My boyfriend and I been vegitarian for a while and I have felt a lot healthier and have had more energy and have had no problems with it. I actually can't even bring myself to eat meat anymore after the research I've done about what meat companies do to the environment and how much healthier I am without it anyway, etc. Recently though, my boyfriend has suggested that he was going to try to be vegan now, and for him trying and those of you who are, that's great. But for how much we eat together, etc I'd probably have to be pretty much vegan myself, which I would like to be vegan, but I can't really find enough research that convinces me to actually do it. I mean, I really like being able to make him a cake, or getting chocolates, and I really like cheese, people have even nicknamed me a mouse for how much I like cheese (how much I eat it has lightened up though over the years though). Anyway, I would like to try to be vegan myself also, but why? I figure this being a vegetarian/vegan forum, I figure maybe someone can tell me the various reasons/advantages to become vegan opposed to vegetarian.
hey dp! I salute u for being smart and doing all ur research before making changes! I'm no expert on the topic, i just became vegan recently myself after being lacto-ovo for years.... but this is a good site that really opened up my eyes about the whole concept of dairy http://www.notmilk.com i found that when i started looking at milk consumption as a social custom rather than a dietary necessity my whole view changed. and you dont have to give up chocolate and cheese either! there are plenty of vegan options, just look around the supermarket! good luck!
i dont really see the point of beging vegan there not killing the animals but still if its health that your worried about then you shouldnt be a vegan because you wouldnt get enough protein and all you would be eating was carbs (which make you get fat really fast) do what you want to do peace and love
well they're young.... they learn.... that's what we're here for although i am a bit concerned about one thing tho.... just because someone is vegan does not necessarily mean they're any healthier than anyone else. It is just as important to make sure u get all the right vitamins and exercise and protein, iron, calcium etc when ur vegan, as it is when ur an omni. I imagine someone who just jumps into veganism would find it really easy to just eat carbs -- as they're the most easily available foods on the market... everybody still needs to know what they're putting into their body!
Ditto everyone elses noble sentiments. Find a copy of How it all vegan. It is a really great book, lots of fab recipes and info. TTFN Sage
i didnt take any offense by what was writen i mean i didnt really know my mom just told me that and i thought she would know being a health and fittness instuctor and everything but yeah anyway thanks for teaching me more about it i mean thats why im here you could of been a little nicer about i dont belive in being mean to people espeacially ones i dont know but i thank you anyways peace and love
Im the boyfriend shes refering to, and im not trying to make her change i can see why my doing it will force her to be more vegan, I have many reasons, My family has a severe history of heart conditions and in the same members a high meat and milk diet, Ive felt better being a vegan, and lost a lot of fat, im basically doing raw fruit in the morning and raw/stewed vegitables and beans in the afternoon, i feel great, my weight lifteing is still building muscle, and im loosing fat at a slow but steady rate of about 1.5lbs per week. There are many logical reasons that veganism is probably our natural diet, i belive that humans are desighned by nature to be vegan, and that we are set up to only eat meat in starvation situations, like when people are forced to eat eachother and they start craving human flesh, i think that it is a mechanism that turns on, and our culters starts it at such an early age that we dont realise it. I have several reasons to belive that meat is not our natural diet. first reason, think of it this way, if your a human, or a near human, living without civilization in the wild, like we were when we were just evolving into humans, what are you most likely to do when you get hungry, Chase down carabu and kick its ass, peel its muscles off, light a fire, and cook it. Climb tree after tree geting bird eggs untill you have enough to feed yourself, then fry them on a rock or in water somehow. Find a very mellow wild goat and milk it into your mouth. Or eat some of the abundant plant life thats around, ready to eat off the trees and from the ground. second reason, our teeth are flat for grinding, out fingers rounded with no claws and our intestines are long and winding. These are all sighns of a herbivore. Our sharp fang like canines, are desighned for fighing, like apes do. You cannot even get most types of ape to eat meat unless they are very hungry or angry. And not being a fanatic of some anti science sect, i think that evolution is likely. When a human eats meat much of it doesnt even make it out, autopsys of americans often find 15 to 20 pounds of rotting meat in the digestive tract, this is not observed in any carnivore, or omnivore. Thirdly, after invesitgating throughly, all the "facts" that say we need meat eggs and milk seem to be total crap, we can get the b12 we need without them, we can get the protein we need without them, and our bidies do not start producing all sorts of bad chemicals if we only eat plants (this was an idea i saw spreading around some sites). Conversly, the fats and chemicals found in meat milk and eggs are very bad for us. There are in fact things that we need in meat and milk that are not in vegitables, but our bodies make them and that is why they are in meat, its made of bodies. But i think it wiser to leave our body to produce its own of those sort of things, it knows how much and what kind of cholestorol it needs better than you do, and yes, it can make it for itself. So, i belive that eating plants is our natural diet, and i belive that nature is the best thing to follow, its what we come from. Also there are the other issues that vegitarianism is based on, veganism helps those things more too, animals are harmed resources are used and polution is emited making milk and eggs too. And though i know that i wont make i big impact, i know that if everyone followed that logic, no one would make any impact at all. So im going to do it, cause im part of the mass known as everyone, so im gonna do what i think everyone should be doing.
Didge, you know who i am. If im vegan i have to be gay. I just keep a girl around who i make out with and all that cause its stylish. I should be like those manly omnivores and go get a foot long plump hot dog and scarf it down. Oh well, back to my sissy job welding harriers, its so hard to do being a scrawny 5'9" 180lb 8% body fat vegan.
thanks for all of the advice, etc everybody. that website was very interesting and i'll have to check out that book sometime. also, thanks phoenixx for that info. if anyone else has any information/opinions/websites/books they want to share please let me know! this is all so interesting...
Good for you, pablo! and DP, it's not easy to be in a "mixed" relationship, but it can work. my partner and I have differing views, and he has been veg before, and appreciates "vegetarian cuisine." We cook veg, he can eat out or get take away. on days when I *really* can't deal with his choices, we "fend for dinner," meaning he goes and eats whatever and I eat (or not) what I want. I suck it up and deal in restaurants and he enjoys what we have at home. We are about to celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary so, yes, this can work long term. It helps to remember, Pablo, that veg*ans are about 10 percent of the US population according to the Vegetarian Resource Group/Zogby poll. That is the "commonly accepted" figure for homosexuals. (I see it as low, but that leads to my next point) If those numbers, for both groups, are accurate, it seems a cultural diference can become mainstream. In 20 years, veg*anism will be commonplace enough for us to have a dramatic market effect, until then it is work. Let the dining establishments know we are veg and we wish to be their customers. We deserve *some* conveniences! There will be a day when we won't faint when the server asks "Are eggs OK?" But for now we have to be there eating the ONE dish that is safe, chatting with the manager/owner about what we'd like to see on the menu or at least on a specials board. We will vote with our dollars, so we need to part with some to see change. Currency is the lingua franca of the world, for better or worse. Good luck and good love, you'll need both!
well milk indirectly supports the veal industry because the mother cow has to be artificially inseminated to make a baby. once it is born it produces milk and like the human way of breast feeding the body produces milk for a long time before stopping. so the farm keeps taking mass amounts of milk until the mother cant produce it anymore. then shes artifically imseminated again. the babies are eathier sent to be veal, mother cows, or beef cows. once the mother cow is too old to produce milk she is sent to the slaughter house. veal cows are kept in carts in dark buildings and are fed special food to make them anemic so they'll "be tender"
Also about the lack of food going vegan, if you go to a health food store they have a schmorgusborg of vegan friendly foods that are wicked good. Some good mostly vegan brands include: Amys, Health is Wealth, Fantastic Foods, ABC ( they make the most awesome cookies you'll ever have they are like 1000x better then regular cookies holy crap!) Ener-g has egg replacer. there are also an array of different milk replacements, including soy,rice,and almond milk. Also there are many soy cheese brands. I bought some soy mage vegan cheese and its alright.. doesn't melt though. I've heard good things about tofutti brand also but haven't tried it because the health food stores I've been to don't stock tofutti brand for some reason. so yeah theres alot of substitutes just look around abit.
Maybe, but im happy just eating fruit, nuts and vegitables, with the ocational beans and things like that that must be cooked.
