Becoming vegetarian

Hey. I've been thinking of becoming vegetarian for quite a while now, but everytime I bring it up with my mum, she says maybe I should wait until I've finished growing. She isn't anti-vegetarian at all, but I don't think she wants to munch on tofu for the next five years until I move out.

So can you tell me what kind of meat substitutes you can eat and ways of preparing them? I know about tofu and soy(a?), but I don't think I can live off just the two. We eat vegetarian meals about four times a week anyway, so it shouldn't be a big change. I love vegetables and fruit and have at least 3 servings of each a day, but those alone would not be filling enough.

Is there anything else I should know about becoming vegetarian?

Thanks

 

im a vegan myself

you can buy lots of veggie foods like veggie burgers, and veggie hotdogs.

also there are lots of recipes online if you jsut search for them

and you can substitute tofu in for a lot of meats, it doesnt really have a taste, it just takes on whatever you mix it with

 

Yeah - I ate quite a lot of vegetarian stuff when my brother and his girlfriend were visiting as his girlfriend is vegetarian. We had some lentil burgers which were so unbelievably good...Yumm...*drools* Way better than any meat burger.

I will look online, but I was hoping that someone here might have something they feel is really nice.

 

Being a vegetarian is actually quite unhealthy. Soy is already in almost everything, but if you go out of your way to eat it, you're asking for health problems. The fact that you haven't finished growing yet is also an issue, because some of the most important things that makes a person grow are found in meat and dairy products. Now fruits high in vitamin C are plenty good for you, but I would stay away from eating massive amounts of vegetables.

 

For tofu, it doesnt have really a taste. Its just what you mix wi th it.

 

Get some hufu. I guess it has the texture and taste of human flesh. MMM nothing better than eating human flesh. But seriously they make that

 

If God didn't want us to eat animals, then why did He make them out of meat????

 

You should start leaving the meat, but not yet the milk or the chiken, later u should start leaving those ones

 

I am not a vegetarian, but these are good:
http://seeveggiesdifferently.com/product_detail.aspx?family=363&id=331

 

Either this person is joking or they are VERY misinformed. The California Health study showed that members of the Seventh day Adventist Church who are allmost exclusivly vegetarian live an average of 11 years longer than the average American. My folks are vegetarian so my brother and I were raised on a vegetarian diet. He's a strapping 6'2 240 lb guy and I'm in excellent health as well. (5'9 165 lbs) My folks have been vegetarians for over 40 years. They are both in their early 60's and barely look a day over 50. I know a 45 y/o carnivore that looks older than my dad! Since I was raised a Seventh day Adventist I was around lots of other peeps that had been vegetarians all their lives and had NEVER eaten meat all and had no health problems. I'm a lacto ovo vegetarian which means I eat cheese and eggs but I rarely drink cows milk. If you're vegan you'll need to plan your diet for adequate calcium intake.

btw Excessive protien intake can actually weaken your bones as your body requires calcium to process protein. Back in the day our family dentist did x rays and bone scans or whatever it is that he did and informed my dad that he and my brother and I had the most dense bone structure he'd ever seen in 20 years of practice. I've taken blows to my face and head that most peeps thought would cause concussions or fractures but I didn't have either.

Much away on the veggies to your hearts content.

No offense but it seems you are misinformed about nutrition.

btw: congrats for decided to eat a healthy diet that will help yo live a long health life.

 

I don't want to turn this thread into a debate, but I actually do a lot of studying on the subject of nutrition. The fact that you eat cheese and eggs excludes you from being a "true" vegetarian, as they are both "dairy" - I'm lumping eggs into dairy here - products, and thus you get a good intake of calcium and protein. However, people that eat strictly vegetables and fruits have a much tougher time getting these necessary minerals and proteins. This causes vegetarians to have lower stamina and less muscle mass - Also due to the fact that they do not make as much cholesterol, which is only harmful if present in unsafe quantities. This about lower stamina and muscle mass is true unless the person is taking supplements and/or eating dairy products. If a "vegetarian" is eating dairy products, then, in my opinion, they are not a real vegetarian.

If a person were to take in lots of soy, then they could obtain excess estrogen and lower testosterone caused by the estrogen-mimicking agents found in soy. Vegetarians tend to, on average, have lower levels of sex hormones, which affects a variety of aspects. It is true that because vegetarians have lower levels of testosterone, vegetarian men have less occurrences of prostate cancer. However, if a vegetarian has a high intake of soy and they are female, then they would have an increased risk for female-related cancers.

There is also the fact that anything eaten out of an industrialized farm these days is covered in pesticides, of which has been shown to be detrimental to the human body.

 

Firstly, I am unsure as to the presence of such a being. My spirtual life is currently horribly fucked. I do believe in a creator of some sort, but need to get my thoughts in focus.

Secondly, that isnt the point. I don't think God wanted people to beat the shit out of animals and kill them slowly and violently either.

 

Your sense of humor also seems to be horribly fucked. I was making a joke.

 

Oh damn.. But I must say that sometimes it is hard to detect sarcasm on these forums. You do get some silly persons who believe some extremely perculiar things. Sorry :tongue: my bad.

 

Calcium is present in a lot of foods, but not always in large quantities. You'd have to eat figs to get the same ratio of calcium found in milk, and that's as good as it gets for vegetables. So, unless you're willing to eat solely figs, you'd have to eat two or three times as many vegetables in order to get the same amount of calcium that you'd receive from dairy products. Personally, I'd rather eat a cup of yogurt than try to digest that many solid foods.

As for protein not being a mineral, I'll admit that you got me there. I was trying to lump everything that I was saying in as few words as possible, so I suppose I slipped on that one.

Cholesterol is the precursor to all steroid hormones, and cholesterol levels can be raised by eating saturated fats. Despite that cholesterol receives a bad rep due to a majority of people not balancing their diets and eating too many saturated fats, it is actually a very necessary thing.

Vegetarians may not be kneeling over by the truckload, but it is still not the healthiest lifestyle, and possesses its considerable share of downfalls. Not to mention, a lot of vegetarians are ill-informed and believe that eating any old selection of vegetables and fruits will keep them healthy and fit.

On a less scientific and more personal note, I honestly don’t see the political standpoint of being a vegetarian. I know that people slaughter animals in cruel ways - I’ve watched animal cruelty videos dealing with laboratories, fur farms, etcetera. - but isn’t killing a plant the same act? Plants actually do feel pain and are capable of movement - They just can’t scream. Because of this, I’d have to say that a vegetarian is technically just as much a "barbarian" as someone operating a slaughterhouse. Vegetarians are just not aware of it.

 

Your ignorance is quite apparent, Mr. Fox. First of all, I can literally get over 20 g. of protein from a whole grain sausage I eat, containing absolutely no soy, or I can get my protein from wheat gluten which is a pure protein. I can get the litany of other products from other sources; it is much harder, as you need to combine items to truly activate the ingredients which you do not have to do with meat/ dairy. The only real benefits stemming from milk would be calcium and niacin, beyond that it is simply unhealthy, loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol and above that immoral- but I won't get into that yet.

You, by comparing the act of eating a vegetable to that of eating meat prove to be extremely ignorant, as you can clearly not grasp the concept of two things: the principles of pain, the principles of raising animals for slaughter. (A) Pain, or the ability to feel pain is an evolutionary adaptation, not just a random ability available to all. When a being feels pain, it is triggered to flee from the source, thus an immobile being such as a strawberry would have no need to feel such pain. Beyond that, the strawberry has no brain, no complex central nervous system and no cell membrane, rather a cell wall. (B) It has been reported that meat-eaters serve to promote the harvesting of roughly 10x the number of plants that a vegetarian would, due to the fact that these animals NEED TO BE FED. So , from a moral standpoint, assuming that you are correct and that plants do in fact feel pain, wouldn't you want to prevent all of that total suffering (really needless) that simply goes into keeping your animal alive, who in turn dies a horrible death.

Beyond all of this, it is not just the act of killing that is deplorable in the meat industry, the conditions in which these animals are kept are far worse, as they entail constant suffering- THIS is why I am not just a vegetarian, but rather a vegan. Even if (hypothetical yet not true) eating meat and cheese and that crap were proven to be healthier, I would never do it because I see that as just self-centered and exploitative. You must not step over all these beautiful creatures, and essentially our environment (check out how much water and energy are wasted in producing your coveted meat) to promote your own good will.

-Peace-

 

im a vegetarian! i have been for 3 weeks now and ill tell you... i feel really good. i dont eat any meat whatsoever and i love falafel and tofu. so good. better then meat i say.

 

Absolutely better!