Posted on 02/26/2009 2:16:10 PM PST by nickcarraway
Likewise. I don’t like the texture of flesh in my mouth and the vile sensation of having to chomp down on it, but I don’t begrudge anybody any food.
“You mean not on purpose...”
Wellllllll.....no...
It’s easily possible to eat a ‘normal’ diet that excludes meat. I don’t eat meat myself, and am revolted at the thought of having to touch the flesh of mammals, but if I had children, they would certainly be eating fish and fowl regularly although the emphasis would be on legumes and nuts.
I predict PETA in this lady’s future, a lot of flack and snobbery. I think Vegans are similar to the Religion-Of-Peace in that once you join, you can never be permitted to be an apostate. I wish her the best of luck and at the risk of not knowing anything else about her, say that she proves that there are at least several working brain cells at Smith College.
I’m a vegan who doesn’t care what anyone else eats. But I am in excellent health — I’m 5’10 and 130 pounds, my blood pressure is 90 over 70, my cholesteral is in the low range, my iron is high enough and my blood is good enough for me to donate platelets once a week, and I go on 70 mile backpacking trips. And I haven’t had a cavity since I was in elementary school.
LOL your comment made me think about a factoid on how many spiders a person eats (accidently) a year....hehehe
And I think that’s sensible. What an adult decides for themselves is one thing. Growing brains are another. FWIW I think most folks feed their kids way too many refined carbs as well.
OOps...sorry, I posted before I finished. A “normal” human diet includes animal proteins, so it’s not really possible to eat one that excludes it. I’m sure you eat that way, and I don’t doubt you’re healthy, but it’s not what you evolved to eat.
You know what I called my week as a Vegan? SERE School.
1. Before feed lots beef, pork, foul, etc. was quite affordable, so that's a load. Do you think its even in the realm of reason that the average American family of four is getting a $146,000 meat subsidy every year? 2. People do have the freedom to choose. They overwhelmingly choose to eat meat.
“Don’t get me wrong, years ago I read John Robbins’ “Diet for a New America” and he made some persuasive conservative/libertarian-sounding arguments against our meat-eating culture....”
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I read the same book in my twentie’s and was vegetarian (not vegan and not a democrat either) for four years. It was fairly easy, plus I could still drink ;)
I think it was healthy and good for me but I finally caved over a “free range” steak on Maui and the rest is history :)
By “I am 1/7 vegan,” I meant that I don’t eat meat on Fridays.
I do have the dental adaptation to eat flesh, but I choose to limit the kind of flesh to fish. If I had children, they would eat fowl, too, but it’s not for me.
.......I’d like to see what they do when I open up a big ole to-go box of mouth watering slow-smoked pork ribs.....
The buffet line was quite varied and included some very very good meat and meat dishes that were a cut above ordinary stuff. They merely passed it by, knowing the vegan police were watching.
The person has a narrow view of veganism and what you can eat.
I’m going to out myself as a person who has been vegan for over a year. I eat pizza (there is vegan cheese, but I usually do without it), I make vegan cupcakes and muffins, I eat wonderful foods that are filling, exciting, and interesting. I eat Chinese, Thai, Indian,and Mexican food. I make my own ‘ribs’ that taste like meat ribs. There are tons of vegan cookbooks and recipe websites. If people are eating boring food, that’s their problem.
Besides losing weight and getting off a bunch o’meds, what I’ve found this year is that being vegan makes me give a thought to all the food that surrounds us. I used to just eat ‘cause the food was there - stuff at work, fast food, etc. Now I think about it more and it is easy to pass up food. I’m diabetic, so there is stuff I shouldn’t be eating in the first place; being vegan makes it a lot easier to walk away from temptation.
I still enjoy looking at cooking shows, I enjoy seeing a nice piece of steak, I admit to missing chicken and bacon, but I don’t need these things to live and I certainly don’t need them if they come from dirty factory farms, as does most food in this country.
I went vegan overnight and haven’t looked back. I don’t know why FReepers are so against people who decide not to eat certain foods. I’m not crazy, I’m still a conservative, I don’t leave my cell phone on in the movie theater. I just choose not to eat animal products.
flame away...
Isn't there a direct connection? Diabetes is a carbohydrate disease and vegetarian diets are mostly carbs. India has a severe diabetes problem. Why would you continue to mostly eat what caused the disease?
I don’t think any medical person would say diabetes is a “carbohydrate disease.” You really don’t think there is a difference between complex carbs and simple carbs? You really consider broccoli to be junk food?
There’s a lot more to diabetes than carb intake. I was diabetic before I was vegan (10 yrs) and I have diabetes on both sides of my family. I’ve done Atkins w/limited success. The carb restriction almost drove me crazy. I felt terribly deprived and punished for being diabetic and the low blood sugars were transitory.
The issue is not carbs per se, we need carbs, it’s refined carbs. As long as I eat brown rice, keep to my portion sizes for pasta (that was hard to get used to and I still don’t eat it that often), and eat lower glycemic fruit, I don’t have spikes in my blood sugars.
I am a low-fat vegan, and for me at least, going low fat has been the key. I am eating foods that I had given up w/o detrimental affects on my blood sugars. There have been peer-reviewed studies on the success of diabetics using a low fat vegan diet. The first time I read the studies, I couldn’t get into the idea of being vegan. A couple of years later, for some reason (maybe the death of 3 diabetics that I knew), I was ready to give it a try.
For being a platelet donor, you have my love and admiration. I think platelet donors are the greatest folks in the world. I work in apheresis, so I know how we ask a lot of your time and sometimes put you through some discomfort. I was making a generalization based on what I see at school. I have met several self- righteous vegans. Keep up the good work, I am gonna bite into some steak!
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