Vegetarian

"Vegetarian" is also a: user

created by mazeone

(person) by Starrynight (5 mon) (print) ? (I like it!) 1 C! Tue Feb 29 2000 at 15:02:36

. . .Deserve what they put themselves through. I have no problem with vegetarians, as long as they don't try to guilt me out of my gyro.

Now, reason rather than guilt, that's fine. A buddy of mine is a vegetarian because it's a lot less wasteful in terms of natural resources to feed, say, corn directly to people, rather than corn to cows to people. That logic seems solid to me.

Of course, it's pretty hard to get a decently balanced meal with *no* meat, since humans have evolved to eat very high-quality, highly nutrition-dense food, but I figure people could cut down quite a bit, especially Americans. I simply have no patience for people who don't want to eat the cute fuzzy widdle aminals.

(idea) by ToasterLeavings (3.9 hr) (print) ? (I like it!) 1 C! Wed May 17 2000 at 1:29:48

I have had exactly the opposite experience (which in no way invalidates your points, just to get that out of the way). I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian (vegetable foods, milk, eggs, cheese etc): see half-assed vegetarian for insight into my actual views if you are experiencing an over abundance of caring.

A group of gaming friends, with a penchant for eating lips and assholes wrapped in some thin film (franks/weeners/hot-dogs/sausages), rarely fail to ask if this sickens me to my core, and quite enjoy making a big deal about the whole 'meaty-goodness' thing. A friend's father actually went so far as to accuse me of betraying 50,000 years of human evolution by becoming a veggo, and claimed that the cultivation of beef for food was more efficient than crop food sources (in a rant of such epic proportions that I wish I had been noding then...mere memory does not do it justice).

People also get quite inquisitive about reasons for vegetarianism, in a "why are you that weird?", or "how do you justify your decision not to eat meat?" manner. I don't need people to try to enlighten me regarding the many and varied benefits of eating dead animals. I *need* no justification for vegetarianism, as this presumes that one of the dietary choices is inherently better than the other one. I have my own justification, which makes me a happier person, and which is none of their damn business. They seem to forget that once upon a time I ate chickens too. Nor do I ever remember signing up to be anybody else's ethical educator at any point in time. If I hear "I really want to be a vegetarian, but I really like (beef/chicken/fish/hamster)" one more time, I'm going to renew my interest in eating flesh...starting with their freakin' face!

Oh, and just for the record for the many people who've made me laugh so many times by saying "I'm a vegetarian, but I eat fish"; you are not evil, just fucked and stupid.

(idea) by Jinmyo (2.5 y) (print) ? (I like it!) 1 C! Thu May 18 2000 at 2:21:27

I am a vegetarian and I eat fish. I have no problem with that sounding like a contradiction because real life is contradictory. I prepare a minimum of 45 high-quality vegetarian meals for other people each week (this week it will be 270) and I eat the same food, but sometimes add fish or small quantities of meat. I stay with a vegetarian diet as much as I am able, which might be for several months on end. But I have allergies to most of the foods that a vegetarian diet makes use of for protein, such as nuts, eggs, dairy products, beans and bean products. I can eat them in small quantities, but not enough to maintain health. So I supplement my diet with fish and small portions of meat, as much as is necessary.

And I eat sausages. Lots and lots of sausages. Not hotdogs, but good quality sausages made from whatever everyone else won't eat because I think it's better to eat all of something that died than to waste it. Besides which, when they are prepared well, sausages can be very good.

A vegetarian diet is an optimal diet for some, but not for everyone. I think whatever diet people choose, the food they eat should be carefully chosen, made well, presented beautifully, and enjoyed.

And no arguments at the dinner table, please.

Dear fustflum,
Thank you for your concern, but I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to Everything. This morning, while I am preparing vegetarian meals for myself and others, as I have for the past ten years (45 meals today), I will think of you reading your dictionary and will smile.

(idea) by sensei (6.6 y) (print) ? (I like it!) 1 C! Thu May 18 2000 at 11:49:53

Many people consider themselves to be vegetarian, yet also eat fish every day. Some also eat chicken. Some also eat pork. Some also eat beef. Some people who do not consider themselves to be vegetarian primarily eat rice, misho shiru, natto, tofu, yuba, seaweed and vegetables. Some people cannot exist on a vegetarian diet because of the allergies that Jinmyo mentions, and yet their basic approach to eating is vegetarian. Many women become aenemic on a vegetarian diet.

Perhaps some people think that being a vegetarian is cool just as some people think that being a Buddhist is cool because Richard Gere hangs out with the Dalai Lama. I think it is insulting and shallow however for it to be assumed that this is the motivatation behind someone such as Jinmyo to speak of themselves as a vegetarian. The quality of her nodes, the obvious time and effort that she has put into them, shows that she is not someone who is to be dismissed so lightly as Mr. fustflum has.

I have noded many vegetarian recipes because vegetarian food can be wonderful if protein and carbohydrates are in balance, the ingredients are fresh and are cared for and presented as well as one can.

I think that it does not matter who is or is not a vegetarian. I also think that it can be confusing to eat ethics. Instead of taking up a stance I think it is more worthwhile to pay attention to what we eat and why. I think it is important to look into what we eat, what is involved in it becoming our own skin, meat, bones, and marrow. There is much suffering in this world. Some of it can be prevented. Most of it cannot. I think that how animals are bred, raised, transported, slaughtered, butchered is something that someone should look into and then do whatever seems appropriate or possible to them to do.

Perhaps you think differently.

(place) by everyone (2.7 mon) (print) ? (I like it!) 3 C!s Sat Aug 12 2000 at 22:02:55

Let me share a story. You can glean whatever you want from it, or nothing at all.

My father is a farmer. Unlike most farm kids, I very rarely helped out on the farm, but a few months ago, I did come home from college for a few days to drive the tractor a bit. I was to till up the ground so that the crop could be planted there later.

There's a species of bird (I can't remember the name, perhaps someone can help me out) that builds its nest on open ground such as in the middle of fields. What makes this bird unique is that when something it perceives as a predator approaches its nest, it doesn't attempt to defend the nest like many birds, it runs away from the nest, attempting to draw as much attention to itself as possible, and trying to act as a decoy to lure the enemy away from the nest. In the wild, most predators will chase the mother bird instead of attacking the camoflauged nest, and the mother will return to the nest after the predator tires (these are very, very engergetic little birds).

A number of such birds had made nests in the field. And, logically, these birds see 20-ton John Deere tractors as predators, but their diversionary tactics don't generally work very well on a tractor driver who's only concerned with getting the field plowed.

As I drove up and down the field, the mother birds would run around in frenzy whenever I was nearby, and then go back and squat in their nests after I had passed. The first two nests, I plowed into oblivion without even noticing them. The mother birds from those two nests, as well as others trying to distract me from other nests, tended to blunder in the blades of the plow and meet their doom also (this was one of those speed demon 14MPH tractors).

I felt bad about smashing those nests and eggs under tons of razor-sharp steel blades. The mothers who had not yet despondently thurst themselves in front of the tractor would return to the spots where their children had been sleeping peacefully, only to find freshly-plowed ground where their nest had been.

I took note of where the remaining birds in the fields were sitting, assured that that's where their nests were located. I mentally marked the next such spot I would come to, and when I approached it (mother bird gesturing insultingly at me), I brought the tractor to stop, hopped out, harvested the eggs from the nest, and carried them over to the edge of the field, and left them beside a pool of water where a number of the mother birds seemed to gather to drink. I knew it was futile, though: the mother birds would never return to the eggs once they had been touched by humans. The eggs would never hatch. They would die.

I knew I had wasted my time saving that nest, but just the same, I took great care to not let that nest's mother bird suicide herself under the tractor, which was quite a challenge. But what could I do about the rest of the nests in the field? I plowed every single one of them into the fucking ground. Gee, I'm sorry, but did you have a BETTER idea?

I probably killed about 50 birds and potential-birds that day, over the course of plowing the field.

What were we growing in that field?

Soy.

Enjoy your Veggieburger!

(idea) by witnie (4.5 y) (print) ? (I like it!) Mon Oct 23 2000 at 16:29:23

sensei wrote: Many people consider themselves to be vegetarian, yet also eat fish every day.
A reason why fish isn't (always) considered as meat goes back to the christian/catholic religion. Besides the story that Jesus presented his disciples fish, the Catharsers living in the south of France in the Dark Middle Ages added some philosophical ideas, being the main reason in this context that fish is no real meat because it's white meat (...).
In the current western civilization it is more or less accepted that the brain is the main thing of the body, but the Catharsers thought it was blood, and by eating blood of animals (as if humans aren't animals...), you would assimilate the vibrations and "essence" of that lower animal. Aka: you are what you eat. They thought that white meat like fish and chicken doesn't contain blood, hence would not take your spirit/soul down/degenerate to the animal level. Also, when eating vegetables and white meat etc. it was supposed to take you up to the highers spheres of enlightenment and the good old days of eden and the likes. The latter is stolen from the greek mythology; more precisely, the times before the gods and goddess: the time of Kronos, where there was peace in the world and plenty of food so that there was no need to kill animals and eat meat: "the heaven on earth".

Well, that's what they thought. Btw, there is no statistical correlation that eating meat results in more violence, only that there may be a tendency that vegetarians, in general, tend to be less violent. An interesting book that discusses some of these ideas is "The Heretic's Feast : A History of Vegetarianism" by Colin Spencer.

(idea) by CrowJane (3.5 y) (print) ? (I like it!) Fri Mar 30 2001 at 19:42:39

before i start this expository on the social evils of militant moral vegetarianism, let it be said that i am both a vegetarian and a diabetic, and neither one was my choice. i am at least mildly allergic to everything but white rice and cranberries, and the cranberries are iffy. mind you, this does not stop me from eating foods that only make my throat burn a little, or don't produce a *full body* rash; hence, at this moment, i am enjoying some m&ms.

now, let it be said, that if i did not start convulsively vomiting after eating meat, i'd probably eat it. in fact, a couple of years ago, i had some very delicious quail that only made me dizzy. admittedly, i think that americans should eat moderately less *processed* meat than they do, but hey, if they want to kill themselves with artificial cattle hormones, that's more space for me and mine.

but, on to my real point: moral vegetarians don't piss me off, but militant ones do. anyone who shouts at innocent carnivores that they shouldn't be eating the poor fluffy bunny makes life a hell of a lot more difficult for those of us who honestly *can't* eat the bunny. i'm sick of people telling me things like "i don't see why you can't accept that humans are meant to be omnivorous." or "why don't you try some before you criticize us?" (mind you, i don't criticize omnivores, i'm actually quite envious.) or my personal favourite: "DON'T START TELLING ME IT'S WRONG TO KILL ANIMALS!!" (following "i'm a vegetarian, is there anything i can eat here?")

i really have to wonder why some people can't avoid proseletyzing in ways that ruin the credibility of others who are lumped in with their cause by popular opinion, but really want nothing to do with it. the only time i stand up and shout "injustice!" is when i am being harmed. what moral vegetarian is harmed by the "barbaric practices" of their carnivorous neighbours? hey, as long as nobody eats my cat, i'm content to eat what i can, and save my breath for a cause that will help me survive.

(definition) by Webster 1913 (print) 1 C! Wed Dec 22 1999 at 4:14:44

Veg`e*ta"ri*an (?), n.

One who holds that vegetables and fruits are the only proper food for man. Strict vegetarians eat no meat, eggs, or milk.

Veg`e*ta"ri*an, a.

Of or pertaining to vegetarianism; as, a vegetarian diet.

printable version
chaos

vegetarianism	I don't understand vegetarians	Caesar salad is not vegetarian	vegan
Half-assed vegetarian	Albumen	Vegetarian meals that aren't just brown gack	Ayn Rand
vegetarianism and protein	Church of Euthanasia	Another vegetarian meal that isn't just brown gack	Buddhist vegetarians
The node that tried too hard to be loved	irrational	veggie	God
The last girl I dated was a vegetarian. We couldn't go anywhere and so it just didn't work out.	A vegetarian meal that isn't just brown gack	Kung Pao	Vegetarian Ham
lacto-vegetarian	fruitarian	Your hands do the work of 10,000 highly trained lesbian jumping beans	kurt the pope

No more writeups are being accepted for this node. This node is officially GTKY. If you have something to add other than the reasons you are/aren't a vegetarian, let an editor know. If you feel you have something to add to this node, post it on your Scratch Pad and contact an editor.

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