Vegetarian?

Parent Cafe
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<p>The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer will give you the most comprehensive ethical reasons for being a vegetarian. I highly recommend it. The choices we make in regards to food have global implications. The first is the obvious pathos-inspired argument: factory farming is not natural and is not justifiable. It is not the result of gratuitous sadism, but reflects a market that refuses to look at the suffering of other beings if it not going to be profitable. In example, no anesthetics for the castrated pigs (and they need to be castrated because americans want an larger cut of meat and don’t want “boar taint”) or de-beaked chickens. Speciesism (discrimination based on species, just like racism or sexism) is not a fair justification for meat consumption nor is enjoyment of it. Factory farmed meat is also incredibly unhealthy and appalling. It’s incredible how many hormones and antibiotics are actually allowed in these animals. America is not nearly as strict as places like Europe in this regard, and things like BGH (Bovine growth hormone) have been banned overseas. When and if people do eat meat, I personally think it should be organic both for ethics and personal health. In China, a diet of 1/10th of the meat the Standard American Diet (SAD) allows has given them longer, healthier lives. The standard american diet is much too heavy on animal products, and so you have ethics in a global and environmental context. If everyone in the world ate the way the typical American does, a U. Chicago study showed that the world would require 67% more land than is actually present on this earth in order to feed everyone. This is because you’re not eating food directly. You’re growing grains and corn and feeding it to animals and not getting nearly the same yield. Ex: 13 pounds of grain for 1 pound of beef, 6 pounds of grain for 1 pound of pork or chicken. Also, beef is probably one of the most wasteful foods eligible for consumption, requiring 1820 gallons of water for 1 pound of beef! Another study showed that switching to a vegan diet saves 1.5 tons of CO2 emissions per year, more than switching to a hybrid car. This is just a snippet of the impact eating meat has, and here’s one more comprehensive quote to show the global implications: “One hundred million tons of corn is annually turned into biofuel that goes into American gas tanks. That’s a lot less corn available for export, and so it contributes to higher world grain prices. But most corn isn’t eaten by humans; it’s eaten by animals, and that’s where the biggest part of the food crisis starts.” The amount of grain and soybeans fed to animals has increased sharply over the past decade as Asian nations have become more prosperous and their citizens have started eating more meat. [insert lots of statistics here to prove increase - ex: china, in the two decades up to 2006, cattle production went from 5 million to more than 50 million.] According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 756 million tons of grain were fed to animals in 2007. Just to give you a sense of how much grain that is, imagine it equally divided among the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty. It would give each of them more than half a ton of grain, or about 3 pounds per day, which gives you twice as many calories are you need… When we use animals to convert crops into meat, eggs, or milk, the animals use most of the food value to keep warm and develop bones and other parts we can’t eat. Most of the food value of the crops we have grown is wasted-in the case of cattle, we get back only 1 pound of beef for every 13 pounds of grain we feed them. With pigs the ratio is 6 pounds of grain to 1 pound of pork. And even these figures underestimate the waste, b/c meat has a higher water content than grain. The world is not running out of food. The problem is that we — the relatively affluent - have found a way to consume 4 or 5 times as much food as would be possible, if we were to eat the crops we grow directly.” -Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save, p 122 (I’m a huge Singer fan).
There are SO many reasons for going vegetarian, and not just health. </p>

<p>@Fauxmaxen While I’m not proposing that her daughter go vegan (at least not immediately), I disagree with your assertion. I’ve been vegan since I was 15 (I’m now 18), and I am much healthier than most of my peers. There are just a few things that one needs to be aware of: B12 and iron. Easily fixed with supplements - iron supplement and multivitamin. I get b-12 from nutritional yeast and spirulina tablets. All of my blood tests have come out even better than when I was an omnivore. I hope that more and more people go vegan because it does matter.</p>

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<p>danielise – thank you for taking the time to explain and answer my question. I really appreciate not only the depth of knowledge you have, but the way it was delivered – with respect and consideration. </p>

<p>My own personal theory (and it may not have much support in the vegetarian community) is that small changes add up to a lot. If people like me (who are not vegetarian but have considered becoming vegetarian) start to eat less meat, that helps too.</p>

<p>And yes, we are close to a Trader Joe’s – so we will definitely check that out.</p>

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<p>Really interesting that you should mention oysters. Christopher Cox wrote an article last year ([It’s</a> OK for vegans to eat oysters. - By Christopher Cox - Slate Magazine](<a href=“http://www.slate.com/id/2248998/]It’s”>It's OK for vegans to eat oysters.)) advocating that even strict vegans should eat oysters. I found his argument persuasive.</p>

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<p>I agree about the protein, it really shouldn’t be hard to get enough protein as a vegetarian unless you’re being pretty negligent. A lot of people seem to make a big deal about complete proteins, but first off, I don’t think it’s necessary to have a complete protein at every meal as long as your overall diet has all the amino acids you need. And second of all their are many complete proteins out there that are vegetarian, like dairy for example.</p>

<p>Also, is there no reason why you can’t just leave out the meat for your daughter? You can make pasta and sandwiches and stuff without meat pretty easily. And I’m sure when you serve chicken, that’s not the only thing you guys are eating.</p>

<p>Finally, for fake-meat products, Trader Joe’s is not that great, at least in my opinion. They might be cheap, but they don’t really have as great of a selection as the regular grocery chains, or Whole foods. I would try to avoid these as much as possible though since they’re pretty processed and are high in salt, etc.</p>

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<p>Whoever you are, if you’re reading this, stop. See that big post four spots up, by danielise? Read it. It’s worth your time.</p>

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<p>Personally, I just cannot eat anything that used to breathe.</p>

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<p>You must be very hungry.</p>

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<p>As far as vitamins go, vegans (those who eat no animal derived foods, including milk and eggs) need to be concerned about vitamin B12, and may need fortified foods or supplements to get it. Other vitamins can come from normal (vegan) food sources, though it may take some more careful meal planning.</p>

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<p>Most of the long term vegetarians I know do so out of cultural or religious tradition.</p>

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<p>If done right vegetarianism can be a very healthy lifestyle, perhaps the healthiest. The one drawback I’ve noticed is that often my vegetarian friends and acquaintances tend to be rather humorless and doctrinaire in their personalities. I’ve never been able to decide whether that’s a cause or an effect of vegetarianism.</p>

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<p>I’m home alone for a few weeks while my wife and daughter are visiting relatives and son is studying abroad, and it just occurred to me that I’ve eaten hardly any meat since they’ve been gone. Sweets, either. Funny how the habits of the people one is around influence one’s own.</p>

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<p>Hahahahaha!</p>

<p>Americans eat too much meat. This is unsustainable, and even those who don’t become vegetarians would be better off eating less meat. BUT. Do not say that fake meat tastes just like meat. It doesn’t. </p>

<p>People who want to promote a more vegetable-centered diet should promote the genuine deliciousness of foods with no meat. Felafel! Hummus! Cheese pizza! Sesame/peanut noodles! A juicy tomato from the farmer’s market! Yum. No need to promote bad imitations of meat, which will only annoy people who like meat (but who can also like other delicious foods with no meat).</p>

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<p>I want to be a vegetarian it just seems hard</p>

<p>And I’m sort of skinny so I imagine I would be a toothpick if I stopped eating meat.</p>

<p>Are things like muscle milk a good alternative to getting protein in the body when you start to make the transition from meat eater to leaf eater?</p>

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<p>The idea that vegetarians and vegans don’t get enough protein is kind of a myth, so don’t get hung up on it. No, Muscle Milk and similar drinks are not good diet choices; they are overpriced and unnecessary.</p>

<p>Everything you eat, animal or vegetable, contains amino acids, the building blocks of protein. The human body can synthesize many of the necessary amino acids to build tissue, but there are nine amino acids that can not be made by the body, and these must be obtained through your diet. Every kind of food contains at least one, and usually several, of these essential amino acids, but only a few foods contain all of them, namely every kind of animal flesh as well as milk, eggs, soy, and quinoa.</p>

<p>But your body is remarkably efficient at piecing together protein from the amino acids in your diet. If you eat a food in the morning that is rich in some amino acids but deficient in others, and then eat a different food at night that is rich in the amino acids that were missing from your morning meal, your body will store and recombine them as necessary to build the proteins you need to stay alive. If the body weren’t able to do this, you would hear about vegans wasting away and dying from lack of protein. But you don’t.</p>

<p>Furthermore, you don’t need that much protein. 50 grams per day is about right for a normal adult; most of us get way more than we need. Register at FitDay.com (it’s free, no tricks) to see the nutrition information for just about every food available. You can construct a typical vegetarian diet and see that as long as you’re eating generous portions of a variety of vegetables and grains, you’d have a hard time not getting enough protein.</p>

<p>Again, life is a lot easier for ovo- and/or lacto-vegetarians (those who eat eggs, dairy, or both), but even with a diet consisting entirely of vegetable matter, you’re not going to die. And don’t worry about getting too skinny, either. We’re conditioned to think that people are healthier when they have “meat on their bones”. In fact, thinner people are healthier, even those who look a bit too thin for their own good. In the absence of other risk factors, they live longer, have fewer cardiovascular problems, fewer weight-related illnesses such as joint degradation and diabetes, and lower incidence of illnesses that are not obviously weight-related such as cancer.</p>

<p>Bottom line: Don’t sweat it. Just do a modicum of research to make sure your vegetarian diet is sufficiently broad, include any complete-protein-containing foods that you can stomach, and go for it.</p>

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<p>When a sophomore in high school, S announced he was becoming a vegetarian. There was no possible way I was going to make special dishes just for one person, and the rest of the family had no interest in vegetarian cuisine. Every night I would offer him the side dishes I made for the rest of us and he would cook up his own veggie burger. This lasted about two weeks. He gave up vegetarianism and has never looked back. (When I hear about a teen opting for vegetarianism, I think “If you’re lucky like me, this too shall pass.”) </p>

<p>I have no problem with anyone’s dietary choices, but see no reason for the household cook to bend over backwards to cater to them. The outlier can handle his own recipe-hunting and cooking or defer his new lifestyle until he has his own home.</p>

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<p>Vegetarianism is just the flavor-of-the-month for most teenagers, like so much that they do.</p>

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<p>Athletes need more than typical adults, although athletes who eat more food to fuel their athletic training typically end up with more protein anyway.</p>

<p>Where a diet’s protein density can become an issue is if one does heavy strength training or is restricting calories for fat loss.</p>

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<p>Of course, for many people, “meat on their bones” is often “fat on their bones” (rather than muscle). Most muscle is generally healthier, while more fat usually is not (unless one is starting from starvation levels of body fat).</p>

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<p>True. My trainers recommended one-half gram per pound of lean body mass, or about 100 grams per day for me when I used to lift weights, just to maintain, and more to grow. I don’t know if a vegan could eat enough food to be a bodybuilder, although I suppose massive quantities of beans and brown rice would do the trick. They’d need a lot of cardio to burn off all those carbs, though.</p>

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<p>I gave up meat January 1. I wasn’t a big meat eater anyway and realized that most of the chicken I ate was because it showed up ON something I wanted (like a salad). I haven’t found it difficult at all. I eat fish and even at catered business lunches I seem to have enough to eat without the meat. I DO struggle a little with getting enough protein since I am a competitive runner, and I DO think Muscle Milk is a good option a couple of times a week. I occasionally will have meat if I’m at a special restaurant (i.e. barbecue or something like that) but I bet I haven’t had meat 5 times since January 1.</p>

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<p>Hummus.</p>

<p>I forgot to mention hummus. I make hummus using chickpeas at least once a week and I also make bean spreads using black beans or white beans. White beans taste great with basil. </p>

<p>My one piece of advice is to re-think meals, forget the trinity of meat+veggie+starch. A side dish can become the meal, especially if your child still eats fish - you can always grill a little fish and THAT becomes the side.</p>

<p>As for nomenclature - I think for a lot of people, saying they are a vegetarian is just a shortcut. My husband is a vegetarian, in fact he has eliminated all dairy except occasional yogurt and he does still eat egg white. I still eat fish - but when I call a restaurant or someone asks if we are vegetarians, I say yes. Unless someone asks a follow-up question, I figure most people don’t really want to hear all the details of our diet. I am just trying to keep it simple. </p>

<p>In answer to the OP’s question as to why, DH became a vegetarian after reading “Reversing Heart Disease” and I followed suit, while still eating fish. I had never been a big fan of meat. I remember being a kid and having to re-package chicken and gagging, so eliminating meat was easy for me. </p>

<p>Since focusing on a plant-based diet, I have rethought our consumption of animal products. Here in south central PA, I am very aware of the pollution from chicken farms. Philosophically, I think we would be better stewards of our earth if we switched to a plant based way of eating - using meats as the accent dish, not the main player. I realize I am in the minority in my thinking, especially here where we live, but I am very content with our food choices.</p>