h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

At least that way they have to ask and you can explain . An alternative I've suggested before is 'piscetarian'.

Bwahahahaha... once again, an attempt to alphabetize the great 26199 fails dismally...



26199

Hi there... me a veggie... can me join?

But shellfish have faces too...you just don't see them. And they have such pretty hats!

Oops - I forgot to say. I'm a veggie and would like to join. I followed the link from BlueSlider's page after he very kindly replied to my first (and only) journal article. Glad you liked the poem.

88425

Me too!

I added Greebo, 88425, and Gromi to the list, as well as someone who posted somewhere else (JubJub). Welcome to the H2G2 Vegetarian Society! Thanks for joining! I also added two new links. Tomorrow I will try to put some recipies in.

Thanks Zarquon... tis a great site you have here... ~grin~

Hi everyone. I realized that putting recipies up would not only be time consuming but it would bring up some copyright issues as well. What I decided to do was start a "Recipe of the Week" feature. At least it will give you guys a reason to keep coming back. And of course you can get to many recipies through the regular links. As a matter of fact I got the first RotW from one of them. It's a vegan recipie for Spicy Mexican Rice. It sounds pretty good, so you might want to check it out (on the HVS home page). I am still considering various ways to expand the HVS, so stay tuned for more updates.

Let's be honest here, two of the best reasons for being vegetarian (if you're primarily driven by selfish reasons, that is) are more sex and more poop.
1) From my personal experience, vegetarians are better lovers (they don't just eat like rabbits...), and they smell a lot better too. Though I've only been with one vegetarian boy, the rest of the meat-eating ones were pretty upset that he's the one that gets to keep me.
2) The great apes, our closest relatives, get to make pooh at least twice a day. In the nearly 8 years that I've been vegetarian, I often live up to this admirable standard. As a young girl eating my grandma's ukranian cuisine, I was often constipated, and have no wishes to return to that state. My mom desperately tries to stay regular with prunes and laxitives, but she had no problems when I made her dinner for a week.

Go veg! Make more poop! Then go have more sex!
(okay, so it's not _that_ great a slogan)

I too am driven by shelfish reasons... ah, well, please ignore that remark.

I would like to join. Mostly to 1. loose weight and 2. find the exact borders of vegetarianism (isn't alcohol produced by "animals"?)

I think I know what you mean about alcohol being produced by animals so I'll explain my understanding of this:

Grapes have secretly got arms and legs and when you squash them and stand on them they make a little whine...

ok, that's not true.

but some ciders and wines and beers and things are "fined" with something called isinglass... a process which makes the booze look a bit clearer by swiggling all the cloudiness out.
the trouble is that isinglass is made out of bits of things... notably a tropical

this was the best link I could find on the subject without actually bothering very hard to look...
http://www.vegsoc.org/info/stumbling.html

That was...ahem...most interesting, Swinehund. So can I count you in? And Pierce, I'll add you to the list. Welcome to the H2G2 Vegetarian Society! But remember, just being a veg doesn't make you lose weight. I actually weigh more than when I first became one, and I can assure you it's not muscle! But if you have the right KIND of vegetarian diet, yes it can be very good for your health.

As a sportsman I couldn't ahve afforded to lose any weight when I wnet veggie. However I am a lot healthier as a result, the reason I went veggie was because of some of the bi-products that made their way into theanimal feed chain 10 years ago.

Still playing sport at top level even if the sport is not as enegetic because of injury problems.

Me been a veggie for years... and me can't say that me lost weight through it... ~grin~... the only way to lose weight is to watch what you eat... eat healthy... and feel better... ~big grin~

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I specially liked Oscars remark on whining grapes and Zarquons on losing weight (so if it isn't all muscles it must be alcohol, right? - or did I get that completely wrong??)

Seriously speaking: When I asked about animals producing alcohol I wasn't thinking of frogs producing wine (sorry, frenchy, no offence intended, you make excellent wine, as we all know). But aren't the bacteria who transform sugar into alcohol a kind of animals? Or did I get that completely wrong (too)???

I had a quick poke around and, according to MSN Encarta, yeasts (the organisms that convert the sugar to alcohol) are a type of fungus. I guess that is why Marmite is approved by the UK Vegetarian Society. So, if you can find beers or wines which aren't fined using isinglas or any of the other animal related products you can drink with a clear conscience You could always consider brewing your own and letting it settle out naturally .

is it enough that i´ve written my "point of view" some minutes ago? i´d like to share vegetarian infos on my site(A123689) and i hope that i could link to your page there, too. greetinx & venceremos m.k

I did brew my own some years ago - turned me into a raving animal almost instantaneously (much like the ravenous bugblatterbeast of Traal - and almost as intelligent). My memory of that is as clear as my conscience...

Back to the question in question: Does everybody here agree that fungi are not animals? I'll take a quick gin & tonic while I await your answers.

That's the general scientific consensus, at least. They get their own kingdom now. They're neither really plants or animals. Recently, researchers have been finding that the fungi seem more similar in some respects to animals than plants (can't back that up, but heard it a while ago). For the most part, though, moulds, yeasts, mushrooms et. al. are still the domain of botanists. I get to take 'Introduction to the Fungi' as part of my program, at least, as well as 'Chlorophyll'. Grinding up leaves sure beats pulverizing mouse liver.

For vegetarian purposes, avoiding fungi would mean giving up all leavened bread (even sourdough), alcohol, penicillin, and tempeh, for starters. Considering that you _cannot_ avoid getting mould and yeast spores in your food most of the time anyway (they travel in the wind and cover fruits, vegetables, and grains -- the white powder on grapes are the wild moulds and yeasts which will ferment the fruit if left on their own -- they just don't always get the chance to develop into a lovely fungal bloom), it seems like a rather unreasonable request even if fungi were recognizable as 'animals'.