I am not a vegan

[durhambiker]

I'm not vegan but I wouldn't snipe at anyone who takes the trouble to form an ethical way of living that they try to enact, so long as it doesn't harm other people.

There is a growing body of evidence that eating meat and diary is v unhealthy....ie..hormones in milk...more salt in a chicken than in Macky D chips, etc etc..

[fossala]

Put yourselves in the mindset of a vegan. Most, if not all vegans think that killing animals is wrong and a lot would argue that it's tantamount to murder. Now imagine if woke up one day and everyone was killing and eating humans, keeping them slaves, raping them, torturing them etc. How would you act, would you talk to people about how killing and rape is wrong, or would you not care, maybe you'd care but not enough to do anything.

To top this off, your strange ethics on not murdering and eating fellow humans is also shamed and belittled on forums as jokes when all you wanted to do was read about bicycles...

I was not aware that the food industry raped its animals

What else would you call forced artificial insemination?

[Ben@Forest]

Vegetarians in British culture are, by definition, a group who think about their diet.

I think that's overstating the case. Some vegetarians will be so because they think it's cool, or because of peer pressure or because their spouse is. I cycle with at least one man who is vegetarian through 'spousal pressure' (if that's a term).

The biggest group of people who 'think about what they eat' is those on a diet. And that doesn't mean they eat well. Often their diet can be pretty poor - though of course faddism and differing advice from different nutrionists doesn't help much.

[Vorpal]

Vegetarians in British culture are, by definition, a group who think about their diet.

I think that's overstating the case. Some vegetarians will be so because they think it's cool, or because of peer pressure or because their spouse is. I cycle with at least one man who is vegetarian through 'spousal pressure' (if that's a term).

The biggest group of people who 'think about what they eat' is those on a diet. And that doesn't mean they eat well. Often their diet can be pretty poor - though of course faddism and differing advice from different nutrionists doesn't help much.

I was responding to pwa. I don't necessarily think that vegetarians are, by definition, a group that think about their diet.

Vegetarians, by definition, are a group who think about their diet and are willing to give things up.

Vegetarians in British culture are, by definition, a group who think about their diet.

I was trying to suggest that the perspective might be different in other cultures, such as in India, where many people are vegetarian for religious reasons.

[661-Pete]

How about this article? Or if you want the detailed and more technical source, see here. Authoritative enough? I think it makes a lot of sense. Note that it isn't telling people to give up meat or fish...

[Tangled Metal]

There was a news report on veganism I think end of last year where an expert in nutrition and health (a science advisor for civil service based in academia or NHS iirc). He was talking about a statistically significant issue related to the significant rise in veganism.

This issue related to people switching to a vegan diet without knowing how to replace the essential parts required from your diet that used to come from meat. It was showing up as increased rate of various real medical conditions related to nervous system and various other systems in the body.

The issue isn't a vegan diet just the lack of awareness of the requirements of the human body and how to get all those requirements from your new diet. There's a lot of essential amino acids for example that come in significant concentration in meat but a lot harder from non - meat sources. Even iron intake is a well known concern for vegetarian and vegan diets (easily convered unlike the amino acids). One small piece of red meat can give your body the iron intake from something like 10 large portions of spinach. The iron in meat is easily absorbed but iron from spinach I believe doesn't always get into your system efficiently hence the need for more to be eaten.

Personally I have no issue with what people choose to eat or why. It's personal choice and I don't believe anyone has the right to condemn and harasses someone for that choice. I eat meat. I don't accept the ethical issues vegans and vegetarians see.

However I do have an issue when emotional decision regarding not eating meat products leads to health problems because the individual didn't bother to research how to safely change their diet. Just as I have a problem with people with any other unhealthy diet. Fast food, sugary foods, etc are contributing to major health issues in society. It's rather the increase in veganism doesn't add to the costs in society.

So my advice to everyone is to eat a healthy diet and live healthily whatever your ethics regarding your diet.

[pwa]

There was a news report on veganism I think end of last year where an expert in nutrition and health (a science advisor for civil service based in academia or NHS iirc). He was talking about a statistically significant issue related to the significant rise in veganism.

This issue related to people switching to a vegan diet without knowing how to replace the essential parts required from your diet that used to come from meat. It was showing up as increased rate of various real medical conditions related to nervous system and various other systems in the body.

The issue isn't a vegan diet just the lack of awareness of the requirements of the human body and how to get all those requirements from your new diet. There's a lot of essential amino acids for example that come in significant concentration in meat but a lot harder from non - meat sources. Even iron intake is a well known concern for vegetarian and vegan diets (easily convered unlike the amino acids). One small piece of red meat can give your body the iron intake from something like 10 large portions of spinach. The iron in meat is easily absorbed but iron from spinach I believe doesn't always get into your system efficiently hence the need for more to be eaten.

Personally I have no issue with what people choose to eat or why. It's personal choice and I don't believe anyone has the right to condemn and harasses someone for that choice. I eat meat. I don't accept the ethical issues vegans and vegetarians see.

However I do have an issue when emotional decision regarding not eating meat products leads to health problems because the individual didn't bother to research how to safely change their diet. Just as I have a problem with people with any other unhealthy diet. Fast food, sugary foods, etc are contributing to major health issues in society. It's rather the increase in veganism doesn't add to the costs in society.

So my advice to everyone is to eat a healthy diet and live healthily whatever your ethics regarding your diet.

Agreed.
B vitamins and zinc can be missing of you go vegan with no thought whatsoever. Essential amino acids aren't hard to find unless, again, you haven't done your homework. Anyone on any diet can get it wrong.

[Tangled Metal]

There's a good item common in Mexico and nearby nations that's good for the harder to obtain essential amino acids. It's basically a maize / corn crop that's been exposed to a particular fungal species.

In the west and most of the world such an infection would have farmers burning the fields and not growing the crop their for a while. Over there they eat it because the fungal growth converts the maize carbohydrates into this amino acid in high, easily absorbed and utilised form.

My point is that it seems easier to get what you need from a meat containing diet than a vegan diet. To be a truly healthy vegan I believe takes more effort. Although with time it should get easier because it becomes habit as you develop your favourite recipes.

Plus there's a very nice veggie restaurant in Ambleside if you're ever up there. I'm an omnivore favouring meat based dishes (I include fish as meat) but I do like Zefirelli's restaurant. You get decent portions unlike any pub or restaurant that offers a veggie dish. I used to not like meat in restaurants so I used to eat veggie options. Always the smallest portion of all the dishes ordered. I used to be more hungry when I left the place than when I went in!

[Vorpal]

There's a good item common in Mexico and nearby nations that's good for the harder to obtain essential amino acids. It's basically a maize / corn crop that's been exposed to a particular fungal species.

In the west and most of the world such an infection would have farmers burning the fields and not growing the crop their for a while. Over there they eat it because the fungal growth converts the maize carbohydrates into this amino acid in high, easily absorbed and utilised form.

I didn't know that about huitlacoche, but it's also grown and sold in the USA. I suspect that most huitlacoche sold in the USA is imported from Mexico, though. I think that the other Latin American nations turn their noses up at this practice, as former colleagues from Columbia and Honduras said they regarded it akin to eating mould, and something only poor Mexicans do.

I've eaten it in Mexico & thought it was rather like mushrooms. It was nice, but didn't seem special enough to pay the silly prices at US supermarkets, so I've not eaten it anywhere else.

[Tangled Metal]

One night I flicked through the TV channels before going to bed. The trouble was I found a programme made by iirc BBC about the essential amino acids we have to get from food because our bodies can't produce them internally. It was by I believe that former gp with the Dutch sounding name I think van tullekin or similar was main presenter.

He went around the world looking at ways people get it from food. IIRC there are 27 such amino acids. Most are supplied in red meats and oily fish (mostly red meat though).

It showed a sushi restaurant conveyor with various types of food and members of the public had to pick what food would give them their daily requirements of certain important nutrients. The presenter said the nutrient, say Iron, and they pick up what is needed. One guy got the steak. Another a bowl of spinach, another a couple of boiled eggs. Only the meat gave enough iron. The spinach needed 10 bowls or something like that and eggs not that good.

The other aspect of that show was how ppl got the remaining essential nutrients. For example a very rural area of iirc Bulgaria where most lived on subsistence farming they ate a lot of yoghurt. That had something important in it and the area had a high life expectancy iirc. It was a series of short films about nutrients and regional food solutions. Even with visits to labs to test the foods.

It was so interesting that I ended staying up intil after 1am on a work day with early start. Not the best idea but it was fascinating.

Interesting piece on the humble spud. The way the ancient Andean culture basically turned the poisonous tubers of a high attitude plant into a safe hybrid. The current culture there still eats the potato variety that's closest to the original wild plant that was first cultivated. It would poison you without treating it. Basically they lifted them from the ground very high up in the Andes then leave it out to freeze very severely for some time. It somehow makes it edible but it's still foul tasting by modern spud standards but was still a very good source of a certain, important nutrient.

[Cyril Haearn]

I bought some eggs, on the box one reads that the male chicks are reared instead of being shredded at birth, Plus One?
Do they live happily for a few weeks to be slaughtered when they are old enough to feel pain?

[Cyril Haearn]

Sushi establishments are springing up in many places
Anyone tried sushi, raw fish?

[661-Pete]

One small piece of red meat can give your body the iron intake from something like 10 large portions of spinach. The iron in meat is easily absorbed but iron from spinach I believe doesn't always get into your system efficiently hence the need for more to be eaten.

Spinach isn't the best vegan source of dietary iron: cooked pulses especially dried beans are far better. Nor will spinach (tinned or otherwise!) endow you with the superhuman strength needed to dispel Bluto - sorry aspiring Popeyes!

[Ben@Forest]

Sushi establishments are springing up in many places
Anyone tried sushi, raw fish?

Sushi is not raw fish. It means the rice that sushi is made from and is served with a variety of other ingredients but often vegetarian. I learned this, what seems like 100 years ago, when two Japanese girls were in the same backpacking hostel l was staying in, in New Zealand.

I have though, eaten steak tartare on a good number of occasions. In northern Germany it's quite common.

[tod28]

Sushi establishments are springing up in many places
Anyone tried sushi, raw fish?

Don't confuse sushi with sashimi! Sushi is the dishes made from vingared rice (with added sugar and salt) accompanying a variety of other ingredients like seafood, vegetables or fruit. Sashimi is sliced raw meat, most often fish over here but can be any raw meat up to und inluding horse, eaten with a dipping sauce with rice optional.