[Closed] vegetarian - why?

Yh it's a blood filled sausage. It's a lot tastier than you might imagine and extremely good for you... the high iron content is very good for menstrauting women.

you are a font of knowledge here TSY.
Yes the veggie black pudding is quite tasty but a very odd concept. Someone bought me mine.

What's in a veggie pudding? Druidh was telling me how good veggie haggis is... which I can imagine as the best bit is the flavouring.

veggie haggis is nice never had the real thing though.
No idea re the ingredients.

Sorry, but veggie haggis is quite simply revolting. It's that bad that a veggie mate of mine gave me one as he hated it and thought "Ah, the dwarf will eat anything.."

No he won't. Some veggie food is lovely but i'll disembowell the next clown who pulls that trick on me! 👿

Do you like normal haggis though? I was told they taste pretty much the same.

yes the veg does not have the same offal flavours
IGMC

Thank god for you Junky... that awful joke has made me feel a lot better for not inserting a load of pork sausage gags for emsz.

I love proper haggis (groans at JY) just like i love black pudding etc, IMHO trying to recreate a dish that has offal and blood as its basic and intrinsic ingredients and replacing them with non-meat products just makes something neither fish nor fowl so to speak.

I'll attempt to eat most things and i love trying new foods but i'll never eat anything vegetarian attempting to ape a meat dish again.

I'm selfish so I eat meat. I find it odd that you could argue it isn't morally wrong to kill something tbh. If it was supermarket meat I'd probably not bother, that shite is worse than sprouts!

muddydwarf - you do have a point! I will eat pretty much anything and respect other peoples rights to do so, but why try to make artificial meat products? if you are a veggie why would you want to eat something that looks like and/or tastes like meat?

And don't get me started an alcohol free beer!

Gosh, sorry I'm late to the party.

I'm vegetarian. I've been vegetarian for about 20 years, which is pretty much half of my total years on this world.

I am, perhaps, atypical. Certainly if you believe a lot of the stuff that regularly gets trotted out about veggies, I don't exist.

I'm vegetarian because the concept of eating meat repulses me. It's dead flesh. That's minging. I'd be squeamish about dissecting a corpse or getting covered in blood pulling lumps out of (say) a dead cow, so it'd be hypocritical of me to eat meat so long as someone else did all the 'dirty' work for me. Fortunately for me, in the modern western world there's plenty of alternatives which means that I don't have to, so why should I?

The bottom line is, conceptually, I don't see flesh as a foodstuff, any more than I see gravel as food. And yeah sure, you could argue that we're "designed" to eat it and you'd be right, but that misses my point. A better analogy for me might be, "why don't you eat turds?" Say they were delicious and nutritious, would you eat 'em?

I reject the original premise as flawed that eating meat is default and not eating it has to be justified in some way. Choosing to eat meat or choosing not to eat meat is a choice [i]either way.[/i] You can come up with all the reasoning you like but at the end of the day it's cultural. Some cultures eat horse; some cultures don't eat pig; some eat dog; what's the difference here exactly? The original question, therefore, boils down to "why don't you do what I do?" - arrogant, hmm?

This, then, renders a lot of Bingo arguments invalid, for me at least. I'll field some specific questions in the next post.

I think cougar has it bang on.

I'm a meat eater and i accept it's a choice, just like vegetarianism is a choice, TBH i've heard so much BS from both camps on this subject over the years and it's all just that - BS. From the 'save the planet' veggies to the 'we're evolved to eat meat' carnivores and they're all really, really boring.

Eat what you like, it's your body and nowt to do with anyone else.

Just don't tell anyone else what they should be eating unless you want a fork in your forehead....

One of my mates is from Glasgow and as such, despises all vegetables.

His wife is a vegetarian

He lives on pizza's

I'm not sure that adds anything to the discussion

just thought I'd share

[b]toys19[/b] was doing well.

As a confirmed killer and meat eater I admire vegans and deride supermarket only meat eaters. There is nothing that irritates me more than people telling me how cruel it is to shoot a deer or a bunny but will still happily eat a lamb chop.

Nobody needs to eat meat, therefore eating meat is only for pleasure, therefore you are complicit in killing for pleasure if you eat meat.

If you are happy to accept this, or even like it (as I do) then eat meat. If you cannot accept this then have the courage of your convictions and become a vegan.

+many. Eat what you want, accept it for what it is, and be happy. If you're an omnivore who only eats meat when someone else chops it into unrecognisable cubes for you, or a vegetarian who goes to pieces at the prospect of a bacon butty, you need to take a good hard look at yourself. However, it all goes wrong with the last bit:

So called Vegetarians are the worst of the lot, moralising hypocrites. Either no meat or meat there is no middle ground.

... which is patent nonsense. Sorry.

[b]bigyinn[/b] asks:

Why do veggies / vegans always feel the need to preach about it

I hear this a lot, it's the "Christian" attack. As a vegetarian and an atheist I sit on both sides; the omnivores whine about 'preachy' vegetarians and the atheists whine about 'preachy' Christians, whereas in my experience the complainers are far more common. I've met very few preachy Christians / vegetarians, but I'm met a metric shitload of vocal atheists and omnivores complaining about them.

[b]McHamish [/b]said:

BBQs must be boring at a vegan's house.

TBH, this just shows ignorance. Why not find out? "BBQs must be boring at a carnivore's house. It's just meat."

[b]HoratioHufnagel[/b] posited:

Not eating a vegetarian food just because its been on the same plate as some meat? WTF?

I can't speak for other veggies but personally this goes back to my 'turd' analogy. If you'd been served a burger that someone had shat on and then gone "oh, never mind" and wiped it off, would you eat it?

[b]Clong[/b] makes a good point:

I find it weird how some vegitarians claim to be vegetarians, but eat fish/chicken/bacon on occasions.

So do I. The answer is, these people aren't vegetarians. They're pescetarians or some other variant, or Americans. You might as well argue that you're a non-smoker (apart from cigarettes).

Finally, [b]binners[/b] entertainingly argued,

You're a veggie, you're not allowed to shoot things

To which the answer is, of course you are, you just can't eat it afterwards.

From the 'save the planet' veggies to the 'we're evolved to eat meat' carnivores and they're all really, really boring.

The PETA 'meat is murder' screwheads really have set vegetarianism back years. Like most demographics, it's the vocal minority giving the rest a bad name.

One point I forgot to add. I really, truly don't care what you eat. You can be a carnivore or a vegan or a creamcakevore or whatever, just be happy with it. Accept where your food comes from and be comfortable with it, and let me do the same.

If you come drooling over my bag of chips but "can't have one because you're on a diet," you're Doing It Wrong. You're just going to be miserable, hungry, and irritating. If you're vegetarian and want KFC,
have one, you'll feel better.

I have eaten better, healthier and with more variety since I got rid of my meat problem. Even today, someone at work commented how delicious my lunch looked, I said "yeah, I do ok for a veggie" and they were shocked.

It's a bit more than just a simple choice though, isn't it ?
To go back to my earlier analogy, if you moved to a country where rape in marriage was commonplace, would you join in with the local customs or become a preachy women's rights activist and try to persuade them it's not a very nice thing to do ?

One of my mates is from Glasgow and as such, despises all vegetables.

His wife is a vegetarian

He lives on pizza's

What you've got there is two incompatible diets. Which is fine.

However, the conclusion is cock all to do with being veggie or carnivorous, and everything to do with being a crap cook.

Non-vegetable veggie food:

Pasta, rice, noodles, lentils, chickpeas, nuts, beans. Meat substitutes: Quorn chunks / TVP mince, egro spag bol, chilli, curry; veggie burgers, sausages, hotdogs. Quorn 'ham' sandwiches, butter pies, cornish pasties, 'meat' and potato pies...

That's off the top of my head. They're not trying.

Jed, you might have to accept that your analogy just isn't working here.

yeah, I do ok for a veggie

He's probably on an Internet forum this evening whinging about preachy vegetarians 🙄

I will eat pretty much anything and respect other peoples rights to do so, but why try to make artificial meat products? if you are a veggie why would you want to eat something that looks like and/or tastes like meat?

And don't get me started an alcohol free beer!

i am quite happy to eat fake meat products (occasionally, and selectively- many of the commercially available ones are very high in fat), because i don't have a problem with the taste of some meats (i never really liked lamb or pork when i did used to eat meat, and have only eaten steak maybe 4 or 5 times ever), just the fact they are part of an animal.
it's strange really, i definitely started out as an ethical vegan (very strongly AR based) and to a great extent i suppose i still am, however PETA are, as cougar said, a huge load of idiots. well, ingrid newkirk and those in charge of their policy making are anyway.

oh, and i drink alcohol-free beer. i like it, but i don't like what alcohol consumption does to me. don't worry about it though, nobody's gonna try to make you do the same!

To go back to my earlier analogy

The place your analogy falls down is that rape and eating meat are simply not comparable on most people's moral compass. I can see the underlying point you're trying to make, but it gets distorted by that fact.

I disagree with your first barbed comment as well. Is it hard for you to accept that people might have thought for themselves and still decided to eat meat?

Thanks for the analysis Cougar, but you misunderstood my comment about vegetarians. I mean this to apply [b]only[/b] to vegetarians who give me grief about killing animals and eating them. I am fine with whatever anyone wants to eat, but I don't think vegetarians (ie those who don't eat meat but happily use animal products to a lesser or greater degree) have any right to moralise about the killing of animals for meat. Which essentially you have already agreed with. So please accept my apologies for confusing you, but please do read my post and subsequent posts carefully before casting your opinion.

EDIT - I have just seen that you are a vegetarian, Well done for your non moralising attitude, I appreciate your latitude to allow me to make my own choices..

It's a bit more than just a simple choice though, isn't it ?
To go back to my earlier analogy, if you moved to a country where rape in marriage was commonplace, would you join in with the local customs or become a preachy women's rights activist and try to persuade them it's not a very nice thing to do ?

Well, no, it's not. It's still a choice of course.

In your analogy, I'd do exactly what I've done with my diet choice which is to find what I'm comfortable with and to hell with what anyone else thinks. I would neither 'join in' nor 'become an activist,' I would do what I felt was right for me. Why is there this need to conform? Baa. Baa.

My wife is vegetarian for medical reasons.

Just thought I'd share.

share your wife .....is she a looker 😉

obviously 😉

RichPenny, it's an analogy. I was trying to think of something where there's a big difference between what different cultures find acceptable. That's the best I could come up with.

As for the barbed comment, don't you think it's a remarkable coincidence that most people living in the UK share the established view on eating cows, cats, pigs and dogs, whereas people living in other cultures have a different view ?

so are vegetarians allowed to wear mole skin trousers?

you misunderstood my comment about vegetarians.

I thought perhaps I did and I didn't. Your post read as though you thought "vegetarians = bastards" and then did a bit of backpedalling in your subsequent explanation just in case. It wasn't clear though so I'll hold my hand up if that was just a badly written post and not what you meant, fair do's.

I mean this to apply only to vegetarians who give me grief

Seriously, does that happen a lot? If it does, what you've got there isn't a vegetarian problem, it's an arsehole problem.

I don't think vegetarians... have any right to moralise... Which essentially you have already agreed with

Absolutely, no arguments here.

Well, no, it's not. It's still a choice of course.

I choose to ride a mountain bike.
If other people choose to ride a road bike or play cricket, it really doesn't make much difference to me.

I choose not to eat animals, drop litter, or keep slaves.
I'd prefer it if other people didn't either.

supertramp - Member

so are vegetarians allowed to wear mole skin trousers?

I like you, you're funny.

Mum, can we keep him?

Seriously, does that happen a lot? If it does, what you've got there isn't a vegetarian problem, it's an arsehole problem.

No, actually it hasn't happened for about 6 months.

There may have been a bit of this in my post...

I find this very funny, so far eating meat has been compared to:

Dropping litter
keeping slaves
Marital rape

have I missed any out? 😆

It's a bit more than just a simple choice though, isn't it ?
To go back to my earlier analogy, if you moved to a country where rape in marriage was commonplace, would you join in with the local customs or become a preachy women's rights activist and try to persuade them it's not a very nice thing to do ?

That's not an analogy, that's a logical fallacy. Specifically it is a straw man argument, and it show little more than the weakness of your argument.

This argument gets so emotive...is this thread the ethical equivalent of trolling?

I personally feel that by recognising 2 options which satisfy the same end, but recognising that one is less destructive I am obliged ethically not to be destructive.

I try and follow: do unto others as you would have done unto you (it's a classic) and you are free to do whatever you want to do, as long as it doesn't impair someone (or something) else's ability to do the same. There are obviously many ways to pedantically pick at this...as with any other belief system.

It seems a bit rude to me to choose something to be dead because I'm a bit peckish. As an omnivore I don't need too, it's just a choice.

Environmentally I feel that the farming of animals is both inefficient and damaging. Whether it's flattening rainforest to grow cattle feed or simply rearing animals on land which could produce food/fuel crops, we could use it for better means.

The real issue extends beyond what goes in your mouth, that's just the tip of the iceberg (lettuce).

Went to the doctors the other day. I had a lettuce stuck up my bum.

I bent over as instructed, the doctor peered in and said "I can see your problem but I think it's just the tip of the iceberg"

Went to the doctors the other day. I had a lettuce stuck up my bum.

The doctor said, "I see the problem, you're not eating properly."

I choose to ride a mountain bike.
If other people choose to ride a road bike or play cricket, it really doesn't make much difference to me.

I choose not to eat animals, drop litter, or keep slaves.
I'd prefer it if other people didn't either.

Oh, I see, you're one of 'those' people who thinks they're better than everybody else because you believe not eating meat is somehow morally superior.

*feeling a strong urge to start trail questing whilst consuming large quantities of meat*

I am veggie (lacto-ovo so I eat dairy but not fish) because my mum was not the greatest of cooks, was not a great meat eater, read about the squalid conditions and inhuman ways some animals are treated and I love animals (except the cats that crap in our garden but that is another post). As most people say in this thread it is a choice, MrPP eats meat and I love cooking whether it is veggie or meat - he just has to taste it! We do buy free range meat from the butchers which I think makes a difference.
I am not one of those that preach and I hate it when people ask why I wear leather shoes, I usually respond with I use to buy non-leather shoes but I feet really stank after wearing them.
The reason why most people do not like veggie food is because it is suppose to look and taste like meat. If you want to try veggie recipes get a cook book like 'Food for Thought' or 'Cranks'
After 22 years of being veggie I still miss jellied sweets (eg harribo although they do a veggie version), fish (&chips) bacon and roast chicken.

I'm returning to this thread because I want to clarify one point I made earlier.

Fish.

The OH eats Fish only when I cook it, for me I eat it twice a week, she however chooses to only eat it about once a month max.
Does that make her a "true" Veggie or not? I'm not so sure she really cares, she's long since given up the argument.

bikebouy, no surely if you eat meat once or 100 times you can't be classed as a veggie 🙂 fish flesh is still meat.

Oh, I see, you're one of 'those' people who thinks they're better than everybody else because you believe not eating meat is somehow morally superior.

Can you argue the case that he isn't morally superior in this specific case though? I doubt it...

I have not read the whole thread but.......

On the ethics - there area few issues
1) meat = animals suffering / being killed - this is an absolute and can only be satisfied by being strict vegan.
2) farming for meat uses an unjustifiably large amount of resources. It takes many kg of veg matter to make 1kg of meat. On this there can be compromise - I eat meat as an occasional treat - so the extra resources I consume over a vegetarian is a minimal amount

Not sure I buy the hypocritical angle so much either. An analogy ( 😀 ) would be with coal. Digging it out of the ground and burning it is a dirty, smelly and dangerous process and one I wouldn't do, yet I'll happily use electricity. I think that makes me sensible rather than hypocritical.

I guess there's a finer line where people claim to love animals and also eat them 🙂 Is it possible to do both, I wonder?

Graham, I believe people can subscribe to cultural norms and have thought things through. Most just decide that animals are not subject to the same rights as humans, I can appreciate that you think differently though.