Are you a vegetarian? (poll)

fuck it. we wouldn't even have cows if not for people like me and our cheese & steaks.

I bet aurochs either tasted shite or weren't docile enough to take a good slicing.

'flexitarian', having (depressingly) slid all the way down from vegan via each of these stages over the past twelve months

I just looked at the menu for Terre a Terre, and... no. Just no. I really don't want to spend £15 on any of those dishes. I mean, I don't want to eat them at all, but then having to pay £15 for them makes it quite a lot worse.

Yeah, I can't afford to eat there that often, but it's really nice as a treat.

I am a vegetarian because....I seriously don't enjoy meat. I mean, I got sick on badly cooked meat a few times. Too many bad meatloafs. At first I cut out just red meat. I don't drink milk either and only consume processed dairy products. I have some dietary allergies but don't like to be a pain in the ass about it. I can't digest bananas or fruit pulp either!

However, I am pragmatic, if there is chicken stock in the soup, I hope no orthodox people are watching...I mean, if I'm traveling, I'll eat what is there...as long as it's not a pig or a cow. I prefer to keep the peace and not be difficult about it.

A chicken kiev or a fish slathered with butter can still entice me.

I genuinely enjoy fake meat, it has lots of healthy oils and makes me feel healthy!

unrepentant carnivore, eat meat every day though not every meal, has hunted game, slaughtered cows, pigs and chickens, and knows how to butcher, hasn't eaten carbohydrates in years

Was straight-up ovo-lacto vegetarian from 1998-2006 and pescatarian since then. I eat fish/seafood at least once a week, although not very often at home.

(And to be perfectly honest, it's probably going to take me a while before I cook fish again after some oven-baked whitefish a few days ago struck me with the worst bout of food poisoning I've ever had.)

I'm a meat eater, but I've been phasing blood red meat out of my diet for several years. Have hated steak for a long time, and I'm getting to a point with burgers. Still, I eat lots of pork, poultry and fish. Unfortunately, you didn't create an option for me in this poll.

option # 7 "I am Johnny Fever"

Part of what I enjoy about pescatarianism is just that it opens up so many options at restaurants. I live in a big city, so it's not particularly difficult for me to find vegetarian meals, but there are still a lot of places that either don't include vegetarian dishes or treat them as an afterthought.

I used to be more serious about vegetarianism but at some point I changed my mind, I realized what i respect is food awareness, like healthy choices. It was the unhealthiness of some of the food I ate as a child that turned me off to meat. I like reading about healthy diets including fish. I still don't like red meat though. I used to love ribs as a child, however...if they made fake ribs I could die happy. Also lobster or crab looks good to me even though I won't eat it.

if they made fake ribs I could die happy.

Pretty sure you can get fake anything in this day and age.

http://www.morningstarfarms.com/content/dam/common/products/MorningStarFarmsHickoryBBQRiblets_16331.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2406/2424225078_377ca05d13.jpg

^ these do look a bit dodgy (and what are those weird things next to the corn?), but you could probably make yr own out of seitan or something.

what are those weird things next to the corn?

Potatoes, obvs.

They are? What the hell have they done to those poor things?

Red potatoes, to be more specific.

Looked like some sort of cheesey apple to me.

look like cheesy bollocks to me.

That would definately not be vegetarian.

I <3 u vegetarians but fake ribs make me want to cry

I have never seen those fake ribs before! They don't have them where I live. I would like "raw" ribs that you could bring to a barbecue. I'm sure if I look hard enough.

Whatever you think about vegetarianism, it has certainly expanded people's ideas of what one should eat...restaurants include more vegetable dishes or salads and people include vegetarian items at parties. It used to be that office parties and the like barely served vegetables...everything was fattening and had meat in it!

veg for years trending toward vegan. pretty much the only dairy I eat these days is local eggs from people we know at the farmers' market, I rarely buy any cheese any more but when I'm away on business there's much pizza to be eaten and even at home pizza's still a thing once or twice a month. I expect that at some point in my life I'll make the leap to fully vegan.

Xps to snoball - for every smug vegan/vegetarian there is at least one smug meateater/ I-love-bacon-so-much-I-use-bacon-grease-as-lube person.

i would be interested to see the results broken down into gender and reason why

xp my cousin-in-law is an un-smug vegetarian married to an I-love-bacon-so-much-I-use-bacon-grease-as-lube person : /

The only thing I've found difficult about vegan cooking is not being able to use worcestershire sauce (although you can buy expensive vegan kinds our make your own).

I almost always order chicken/seafood when eating out, but only cook vegan at home.

I would probably go straight vegan if I had the money. I'd do juices and smoothies in a blender. I did do this diet for a while but went broke. I'd do it to see how much better I'd feel....changes in your body are interesting. I like that you can throw a bunch of fruit and peanut butter in a blender with some weird protein powder and feel full all day!

That brings up an interesting point: the main problem being veg (although not so much now) or vegan (definitely still a problem) is that being veg/vegan means having to have boring conversations with smug veg/vegan people.

i've experienced this, but almost entirely in the opposite direction, which is non-vegs who bring up the vegetarian thing over and over and over and over again. "I'd give you a piece of this - but you can't eat meat!!" "I don't know how you do this, oh man the meat is so good!" "It must be so hard for you here because you don't eat meat!" "I could never not eat meat, I don't know how you do it!". The repeated thing drives me wacky, especially as the chance of me talking about meat vs. not eating meat in a conversation is approximately 0.0000000001%

i would be interested to see the results broken down into gender and reason why

(a) woman
(b) i'm not one of those BACOOOOOOOON types but the occasional meat cravings are such that i can't commit myself fully to vegetarianism (and i've tried)

xpost
this is most painfully apparent at thanksgiving, which is solidified in my head as the holiday where you have to hear about how difficult it must be to be a vegetarian all day.

but the side dishes (mostly vegetarian) are the best part of thanksgiving!

was a vegetarian/pescetarian for two years, gave it up in january. i don't regret doing it, and being forced to eat no meat is a good lesson in teaching yourself to eat a better diet, but you can't really keep it up forever if your heart isn't in it.

a) woman
b) I really really do enjoy the taste of meat. I love vegetables fine, but food in general for me is as much about enjoyment as it is nutrition, so I think I would be a sad panda if I had to only eat vegetables all day, no matter how tasty.

Z® otm. I'm not even vegan/vege and it drives me into a rage when ppl do this.

Lol z®

I probably eat a lot less meat than I think I do due to the cost of it and my inherent laziness, but when I get a strong craving for a particular meal, it's usually for a particular kind of meat dish (like filet mignon or sashimi or seared duck breast). I like other non-meat foods a lot and eat a lot of vegetarian meals, but nothing other than dessert-type things engenders any particularly strong craving in me and I would enjoy eating a lot less and wouldn't think of it as a reason for seeking out new restaurants or cuisines without any kind of meat involvement. I could give up cheese way before I could give up meat.

Carnivore. I eat a little less meat each year -- but mainly due to portion size rather than frequency.

I am vegetarian, can't eat egg-heavy dishes (no quiche, bread okay), can't really eat dairy in excess, should probably just embrace veganism but cheese and also, as mentioned upthread, being vegan requires way too much ingredient scanning. I was vegan for about 6 mos once and whey is in so much stuff.

At least if you go to meat-serving places they have vegetarian options

in the US at least this is simply not true, especially with "option" being plural, but I have definitely looked at menus and seen zero meat-free entrees. Also, caprese sandwiches should be considered as taboo as human flesh imo.

Z S totally otm. most conversations I have with non-friend people about being vegetarian eventually turn into conversations about how great meat is. which is fine, I don't care, but the strident vegetarian stereotype is mostly confined to college age ime.

I just ate some Velveeta. I am not getting enough calcium right now. I am a hypocrite and no, my body does not digest it well. But I think I needed some oil and fats and calcium so I ate it.

im a big hairy man, I'm vegan and have been for 8 years and I'm VERY smug and aggressive about it also I weigh appx 9000 pounds

I live in Texas and my wife is vegan too
can I have my medal now?

in the US at least this is simply not true, especially with "option" being plural, but I have definitely looked at menus and seen zero meat-free entrees. Also, caprese sandwiches should be considered as taboo as human flesh imo.

this is not true in the major US west coast cities. Menus always havd items for vegetarians. Less so for vegans.
In fact, I enjoy eating out vegetarian at omnivore restaurants as opposed to veggie-only.
(Except for the HighLine in Seattle, all vegan crusty/metal diner. Sooooo good.)

my point was just that it isn't true that ALL meat-serving restaurants have vegetarian options. obv the West Coast is different than the South or the Midwest

That is so true once you get outside of the big cities. I remember when that was true in the suburbs (1980s and before)! Everything was red meat, eating chicken all of the time (which I did) was almost like being a vegetarian. Unless you were Italian...Italian and Chinese restaurants were less white bread.

However even now out in the boonies you can get something that is at least lacto-ovo friendly - marinara pasta or something. Or you can eat an appetizer without feeling like a weirdo.

I really do find grass-fed beef is easier on me and actually more tasty. I have no compunction about paying more (and eating less of it) for red meat, if it's better but then I think that generally about most things.

I checked vegan, but in reality I'm vegan at home, lacto-vegetarian at local restaurants (try to find a good Indian place that doesn't slather dishes in ghee/clarified butter), and sometimes pescetarian on scuba vacations.

Male, dropped the meat and quit smoking when 3 years ago when I decided to clean up my health, and the longevity/chronic disease advantage of veganism (but don't forget the vitamin B12!) seemed pretty clear in the literature.

http://www.scielo.br/img/revistas/abc/v88n1/en_a06tab02.gif

Non-judgmental vegetarian since '99. If not for Indian buffets and the kids' uneaten pizza, I'd be vegan.

I didn't realize until Facebook how much certain people love bacon. Prior to Facebook, all I got/heard was stuff like "I'll have a BLT" or "We just bought this bacon; might as well have it with some eggs," not "OH MY GOD BACON YOU GUYS NOM NOM NOM" or "OH MY GOD HOW CAN YOU BE VEGETARIAN DON'T YOU MISS BACON?!?!"

Bacon is gross.

Mount C OTM.
I would normally never seek out a Boca burger, but when my partner and I went out to the boonies to buy our puppy (1 hr south of Aberdeen, WA), there was the one diner in the middle of nowhere (the city was Artic, WA.). They had a Boca burger option. They could have easily dropped the item, which would have made me so miserably hungry that day.

A lot has changed in the past 7-10 years alone.

Sorry for doing all-caps BACON earlier. It was more about what I want from cafe breakfasts than "ALL BACON IS GREAT WHY DON'T YOU EAT BACON?" I don't get the bacon-flavoured everything either.

And y'know, plants are living things too and it's narcissistic to use humanity as the standard to judge which other species are capable of feeling or deserve good treatment, but it's the animal condition to consume living things to get enough energy to live ourselves, and we all have to draw our line somewhere. Personally, I would have a really hard time giving up eggs & cheese.

what point are you trying to make?

― rob,

oh, just that I've seen some *extremely shitty* posts on here re: animal rights

I think Deflatormouse was punning on "animal rights" and "I bought a monkey"?

LOL thanks for trying

ah sorry I completely misunderstood you there! yes, all the animal rights and veganism threads looked depressingly hostile and defensive and some are sexist

plants are living things too and it's narcissistic to use humanity as the standard to judge which other species are capable of feeling or deserve good treatment, but it's the animal condition to consume living things to get enough energy to live ourselves, and we all have to draw our line somewhere

Maybe on an abstract philosophical level this is true—and the cultural hypocrisy over which animals deserve rescuing and which should be slaughtered or exploited en masse bothers me for this reason— but humans are the only species engaged in large-scale animal agriculture, which is also destructive to plants, so if you really think plants and animals should be treated equally, you should still not support animal agriculture. At any rate, I encourage to read the essay if you didn't already, it raises some very specific issues with animal breeding that do not apply to horticulture

That said I am not a vegan (though I have involuntary intolerances of both eggs and lactose), so I'm not trying to personally shame anyone. The best thing about that article is framing it as a politics rather than a lifestyle!

I was a vegetarian between about 1989 - 2007 but gave up at an Argentinian owned steak restaurant in my early 30's. But I still go through periods of not eating meat. At the moment I have a tender gap in my gob where used to be there a molar and am doing lots of green soup made from broccoli/spinach/kale/spring greens. I actually got angry when some dickhead tory foodie dismissed kale as "cattle food" recently. But still I'm decidedly NOT a vegetarian any more.

It's a very insightful article that takes into account a lot of the misconceptions and unfortunate truths around veganism. Like the authors, I can't take an aggressive attitude when discussing other people's meals; it's something that is so central to the self-conception of many people. I'm also hyper-conscious of not wanting to harm things for "our side" by being called out as either a hypocrite or a scold from one side or the other, so I try simply to eat as best I can.