Selective vegetarianism

Fish is healthier to eat than red meat or 40% water / hormone inflated "chicken", perhaps that's why.

(I wouldn't count tuna preserves as the best thing in the world to eat. Fresh stuff only for me :) In fact given that choice I'd ask if there is anything "cooked")
 
I was vegetarian for 18 years. I think pescatarians call themselves veggie as no one would know what they're on about otherwise, so easier to say veggie.
I was a vegetarian who didn't eat cheese, which for most people translated to vegan. So sometimes it was easier to just say vegan (when, for example, booking a meal on a plane), rather then 'vegetarain but no cheese either please' (since people seem obsessed with feeding cheese to vegetarians as though they are immediately in danger from keeling over from lack of protein).
 
I used to be a team leader in an Accounts Payable department and often had to take members of my team to meetings with suppliers and often they would supply lunch, usually sandwiches, sausage rolls etc. One of my team was a strict vegetarian and this information was passed to a supplier before we arrived for a meeting.

At the appropriate juncture, one of the catering bods wheeled in a trolley load of food. She then presented my colleague with a separate plate upon which resided..................a tuna sandwich!!
 
fabs said:
I used to be a team leader in an Accounts Payable department and often had to take members of my team to meetings with suppliers and often they would supply lunch, usually sandwiches, sausage rolls etc. One of my team was a strict vegetarian and this information was passed to a supplier before we arrived for a meeting.

At the appropriate juncture, one of the catering bods wheeled in a trolley load of food. She then presented my colleague with a separate plate upon which resided..................a tuna sandwich!!
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I've been offered chicken before when I was veggie, as they did not count it as meat :confused:

When I was in Spain, the spanish family when I said I did not eat meat said 'not even jamon!' :-).
 
Everyone to there own but look at us we were made to eat a balanced diet of meat fish and vegetables
 
Here's one for the fish lovers....NSFW contains swearies
 
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You never see many vegetarian options in France (or Germany for that matter), and I suppose the same holds true for Scotland

NSFW

 
Cobra said:
Errr no :(
They live breath and crap in the same water :D
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and to quote someone maybe Wilde, "they also f**k in it"...
 
A friend of mine was a vegetarian for over 20 years, but realised she was suffering from lack of protein (this despite having worked as a chef in the past and taking a good deal more care than most people to have a balanced diet) so started eating fish again. She no longer describes herself as a vegetarian.
 
I wonder where the fish = vegetable comes from?

I know in muslim cultures, fish isn't regarded as meat and hence can be eaten without needing to be made halaal (presumably because they can't kill it in a halaal manner?).
 
strict vegans must have a hard time though - considering apples are often coated with shellac to improve their shelf life...I tend to avoid meat...but only if I don't like it :p (I hate pork chops)
 
sturisoma said:
strict vegans must have a hard time though - considering apples are often coated with shellac to improve their shelf life
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This is actually a fairly hot topic ATM. Most citrus fruit in the UK is also coated with shellac but it's generally impossible to tell which is and which isn't. Since shellac is vegetarian (I used to think it wasn't because it was ground up beetles but it turns out it's a bit like the honey thing) and almost impossible to determine, most vegans I know put this in the "too hard" pile.
 
yeah but like silk results in the death of the moth, doesn't shellac necessitate the death of the beetles to 'harvest' it?
 
JonathanRyan said:
(I used to think it wasn't because it was ground up beetles but it turns out it's a bit like the honey thing) and almost impossible to determine, most vegans I know put this in the "too hard" pile.
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sturisoma said:
yeah but like silk results in the death of the moth, doesn't shellac necessitate the death of the beetles to 'harvest' it?
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I always thought shellac was the excretion of the lac bug
That it uses to build "highways" in / on tree bark, so it could move around in comparative safety.

Silk, I suppose they could always argue that they didn't kill the moth, it just never got to hatch ;)
 
yeah it's something the female uses to coat the eggs, am sure it's a type of resin - but they harvest in huge amounts (as you would) and eggs and beetles get killed in the process. Baby silk moths get boiled alive to harvest silk :(
 
sturisoma said:
yeah it's something the female uses to coat the eggs, am sure it's a type of resin -
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Indeed it is, and I'm sure you are right, that eggs and beetles would "inadvertently" be harvested at the same.
Don't forget also, that its used as a nail polish / varnish ;)

sturisoma said:
. Baby silk moths get boiled alive to harvest silk :(
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Well technically it's the Pupae while its undergoing the "change" as its the cocoon they want.
If it had turned into a moth it would have hatch.
Not that I am defending the "operation". ;)
 
My idea of a salad is a plateful of meat and a boiled egg...
Well, maybe the odd lettuce leaf and a bit of beetroot, I could go on, but there's no point really. :exit:
 
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daugirdas said:
Fish is healthier to eat than red meat or 40% water / hormone inflated "chicken", perhaps that's why.
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I don't think we can exactly say that. There is a tendency that people who are not in optimum health becomes less unhealthy when they eat fish, compared to when they eat red meat. That doesn't meat the fish is healthier or the meat less healthy, I think we can only draw the conclusion that the fish provides more of what they needed at that time. For example omega3/6 balance, iodine, those kinds of things tend to be problems, and ones which red meat can't help resolve.

The other aspect is that generally today when people eat cow, pig, lamb etc they mean the muscle meats - which is fine for protein, but it's not the most nutrient dense. By eating only muscle meats over prolonged periods we'll tend to end up with imbalances. Eating fish may be less so, as things like fat tend to be much less obvious and therefore eaten (we're always told to eat 'oily fish', which actually means "fatty fish"!).

As for so called "chicken", that hormone injected, water filled, pig DNA containing stuff..... No thanks....! But much the same is the case with farmed salmon, feedlot cattle, intensively farmed pigs. Growing this unnaturally quickly, using drugs and antibiotics, and feeding them on foods which are not natural to them - of course it changes them. Whether we accept that or not I guess is up to our own sense of risk. Vegetarianism is a way to avoid that, and in that respect could be regarded as avoiding some unhealthy aspects.
 
Some vegetarians are quite hypocritical. They won't eat meet but are quite happy to wear leather shoes and carry around a leather handbag.

I knew a ditzy girl once who wouldn't "eat anything with a face" - it didn't last long !
 
Most vegetarians I know look pale, withdrawn and don't have any energy , surely that's not healthy !
 
Blank_Canvas said:
Some vegetarians are quite hypocritical. They won't eat meet but are quite happy to wear leather shoes and carry around a leather handbag.
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Some are, yes, but I know quite a few vegetarians who just don't like meat. The people I find particularly hypocritical are the carnivores who demonise shooting/hunting as barbaric (or whatever), but are happy to buy meat in a supermarket and refuse to think about how it got there. Much the same applies to people who regard fishing as cruel, because of the hook, but have no problem with eating commercially caught fish that die from suffocation.
 
Blank_Canvas said:
Most vegetarians I know look pale, withdrawn and don't have any energy , surely that's not healthy !
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I'd bet there's a good portion of people you come into contact with who are vegetarian and you'd never know because they look just fine.
 
Blank_Canvas said:
Some vegetarians are quite hypocritical. They won't eat meet but are quite happy to wear leather shoes and carry around a leather handbag.
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I believe that's vegans that don't "do" animal products.
But I agree if vegetarian on moral grounds then yes it is, hypocritical IMO

Blank_Canvas said:
I knew a ditzy girl once who wouldn't "eat anything with a face" - it didn't last long !
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Why's that because she wouldn't eat....
Oops never mind :D
 
Sometimes folk just don't like red meat/chicken/fish/peas but they do like peas/fish/chicken/red meat. It's then easier to explain it to others as, "I'm a vegetarian but I do eat fish". It's not their problem, it's just that some other folk can't understand their food preferences. Think how annoyed they get by your annoyance at their choices..

If you want dietary frustration, imagine you can't eat one thing but your options get lumped together with other restrictions and preferences.. I have coeliac disease so I can't eat/drink/consume gluten (wheat, barley, rye, uncomtaminated oats) - and yes, that does include regular beer - but very often the gluten-free option on the menu is also the organic lactose-free low-fat vegan-with-extra-tofu option. When all I want is steak and chips where the chips haven't been dusted in a flour based flavouring (looking at you McCain and your Home Fries) and have been fried in fresh oil that hasn't already been used for a breaded/battered product. And when I ask about the gluten-free option I get pigeon-holed with the Gwyneth Paltrow faddist dieters - even though for me it's a diagnosed life-long condition and I would love to have a regular beer, pizza and crusty bread from a random street food stall.
 
Alastair said:
If you want dietary frustration, imagine you can't eat one thing but your options get lumped together with other restrictions and preferences.. I have coeliac disease so I can't eat/drink/consume gluten (wheat, barley, rye, uncomtaminated oats)
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My sister suffers from Coeliac's disease too. It wasn't picked up until her mid-20s, a couple of years ago. Made me look at the labelling on everything. Can't believe some of the stuff that has wheat in! Chocolate was the biggest surprise for me. My sister, like me, was brought up vegetarian. To be a vegetarian coeliac sufferer is a nightmare for her.
 
Blank_Canvas said:
Most vegetarians I know look pale, withdrawn and don't have any energy , surely that's not healthy !
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I think you are confusing vegetarians with vampires....

Blank_Canvas said:
Some vegetarians are quite hypocritical. They won't eat meet but are quite happy to wear leather shoes and carry around a leather handbag.
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You say that but the leather handbag was just so nice I could not get rid of it.
 
sturisoma said:
yeah but like silk results in the death of the moth, doesn't shellac necessitate the death of the beetles to 'harvest' it?
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I've avoided it for many years because I thought that (actually I thought they ground the grubs up into it like cochineal) but the other day I saw a product clearly marked as "vegetarian" that contained shellac so I looked it up. The UK Vegetarian society classes it as ok because it's the secretion of the beetle. However, just like honey it may often involve the killing (accidental or otherwise) of the producers. It's a grey area. I guess it's OK in the same way that leather and silk are OK by VegUK (even though silk almost always involves killing the pupae). The Vegan Society disagree ;)

Blank_Canvas said:
Most vegetarians I know look pale, withdrawn and don't have any energy , surely that's not healthy !
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Really, this says more about you than vegetarians.
 
JonathanRyan said:
I've avoided it for many years because I thought that (actually I thought they ground the grubs up into it like cochineal) but the other day I saw a product clearly marked as "vegetarian" that contained shellac so I looked it up. The UK Vegetarian society classes it as ok because it's the secretion of the beetle. However, just like honey it may often involve the killing (accidental or otherwise) of the producers. It's a grey area. I guess it's OK in the same way that leather and silk are OK by VegUK (even though silk almost always involves killing the pupae). The Vegan Society disagree ;)



Really, this says more about you than vegetarians.
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Really what does it say ?

Seriously, I have three fit and healthy friends. I've already pointed this out to them !
 
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