I'm betting probably not, but it's worth asking. I'm a vegetarian, and have been on and off since 2000. I am very much "on" right now and am considering some lifestyle changes that support a more natural diet. So, on the off-chance that someone else out there doesn't eat meat - what does your diet consist of?

Dude, you get cooler by the second.

I'm not a vegetarian per se, my I'm working my way to it.  I had a very eye opening experience with a few homegirls of mine who are strict vegetarians - the kind that won't even use a pot if meat was ever cooked in it.  They invited me over for dinner and I had no idea that vegetarians could eat so good.  As such, I've been taking baby steps and weened myself off of pork.  I cut back on beef.  I still eat birds and fish on a regular basis though, but not as much as before.  Once spring comes, I'm going to drop meat altogether and see how I do for a few months. 

I didn't answer your question at all, but I just thought I'd share... 

Also, vegetarians/vegans love Ethiopian food.  There are plenty up there in Beantown.  Go for a vegetarian combo, you'll love it.  I promise you.

http://tinyurl.com/ysjwel

I also love Ethiopian food, albeit for entirely different reasons.

Yeah, kitfo is the shit, especially with some mit mita.

I can't do gored gored though.

um...broken link.

Response to Zane:

In August of 2004 I tried being a Vegan for one week, at the challenge of a friend. I enjoyed it so much, and also entrenched myself with much of the pro-vegan literature, that I ended up committing to it. I also had a number of friends go vegan for that year in college. Good times.

But in November of 2005, a month before I got married, I was in awful shape. I had lost 60 pounds, and even though blood tests showed that I had enough iron and B-12, I had symptoms that suggested otherwise. I really thought for a long time that I was going to be alright, but ultimately, I wasn't alright. A doctor told me that, quite frankly, if I didn't change my diet, I could suffer permanent nerve damage over the next year. So my parents told me I had to eat an egg.

I remember crying as I ate that egg sandwich. Mad at myself, mad at my body, mad at everything around me. Totally an emo moment. The vegan in me died.

BUT! I'm still a vegetarian. I haven't eaten any meat/fish since August of 2004, and I'm staying that way indefinitely. However, I now consume an absurd amount of dairy products, and I'm back to my normal weight (in fact, a little overweight ... I kind of miss my thin-as-a-stick vegan days).

Glad you made this thread.

Ramza

I'm not a vegetarian, but I have thought about it. I do want to ask, why are you a vegetarian? My experience is that people have very different reasons. My main reason for wanting to be vegetarian is because I hate the meat industry. That being said, I still eat meat, but I purchase only organic food, and the animals are also treated in a "humanitarian" way. Mainly I purchase food at the local Co-op which comes from small local farms (we have buffalo farms here in New England Problem is, it is expensive, but still I think the quality of food is very important (don't want any hormone or antibiotic crap put in my system). Anyway, I do know a lot of vegetarians (no vegans though), and they eat very well! I recommend the Indian restaurants at Harvard Sq (lunch buffets = awesome)!

cheers,

-avatar!

Your briefcase is acting up, but it's obvious what you were going for:
http://saladsimpsons.ytmnd.com/

For the Francophiles:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=N2kaE7WUUXY

If a cow ever got the chance, he'd eat you and everyone you care about!

To answer the original question, no. I love bacon too much to ever become a vegetarian.

Yeah, Briefcase has been a bastard these past couple of days.  But that's the one, thanks. :)

C'mon, I'm treating you to a Wendy's Baconator.

Thanks for the replies so far, everyone! It was ignorant of me to guess that people here weren't vegetarians - or "Pastafarians", as I like to say. Usually when the topic comes up I am the only one that doesn't eat meat. Then again, out of 200 people in a crowded bar I'll bet I'm the only one that has Kikuta on his iPod. But here on the boards...

It's nice to get some feedback and responses on this topic.

You're not half bad yourself there, bro.

It's cool to hear that you're working toward being a vegetarian. Either way, I'm sure you'll make the choice that is right for you. I'd love to hear about how things go come springtime. I'm not as strict as your friends are about it just yet, but I really respect and admire adhering to a belief like that. I hope I'll be able to be like that someday. If I ever go vegan I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to be a full-blown vegan, though. I may just put myself on a vegan diet... I don't know if I could completely commit myself to the point where I'm going to clean out my closet and throw away anything I own that is made of leather or anything like that. I'm still learning about the lifestyle, so only time will tell how things go.

I haven't explored much outside of the usual standard fare: pizza, pasta, salads, etc. I'd love to get into some exotic vegetarian or vegan cuisine to see what else is out there. Luckily, there are a lot of unique and foreign places around Boston and its surrounding boroughs to try out - I'll have to get myself one of those combos at an Ethiopian joint.

Wow, dude. That's a really inspiring quote right there. I've been getting into some vegan websites and have been reading up on recipes and stuff to see how much of a change I'm going to have to make if I do go vegan (answer: a lot). Feel free to pass on any ol' tips or cookbook ideas that you might have lying around from your vegan days.

You bring up another point that worries me, though - my health. Were you taking supplements and vitamins while you were a vegan, Ramza? One thing I would want to consider is speaking with a nutritionist (preferably a vegan one) to see where else I could get my fuel from. I'm a thin dude at a healthy weight right now, and I really couldn't afford to lose too much weight. I would look (and probably feel) unhealthy.

I wanted to address avatar! in a different post because this could get a little lengthy...

I originally stopped eating meat back when I was away at college because of how poor the meat was there. It would make people nauseous or sick when they ate it, and given how nobody likes to feel ill I just stopped eating the meat that the dining commons served. After a few months of not eating meat, I felt sick when I did have meat when I was home for the holidays. I adjusted a bit after a couple of weeks, then went back to school in January... which led to months of not eating meat again. Then when summer came, I would feel sick whenever I ate any type of meat or pork, so I just cut it out of my diet. It says something to me when the body naturally rejects something like that after not eating it for so long. Why don't I feel that way if I don't eat potatoes for months? Or carrots?

Well, over the next several years I would eat meat here and there, but after that school year I was ever a big meat eater. After a while chicken started tasting funny to me no matter where I had it - I had to smother it in BBQ sauce for it to be enjoyable. Same goes for steak - the taste of just steak was totally unappealing, so I would drench it in A-1 sauce. Out of a typical week, I would eat some type of meat or poultry maybe three or four times, but it was usually part of a side dish. One or two meatballs with pasta, chicken in my Caesar salad, stuff like that.

Over the past year or so, I've been doing a lot of research about the meat and dairy industry, and due to my own train of thought and ethical beliefs, my body's natural reaction to meat, and the videos and literature at sites like http://www.goveg.com, I've made this a more conscious choice and have been much more adamant about it than before. I watched some videos of animals being slaughtered and killed for food, and after seeing how the meat gets to the plate I can't even consider thinking about ever eating it again. So regardless of what happens with the vegan thing, I can guarantee that I'll at least be vegetarian for the rest of my time here. I have a deep respect and appreciation toward animals, and I'm at a point where I can't go back.

So, while it just started as me avoiding feeling sick to my stomach, being a vegetarian is now an ethical choice for me.

That's great, dude!

I completely disagree with the way the meat industry pumps hormones into the animals that they breed. It's also the general lack of empathy and compassion toward the animals that really hurts me to think about. It's really sad how on factory farms dairy cows are jacked up with hormones and then are impregnated so that they can continue to produce milk. When they have their calves, the babies are taken away almost instantly and are raised in small corrals if they are male (for veal), or are raised to be dairy cows... and the cycle continues. That's what really sold me on trying to go vegan - supporting the general dairy industry is tied to the veal industry, which I am completely against.

I've actually heard quite a few stories (first-hand stories, not the friend-of-a-girlfriend-of-a-cousin kind) of vegans who experienced health problems that cleared up after adding animal products back to their diets. I'm not convinced that it's impossible to maintain good health as a long-term vegan, but it does seem to be harder and require a lot more thought and planning than does a diet containing animal products.

I have no objection to veg(etari)anism for philosophical or environmentalist reasons, but I strongly urge anyone considering taking it up for health reasons to reconsider. The case for the health benefits of vegetarianism is questionable at best. Yes, vegetarians do tend to live longer than average, but this effect appears to be due entirely to the fact that vegetarians tend to be health-conscious in general (e.g., smoke less, exercise more, eat less refined carbohydrate and trans fat, etc.)--I've seen three studies comparing death rates among vegetarians and health-conscious non-vegetarians, and none found any significant differences in all-cause mortality (non-vegetarians died of heart disease more often, but this was balanced out by more cancer deaths among vegetarians).

Zane:
Regarding your problems with adding meat back to your diet after a long period of abstention, this is a common experience with any radical dietary changes. For example, people who go from low-fiber diets to high-fiber diets often experience intestinal distress. This doesn't mean that fiber is unhealthful--it just means that the body needs time to adjust. Also, I've followed a low-carbohydrate diet for several years, and I do react negatively to things like potatoes. I suspect the reason you don't is that you eat foods with similar macronutrient profiles, like grains or legumes, so it's not much of an adjustment.

No, I'm not and I don't think I ever will--- meat-eating seems to be a staple of human diet stretching back for thousands of years AND science seems to confirm that our evolution (ie brain development) is the product of it.  I do, however, understand the ethical reasons--- I also disagree with factory farming, with all the chemicals and hormones and antibiotics pumped into animals to force them to survive horrendous living conditions, and believe veal should be made illegal in this country.

.

I am a convinced meat-eater, and I will never be otherwise.

Also:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net … igpot6.jpg

Eats healthy.  Eats meat.  Doesn't eat jacked-up meat.  Wins.

My diet:

Meat:  Most days, I have meat for lunch and dinner.  Chicken, beef, fish (especially salmon), pork, shrimp.

Dairy:  Way too much.  I drink about two gallons of milk a week, along with yogurt, eggs, ice cream, etc.

Grains:  I love rice (especially brown rice) and couscous.  I also am quite fond of pasta and cereal.

Fruits:  When they're fresh and in season, I binge.  I'll eat a ton of strawberries, blueberries, and apples, then once the season passes, I'll have none for months at a time.

Vegetables:  I'm really not into vegetables.  When I order food at a restaurant, and it has carrots, celery, or lettuce, I'll eat them, but I never get any of those when I'm shopping for groceries.  There are a lot of plants/fungi that I can't stand to eat (onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, beets).  I'm OK with beans.

At this point, I don't have any major health problems, but I'm only 31.  I take vitamins every day, in a feeble attempt to try and get necessary nutrients that I should be getting from my food.

I tend to go for organic meats and vegetables.  I try to have a bit more vegetables than meat. 

If you want to strike it out as a vegetarian, make sure you eat the right vegetables or supplements that provide nutrients that meat would provide.

By the way, vegan is even more extreme than vegetarian.  Vegan is a lifestyle change, in addition to a dietary change.  You have to own and eat nothing that is made from an animal, including clothes.  Although anecdotal, all the vegans I have ever seen are very skinny, almost dangerously so (you can see the arm bones more visibly, for example).

speaking of produce, wtf is the green leafy guy in the new fruit of the loom commercials supposed to be? is he like a wilted tomatillo or something? i thought he might be spinach, but that would throw a huge dent into their little fruit exclusive thing they've had going for decades? when the hell did some advocate group band together to convince them to oust the banana?

Odd.  http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_ … characters

That's good to know, man. I haven't had any other experience with cutting something out of my diet like that before, so I had just assumed it was just the way my body reacts to meat.

Hah! Absolutely not, dude. I must have changed my avatar right around the same time that you posted that sale. I'm in a total No More Heroes daze right about now, and I figured it was time to retire my old CV avatar and move on. I put that one up when I first joined Chudah's Corner, which was almost several years ago.

I try to watch the amount of total calories that I consume, avoid obviously fatty or greasy foods, and do some light excercise, but that's as far as I go.

In case anyone is interested, I just found this awesome vegan recipe list online:

http://www.all-creatures.org/recipes/bev-spapple.html

Stories like the one CBS News aired tonight about the Westland Hallmark dairy farm certainly make me consider vegetarianism.

You'd be surprised how much stuff like that goes on at slaughterhouses. I've seen videos of animal abuse that have been so awful I had to stop watching. Stuff like that is really unfair to these poor animals.

I eat animals.  Meat good.  A strick veggie diet?...I couldn't do it, and wouldn't want to.  A good BBQ Rib Eye steak is awesome.  Beef Jerky....yeah it kickass.  Pepperoni sticks...yup those are good too.  Smoked salmon....My uncle makes some of the best smoked salmon evar!  I f---ing love crab, shrimp, prawns, halibut, and just seafood...yum!

My fav veggie to eat though are radishes.  Then I eat more fruit than I do veggies anyhow.

There is also the alternative of trying to shop from vendors that humanely treat animals.  This works best if you live in a state that has a lot of farm exports.  If you have a local farmer, you can check them out.

This is something I've thought about doing as well. I'm still weighing out my options, but at least this way I could still have milk with my cereal instead of soy milk.

Not a vegetarian here, but I have several very close friends who are.  Because of that I've learned to cook a whole lot of meat-free stuff.  While I'm definitely too weak to ever go that route, I understand why one might and admire all who do.  I've honestly never met a particularly healthy-seeming vegan, though.  :\  I'm sure it's possible, but you have to REALLY know what you're doing.

A random question, something I've always wondered - why is it that it's okay to do all kinds of awful things to fish that it's not okay to do to other animals?  To me fishing with a hook has always seemed just completely awful.  Also, having grown up Catholic, "meat-free" still meant fish were okay.  What the heck is up with that?

(on a related note, one of the most disturbing things ever is going to an aquarium in Japan and having EVERYONE around you pointing at the tanks of tropical fish and saying "mmm, that looks delicious")

Haha When I went to an aquarium, I heard that too.  ;p

I also heard little kids saying "Oh look it's Nemo!" when they saw a clownfish in the tank.

Oh, that's ridiculous. Even a lion has been taught to eat tofu, and it looks perfectly fine.

The story I heard growing up was that fishermen petitioned the Vatican for "meat-free" Fridays in order to drum up fish sales. Dunno if that's actually true, but those Fridays were always hard for my brother since he can't stand seafood.

Soy milk has a unique flavor, that's for sure. I've tried a few different varieties, and the choices seem to be either unsweetened (vile) or overly sweetened (slightly less vile). Although, I have to admit chocolate soy milk isn't half bad.

I say that to my younger cousins and niece, every time.

Because it IS Nemo!  ^_^

This is sad on my part - I didn't even need to click the link because I knew what you were referencing the second I read it.

Soy milk is filled with estrogen that's turning males gay:  http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53327 No, I don't read or trust WorldNetDaily.

Thanks, sexy. I guess that explains my recent mood swings and Golden Girls DVD marathons.