, and I’ll change my mind… BUT, I’ll stay consistent!
(A more-that-wee bit o’Hypocrisy on my part I will admit to, however: I am a consumer of leather products (boots, shoes). Also, I eat gellatin (horse hooves). And at Mexican Restaurants, I’ve got a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding lard in the refried beans. So much for consistency! Oh, well…)
Orangecakes, re “hormones & junk they put in meat”- somewhat true, but how about pesticides ect in veggies? Even Organic can’t fully escape that stuff. Re wieght gain, if an Ovo-Lacto-V, no prob: eggs, butter, cheese, whole milk, ice cream. If one of those loony Vegans ( I have respect for O-L-V, but none for Vegans, sorry), try macadamias, any other nut, avocados, sugar, french fries or anything else deep fat fried.
As you can see by the list above, you CAN be a vegetarian & still have a poor diet.
I know I’ll come off sounding snotty, but - DUH. Like I mentioned in a previous post, a person could live off of Cool-Whip and Vodka and be considered vegan. Obviously a person can be vegan/vegetarian and still eat like crap. And on the flip side, in the instance of my friend with the cholesterol problem (see my previous post) one can not be vegetarian and still eat extremely healthy, (better than most veggies.)
However, It’s rare to hear of a person who went veggie, ate lots of grains and veggies and legumes, and still was unhealthy because of the lack of meat. Oh, I’m sure there is someone out there that claims that they suffered because of lack of meat, but I am positive that their numbers are vastly outweighed by people who have experienced health benefits from going meatless. (As long as they kept their diet otherwise healthy, and balanced.)
No, it is not rare, and the sad fact is it mostly affects women. The best source of iron is in red meat (best is liver, ecch). You can’t get the iron in spinach (locked up w/ oxalates). There is NO vegetable source of vitamin b12, needed to process iron. Women need a LOT more iron than men(actually men get too much & it is a health hazard). Thus, there is a lot of iron defic anemia & borderline anemia going around. True, this can often be treated w/ vitamin/mineral supplements, but as the “veggies” keep saying, “the best source of nutrition is food, not chemicals”. There is some vegetarian propaganda going around that meat & dairy is a poor source of nutrition, but consider the source, no non-vegetarian expert agrees with them, except in a limited way ( there are many nutrients that have their best source in vegetable, but he same goes for meat/dairy). So, yes, we would have an overall heathier diet w/ small amounts of meat(esp red). But, many more would be a LOT heathier with more veggies in their “seefood diets”. You CAN replace meat w/ dairy, and be safe, but you must heavily supplement to have a safe vegan diet.
Note: small children are NOT safe on a vegan diet. Their stomachs are too small & they simply can not eat enough vegetables to get the protiens they need. Vitamin supplements can not replace high grade protien. DON’T DO IT! You are forcing a very unheathy choice upon your child. Ovo-lacto is OK, if you must do no meat, then when they get older, they can choose to go vegan ( and supplement, please).
Please give some stats on this. I don’t have stats on my own, just personal experience, and observation. For instance, my sister, a diabetic in general poor health, was always anemic. (sp?) When she went veggie, she stopped being anemic. So - whatever.
I’m not trying to advocate vegetarianism as a healthy diet choice unless someone is interested in it in the first place. Certainly someone can eat quite healthily with a little bit of meat in their diet. But I do not buy that a sensible veggie diet (with vitamins - which seem to be common sense for everyone these days, veggie or not) poses any risk to the average person. I have a friend who has been vegan since she was about 15 (she’s over 30 now) and my sister and I have been veggie for about 14 years. Certainly we are both healthier now than before we went veggie.
A sensible approach is the key, no matter what sort of diet you choose. Oh, by the way, my vegan friend recently went to a dietician, to make sure that she was eating all she could to be healthy. She got a definite thumbs up. The dietician was very impressed, and could not suggest any improvements in my vegan friend’s diet. So obviously it is not impossible to be vegan and get all the nutrients you need. (I also hasten to add, my vegan friend cannot swallow pills at all, so she hasn’t been able to take vitamins, ever. Recently I think she found some vitamins and suppliments in liquid form, but until then, she had no suppliments. But she’s in good health. Interesting, huh?)
Bullshit. If it’s unsafe to go without dairy and eggs, how is it supposedly safe to go without meat? Are you unaware of the existence of TVP, textured vegetable protein? It’s pretty much pure protein. Beans, nuts, legumes are also high in protein and they don’t take up that much room in little tummies. Anything that comes from an animal can be obtained from non-animal sources. I’ve been surfing for some federal guidelines on RDA for protein but haven’t found what I’m looking for. I do have, on the back of a Vegetarian Times cookbook published in 1995 (admittedly not the most unbiased source) which states that the protein RDA for adult women is 44 grams and the average vegetarian female consumes 65 grams. For men the RDA is 56 grams and the average vegetarian male consumes 105 grams. As it happens I’m going grocery shopping tomorrow so I’ll do some comparison of protein content in some various products. Most health professionals will advise their patients to take a daily vitamin supplement regardless of dietary habits.
If you’re opposed to veganism, fine, but there’s little excuse for using children in a scare tactic.
Oh, and one other thing. Because plant sources may not be the “best” source for a particular nutrient does not mean that the plant source is not perfectly acceptable. I imagine human flesh would be a near-perfect source of human nutrition, but not too many people advocate it.
Again, we agree, but disagree. A vegeterian diet, especially an ovo-lacto-v, is MUCH healthier than the standard american “seefood” diet, with far too much fat, meat, and cholesterol, and not enough fresh grains fruit & veggies. But, still, you would have a somewhat better diet w/a small amount of meat.
There is no vegetable source of B12, BUT, you can get B12 from Blue-green algae, and tofu (the soy doesn’t have any, but the BACTERIA used to turn soy into tofu does).
Go to any search engine & seach Iron deficiencies, anemia, or womens dietary needs. Make sure you get a balanced/fair source.
And you are right, a SENSIBLE vegetarian diet (w/ supplements, usu) poses no health risk .
Otto, ask any pediatricain or childrens nutritionist (who is NOT a vegitarian) and they will agree with me. It is not “scare tactics”, it is kwashnikhori (which I am sure I misspelled terribly. Beans, corn & rice, the standard vegetarian sources of protien, are not concentrated enough. A small child simply cannot eat enough of these to satisfy their much larger (in terms of body wieght) protien needs for growth. You have a bigger stomach & are not growing much anymore.
Eggs are nearly pure protein, and are concentrated enough. Milk & cheese almost as much.
I will admit that TVP (which I use myself, to add heathier bulk to hamburger) has not figured into these discussions, and may work. On the other hand, why gamble w/ a childs health? And why force a kid into your lifestyle?
I have also heard of mothers nursing until the kid is ready to start school, and I guess that might work, also.
So, is this basically like “there’s no such thing as a beer-drinking Southern Baptist”? I mean, some Southern Baptists drink beer even though drinking is thought by those mysterious “they” people (who seem to be in charge of everything) to be an evil, sinful thing. Yet, in the whole of everything, they are not automatically purged from being Baptist just for drinking a little Budweiser because they still hold with the rest of the beliefs set forth by their “organization.”
Just trying to get a feel for what you are saying–not trolling, really!
Vegetarianism isn’t a religion, it’s a diet. According to the major Vegetarian societies, any diet that includes the flesh of an animal is not considered vegetarian. I don’t make the rules!
It’s like calling a dog a horse. A dog may want to be a horse, it may call itself a horse. It may stomp it’s foot and insist that it’s a horse. It may say “But my buddy Fido over there wags his tail and chews on bones, and he says he’s a horse, so I must be one too!” But the dog is not a horse. Nothing wrong with being a dog, the dog is welcome to hang out with horses, a dog can be friends with horses. But a dog isn’t a horse.
I know that it an imperfect example, but I think there is a parallel there. I have met and argued with so many people who tell me that their friend Wendy is a vegetarian, and they eat fish (or chicken) therefore, vegetarians can eat fish or chicken. And that means nothing to me. It doesn’t make it so. I don’t care how much a person believes that eating fish or chicken is part of a vegetarian diet, it isn’t so.
If vegetarians can eat fish or chicken, then why is not Kentucky Fried Chicken considered a vegetarian restaurant? Why is not Long John Silver’s a vegetarian restaurant? Why doesn’t Vegetarian Times include fish or chicken in the recipes they publish?
The main reason this matters to me (and most other vegetarians) is because it muddies the water of what defines a vegetarian. And when that happens, people start arguing with you because you won’t eat the “vegetarian” chicken dish that they have prepared for you. (Their “vegetarian” friend Wendy eats it, why won’t you?) Even when you tell them you won’t eat fish or chicken beforehand, some people are so confused, they won’t get it. And this can cause conflict, confusion. Because of the misinformation being spread about what makes a vegetarian a vegetarian.
It also confuses debates and conversations like this one. If vegetarians don’t eat fish or chicken, they don’t. They don’t.
I can certainly attest to muddied waters. I ran into a bunch of “vegetarians” at grad school. It was an interesting experience, as I had never met one in real life before that.
Veggie #1: Ate no meat of any kind.
Veggie #2: Would eat chicken and fish (and the occasional burger if she thought no one was looking). But she still insisted she was a vegetarian, much to the consternation of Veggie #1 (“A chicken is not a vegetable!”).
Veggie #3: Ate no red meat for health reasons, but she smoked like a chimney and drank hard liquor at every chance.
Veggie #4: Stuck with it until hooking up with her steak-loving boyfriend. She likes them bloody rare, now.
Veggie #5: One one occasion, ordered a specialty salad that came with chicken. She requested no chicken. After the meal was over, she was still hungry and eyballing the left-over wings of another in our group. Upon getting the go-ahead, she ate the chicken right off the bone. Go figure.
The problem was each and every one of the above wore their “vegetarianism” like a chip on her shoulder (they were all women). Thought they were protecting the environment, saving the earth and all that. Bah!
I guess the best place to look is in the dictionary:
Fair enough. Actually, that definition more defines what is known today as a “vegan,” but Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, published in 1976, doesn’t have that word in it. But it makes for a working root word.
People who eat eggs and dairy products are technically “ovo-lacto vegetarians.” Somehow, ovo-lactos seem to have claimed the shorter form, calling themselves simply “vegetarians,” and rely on the term “vegan” to differentiate people who meet the dictionary definition.
I have heard some people who add only fish and seafood to an otherwise meatless diet refer to themselves as “pesce-vegetarians.” Um… ok. I suppose a person could claim to be a “pesce-poultro-vegetarian” and eat chicken too.
Divemaster is onto something. Among young, middle-class people (predominantly women), “vegetarian” is a trendy label to adopt for oneself. (“Bisexual” is another one, inexplicably having become quite common in the last year or two.) Because many people like the cachet of vegetarianism but find the actual practice of it too constraining, you see the numerous permutations described by Divemaster. Thus, we run into to situation that seems to cause the confusion that Yosemitebabe describes-- people know various self-described “vegetarians” who abide by all sorts of personal exceptions to a meatless diet.
Looking to my bottle of vegetarian formula Green Source, a multi-vitamin derived from food sources, I find on the label that the B complex vitamins are derived from “stated sources as found naturally in Spirulina, Chlorella, Wheat Grass, Sprouted Barley and Bee Pollen.” With the exception of bee pollen, these are all plant sources.
I just got back from the grocery store and jotted down some protein numbers.
Tofu: serving size 3 oz protein content 6g.
Peanut butter: serving size 2 tbs protein content 8g.
Granola: serving size 1/2 cup protein content 7g.
Lentils: serving size 1/4 cup protein content 11g.
Soybeans: serving size 1/2 cup protein content 15g.
Textured vegetable protein: serving size 1/2 cup protein content 23g.
Couscous: serving size 1 cup protein content 8g.
Red hard wheat berries: serving size 1/4 cup protein content 6g.
Some packaged foods:
WestSoy soy “milk” beverage: serving size 8 oz protein content 4g.
Health is Wealth vegetarian “chicken” nuggets: serving size 2.5 oz (3 nuggets) protein content 10g.
White Wave chicken style sandwich slices (made from wheat gluten): serving size 2 slices protein content 12g (versus 7g of protein in two slices of chicken bologna).
Magic Mill soy powder (suitable for mixing with fruit juices): serving size 28g protein content 24g.
Again, I haven’t seen any numbers for the protein reguirements for children of various age groups (if you have those numbers, please post a link), but it loooks like if a child were to consume 8 oz of fruit juice with a serving of soy powder mixed in, 4 tbs of peanut butter, six “chicken” nuggets and 4 ounces of TVP in a day, s/he’d be getting 73 grams of protein in about a pound of food. I think their little tummies can probably handle that over the course of a day. I mean, doesn’t the average infant consume something like 12-16 ounces a day? Of course they’d have to eat some other foods too, and again if you can help me locate nutrition numbers for children of various age groups I’d be glad to work them.
I had forgotten you mentioned milk and cheese so I didn’t get any numbers for them. For eggs, though, a serving of one egg is 50 grams, 8 grams of which is protein. Compare that to the White Wave, which has 12 grams of protein in a 45 gram serving.
If I as a non-parent can figure out a way to get 73 grams of protein into a kid with a pound of food, I think that interested parents will probably be able to figure out how to design a diet that meets the child’s nutritional needs.
Oh please. As if feeding a child meat or eggs is not “forcing” a child into a particular “lifestyle”? Are you arguing here that absent demonstrable harm to the child, a parent should not be allowed to make nutritional decisions for that child? How would you enforce that exactly? And how far into the parent-child relationship are you willing to delve? Bedtime? Clothing? Schooling? Religion?
