90,000 out of how many?

Where does the beef we do eat come from?

No? What happens to all the bulls then?

I believe you are half right. Some enter the food chain. Some shot within hours of birth. Not sure that’s any better to be honest.

The most low impact (environmental & ethical) way to live your life is to not and end it all. If that’s not your bag you are going to have to compromise somewhere. I guess we all have our personal reasons for being where we are on that long grey scale. I suppose the important bit is we find our location in an informed way.

Yes, there’s an argument that vegetarianism whilst eating dairy doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Depending on why you’re vegetarian.

ethically it makes zero sense. It’s cruel to eat chickens, but not to throw them live into a macerator

Depends where you get your eggs from.

The only correct one size fits all answer is ‘it depends’. It’s alays a question of degrees too… I tried veganism but the shoes .. the horror…

Why is it meat eaters always seem to wade into conversations about cruelty free diets asking the same dumb gotcha questions and demanding answers about the meat industry. Bruv google it and enjoy your dead animal sandwich, whatever. If someone eating cruelty free did the same in a chat about bacon they’d be the first to start yelling about preachy vegans.

I tried veganism but the shoes

how are they different to vegetarian shoes?

Why is it meat eaters always seem to wade into conversations about cruelty free diets asking the same dumb gotcha questions and demanding answers

It was ever thus – substitute vegans/meat eaters for 29″/27.5″, electric bikes, etc etc. IRL nobody ever asks me dumb questions about my morals… only on here.

Why is it meat eaters always seem to…

Why do veggies always seem to go on about eating ‘dead animal’ as if a meat eater will suddenly go “OMG that’s what I’m eating? Ew!”

We know what we are eating 🙂

(tongue in cheek post)

Btw I am not anti veggie, not trying to prove a point about animal welfare. Food supply and economics interest me that’s all.

Because eating cruelty free is usually an ethical choice and that makes it hard to detach from seeing an animal as a living being not a meal. No one is expecting a meat eater to stop because someone told them ‘hey, that’s a dead cow you know’. That’s on their conscience not mine.

how are they different to vegetarian shoes?

Plastic work shoes – they were more or less the only ‘acceptable ‘ work wear at the time (can get away with Converse / Vans most of the time now) and they essentially gave you trench foot from your own sweat.
I accept moral veggies probably should consider the provenance of any leather they wear, but I don’t think it happens much. To be vegan you don’t really have an out at all.

^ I was wearing synthetic steel toed boots at work as far back as the early 90s, Doc Martins even made them, and don’t remember having sweaty feet. These days, like with saddles and cycling shoes, it’s not even an issue to find synthetic footwear. Like the protein thing, why is there so much perpetually recycled cheap stereotyping and misinformation following veg*ism, even in 2017?

http://www.vegetarian-shoes.co.uk/

Vegan shoes aren’t hard to find, and they’re pretty damn good. It isn’t the 70s anymore.

I guess it really depends on why you are veggie. I am veggie and constantly find myself arguing with my own ideas!

It started from the standpoint of “if I’m going to eat it I should be prepared to kill it”. As a rule of thumb I’m not prepared to kill an animal just so that I can eat it.

There is no particular nutritional need or reason to eat meat in our society beyond convention and personal taste as food is readily availiable. It is widely accepted that “we” eat more meat than our bodies need (or in some cases can cope with).

Looking into the ecological side of things meat is much more energy, water and land intensive for a given nutritional value so for expanding (global) populations it doesn’t make a lot of sense to increase meat consumption. Hill farming of sheep/goats on land unsuitable for arable production is an obvious route to maintaining meat production without affecting arable output and having less carbon/water impact but would involve us eating less cow.

But, I have to wear smart shoes for work so try to buy leather shoes that use leather sourced from animals destined for the food chain that were reared on non-environmentally damaging pasture (i.e. not Brazil/cleared rainforest, etc).

Also, I think it is a crime to throw food away so if someone serves me meat I will eat it if the alternative is that the meat goes in the bin and more food has to be prepared.

That is my take on it anyway. It keeps changing. Not sure what you call it. Rationally pragmatic vegetarianism? Minimal omnivorey?

More to the point, you’d have to eat an awful lot of grass in order to get the same calories as in that steak (probably a lot more than the cow processed in order to make it).

Wheat is a grass, so is maize, oats, rice……

Increased meat eating is a massive environmental impact..
Oh and those sheep on welsh hills are still having a massive negative impact on biodiversity.
In simples terms growing meat requires much more inputs and much more land area.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v515/n7528/abs/nature13959.html

you’d have to eat an awful lot of grass in order to get the same calories as in that steak (probably a lot more than the cow processed in order to make it).

the first part is true the second part is clearly false as clearly the animal will use some of the calories it consumes to stay alive so it can never be true it will always require more calories than it makes.

Derailed thread comment: I’ve been vegetarian since I was about 8, but I never tell people it’s for ethical reasons, as it’d make me feel like too much of a hypocrite for eating dairy. I might try vegan +eggs sometime soon (most of the eggs I eat are from our own hens that have a better quality of life than most children).

OP’s question: I was never really a fan of meat before going veggie, so I don’t have that much advice on that front. But as far as adding that nice savory MSG-y flavour to veggie dishes – soy sauce, lots of garlic, lots of onions; and cheese is good too (although it’s easy to fall into the trap of putting cheese on everything).

Yes, there’s an argument that vegetarianism whilst eating dairy doesn’t make a lot of sense.

can’t help thinking vegetarianism is a bit of a halfway house that’s an easy way of feeling more virtuous without having to really think too much.

As someone else said, it depends why you’re vegetarian. I am because I find the concept of eating dead flesh revolting. I’d be squeamish about handling it, and I’d be a hypocrite if I let someone else do all the wetwork for me. And as Shackleton just said ^^ we’re privileged enough to live in a society where it’s simply not necessary. So wouldn’t I be veggie?

Why is it meat eaters always seem to wade into conversations about cruelty free diets asking the same dumb gotcha questions and demanding answers about the meat industry. Bruv google it and enjoy your dead animal sandwich, whatever. If someone eating cruelty free did the same in a chat about bacon they’d be the first to start yelling about preachy vegans.

It’s incredibly tedious trolling, is what it is.

See also the cracks about immediately telling everyone you’re veggie / vegan. Sure, there will be activists, just the same as there’s a vocal fringe element in any demographic.

The only time I tell anyone is when it’s relevant (like being offered food in public and them not taking “no thank you” for an answer) or, y’know, on a discussion about vegetarianism, largely because nine times out of ten telling someone will result in a defensive omnivore playing 20 questions with the same bullshit bingo arguments I’ve heard countless times over. From “I couldn’t do it” (bully for you, I didn’t ask you to), to some nonsense about how we have to eat meat because Teeth, to “yeah but you wear leather shoes” (I don’t eat my shoes), to the perennial favourite “but wwwhhhhhyyyyyy?”

In my entire life I think I’ve met two preachy vegans (one was a friend and the other was a random “meat is murder” gobshite in a pub. Meat eaters who jump into the middle of any discussion about vegetarianism to go “yeah but, bacon” on the other hand, that lot are ten a ****ing penny. And I really wouldn’t care in the slightest if they’d just come up with something original occasionally.

as far as adding that nice savory MSG-y flavour to veggie dishes – soy sauce, lots of garlic, lots of onions;

Or, MSG. (-:

Marmite works well sometimes too. The squeezy bottle is handy for dispensing it into stuff with minimal mess and it’s thinner than the regular stuff (I call it Cooking Marmite).

Oh and those sheep on welsh hills are still having a massive negative impact on biodiversity.

Very true. Same goes for deer in scotland.

More to the point, you’d have to eat an awful lot of grass in order to get the same calories as in that steak (probably a lot more than the cow processed in order to make it).

But not if you ate beans, lentils, etc. And cows are pretty inefficient too. They only turn ~25% of the calories in grass into steak. If you didn’t have cows you would need less grazing land which in turn could be used to produce human edible crops thereby cutting out the middle-cow.

“The practice is common in the industry, 90,000 male calves shot dead each year because there is no market for them “

I thought that was what the increase of production of rose veal was supposed to address? We certainly eat it, when we can get it.
I actually eat very little meat mostly because i’m not keen on antibiotics in my foodstuffs. I like (home made) nut roast, and vege curry (I will never eat a generic “meat” curry when out), I can’t stand “chicken breast” because it has a texture like cardboard, and am not keen on Quorn (partly because I can’t see the point of meat replacement foodstuff).
But done well – both traditional vege, and modern culturally integrated vege is great, done well you won’t even notice there’s no meat in it.

In my entire life I think I’ve met two preachy vegans (one was a friend and the other was a random “meat is murder” gobshite in a pub. Meat eaters who jump into the middle of any discussion about vegetarianism to go “yeah but, bacon” on the other hand, that lot are ten a ****ing penny. And I really wouldn’t care in the slightest if they’d just come up with something original occasionally.

I agree with most of what you say Cougar and I’m sure all the BS bingo stuff does get super tedious and as a rule meat-eaters seem more evangelical and defensive than vegans. I’ve been vegetarian for a few years (but not now) so have some idea

But I do think an unfortunate mentality has developed where (largely because of all the arseholes on the meat ‘side’) you often can’t have an intelligent discussion where you might question/debate anything about veganism/vegetarianism without people getting super-defensive. As said above there are ethical dilemmas and consequences to eating all food not just meat and I think reducing it to meat = evil, everything else = fine isn’t necessarily accurate or helpful.

Eating ‘factory’ meat or dairy is pretty much morally indefensible though, and I do both sometimes. :-/

I like (home made) nut roast,

Got a recipe you’d be willing to share?

not keen on Quorn (partly because I can’t see the point of meat replacement foodstuff).

See my comment on the first page. It’s just a conveniently packaged / shaped protein source, only one not derived from animals.

I realised that I forgot to actually address the OP’s question…………

I found that switching to food from cultures that are normally veggie or meat light helped (e.g. mediteranean, indian, midlde eastern and asian) rather than trying to adapt the british diet really helped. They have developed flavour combinations and textures that work without meat.

As a quick source of fast food ideas I’m a big fan of Anna Jones:

http://annajones.co.uk/

Lots of tasty ideas that generally don’t take much time at all. Can be a bit over fond of lemon zest/juice at times for my tastes but it depends on your tastes!

Here you go:

8oz mixed nuts, roughly chopped
3 tomatoes, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1stk celery, chopped
6oz bread crumbs
1 tspn mixed herbs
1/2 tspn chilli powder to taste
deseeded green chilli finely chopped
1 tspn pimento
6 mushrooms roughly chopped
1.5oz butter
2 eggs

Greased tin for cooking
Oven Gas Mk7

Melt butter & saute onions & celery
Add chopped nuts leave for a minute then add everything else except eggs
Mix thoroughly still on heat for a couple of minutes
Take off heat, add beaten eggs and mix well
Spoon into greased tin & cook for 50-60 minutes until browned on top and mixture has “set”
Serve in slices, works really well with horseradish! (or other milder choice of accompaniment…)

Sounds tasty. When you say “mixed nuts”, how diverse are your nuts?

you often can’t have an intelligent discussion where you might question/debate anything about veganism/vegetarianism without people getting super-defensive

I think a part of it is, it’s human nature to offer opinion and then to get offensive / defensive with people who have a different viewpoint. Eg, every time a Linux user pops up for a spot of blind evangelising on a thread asking a Windows question I feel like carving their nipples off with a rusty spoon. And I’ve been guilty of “yeah but bacon” comments in the past myself too, in discussions on here such as the religious threads. I’m trying to make a conscious effort to stop being such an arsehole these days. (I know, that’s probably not going too well.)

It’s not even sense of humour failure any more. It was a case of “ha ha, yes, haven’t heard that one before, honest” 25 years ago. A few years back I used to go round to a then-girlfriend’s parents’ house for Sunday lunch most weekends and had the Royale Family “slice it thin” line from her dad every single bloody visit, that’s probably about a hundred times just there alone. Now it’s just, ye gods, really, again?

And most cows that we eat are the waste product from the diary industry.

I’ve been writing on real Mooleskine?

Here you go:

Ooh. Nicely, ta.

I’d share mine but it’s still a Work In Progress so I’ve not typed it up yet (I have all my recipes in OneNote, but until I’m happy that they’re the finished article they’re just scribbles on paper as it’s easier to tweak and amend on the fly when in the kitchen.

Haha @cougar

Yeah the ole bacon line, because that one never gets old…usually about the 3rd sentence to come out of someone who’s just found out you’re a vegetarian (more often than not by offering you something with meat in it).

Regarding defensiveness of meat eaters: I think it’s because people assume you’re taking the moral high ground and to claw some back they go on the attack to convince themselves they’re higher. Instead of just accepting it’s a choice, a perfectly valid choice.

Aye, I don’t disagree. “Oh god, a vegetarian, I’m about to be lectured, best get the first punch in. ‘Did you know we’re meant to eat meat because we have depth perception?'”

I’d be a hypocrite if I let someone else do all the wetwork for me

You mean like artificially inseminating cows , killing their calves and then taking the milk that sort of thing would be hypocritical 😉

FWIW I suspect meat eaters have met fewer preachy vegans* than I have had preachy meat eater folk tell me how nice bacon is, a kebab and then they basically list every variation of meat they can and tell me how they could not live with it then warn me about the dangers tell me its normal then mention protein to me

* There are way less of us

Been away all day at a meeting (funnily enough the clients provided lunch with some pretty epic veg options, I didn’t tell them and brought my own. Pleasantly surprised). Nice to come back to a good discussion. I’m still forming my own opinion on the ethics, but for me Shackleton nails it.

I’ll check out the recipes and links above, thanks again all!

To keep the ball rolling, in an ideal world i’d be vegan but I’m actually able to source plenty of eggs from friends with happy free range chickens in their gardens. Similarly I can also source cheese and milk from a trusted source. I can actually go see them and see the process, though I still struggle with the ethics of it..

in an ideal world i’d be vegan but I’m actually able to source plenty of eggs from friends with happy free range chickens in their gardens

FTFY 😉

I can actually go see them and see the process

what the artificial insemination and the slaughter of the male calves and the removal of the females within two days so you can have the milk or just the milking bit and the churning of it to make cheese ?

FWIW i know a number of vegans who keep chickens and eat their eggs but dont buy eggs or eat anything with eggs in it

I can actually go see them and see the process

The stuff shown in this video…?

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN7SGGoCNI[/video]

^ Preachy vegan alert 😉

I actually eat very little meat mostly because i’m not keen on antibiotics in my foodstuffs.

Banned in the EU and being phased out or already phased out.

It’s not that simple – I see it suggested above that a cow only processes 25% of the calories in grass, but humans would process a lot less than that. Hence even after the energy used by the cow in staying alive it may still leave more calories which the human digestive system can process than in the grass.

(and yes I do get the other arguments about what you can grow on the land – but I alluded to that in my previous comment)

Not sure as that’s helping the OP with a great beanburger recipe TBH…

Banned in the EU and being phased out or already phased out.

That’s not going to apply to the UK though is it? We’ll have a win-win US style free market, free-for-all. With no controls.
Consequently I eat limited amounts of meat and chicken.

It’s not that simple – I see it suggested above that a cow only processes 25% of the calories in grass, but humans would process a lot less than that. Hence even after the energy used by the cow in staying alive it may still leave more calories which the human digestive system can process than in the grass.

Seeing as how humans dont eat “grass” (Ignoring wheat, rice, oats, barley etc) your point is entirely irrelevant.