BIASED!
TAKE ME NOW JEEBUS!
ANY TIME IS FINE!
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS!
ACTUALLY IT’S ABOUT ETHICS!
SAD!
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Thanks for your constructive points! lol
Unrealistic. It just would be an insect and jellyfish platter. No chance of running out of either soon.
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Lots of predators on those islands?
Iron and calcium are plentyful in plant foods, and there are a few complete proteins as well, delicious tempeh among them. Many vegans actually eat more iron and calcium than omnivores. The problem is if you have a diet heavy in phytic acid from certain grains and nuts, the phytic acid inhibits absorption of iron and calcium (omnis have this problem too). So there is some planning required to avoid a diet heavy in phytic-acid (moderate grains) diet. (Everyone should do this, not just vegans. It’s pretty interesting. There are studies that show reducing phytic acid actually reverses tooth decay from better mineral absorption).
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You know some really bad vegetarians.
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Ha. It takes awhile to figure everything out. Once you do, you spend the same time cooking and preparing as anyone else. You’re just a much better cook than you were. After all, your doing nothing less than fundamentally changing one of the most important activities of your life, often with very little support from friends and family (if not outright derision and confusion).
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That’s really interesting, actually – I was a vegetarian (briefly vegan) for 12 years or so and had no idea about the iron/calcium absorption, or about phytic acid.
Getting calcium and protein from plants isn’t too tough, but getting a full spread of amino acids is very difficult without supplements, especially for dogs. I have friends who hand-blend a daily diet for their dog that’s all plant based (they freeze little hockey pucks of food and thaw them as needed) and it’s bonkers how much time and effort it takes.
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The phytic acid thing is a tad overblown, from what I’ve read. And assuming you’re eating a variety of protein sources (including legumes, the most commonly overlooked/neglected source), then you’re getting all the aminos you need and plenty of them.
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I’ve had lots of vegetarians as friends, and they definitely range from extremely healthy people who love to cook and enjoy figuring out how to make recipes veggie-friendly to folks whose idea of “eating vegetarian” is a pantry full of macaroni & cheese and a pizza place on auto-dial, plus the occasional Morningstar veggie burger when they felt fancy.
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I think the phytic acid knowledge is just now trickling into the collectice consciousness, I only learned about 4-5 years ago, though it’s been established for decades (which was a bummer, I love grains and was eating waaaay too much of them). The amino/protein thing could be true for dogs, but it’s not for people anymore. The idea of ‘combining’ to get whole proteins sort of fizzled out. But to be honest, I eat so much tempeh that I don’t know what other people are eating these days. But there are complete proteins, and it’s not a hassle to get them. The most common deficiency in vegans (vegetarian is basically no different than omni, nutritionally) is B12, which comes from dirty food and animal products where the animals eat the dirt. Which isn’t a problem if you know you need it. I eat a metric ton of nutritional yeast every year (because it is amazing, it is pure ‘umami’) which has plenty of B12. There are cheap B12 tabs and it’s in fortified foods and multis. The thing about veg*nism these days, is it’s not really the niche thing it used to be, so information, good information, is finally replacing a lot of the bad information (spread virally) from over the years. Another thing I learned, is that omnis can benefit from the type of dietary auditing vegans occasionally do. We all have areas in our diets that are probably not well covered.
I know someone that does that for their dog, but it is with meats and organs. I think many are realizing how atrocious dog and cat food is, and deciding that more money and time upfront to have a healthier and happier dog/cat instead of vet bills sooner than later might be worth it. I am planning on trying the meat pucks for my cats just as soon as I can muster the nerve to dip my fingers in bowls full of hearts and gizzards. There are a few books on it, I think it’s picking up steam. If you don’t mind me asking, what motivated you in the veg direction, and what pushed you away? If you want to share via PM that’s cool too, I know people get hot about this stuff in a public forum. (Also fairly common for people who veg for ethical reasons to lapse in and out, depending on their circles and lifestyles, especially if they grew up omni).
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You speak about farmers as if they still exist in any appreciable numbers in the U.S.
Almost all food grown/raised here comes from corporations now. The relatively few family-owned farms left are truly “family” farms: two to three generations working full time jobs elsewhere (or still full time students) while farming in addition with the few hours they have left to keep from having to declare bankruptcy and/or sell. And often enough, even then the only way to keep afloat is to see to a large corporate conglomerate, which means you grow/raise what they tell you to grow/raise, in the manner they tell you to grow/raise it.
Small family businesses in general are significantly down, because our laws and regulations (thanks to lobbying, kickbacks, etc.) are skewed to support the desires of large corporations rather than individual citizens. We do not have the free market system we say we do. Referencing Ma and Pa farmers to play on people’s sympathies is just as clueless as referencing Ma and Pa store owners.
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I’ve heard this BS so many times. 20 or 30 years ago it could seem more believable, but not anymore. You don’t have all those vegetarian friends. You don’t know anything about the costs, nutrition, or preparation involved. These are claims you’ve heard/read from others and you’re parroting them like a good little puppet.
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It depends, since diets are so individual and vary so much. For instance, vitamin C and animal fats neutralize phytates, so if you eat a huge bowl of oats (very high in phytates) with a pat of real butter in it and a glass of grapefruit juice, not a problem. It’s a bigger problem for vegans than vegetarians, because vegans don’t use the animal fats, and because vegans are more likely to eat more nuts, soy, and grains, the three groups highest in phytic acid. It can be a problem for omnis too. But it’s only a ‘problem’ insofar as you aren’t aware of it, since it’s easily remediated with modest dietary changes. I appreciate any links to new findings though, I know this type of information evolves with research, and it’s highly likely I missed something.
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I’d have to dig a while, but I recall reading an interview with—damn my memory—either an MD or a PhD, who looked into the claims of phytic acid’s inhibition of mineral absorption, both through literature review and original research. Her conclusion was that while phytic acid does weakly inhibit mineral absorption, this is more than offset by the rich mineral content of the food itself, especially (as you point out) when consumed as part of a balanced, varied diet.
Her practical advice: if you’re eating nuts and legumes every day, you’re further ahead nutritionally than most North Americans. Keep it up.
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No worries at all. I went veg while living in San Francisco – all of my co workers were vegetarian and veggie food was commonplace. Pretty much my whole circle of friends went veggie about that time as well, all for ethical reasons, our little hippie group. And for about a decade I lived by myself, read lots of books on veggie cooking and started spending lots of time shopping at farmers’ markets and health food stores. When my living situation changed, I moved to Boston, and started cooking for a household, I stayed vegetarian for several years, but the availability of quality seafood here versus my old home in Ohio got me going pescatarian, and eventually the difficulty of cooking two sets of dinners every day (one for me and one for everyone else) and always being the guy who needed a special meal at restaurants or family gatherings got really old after many years. And having farm-to-table restaurants and butchers available made me feel better about the source of my meat.
Spending so many years being intensely aware of my food sources and nutrition definitely had a huge effect on how I see and eat to this day, though. And I tend to keep a plant based diet more often than not.
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Yeah, I feel you on that. I try to avoid that coming up as best I can at restaurants (and mercifully, most restaurants these days are gracious enough to have pretty good dishes available, instead of just modifying ‘meat’ dishes and calling them ‘vegi _____’. If there isn’t a viable option, these are the times I will just eat fish or cheese or whatever because I don’t want to deal with the inevitable ensuing converstaion and questions after the waiter picks up the menus and throughtout the rest of the meal. It’s not that I mind having the talk, it’s that I don’t want to make the conversational touchstone of the whole meal me. (I’m mostly referring to family and professional meals, I don’t give a shit about arguing with my friends 
).
Thanks for sharing your background. I can relate to most of those experiences. I forget sometimes how strong a role food plays in our lives as human beings. It’s such a fundamental part of our histories, cultures, and interactions.
That’s awesome, same for me. My diet is much more varied and diverse than it has ever been, and I appreciate food even more, from the exposure and thinking about foods. It’s pretty incredible what we have available to us to eat these days, and how little many of us take advantage of it. One of the greatest benefits of any dietary change is realizing the abundance of choices that we never really paid much attention to.
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Funny thing is, I never cared about that until I started living with foodies who make big nights at restaurants a huge part of their social lives. And after the third or fourth incident of going to a big fancy meal at a prix-fixe multi-course restaurant and having the waiter either say “sorry, everyone needs to be served the same thing, so if you’re eating vegetarian, the rest of the table has to as well,” or sending the chef out to figure out how to accommodate the weirdo who wants special treatment, and everyone saying “gee, you got pasta and asparagus?” as they ate their pheasant and kobe beef, I got really frustrated. So that definitely added a lot of pressure to eat meat.
I’ve noticed that situation getting much better at restaurants. The snazzy places around me do a great job of doing creative, amazing things with vegetables.
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Wow. That is a whole different league than ‘arguing with friends’. Tip of the hat for enduring that, even once. (Just reading that triggered a mini-panic attack).
I will say that when I had a snazzy dinner at Morimoto in Philadelphia, they were super awesome. Not only did they silently and graciously serve me a veggie meal that was the equal of the omni meals my friends got, but when the next course was to be a sliver of kobe beef, the waiter came over and quietly said “now, I would ask if you want to try this course, because it’s very special, but I wouldn’t feel right serving beef to a vegetarian. Your body simply can’t digest it very well if you haven’t had beef in awhile.” They brought out a truly amazing sashimi made from chanterelle mushrooms.
Babbo in NYC, on the other hand, can eat a bag of dicks.
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