Struggling with being veggie right now! Any advice?

shakenbake

I turned veggie nearly six years. I can pretty much pin point the exact moment
it happened because I had a very profound moment of realisation after talking with someone. It was pretty unusual! After that I decided to give it a shot for a week and here I am.

The thing is, I've slipped up once or twice. I've justified eating fish for nutritional reasons etc. I have leather seats in my car, probably have lots of things with dead animal remenants in them. The whole thing is depressing me a bit. See, the thing is I LOVE the taste of meat and always have ... fillet stake, sausages, burgers ... jesus, don't get me started.

I feel like I'm fading a bit here. The temptation to eat meat is seriously strong and I don't want to eat my relatively new found morals away.

Has anyone been in the same situation? Offer any advice?

sweet-rasmus

hmmm, i know that some veggies do indeed miss the taste of meat. to start, have you tried to wide range of fake meats available? Tar.Aldarion swears by the sweedish meat balls by realeat. and veggie bacon is made by 2 different companies (that i know of, available in ireland), which smells fabulous and goes very well with beans and mash linconshire sausages have a brilliant taste to them (i'm not a fan of the linda mc cartney ones) and the 'vegetarian choice' ones are delicious too. there are plenty of alternatives.

of course, you are a pescetarian ('vegetarian' eating fish; the term vegetarian can confuse people around here ! ) and there are a few fellow pescetarians about this forum .

it is up to you whether you want to have leather seats in your car, and there's no point in you feeling guilty about it if you don't want to!

i'm sure everyone will give you plenty of advice aroung here

Tar.Aldarion

shakenbake wrote: »

I turned veggie nearly six years. I can pretty much pin point the exact moment
it happened because I had a very profound moment of realisation after talking with someone. It was pretty unusual! After that I decided to give it a shot for a week and here I am.

The thing is, I've slipped up once or twice. I've justified eating fish for nutritional reasons etc. I have leather seats in my car, probably have lots of things with dead animal remenants in them. The whole thing is depressing me a bit. See, the thing is I LOVE the taste of meat and always have ... fillet stake, sausages, burgers ... jesus, don't get me started.

I feel like I'm fading a bit here. The temptation to eat meat is seriously strong and I don't want to eat my relatively new found morals away.

Has anyone been in the same situation? Offer any advice?

I too love the taste of meat, don't get me started on steak, smoked cod, chops etc. I also hate vegetables.

I eat fake meat as sweet-rasmus said, try the meatballs by quorn etc. Maybe a roast. Some of the fake meats are quite good.
We all slip up, no need to beat yourself up over it. I wouldn't mind eating meat by accident etc.
You don't really need to eat fish for nutrional reasons, even though it's pretty good for you, but if you want to, enjoy.
Good luck.

Nature Boy

Yeah fake meats are the way to go. You won't find anything to replace steak but you can get good sausages (Couldron lincolnshire are my favourites). The quorn quarter pounders are pretty good for burgers. There was a really good slicing sausage I've had a few times i think it's realeat that make it, you get it in the freezer section of health food shops in a white plastic wrapper. Other good ones are realeat veggie mince, quorn garlic and herb fillets, quorn rashers (can't seem to get them in ireland though), qourn nuggets/dippers. The tesco hot dogs are good, even though they're too small

Slaphead07

a quick browse of http://www.viva.org.uk/ might correct your vision!

cozmik

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

I wouldn't mind eating meat by accident etc.

hehe, I figured that was the case..

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

I also hate vegetables.

LOL , I love veg! but I'm not a vegetarian.

What a topsy turvy world , eh?

rockbeer

shakenbake wrote:

The thing is, I've slipped up once or twice.

This makes it sound like a religious devotion or something. I really don't understand this way of looking at things.

Every single time you eat something, you make a choice. If you choose not to eat meat a thousand times and then eat meat once, does that one decision invalidate all the other thousand?

I don't think so. I don't put myself under any pressure to be perfect - I prefer to look at the positive choices rather than beat myself up about the bad ones.

So you eat meat or fish occasionally? No big deal. At least you are aware of the implications, and you don't eat it every day or every meal.

sweet-rasmus

:rolleyes: but the idea of being veggie is that you don't eat meat. you wouldn't choose to eat it every now and then for the hell of it...
*sigh*

cozmik

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

:rolleyes: but the idea of being veggie is that you don't eat meat. you wouldn't choose to eat it every now and then for the hell of it...
*sigh*

There seems to be a lot of pseudo-vegetarians floating around these days, commitment to the creed depends on mood for these people.You hear some make exceptions for seafood others will do the same for chicken.

Well fish or chickens may not be smart, but they’re not vegetables! lol

rockbeer

Creed? Commitment? It isn't a religion, nor is it about evangelism. What's this puritanical streak all about? You just end up becoming oppressed by your own rules and restrictions.

I don't, by the way, describe myself as a vegetarian.

Nature Boy

Jeez, people can eat whatever they want, as long as they don't use the incorrect labels (and we all know that we get very angry about labels in this forum) then they're ok!

cozmik

Nature Boy wrote: »

Jeez, people can eat whatever they want, as long as they don't use the incorrect labels (and we all know that we get very angry about labels in this forum) then they're ok!

Of course people can eat whatever they want and I don't get angry about labels either but what I find intriguing is how some people can think of themselves as vegetarians and yet still eat the occasional bit of fish or chicken, which are if I'm not mistaken *not* vegetables.

cozmik

rockbeer wrote: »

It isn't a religion, nor is it about evangelism.

Did I say it was? Nope.

It's about vegetarianism and what you can and can't eat if you decide to become a vegetarian. It is a decision that you should give a lot of consideration to because one of the fundamental things you have to do should you decide to become a vegetarian is stop eating meat.

rockbeer

cozmik wrote:

It's about vegetarianism and what you can and can't eat if you decide to become a vegetarian. It is a decision that you should give a lot of consideration to because one of the fundamental things you have to do should you decide to become a vegetarian is stop eating meat.

That sounds exactly like a description of a religion to me.

Look, the op asked for some advice on how to deal with a problem and I offered something I thought might be helpful. Now you all turn on me as though I'd advocated matricide.

What is your problem with somebody who finds it hard to live a 100% vegetarian life choosing a 99% vegetarian life instead? Do you really think it makes them that much less of a person? Get over yourselves.

I wonder if they have the same discussions over on sweets and snacks? "Yeah, there's so many pseudo-sweet and snack eaters hanging around here these days... They have no committment to the sugar creed... One of them confessed to eating bread the other day."

Nature Boy

Ah, this old argument!

cozmik

rockbeer wrote: »

What is your problem with somebody who finds it hard to live a 100% vegetarian life choosing a 99% vegetarian life instead?

There is no such thing as a 99% vegetarian life.

Tar.Aldarion

rockbeer wrote: »

That sounds exactly like a description of a religion to me.

No, it is more a definition. ]
Because a word, by definition, has a definition, that does not make it like a religion. Apart from the fact that you have to do certain things to be considered a member of each(although there is of course argument about what you have to do), just like you have to follow rules to be the King of England, or anything.
There is no set of rules of life for vegetarianism, apart from the rules of the diet. If that sounds like a religion to you, then i imagine a lot of things do.

I wonder if they have the same discussions over on sweets and snacks? "Yeah, there's so many pseudo-sweet and snack eaters hanging around here these days... They have no committment to the sugar creed... One of them confessed to eating bread the other day."

That comparison is not analogous.

There is no such thing as a 99% vegetarian life.

There is, clearly it is somebody that lives on meat free foods 99% of the time.

rockbeer

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

No, it is more a definition.

I disagree. It's fundamentally ar*e-about-face. What meaning has the "decision to be a vegetarian" over and above the decision to stop eating meat? None. Ergo, a vegetarian is what you are if you don't eat meat. Whereas to him, not eating meat is what you do if you're a vegetarian.

Cozmik's perspective imbues vegetarianism with some higher meaning - as though there were some inherent value in "deciding to be a vegetarian" in the abstract sense. This is analogous to a quasi-religious belief in the virtue of vegetarianism. He says "one of the fundamental things you have to do should you decide to become a vegetarian is stop eating meat". I would counter this by asking firstly what other "fundamental things" could you possibly have to do? And secondly: Why would you "decide to become a vegetarian" in the abstract sense, rather than simply deciding not to eat meat? I completely fail to see what meaning or value this decision could have. From a practical point of view, the difference between being 100% vegetarian and eating steak once a year is almost zero. But to Comzik, these two behaviours are worlds apart.

It is of course perfectly possible to be a vegetarian without having any notion of the concept of vegetarianism. If I don't eat meat I'm a vegetarian, whether I happen to know what one is or not. Cozmik doesn't really allow for this. By elevating the concept of vegetarianism above this simple behaviour-based fact he almost requires one's vegetarianism to have some higher significance... in his mind the decision to "be a vegetarian" has somehow got twisted round so it comes before the decision not to eat meat... therefore he is intolerant of those who eat virtually no meat, no matter how little meat they actually consume in practice.

Weird.

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

That comparison is not analogous.

Only because snack and sweet eaters are not so self-absorbed as to use their forum title as a proper noun rather than a description of a type of food. Which was exactly my point.

Faith

rockbeer wrote: »

I wonder if they have the same discussions over on sweets and snacks? "Yeah, there's so many pseudo-sweet and snack eaters hanging around here these days... They have no committment to the sugar creed... One of them confessed to eating bread the other day."

Well, I do ban people if they admit to eating vegetables...

cozmik

rockbeer wrote: »

Cozmik's perspective imbues vegetarianism with some higher meaning

No I don't

You're the one who keeps bangin' on about religion.

rockbeer wrote: »

If I don't eat meat I'm a vegetarian, whether I happen to know what one is or not.

Agreed, but there are people here who know what it means to be a vegetarian and still think there is no harm in eating meat occasionally, see the difference?

rockbeer

cozmik wrote:

No I don't

Only going on what you said.

cozmik wrote:

Agreed, but there are people here who know what it means to be a vegetarian and still think there is no harm in eating meat occasionally, see the difference?

Please tell us... what harm exactly is there in eating meat occasionally?

I'm obviously not getting it - what's so important about "being a vegetarian" over being a person who establishes a sustainable, pragmatic balance between their ideals and their desires?

rockbeer

Faith wrote: »

Well, I do ban people if they admit to eating vegetables...

Sound move... most vegetables are pretty inedible, and I speak as a "99% vegetarian"

I don't think the judgemental, narrowminded vein in this thread is useful to Shakeandbake.
It's very easy for me to stay 100% veggie because meat disgusts me.
I think people need to appreciate that everyone has different expierences and should judge themselves by their own standards.
I agree with rockbeer. You've done so much to live up to your ideal, you shouldn't let a couple of failures block out the big picture.
If you feel like your faltering, I suggest you go back to basics and think the ethic behind the decision out again. It is very easy to lose sight of these things as time goes on.

rockbeer

rockbeer wrote: »

Sound move... most vegetables are pretty inedible, and I speak as a "99% vegetarian"

I can understand a person taking a dislike to some vegetables, but I really don't get people who write off the whole food group.
They are usually the type of people who decide they don't like something without even trying it. That drives me mental.

cozmik

rockbeer wrote: »

Only going on what you said.

You brought religion into the topic , I didn't say a thing about it.

rockbeer wrote: »

Please tell us... what harm exactly is there in eating meat occasionally?

Show me where I said it was harmful?

rockbeer wrote: »

I'm obviously not getting it

QFT

Peanut

rockbeer wrote: »

...From a practical point of view, the difference between being 100% vegetarian and eating steak once a year is almost zero. But to Comzik, these two behaviours are worlds apart.

hehe.. depends on your definition of "practical point of view".

It's a bit like saying a relationship is "mostly faithful"!

(or... a better analogy might be someone saying they are mostly teetotal.)

I think it's entirely reasonable for people to distinguish between these behaviours, but still, you wouldn't give someone a hard time just because they are being 'mostly vegetarian'.

But if someone is consistently meat-eating (not just the odd time), and claiming to be veggie, I would suspect they are more interested in the label of vegetarianism itself, or they just simply don't know the difference (sorry to generalise about a nationality, but.. eg. some Americans eating veg. with meat and claiming its vegetarian!)

rockbeer

cozmik wrote:

Show me where I said it was harmful?

...

cozmik wrote:

Agreed, but there are people here who know what it means to be a vegetarian and still think there is no harm in eating meat occasionally, see the difference?

:rolleyes:

cozmik wrote:

QFT

Very clever
... but how about answering the question?

Peanut wrote:

hehe.. depends on your definition of "practical point of view".

It's a bit like saying a relationship is "mostly faithful"!

Well, maybe... but my diet is strictly between me and myself. Who else cares if I'm 99% or 100% vegetarian? The important thing for the op, I would have thought, is to find a balance he/she can live with. To have people implying he/she is guilty of some kind of failure is probably not going to help much.

cozmik

rockbeer wrote: »

...

Show me where I said it was harmful?

...

Quote:Originally Posted by cozmik
Agreed, but there are people here who know what it means to be a vegetarian and still think there is no harm in eating meat occasionally, see the difference?

LOL ,I was saying it's no harm in the sense that there is no harm done.

One might argue that there's no harm in it. It's an expression!! doh.

:rolleyes:

Who else cares if I'm 99% or 100% vegetarian?

I couldn't care less if you only eat meat once every leap year ,if you do so you are NOT a vegetarian, find some other name for yourself because vegetarian is taken.

rockbeer

cozmik wrote: »

LOL ,I was saying it's no harm in the sense that there is no harm done.

One might argue that there's no harm in it. It's an expression!! doh.

Seems to me you don't really know what you're saying as you change it every time it's questioned.

cozmik wrote: »

I couldn't care less if you only eat meat once every leap year ,if you do so you are NOT a vegetarian, find some other name for yourself because vegetarian is taken.

You obviously don't actually read my posts or you'd have noticed where I said I don't describe myself as a vegetarian. As it happens I never eat meat either, But that really isn't the issue here.

Perhaps you don't even read your own posts.

Anyway, this is getting silly, so I'm out of here. Have fun everyone.

r3nu4l

Wow look an off-topic thread

OP, this may sound weird but as a non-vegetarian who likes the odd vegetarian dish I always add kidney beans to my vegetarian dishes. It's not meat but the protein kick is still there Most of my vegetarian dishes are stir-fries. Weirdly, despite being a meat eater I usually make my own sauces and ensure that there are no animal products in there as we all know you can't trust a bottled or canned sauce to be completely free of animal products.

Try loading up on beans but open a window after you've eaten

cozmik

rockbeer wrote: »

Seems to me you don't really know what you're saying....

LOL I could say the same about you. rockbeer I haven't changed a single thing I've said.... it's just you've been reading far too much into what I've written which has led you to some bizarre conclusions.

Don't worry about it though , I'm sure we would understand each other better in RL

rockbeer wrote: »

so I'm out of here. Have fun everyone.

cya!

one-angry-dwarf

well, it might be a bit too late already! but to the OP, do a quick google video search for 'earthlings'. that should set you veggie again in no time!

olaola

If you are craving meat, is there a possibility that you are lacking in minerals/vitamins? eg iron?

Peanut

If you suddenly make a big change to your diet it might take your body a while to get used to it.

It's hard to tell sometimes if a craving is just due to addiction or if you really feel you would be better off with whatever it is you are obsessing about

You could try some fake meat type thingys to see if it's just the taste/texture of meat that you miss.. If you're worried about iron, take a supplement and/or just include more pulses/green veg/breakfast cereal in your diet.

dereko1969

Nature Boy wrote: »

quorn rashers (can't seem to get them in ireland though),

got quorn rashers in superquinn knocklyon a couple of weeks ago, fairly tasty i thought, they also had the quorn roast which i like. i'd seen neither of these recently anywhere else (iceland were the only ones who carried the roast afaik).

tristanc

shakenbake wrote: »

I feel like I'm fading a bit here. The temptation to eat meat is seriously strong and I don't want to eat my relatively new found morals away.

Has anyone been in the same situation? Offer any advice?

A lot of times an urge for a particular type of food is your body telling you it needs a certain type of nutrition - are you sure you are eating a pretty balanced veggie diet?

Outside that, I think it's the same thing anyone on any sort of 'diet', anyone trying to cut out sweets, trying to stop smoking, etc. can face - essentially it can become a bit of a mental obsession for whatever you are 'depriving' yourself of. The thought of it makes it better than it was so to speak. For me, the cigarette was never as good as my memory of it - it just made me feel sort of nasty. But it took a while for it to get out my head.

I actually found smoking and candy harder than meat - the former two were explicitly removing something, while the latter I just started doing more of switch - ie instead of the steak I loved, started eating a veggie Thai dish that I ended up really liking.

tristanc

Can you eat meat occassionally and still be vegetarian?
Are you still punk rock, or have you sold out?
Can you s**k the occassional d**k in a restroom and still be heterosexual?
Can you support {Insert any one 100 things here} and still call yourself a good Catholic?

etc., etc., etc.

Maybe boards.ie should create one designated thread for all of these sort of arguments

Nouveau

olaola wrote: »

If you are craving meat, is there a possibility that you are lacking in minerals/vitamins? eg iron?

If you are craving a cigg, is there a possibility that you are lacking in nicoteen?

If you are craving a drink, is there a possibility that you are lacking in alcohol?

If you are craving chocolate, is there a possibility that you are lacking in sugar/fat?

It is all just learned behaviour patterns.

Nouveau

At the moment I am craving a (vegetarian) pizza and a few beers.
But back to the topic :
Read Fast Food Nation, watch Earthlings, look further.
Meat is not good for you and not good for the planet.
It is inhumane, unethical and environmentally unsound to farm and slaughter animals in the way that is being done at present.
Just educate yourself a little more and you will be unable to eat meat again.

rockbeer

Sorry Nouveau, everything you say is true except the last line which is just silly. Knowing how bad meat is won't in itself make people unable to eat it.

People know the risks of smoking but they still smoke.

They not only have to know - they also have to care.

Peanut

Nouveau wrote: »

...
It is all just learned behaviour patterns.

Hmmm not that simple really!
You have to distinguish between addictions, and needs.

If you are craving food, you might just be hungry..

MsFifers

Regarding missing meat, maybe just try new flavours of food instead to appeal to your palate in a different way.

I've been gradually cutting out meat over the last year, and haven't eaten any for a month or so. At first I found that I missed the "big" savoury flavour that you get from meat - so I had to educate myself about cooking differently.

I now am eating more spicy foods and v. flavoursome things like sundried tomatoes.

Some of my fav.s are:
Curries with tofu
Morroccan flavours Veg Stew with toasted almonds.
Sundried tomato & lentil shepards pie
Spicy bean burger


PM me if you want recipies!!