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

I'm a 28 year old vegetarian. Been one for 26 years. I don't like meat. Never have. The cognitive part came later. One day I realized what was going on and was so pleased I didn't like to eat any of those poor dead, roasted animals. : )

Here's my thing. My friends are the world's worst. I have one sweetheart of a friend in particular from Mikasuky, FL (I'm sure I mispelled that one!) who often says: "Kimber, if God had wanted us to be vegetarians, he wouldn't have made cows out of meat." My father thinks I'm certifiably insane. And maybe he's right.

Being a nurse however, there are some things that cannot be overlooked. If there are resources for them, dieticians are the world best at starting you out. Protien, protien, protien. Soy, nuts, dark leafy greens. Vitamins are a huge point too. Amino acids and B12 complex are something we don't get, but need to build the basic cellular structures in our bodies. Websites and magazines have helped me through the years. Vegetarian Times offers helpful hints as well as nice recipes.

That's all I've got: except this. Make regular appointments with an internist. Anemia is one of the easiest things to come by with this type of diet. If you bruise like a banana....things are not right with your vegetarian world!

Love and light!

It's so much easier when you eat a little meat!

The feel good factor - Plants are living, breathing oganisms just like animals. All they lack is a central nervous system.


Alji the Magus

I've heard somewhere that according to studies of the human teeth structure, we should only eat meet once every six weeks or so....

Don't know if it's true or not!

See http://www.mercola.com/2000/apr/2/vegetarian_myths.htm


Quote from an organic farmer;
"chickens running free in garden areas eat insect pests, while providing high-quality eggs; sheep grazing in orchards obviate the need for herbicides; and cows grazing in woodlands and other marginal areas provide rich, pure milk, making these lands economically viable for the farmer. It is not animal cultivation that leads to hunger and famine, but unwise agricultural practices and monopolistic distribution systems.
The "mixed farm" is also healthier for the soil, which will yield more crops if managed according to traditional guidelines. British organic farmer and dairyman Mark Purdey has accurately pointed out that a crop field on a mixed farm will yield up to five harvests a year, while a "mono-cropped" one will only yield one or two."

Feel good factor - Hitler was a veggie!


Alji the Magus

>Hitler was a veggie<

Argument 37b against vegetarianism - very disappointing I have to say. Hitler was gassed in WWI and was told by his doctor never to eat meat again. He was not a vegetarian by choice, though being a madman he obviously felt the need to incorporate this into his f**ked belief system.
Socrates, Gandhi and Einstein were vegetarians by choice.

>If God has meant us to be vegetarians, he would have made cows run faster....<

The aurochs, the original cow, did run faster and was very aggressive. It took centuries to breed out these charactersitics and create walking steaks.

>Has there any actual biological conclusion been drawn on whether we are 'meant' to be omnivorous or not?<

Well, biologically, humans are reasonably well adapted to an omnivorous diet. But for myself, vegetarianism started off as a kind of boycott against factory farming. It was only later that I actually stopped liking it at all.

It's a personal choice. I won't inflict my opinions on meat-eaters - believe me, it happens a lot more the other way round

Anyway, I'm currently undergoing the greatest of challenges - being a veggie in China. No problem so far

Thank y'all for the support and discussion on this one. I am four weeks in and feeling quite good about it. No real cravings for meat, although feel a little weak sometimes which I am putting down to a lack of protein.

Hopefully I'll make it through Chritmas dinner. It'll probably be harder to tell my mum than it will be to avoid the food.

Quorn fillets, Linda McCartney Pies and veggie sausages should help

And Linda M's Shepherd's pie is fab too. Quorn southern fried/style (?) burgers look like chicken burgers and are fantastic in a bun with mayonnaise, sliced tomato and lettuce - far superior to chicken in a bun.

don't forget to specify the vegatable oil for cooking.

Hi Alji .

"Try growing crops up a Welsh mountain."

I do. Some friends of mine have a smallholding and I share the work. We grow potatoes, onions, shallots, beans (in abundance), peas, garlic, endless fruit canes, marrows, strawberries and carrots in the open. In the poly-tunnel we have cucumber, tomatoes, various herbs, peppers and chillies. We compost all our vegetable waste and add the manure from the ponies. We have chickens and ducks for eggs and trade for dairy products. All this and its 1,500 foot up a Welsh mountain .

Many of my sheep-farming friends have been experimenting with vegetable plots to supply local box-schemes and farmer's markets, as well as supplementing their diets and their pockets. Sheep are the most destructive pest we ever introduced to the hills, they really aren't worth it except on the highest and most exposed land.

I've been a veggie for nearly 20 years now and don't miss meat at all. I became a veggie because I could and from a desire to walk lightly upon this earth. However, if it was just me and a pig on a desert island, I'd be eating bacon inside of a week .

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Hi Alias .

I think the key to being a healthy veggie is to have a broad and varied diet. Don't get trapped in the Quorn-lifestyle beloved of supermarket profits. Actually take the time to seek out real greengrocers, farmers markets and box-schemes. Try eating seasonally and cut out all those food-miles that accumulate from eating South African Lettuce and the like.

During the first few months of being veggie it is important that you keep the dairy product intake up. Even if you want to eventually become a vegan, the dairy products will maintain your protein balance during the transition to a veggie lifestyle. Remember that ordinary cheese is not strictly vegetarian, being made with calf rennet. However there are many vegetarian cheeses readily available.

If you want to be a strict vegetarian take to reading labels carefully. Look out for such items as Gelatine (boiled down animal bits), Finings (fish bits) Rennet (calf's stomach lining) and Whey Solids (left-over dairy products often contaminated with rennet). The last one is hotly debated amongst the various veggie factions.

Eggs are the biggest headache. Organic or Free Range or Battery or Field Raised or Barn raised, which is best? Its safest to get them from someone who runs chickens in their backyard or farmyard. They are a great source of so many nutrients though so don't cut them out unless you have real moral objections to eating bird ova .

Look out lots of simple recipes and enjoy preparing and cooking your food. I hear so many people say "we haven't got time". Well make time. Cooking is a remarkable stress-reliever, and most vegetable don't take more than twenty minutes to cook.

One piece of advice I give new veggies is don't get confused by the 'veggie militia'. Being vegetarian is a personal choice and no-one can tell you how to live it. If you want to be a 'bacon-vegetarian' or a 'fish-vegetarian', be one.

By the way, being veggie will not make you slimmer, nor more energetic, nor make your hair shine nor your eyes sparkle. You will find though that a good varied vegetarian diet should reduce your cholestorel levels a bit, improve your digestion and your circulation.

Blessings on your path,
Matholwch, the world's fattest vegetarian /|\.

Hi Math, down here we have to be carefull when we grow our own veg because of the heavy metal contamination. People living near the Mond nickle works in the Swansea valley shouldn't eat anything from their gardens.
I went to a Yoga Conference in Cardiff many years ago and one of the speakers gave us a lecture on vegetarianism. She was wearing a suede dress. I can see it now but I can't remember what she said.

I tried but I couldn't go without some meat now and again.


Alji the Magus

Hi Alji .

I can understand that. Where my partner comes from (Wrexham) the cobalt levels from the now closed steelworks have made the land unusable as well.

Please be assured I don't look down on non-vegetarians (unlike some of my less tolerant breed). My partner isn't veggie, and guess who has to cook all the bits she thinks are disgusting, but wants to eat nonetheless? (Anyone for sweetbreads and chittlin's?). Also my younger children are given a full omnivorous diet. Once they are mostly grown, like my older daughter (15 tomorrow) they can choose to go veggie if they wish - as she has.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Math, would you give me a time and place for your daughter's birthday on my page. The general chart for that Sunday in '87 gives her a very strong Sagittarius personality.

Alji the Magus

Hi Alji .

I know, I have her birthchart at home. One of my friends is Huber-trained Astrological Counsellor. She was born in Wrexham Maelor Borough Hospital at 06.28 hours.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Thanks Math.

Alji the Magus

What exactly is the ethical argument for vegetarianism? I guess it must be that by being veggie you are trying to encourage the rest of the world not to treat animals badly, because there is nothing morally wrong in eating a piece of meat once it's already dead (unless you have a religious point of view).

If this is the argument, wouldn't it be more effective (in terms of the effect on the condition of animals), for example, to make the distinction between fair trade products and products which depend on exploitation of people (typically of third world labour or even slave labour)? After all humans are animals too. Obviously, there's no reason you can't do both.

Hi Dogster .

Humans can speak up for themselves, but animals can't. As one of my more extreme friends put it "For animals it's Belsen every day".

My personal take is that I want to walk lightly upon the earth and leave at least some small part of it enriched by my passing, not depleted. I don't need meat, so I don't take it (there again I don't need red wine either.....ooops ).

I have no moral objection to the eating of meat, but rather the means of production. Also the fact that the average consumer takes no personal or spiritual responsibility for the life that has been taken to sustain them. Perhaps we could bring in a law that requires anyone who wants to eat meat to participate in the slaughter of an animal (I know it ain't gonna happen but I can dream). Once you have done that, as I have, then you tend to view meat as a gift, not a commodity.

On another tack, the problem with Fair Trade products, particularly foodstuffs, is that while these poor farmers are using their land for cash crops they are not growing much needed food and other locally useful products. Giving them a 'fair' price often only enriches the officials between you and them, and their landlords. A fact that is not widely advertised by Oxfam or Cafod.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

The thing about fair trade products is that there is a guarantee that the people involved in making it enjoyed a certain minimum standard of employment (this is not just wage but more significantly working conditions, e.g. no slave labour used). At least, that's my understanding of it.

"Perhaps we could bring in a law that requires anyone who wants to eat meat to participate in the slaughter of an animal..." And chocolate eaters should be forced to experience life as a bound labourer on a cocoa plantation?

Seriously though. I can understand the desire to be a vegetarian (if I had more willpower I probably would be one myself), it's a pretty nasty thought when you're eating a piece of meat to think that this was part of an animal that only existed to be turned into my dinner. But I don't understand what it is that makes the eating of meat special. After all, there are an incredible number of things we do which contribute to the suffering of people and animals. Is it just because when you're eating a piece of meat you actually have in front of you a piece of the dead animal and so the bad side presents itself more forcefully than, for example, the image of a slave labourer on a cocoa plantation when biting into a chocolate bar?

Anyway, so that my contribution to this thread isn't entirely negative, here are two veggie recipes from me:

Risotto A442108 (mind that you use vegetable stock and rennet free parmesan)

Penne with Tomato and Sweet Red Pepper Sauce A581212

I have yet to fully embrace the vegetarian lifstyle but thought some of you might be interested in exploring some other aspects of our fellow organics.

A897843


~jwf~