Introductions - Why Vegetarian?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by ~*Vegan Val*~ on March 3, 2008 at 11:58am

Prad,
thank you so much for your input! Wow, I'm seriously shocked, I had no idea re the cheese!.. Ugh, another reason to give it up, huh?..

Thanks again,
Namaste! :)

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on March 3, 2008 at 12:06pm

agreed!
best never to get hooked, but if so may be one can start something along the lines of Alcoholic Anonymous - CA for Cheesed Anonymous perhaps :D

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by ~*Vegan Val*~ on March 3, 2008 at 12:24pm

LOL, I'll be the first to join CA then! :D Followed by another CA for coffee anonymous... ;-p Latter I'm already working on though ;-)

Ok, this will be my challenge from now on then, weaning off cheese!

Have a great rest of your day!
Namaste :)

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Permalink Reply by Jamie on June 8, 2008 at 8:57pm

Hello!
My name is Jamie and I'm new to vegetarianism but have been inching my way towards it for many years now.
I live in Colorado with my husband and 2 boys. I'm a virtual teacher for COVA.

I really want to be a vegan and dropped milk completely one month ago. I used to love it; I don't miss it.

We've been on juice plus for a while and this has been one of the catalysts for me to improve my health. There have been many things along the way but I was lead to this site by a friend who knew I desired to be a vegetarian.

I saw the "Meet Your Meat" video this Mother's Day and cried my eyes out. I think the helplessness of the animals reminded me of my little guy (in my profile picture). I felt like it was crazy maker; I knew I had to watch this so as to not bury my head in the sand any longer but I was writhing in anguish. I can't understand the cruelty. I just can't. It reminds me of Eckhart Tolle's new book when he mentions the insanity of the ego - our world, war, factory farms.

So, here I am, wanting to learn more! :) How do I make sure my kiddos are getting what they need. How to make this transition less painful for my husband who is actually pretty supportive. How to live everyday life as a vegan.

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on June 8, 2008 at 11:08pm

welcome jamie!
here is a link that you may find helpful:
http://towardsfreedom.com/veggiechess/goVeg.html
it summarizes the Health, Environment, Ethics ideas and provides some very good links as well.

you don't need to worry about getting what they need - unless you are a pasta-tofu only veg. if you want confirmation of this check out some well-established program like mcdougall http://www.drmcdougall.com/ or pcrm http://pcrm.org/ and you'll see that as long as you have variety and are not doing junk veg (it's much easier to eat junk food in the veg world), you don't have anything to worry about.

veg diets are much more sensible than animal-based ones - you are not depriving yourselves of anything other than several life-threatening diseases.

if you have any specific questions, just ask.

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by Jamie on June 14, 2008 at 11:24pm

Pred,
Thank you for the information and support. I feel I am on a most wonderful journey!

Quick question: I read that vegetarianism is eating no animal products. Is this true for all? I have thought for years that only vegans didn't eat animal products but that vegetarians only didn't eat meat. It's all semantics and not that important but I just wondered about this.

Warm Regards,
Jamie

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on June 17, 2008 at 9:11pm

hi jamie!

you can get a good idea of the vegetarian-vegan dilemma by reading some of these discussions:
http://www.veghaven.org/forum/topic/show?id=1350827%3ATopic%3A102116
http://towardsfreedom.com/pun/viewtopic.php?id=36

however, let me discuss the matter here a bit.

a vegetarian is the dietary component of vegan even though in the popular culture some people who eat dairy and eggs like to call themselves vegetarian. but then, some people who eat chicken and fish also like to call themselves vegetarian. (in fact, it is happening right on veghaven when you are asked to define yourself as vegetarian or vegan).

so what we have is a problem of usage vs precision.

you have the same sort of problem when people like to think that humans are omnivores (which they aren't), because a lot of humans do eat meat. biologically, of course we are pure herbivores (http://www.vegsource.com/veg_faq/comparative.htm - milton mills does an excellent analysis here).

the reason donald watson coined the term vegan in 1944, was to distinguish themselves from those who claimed they were vegetarian. vegan though pertains to a lifestyle which goes beyond diet.

the people who introduced the word vegetarian in 1842, did do dairy - so it can be argued that either
a) they are right (and vegetarians can eat dairy and eggs) because they apparently laid claim to the word first
or
b) they picked the wrong word to describe what they do

here is the problem with a) though.

if you use a word that has the same root (vegetus) as things like vegetable and vegetation then surely the 'veg' part of it loses importance. that being the case, you might as well open the doors to anything other than meat. the problem with that is many people consider fish to not be meat and chicken to not be meat and clams to not be meat etc.

usage is a very convoluted and murky pool. for instance, what do you do with people who eat nut meats? and i recall that certain buddhists consider fish to be vegetables (though i suspect there may be a lurking literary translation issue here)!

part of the idea of using vegetus could be related to its actual meaning (vibrant, full of life etc). it is unlikely that this was thought out too clearly because then you can argue that a lion or a person for that matter who feels full of life after eating a deer is also a vegetarian.

you are right about the semantics of course. vegetarians didn't just appear on the scene in 1842 - they've been around for centuries. as have vegans. the former consume only things from the vegetable kingdom while the latter go further and avoid using anything from the animal kingdom.

both these ideas have the underlying theme of sentience - and utilized properly that is a pretty good guide.

the vegetarian doesn't eat dairy or eggs or fish or chicken or mollusks because it interferes with the normal activities of sentient lifeforms who have better things to do than be exploited for consumption.

the vegan just looks beyond the belly :D

here is the clincher though.

what do you call a person who consumes no animal products, but wears leather and fur? you can't call this person a vegan (even though your lacto-ovo-pesco-polla-miele vegetarian would try to). you can call this person a vegetarian though since that word pertains only to diet.

the solution then might be to have qualifiers: lacto-ovo vegetarian means you eat a plant-based diet mostly, but also consume some bovine mammarian secretions with a bit of poultry menstrual excretions on the side. of course, this can be taken to the point of i am a vegetarian except when i eat a steer meaning the entire planet is really vegetarian with sufficient qualifiers :D :D

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by Tivrusky on June 27, 2008 at 1:20pm

Hi! I'm new to VegHaven and of course came to the Introductions post. This thread really interests me, in particular, so I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in with my intro!

I'm a member of the LiveJournal community VeganPeople, and lately a lot of people have been butting heads, one of the topics in question being nomenclature. I understand when people get uptight about a pescetarian calling himself a vegetarian (I don't see how fish cannot be considered an animal), as well as all the other commonly made mistakes. But it also all seems a little too pedantic to me. All the fuss just seems to obscure the message we should be trying to send out to people. Understood, of course, that someone eating fish calling himself a vegetarian does the same thing. I guess it's just a matter of tone (which no one in that community seems able to control).

I guess as an English major, trying to figure out where one word ends and the other begins is right up my alley (as well as using as many idiomatic phrases as possible!).

But on a personal note, I'm having trouble labeling myself as well. I've put non-lacto/ovo vegetarian on my profile, but it really goes beyond that. I don't wear leather or fur. But I don't have vegan shoes, because they are too expensive, I drive a car, take anti-depressants, etc. But I also avoid casein, whey, gelatin, riboflavin, etc. I'd like to be faithful to a strict set of definitions, but I'd also like to move on to other parts of the conversation, hehe. I wonder, how do other people deal with this issue? Just be as faithful as you can, without being too verbose, but how?

Anyway, nice to meet you all!
Tivrusky

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on June 27, 2008 at 2:00pm

hi tivrusky! nice to see you here.

i don't think most veg people talk about this stuff too much - and those of us who do generally do so only to other veg people :D
therefore, i don't think the message gets obscured too much.

i think anytime someone refuses to eat an animal because of some combination of health, environmental or ethical reasons, it should receive positive acknowledgement. there really isn't any need to get into whether they are vegetarian or not.

that being said, some of us are trying to get 'vegetarian' its proper due :D

btw, i'm not sure what a non-lacto/ovo vegetarian is (haven't seen that one before). i presume the non refers to only the lacto and not the ovo? if so, then why not use a simple and logical system like this:

vegetarian (plants only or strict vegetarian for those who are qualifier happy)
lacto vegetarian (plants and a bit of bovine mammarian secretions)
ovo vegetarian (plants and a bit of poultry menstrual excretions)
lacto-ovo vegetarian (plants as well as some combination of both bovine mammarian secretions and poultry menstrual excretions)
etc etc etc

by the time, we add up all the qualifiers, the 'super qualified' vegetarian may not want to use the term vegetarian anymore and just go for something more concise like flexatarian or omnivorian or eatwhatiwantatarian.

as far as vegan goes, i think it should be recognized that in this society it is difficult to be pure vegan - your car tires and computer keyboard plastics are produced with stearic acid. however, because you use something that has animal slaughterhouse components in it because the manufacturer puts it in, really may not be a reason to qualify yourself as a stearic acid vegan. :D

i think motivation and intention has a lot to do with the concept of vegan. you may not manage 100% purity, but you can come very, very close.

you can choose not to do dairy and eggs because you know it causes health, environment and ethical problems. you can choose not to drive a car that has tires produced with stearic acid, but that is hardly at the same level of understanding since stearic acid is merely a by-product and no one kills cows to get the stearic acid (the same btw cannot be said of leather or fur).

so i think being faithful is good, but understanding the faith is even better.

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by lessthanthree on June 27, 2008 at 2:33pm

i think motivation and intention has a lot to do with the concept of vegan. you may not manage 100% purity, but you can come very, very close.


Very good point. I struggle to call myself a vegan sometimes. I slip up but my intention, to the best of my ability, is to refrain from all animal products. But as you point out, many, many things contain animal byproducts which are impossible to avoid unless you live off the grid entirely.

Thank you.

=-)

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Permalink Reply by pradtf on June 27, 2008 at 3:23pm

living off the grid is probably a good goal though one may have to use the grid to get off it.

in the meantime, one can always do things to change parts of the grid.

in friendship,
prad

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Permalink Reply by Tivrusky on June 27, 2008 at 7:07pm

I love you guys so much right now, for the sheer contrast to everything I've been hearing lately. It really is disturbing how so many people with good intentions can be so close-minded.

My use of non-lacto/ovo vegetarian was meant to convey that I avoid both dairy and egg products. Just makin' up terms, hehe. Using your suggested lexicon, I guess I'd go with strict vegetarian.

The only reason I use labels, though, is to tell others ("omnivores") the diet that I follow; i.e., explaining in restaurants. In these cases, using just vegetarian is no good, because to the common man, vegetarian actually means lacto-ovo vegetarian. This is where my confusion with terms comes in.

Out of curiosity, do you apply the "stearic acid" idea to food? That is, do you only consider products gotten from animals for the purpose of that product to be non-vegetarian and other "by-products" to be vegetarian? I guess that is just applied to things it would be near-impossible to avoid though, like tires and keyboards, eh?

Understanding the faith... Words to keep close at hand, for sure.
-Tivrusky

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