Vegansexuals: No Carnivore Partners, Please! - Page 2

Random observation: there are officially now more posts about how this thread has turned into a refrigerator whiteboard than there are posts that could conceivably be interpreted as refrigerator whiteboard-ready.

I think an additional element is that humans tend to have a more developed sense of empathy than other animals. We're more attuned to and care about the emotions of others (humans and other animals included) more than another animal could, although this can sometimes extend into some questionable acts of anthropomorphism. This typically does not extend to non-sentient life forms and is generally related somewhat to the perceived intelligence/emotional life of the animal in question ("it's okay to eat fish...," etc.).

So, while the question of vegetarianism may be a philosophical one or one of taste, it can also be a matter of visceral, gut reaction - "Would I want some more intelligent race eating me? No." I don't think that's necessarily rational, but it's also not rational that we eat pigs, but not dogs. Cultural and personal standards about cuisine are weird like that.

That's exactly the kind of talk that will get you slapped by Catherine Hicks.

I have no idea what this means. Please tell me that it doesn't require me watching 7th Heaven to find out. My pop culture awareness has well-defined and perfectly reasonable limits.

You'll get by on Star Trek 4... But then you'll totally be a Nerd for doing that.

Captain, there be whales here.

edit-Bah! Bah, I say!

I'm a die-hard meat-eater, but even I'm jumping on the organic/cruelty-free wagon these days (more my wife's doing than my own, but still). The products are now widely available, and no longer ridiculously expensive. So why not?

My ex is vegan. She was only at the polite vegetarian level when we first met. I've always found it ironic that she would constantly comment on how good I tasted to her, what with me being a carnivore practically my entire life you would think it would've been the exact opposite.

So it was inevitable that I tried to go with the - "I don't eat anything that has a face" diet just for her, but I only lasted a couple of months with it. I was eating every meat substitute I could find back then, and I hated every single bite of it. The day I confessed to her that I had fallen off the wagon by eating a bacon cheeseburger she promptly told me to "Get out cause I don't like you anymore!" We had been dating/co-habitating for over 5 years at that point, so this was a bit of an extreme overeaction in my eyes. So naturally when she calmed down, she decreed that I had to eat all "my" food outside so she would'nt have to smell or see my disgusting habit.

Best relationship I ever had.

See, that's the mistake that a lot of vegetarians make, I think. I figure there are cultures, like certain sects of Judaism and Hinduism, some groups in the Middle-East, who have been doing the vegetarian thing for centuries. They don't bother trying to make soy and various veggies taste like meat - they let them taste like themselves and flavor them with spices that actually taste good with those ingredients.

Meat substitutes taste like most mass-produced food, which is basically kinda shitty. In my experience, most of the exceptions to this rule are veggie burgers and such that don't try to taste so much like beef, but just do their own thing (i.e. they taste like a bunch of spiced vegetables pressed into a patty, not a failed burger). I've had vegetarians tell me that they've had fantastic veggie-dogs that are near-perfect replications of real hot dogs. But, ya know, they're never going to taste quite as good, so what's really the point? Instead of having a third-rate hot dog, have a first-rate falafel.

I've noticed a growing trend in the Health&Diet media coverage down here regarding the environmental impact of meat production beginning to influence people regarding vegetarianism. Basically this refers to the methane output of the animals themselves, as well as the massive landclearing involved in some countries to grow the soya crops with which to feed such animals where they are confined to feedlots or other highly intensive farming methods. So I think you can add "ethics" alongside "philosophy" and "health" to your vegetarian/vegan justifications. I myself have recently attempted to adapt to a vegetarian diet, because of the feedlot, abbatoir and (particularly in Australia) live-export issues, as well as to some extent cost factors. The Dairy-Veal industrial nexus is somewhat disturbing (but unavoidable, essentially), but I think I'd actually curl up and die if I couldn't consume dairy products.

A lot of that stuff is a meat substitute, though. At least in the sense that the function it serves in the dish is the same as meat does in others. I appreciate the point that they're not trying to make it taste like meat, but then again it's a different cultural context. I wasn't born into a particular vegetarian cuisine, I grew up eating burgers and dogs. That the technology is available now (which obviously wasn't available to more ancient vegetarian cuisines, no small point, I think) to try and replicate those things I grew up eating, and still crave at times, it seems like a no brainer to me that they'd attempt it. I don't see it as a mistake, even though a veggie dog is not as good as an authentic falafel. It's part of my background, a part I want to hold onto even if I do give up meat. I mean, you can make the point that nobody who didn't grow up eating hot dogs would choose a fake one over a great falafel, but you could probably also make the point that nobody who grew up eating great lamb kebabs would choose a hot dog over one of those.

Especially sexually? Unless this kiwi is a particularly intense rugby player or a hemophiliac, I'm pretty sure I don't want to know what that means.

There goes my solution of finding a process whereby the meat is cut off the animal but it is somehow kept alive.

If you can arrange it so the meat grows back and you can re-harvest it, you'll be a very rich man. It would be kind of like gardening then.

You're right, screw Parkinson's, those stem cells are needed elsewhere.

Just peel the outer membrane away and blanch them in some boiling water. Add salt and lemon juice. This could open up a whole new market for liberal vegetarians. Pre life cuisine.

See, I always considered myself a vegansexual, but I guess I had the definition wrong, as I always used it to describe my practice of as a rule having sex with only fruits and vegetables.

I think there's an important distinction to make here, though. Things like lentils, legumes, and soy protein (read: tofu, not veggie dogs) aren't meat substitutes - they're protein sources. They may serve the same purpose as meat, but, for vegetarians, esp. vegetarians who weren't raised eating hot dogs, they're not any sort of substitute. I think this is where people who are uncomfortable/unsuccessful with a vegetarian diet get hung up. You're not trying to recreate your old ways of eating via lousy tasting soy protein shaped like chicken, you're transitioning to completely different foods. The Indian subcontinent isn't running around saying "Stupid Hinduism! We can't eat cows like those cool Americans! What shall we do instead?!"

That's a really good point and related to what I was saying above - sometimes, changing your diet requires changing your cultural context so you don't have to suffer through things like "chik'n" nuggets. I've never had a hamburger or a hot dog, but I grew up in a family of enthusiastic meat eaters. As a result, my diet was really lousy, as I tried to feed myself via side dishes. Once I got out of my parents' house and realized that there were huge parts of the world where people don't eat meat on a daily basis, I was thrilled. Because of that shift in cultural context, I eat really well now, if usually in a way completely unrecognizable to most Americans.

But, God, do they fail! I've had chicken nuggets/strips and fake chicken nuggets/strips, and there's no contest.

I could really go for a falafel right about now...

I can totally see this. I guess it's really just a matter of how one chooses to experience food culturally. I'm really not much fun at cookouts and my parents still have no idea what to feed me when I go to their house. But, at the same time, we threw one hell of a Hanukkah party last year. Everything was vegetarian and everyone was quite pleased.

Sadly I'm astounded by this, and apparently your family wasn't enthusiastic enough.

But do you do it with a Jack O Lantern on your head?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sEDw9xgSmSc

America hater. I'm going to make some phone calls...

The no hamburger or hotdog amazes even me. I don't think I've gone a month without having at least one or the other. I've even eatin a hotdog at a baseball game. Where's my green card?

Oh no, they're quite enthusiastic. I was just more enthusiastic about vomiting every time I was fed beef. They pretty much got the picture by the time I was about two years old, though my mother would still make me choke down ham and bits of pork chop until I was about 10. Cold little lumps of pencil eraser... makes me gag just thinking about it.

My ex-girlfriend was a vegetarian who always tried to make me eat psuedo-burgers and soy whateverthefuck. My roomate is a vegetarian who is only that way so he can tell girls he's a vegetarian.

They're both assholes.

I've been going the cruelty free route with cosmetics for years (at least 15 yrs. now), and now that it's more affordable, I've gone that route with all my household products, as well as eating more organic foods. But I'm a great big hypocrite (at least I think I am) because for all my "be kind to animals" stuff, I do still eat meat. I'll sit there and get on your back for an hour about using cruelty free products, but then I'll turn around and have a burger.

I did try to go almost-veggie (meaning I still ate fish) for about a year back around '95-'96, but truthfully, I kept getting sick from lack of protien. And sure as hell, the thing that would perk me up and bring the color back to my face would be a piece of chicken or a burger. So eventually, I just went back on the meat wagon. I still feel like a little bit of a hypocrite, but not too much - I really do try to make up for it in a lot of other ways, i.e. the cruelty free products that make up 95% of everything else I buy.

The people who I think are the real hypocrites are the ones who eat meat but pretend they don't. Even when I was on my almost-veggie kick, that was how I phrased it - "Almost" or "Semi-veggie", because I still ate fish. Not that fish don't deserve as much of a break as cows do, but at least tuna was cheap, I was pretty broke at the time, so that was how I made that distinction.

Anyway, by "hypocrites", there was a time back in the early 90s when becoming veggie was far less mainstream, and people were viewed as really "out there" if they were veggie. So a girl I worked with made that her claim - that she was a veggie. If she was flying somewhere, she'd make a big show of phoning the airline to request a vegetarian meal, and she'd make sure everyone in the office heard her make the call. However - she still ate fish and chicken. And she'd "treat" herself to four burgers a year. And regularly ate BLTs. But whenever I'd get on her back about that, she'd freak out. I'd say to her, "I've got news for you. If you're still eating fish and chicken, you're not a vegetarian. Anything that dies a painful death so that you can slap it on a bun and eat it does NOT make you a vegetarian. If a fish suffocates when you yank it out of the water to eat it, you're not a vegetarian. Nor do those BLTs you eat every week count, nor do the burgers you eat four times a year. Four times a year still means you eat red meat." That's always bothered me, too - people who call themselves "vegetarians", when in reality they've only given up red meat.

Around that time, too, my Dad briefly dated a woman who was a vegan, and she looked like hell, to be honest. She was skeletal, sunken in eyes, sunken in cheekbones, and really thinning hair - you could easily see her scalp. My reasons for briefly trying to go a little veggie were for moral reasons - "don't be cruel by eating animals". But I think eating meat is going to help more than hurt. I think if it makes you feel better and you don't have any adverse health reactions, sure, there are healthy ways to go vegetarian. But I think a vegan lifestyle depletes your body of alot of what it needs. I mean, they do sell meat at Whole Foods.

Nobody, especially other vegetarians, likes a pretentious vegetarian. Just tell your roommate to do it the old fashioned way and lie to impress girls.

Wow. My wife even makes me skip the brushing teeth part. Like I said, she's in the mild stage of it. I'll make her some potatoes cooked in duck fat and she loves it. She's also having those fake burgers or hot-dogs, but again, if someone's throwing a BBQ, it's a bit tougher to bring a marinated eggplant, even if it's in tears of chicken.

It's not bad at all, except the part where she won't have any chocolate. If I have some, I'll have to brush to teeth. She just hate the taste and smell of it, ever since being a kid. But she compensate thoroughly with maple syrup.

Perhaps the couple from the original articles problem is too many Animal fluff news items.

From Eating media lunch, sort of our version of the Daily Show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtTReyA4O7o

They all die anyway, whether we eat them or not.

I love that episode. It's like reliving elementary school. The only part they left out? Kids asking if you eat peanuts. I used to get that all of the time. When I'd answer "yes," the little bastards would get this horrifying, triumphant look on their faces and say something like, "HA! You're not a vegetarian! Peanuts are meat!"


See, 'cause, on the food pyramid, they're in the same group with meat. Or they were in the 80s, anyway...

Three cheers for public education!

There's nothing wrong with vegans only wanting to fuck other vegans even if some of them do go a little too far in their definition of what it means to live that way. I can understand that they are repulsed by the consumption of meat the way I'm repulsed that salad alone can fill some people up. I need meat. I eat it as raw as can be and sometimes even those around me are sickened when I absorb the bloody juices that come with a raw steak up with my bread. I'm predisposed to liking the taste of meat and animal muscle and so the opposite of me exists out there as vegans.

To each his own, but I marvel when I meet someone who has never really eaten a steak like you there zooey. It's like meeting someone who's never drank water before. Blows me mind since it's just everywhere in our society.

I don't perceive it as being pervasive, though I do acknowledge that I'm somewhat unusual. It really all depends where you live, where you choose to eat, and who you hang out with. Eating red meat certainly isn't as central to survival as drinking water is.

Fwiw, I never said that people who consume red meat are repulsive. And I don't know anyone who can survive on salad alone. Trying to do so constitutes a gross misunderstanding of a vegetarian diet and some really disordered eating.

Why doesn't he just lie? I do. I tell women I'm an astrophysicist, but in reality I'm just a lowly astrobiologist.

And who're those people who even refuse to eat fruits and vegetables unless they've fallen off the tree "naturally"? 'cause if I were to ever consider commiting some sort of hate crime, they'd be first on the list.

Good luck waiting for a lettuce to fall out of a tree.

We interrupt this thread to bring you a delicious fucking steak.

I'd fuck it.

I've known people who thought that becoming a vegetarian was a simple matter of just not eating meat anymore. Some people get into it without doing a moment of research on the subject, and then wonder why they don't get healthier. I'd say that one of the reasons vegetarianism can improve your health is that it forces you to learn something about nutrition. At least if you're doing it properly.

I used to date a vegetarian and it had it's ups and downs. She was a vegetarian for philosophical reasons and had been since she was 12 (she was 23-24 when we dated). I didn't mind chewing gum or brushing my teeth after eating meat, that I could handle. What I couldn't handle was:

- the occasional "if you knew what happened to those animals, you wouldn't eat meat" comments

- the "if we ever have kids, they aren't eating meat until they are in their teens and can make an informed decision" decree

- she refused to cook anything for me that had meat in it--and I mean throw a dish in the oven, something that I had already prepared. She could not touch the pan. If I was running late or was in the shower, or just wasn't able to put something with meat in the oven (even if it was all good to go and just had to be baked), she wouldn't touch it. We got into a nice argument about that.

- she refused to scrub a plate/utensil that had had meat on it.

- she would make comments about how she had gotten other boyfriends to become vegetarian and why couldn't I become one.

I hear plenty of stories like that, and certainly there are a lot of holier than thou twats out there. But, in the interest of equal time, I could do without hearing any of these ever again:

"You don't eat meat?? Whyyyy?? Meat is so good! I couldn't live without it!"

"Doesn't this steak look good?? Come on, try a bite. You know you want to try it. Just try it!!"

"What, do you think it's wrong to eat animals? I mean, that's what they're bred for!"

"Do you ever think you're hurting yourself by not eating meat? We're, like, meant to eat it. Why do you think we have these teeth??" (sometimes followed by an actual display of their teeth.)

"Well, I'm never giving it up!" (I asked?)

"I couldn't eat a dog or something, though. That's just wrong."

That's the type of bathshit insane Vegetarian I talked about earlier. And it's not even Vegan.

The "won't touch the pan" is crazy, and the kid's thing is just wrong.

I haven't heard this in ages but I find it strangely appropriate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkHCDkYkYnk

Reminds me of certain religious (Jewish, Muslim, etc) food preparations, with their separate kitchens/utensils and what not.

Jews can eat Giraffes but not camels? Are they then forbade from riding Giraffes?

Reminds me of my college days, when our favorite Chinese restaurant got shut down for serving "unidentifiable meat." When it reopened 3 months later, I had friends who were skittish about returning. My philosophy was, we were eating there once a week for years. So if you're trying to maintain some kind of strict "I'm never going to ingest a dog" policy, sorry, that ship has sailed. Plus, they're certainly not going to serve you dog now, with the health department breathing down their necks.

I thought the same thing after the Jack in the Box E coli scare. After the news broke, and they cleaned up their act, nobody wanted to go. I said that Jack in the Box was probably the safest restaurant in town at that particular moment.

It's a real eye opener to walk into a Chinese grocery store and see all sorts of obscure animal parts you'd never find at Safeway. I'm not talking dog, just stuff a little off the beaten path.

I've never really got this "OMFG people eating dogs!!!" reaction. There really shouldn't be any sort of animal eating hierarchy. And as a matter of fact, dogs don't necessarily discriminate when it comes to eating humans.