Vegitarians or vegans

[miniwhinny]

Just wondering if there's any vegitarians or vegans here? Which are you? What made you choose this lifestyle? How's it going? etc. etc.

Sometimes it the people you least expect...was chatting with my farrier...a "classic" cowboy eat half a cow for breakfast type. We got to chatting about beliefs and lifestyle and holy smokes I find out that this guys who's taken care of my beasts for 12 years now is a 100% vegan Buddhist

Which makes sense when you think about it being a buddhist goes hand in hand with respect of all life it just blew me away to find him here in the middle of nowhere lol

Quite refreshing

 

[Watcheye]

My boyfriends mom is almost completely vegan but she likes cheese. She even makes vegan ice cream. I think one of the main reasons she did it was health but Ill have to check again.

 

[~Lisa~]

Raven is a vegeterian - she decided one day about hmm maybe 2 years or 3 years ago it does make it a bit difficult but honestly we do not cook a lot anyway she loves her veggie burgers and eats pretty healthy.

Disneyhorse is I think a Vegan maybe? But I know her veggieness made an impression on Raven LOL (not sure if I should thank her or not for that one lol)

 

[miniwhinny]

Lovely little hamburgers

Nice tasty dinner

It just breaks my heart what we do to other species.

 

[disneyhorse]

I am a vegetarian, I have been for about.... shoot 20 years now.

Reasons? Well honestly, there is no reason NOT to be a vegetarian. It's better for your health, it's cheaper to buy, it's better for the environment, and of course you are not eating poor defenseless little animals.

My husband is not a vegetarian, but he is not a picky eater and happily eats whatever I cook for him. If we go to a restaurant or if he's out on his own, he eats whatever he likes. The only meat in our house generally is some lunchmeat and some turkey burgers (which he cooks after I grill my Garden Burgers) but I respect his choices and he is very conscientious about me.

We discovered "soyrizo" which is soy chorizo a couple years ago... it is the BEST and not only is it super yummy but it is SO easy to cook. Probably once a week we have burritos with soyrizo in them. We just heat up the soyrizo in a pan, warm up some beans, throw in some cheese, and it's burritos in five minutes! Mmmm. If anyone has a Trader Joe's nearby, it's cheap there.

I would love to be vegan, but honestly I'm too lazy and it's very hard to eat a balanced diet. And you either have to carefully prepare your own food or buy fairly expensive alternatives. I do believe that egg and milk production are NOT GOOD and I do feel guilty but I can only do so much... so just vegetarian. I love my ice cream and pizza too much to go vegan...

Andrea

 

[miniwhinny]

I ditto everything you've said Disneyhorse. I'm already 90% veggie...I say 90% because I still eat some cheese and fish. The more I see the atrocities committed by humans towards animals raised for our own use the more I'm thinking about just going vegan. I mean somewhere we all have to draw the line on things we believe are important. I'm finding it harder and harder to count myself as a member of a "higher life form" while still fooling myself into pretending there aren't animals out there screaming in agony so that I can go through the drive thru. As it is I don't eat any red meat but even that's hypocritical...can't feel sorry for a calf and not feel sorry for a layer hen

 

[IloveMiniatureshorses]

Yeah.... But if we didn't eat meat, and all went vegan, what would we do with all of those animals? The cost to feed them and to keep them all healthy and well......

 

[KanoasDestiny]

When I was younger, I wanted to go vegetarian. I didn't think I ate all that much meat to begin with, but then I tried it one day and well...it was tougher than I thought it would be. For one, I don't care much for fruit (love veggies though), and secondly, I ate a lot more meat than I thought I did. My mom was trying to see what I wanted for dinner and kept making all these suggestions of my favorite foods, and it was pure torture - everything had meat in it.

I do feel extremely bad for the animals that are born to be on someone's dinner plate. In fact, the living conditions that these animals have to endure is sickening. I refuse to fish now, even if the fish are to be thrown back. I think it's a really cruel sport. When I was little, we went fishing with my best friend and her family. Her dad actually filleted the fish when it was still alive and gasping for air. It was the most horrible thing I have ever seen and that was the last time that I ever went fishing with them.

 

[disneyhorse]

Yeah.... But if we didn't eat meat, and all went vegan, what would we do with all of those animals? The cost to feed them and to keep them all healthy and well......

I see you are a youth member....

Consider the fact that we are BREEDING all of these animals SPECIFICALLY for slaughter. If no one ate meat, none of these animals would be alive in the first place.

Many animals raised for meat production cannot reproduce on their own, they are artificially inseminated. They are so grotesquely made for maximum profit, that they are unnatural and don't live long anyway. Their genetics are specifically chosen for profit, not for how long they will live and have useful lives.

Andrea

 

[Marty]

My Hus bascially is. He loathes meat, no beef, poultry, pig meat, or fish. In the summer he lives on salads and jello. Winter months are hard to cook for him but I try to make meatless dinners but that is not easy for every day. He will tollerate it to some degree but really hates it. Not me though; I love a good steak.

 

[jayne]

OK, here's my thinking on this subject. Like many of you, I do not like the way animals and fowl are treated for our consumption. I also do like to consume eggs, dairy and meat protein. How I have reconciled this is to have my own hens for eggs (and they are SPOILED) and only buy meat from local farmers whom I know treat their animals well. Those animals have a great life until the very end when they don't know what hit them. So I am not contributing to the giant feedlots and hog pens and whatever else where animals are warehoused in awful living conditions and likely slaughtered inhumanely, but I still get to eat meat and also support local farmers. I know this still doesn't satisfy those who don't wish for animals to die for their sake, but it does address the issues around the treatment of the animals and also the huge environmental concerns factory farming brings.

I'm still working on the dairy issue, though. We do eat a lot of cheese (hubby is originally from Wisconsin!) and I while I do buy it from a local dairy co-op, I'm not sure that there isn't more I can do. I sure don't want to have to milk my own cow or goat though!

Just wanted to add another way of thinking to this issue.

Jayne

p.s.: Please do a LOT of research on veganism if you are thinking about going that direction. I believe there is an amino acid that we just can't live/function without, and there is no way to get it other than some kind of animal product, or a vitamin derived from an animal product.

 

[Sonya]

I agree that the majority of animals used for food consumption are treated inhumanely, I agree with the above poster. I too try to buy locally. I will also add, when I saw the links that were posted were from Peta, I immediately shut them down...Peta so misrepresents things, I cannot put stock in anything they say. If it were up to Peta, you would not have your horses...afterall it is inhumane to have them fenced up...put alittle cart on them and have them pull you around...so just becareful in your support of peta.

 

[miniwhinny]

I don't support Peta at all I think they're another radical group that's way over the top. Only one of those links was from Peta the other was GoVeg.

I'm not saying anyone should choose not to eat meat. It's a personal choice. What I do wish is that everyone who does eat meat learns about how the living breathing feeling creatures raised for that food are treated from conception to the dinner plate. I think people should watch those videos (especially the goveg one) because I can't imagine one human being seeing animals treated that way wouldn't want to stand up for them...and it sure would be awesome if we could change the way these poor creatures are forced to live.

 

[bcody]

I find, as I get older, I eat less meat. Not for any reason then I just do not like it, though I do love a good steak! (sorry).My daughter also eats very little meat, again for no real reason then she does not like. So, I have a question for you veggies, where do you eat your protein from? My daughter is 6 years old and does not like nuts.

I love fresh veggies, and we had a great garden this year, and I love m veggies! I do not eat cheese, but not sure I could give up ice cream!

 

[Bess Kelly]

Could someone explain the issues with milk/cheese/eggs? If it is NOT the treatment of the animals (caged, etc, etc) I am assuming that is the main issue as milk and eggs are natural products. I absolutely love to collect eggs from the nest but, eat very few. So when I want them I buy from a local who just have several hens they love and too many eggs.

It pays for the feed. Gosh, I used to milk some of my nubians -- great milk. But, although I wanted to make cheese the time wasn't there. I'd do it now but don't want to be committed to having to milk 2X a day.

And have considered a flock of hens, just cause I like them

Protein for vegetarians -- besides nuts -- soybeans!! Milk...if you are vegetarian just to not eat meat.

 

[KanoasDestiny]

Those animals have a great life until the very end when they don't know what hit them.

I never thought about what you mentioned about buying locally. That is a great idea. I did want to say though that while I HATE the living conditions that "meat" animals are raised in, they tend to have a quick death usually. When I was 12, my neighbor had a steer that he was raising to butcher (I didn't know that's why they had him). It lived pretty well, had lots of feed and room to roam. But he had the worst death ever. The butcherer came out with a truck, hung the steer upside down and slit his throat. I had NO idea what was happening, and I kept hearing the steer screaming. I went outside and saw him hanging upside down. My mom told me to come inside and explained to me what was going to happen next. I was so furious with my neighbors that I refused to speak to them afterward for some time. Living in this area, we often hear goats and cows making those same horrified screams.

Not last Thanksgiving but the one before, my husband's friend was raising turkeys. He offered my husband one for the dinner table (he would do the dirty work). My husband mentioned that Dean wanted him to come over and pick one out. I told Mark that if he did, he better take it to his mom's and plan on spending Thanksgiving with her because he wouldn't be allowed in this house. It's one thing to know that you're eating an animal that has already been killed, but it's another story to know that "you're" the reason it's going to die. On the rare occasion that he goes fishing, I also don't allow him to bring any fish home. He has the option to throw them back in, or go to someone else's house to eat them!

I just wanted to add that beans also have alot of protein. I just have to know though, for those who are vegetarian, how do you survive with not eating any Hostess products (twinkies, ho-ho's, donuts, zingers)??? I don't eat them often, but never again?

 

[Southern Belle Farm]

~Could someone explain the issues with milk/cheese/eggs? If it is NOT the treatment of the animals (caged, etc, etc) I am assuming that is the main issue as milk and eggs are natural products.~ Most eggs come from hens that spend their whole life in a cage so small they can't move, and I would asume are pumped full of hormones? Milk and cheese come from dairy's, and let's just say not all dairy cows have a nice life. I am a vegetarian, I eat no meat but I do eat cheese, buy milk for the family, and eat the eggs our free range chickens shoot out. I quit eating meat about 10/15 years ago, and I did it because of how they're treated. If God made animals so they did not feel pain, I would have no problem with it!

 

[susanne]

We are meat minimalists...we occasionally eat fish, chicken and turkey...rarely beef and almost never pork. Partly for health reasons, partly due to our personal "codes."

We love keeping chickens, both for eggs and for entertainment and when they stop laying, they'll have a graceful retirement. While we do eat chicken, we won't eat "our" chickens, or any we know by name.

I'd love to have a dairy goat, but we'd have have it freshened every year, and I hate the thought of selling the kids, not knowing if they'd become pets, milk providers, or dinner.

While we're certainly far from pure, Keith's family thinks we're from Mars -- as if we are personally insulting them by eating as we do (I'm a type I diabetic, what do they expect?). When we go to dinner with his mother, she makes a point of serving extremely unhealthy meals -- everything fried or deep-fried and loaded with sugar. I'm sure she thinks I'm cheating Keith out of what he REALLY wants to eat, so she'll make up for his sad, deprived diet...