Veganism

[therealhantsram]

23 hours ago, 86 Schmokes & a Pancake said:

I've cut down significantly on red meats recently, but I find the idea of going full veggie / vegan quite intimidating to be honest. I've tried a veggie diet but I think it needs to be carefully planned as within a couple of weeks of starting it, my energy levels plummeted. Far from feeling healthier, I felt awful.

Can anyone recommend a cook book that would help with planning a balanced meat free diet? I'm over 6 foot but I'm now tipping the scales at over 16 stone which is a stone over my typical weight. I can't see where it's gone on but I do feel it so I think a change is in order.

At the start of this year I decided to cut out all red meat and processed sugar for January. Cutting out processed sugar basically means cutting out all processed / packaged foodstuffs. They sneak it into almost everything.  So for January everything I ate was prepared freshly at home. 

It didn't feel like a diet. I ate when I was hungry and I ate as much as I wanted to feel full.

I was astonished at how quickly the weight fell off.  Much more quickly than any 'real' diet I have tried to follow. By then end of January I had lost 16 pounds and it felt like I wasn't even trying!

The first two days were tough. I had cravings and headaches.  Withdrawal symptoms! But from day 3 I found I had much more energy, I didn't feel hungry between meals, I wasn't snacking anymore. I just felt great, and I haven't gone back. It's my lifestyle now. It's not a diet, and for me at least, it's easy.

Other people people have addictions to alcohol, gambling, whatever. My addition was sugar. I'm delighted I've defeated it. But from now on, for me, no sugar. Otherwise, like any other addict, I think I would just slip back.

Now I quite like the new me, which is why I am experimenting more with vegetarian. Just bit by bit building up my repertoire in the kitchen. (I love my food and I love cooking too.)  As I said earlier, the health benefits of being veggie are pretty well established now, so bit by bit I'm trying to move in that direction. And I like that their are environmental benefits too.

I wonder if you might want to try sugar free first, before working on other aspects of your diet?

 

 

[1of4]

1 hour ago, Carl Sagan said:

A hundred years from now I'd suggest the biggest change will be that everyone will be vegan. I think what will accelerate this will me better communication with non-human animals. Artificial intelligence will help with some species, but already people are training their pet dogs on voice synthesisers so they can have more in-depth conversations and better understand each other.

What will they think of those from their recent history who ate sentient beings or enslaved them to live off their produce, drinking milk from other species and devouring their eggs. A book I wrote last year had a chapter on the future of ethics and I was quite proud of the line: "Presentism uncritically holds the past to the moral standards of the day, and always finds it wanting." Will our descendants look more kindly on us than many today are looking at those who did a mixture of good and bad in our past?

Morally, I want to become vegan but I think it's part laziness and part health thoughts that I'm practically more of a pescatarian. And if people cook me meat then I eat it rather than tell them I'm not a meat eater.

When should we expect to see cats and dogs protesting in front of the statues of Bernard Mathews and Colonel Sanders, carrying CLM signs in support of their fellow animals.

[Carl Sagan]

1 hour ago, David said:

Wait, so you’re telling me there’s a device out there that means my dog can tell me why he’s humping a blanket when he has no testicles?

This is one of my favourite feeds on insta, a thoughtful speech therapist whose account it Hunger4Words and who has created a system  for her dog Stella that a lot of other people are now imitating.

https://www.instagram.com/hunger4words/

For some reason I can't embed the link.

[David]

?

[Carl Sagan]

55 minutes ago, 1of4 said:

When should we expect to see cats and dogs protesting in front of the statues of Bernard Mathews and Colonel Sanders, carrying CLM signs in support of their fellow animals.

Great point that people actually ask me a lot! In 2018 a write of habeus corpus was brought in the New York courts over the captivity of two chimpanzees. It was disallowed, but the judge said, "While it may be arguable that a chimpanzee is not a 'person', there is no doubt it is not merely a thing".

If future people are as daft as present people there will surely be protests over the wealth accrued by the meat industry in our time. They may point to this thread as evidence that people knew eating animals was wrong, but still did it. Perhaps Fray Bentos will be razed to the ground? And reparations demanded of the Matthews family? I hope people in the future will behave differently.

[maxjam]

1 hour ago, therealhantsram said:

At the start of this year I decided to cut out all red meat and processed sugar for January. Cutting out processed sugar basically means cutting out all processed / packaged foodstuffs. They sneak it into almost everything.  So for January everything I ate was prepared freshly at home. 

It didn't feel like a diet. I ate when I was hungry and I ate as much as I wanted to feel full.

I was astonished at how quickly the weight fell off.  Much more quickly than any 'real' diet I have tried to follow. By then end of January I had lost 16 pounds and it felt like I wasn't even trying!

The first two days were tough. I had cravings and headaches.  Withdrawal symptoms! But from day 3 I found I had much more energy, I didn't feel hungry between meals, I wasn't snacking anymore. I just felt great, and I haven't gone back. It's my lifestyle now. It's not a diet, and for me at least, it's easy.

Other people people have addictions to alcohol, gambling, whatever. My addition was sugar. I'm delighted I've defeated it. But from now on, for me, no sugar. Otherwise, like any other addict, I think I would just slip back.

Now I quite like the new me, which is why I am experimenting more with vegetarian. Just bit by bit building up my repertoire in the kitchen. (I love my food and I love cooking too.)  As I said earlier, the health benefits of being veggie are pretty well established now, so bit by bit I'm trying to move in that direction. And I like that their are environmental benefits too.

I wonder if you might want to try sugar free first, before working on other aspects of your diet?

I woke up on New Years Day and on a whim for a New Years Resolution decided to lose some weight - several years of working from home had started to take its toll.  I went on a strict diet for the first two weeks every month then ate sensibly for the other two weeks - after 3 months I'd lost 3 stone ?

Paying more attention to what I eat, cutting out a lot of processed crap and eating more fruit and veg means that I've kept it off - as you say, its a lifestyle now, its very easy to maintain and I don't feel like I have to try. 

I have an occasional weakness for Domino's pizza, Budweiser and my wife's home made cakes so once in a while I'll have a crazy weekend and splurge out on all 3, but I can lose everything I've gained within 3 or 4 days after, so I've pretty much maintained a far healthier weight since March.

It doesn't actually take a great deal of change to make a big difference, the key is making it easy to follow and not feel as though you're perpetually denying yourself - and if you know you are going to fall of the wagon so to speak have a recovery plan in place otherwise you'll slip back into bad habits ?

[alanmarklewis]

13 minutes ago, David said:

?

Putting vegans with vegetarians is not a valid case study.

Being vegan or vegetarian doesn't mean you're healthy though, same goes with any 'diet'. 

[David]

23 minutes ago, alanmarklewis said:

Putting vegans with vegetarians is not a valid case study.

Veganism is a more extreme form of vegetarian so I would say the studies still apply.

23 minutes ago, alanmarklewis said:

Being vegan or vegetarian doesn't mean you're healthy though, same goes with any 'diet'. 

Very true.

Eating badly regardless of the diet you choose can incredibly dangerous. 

The vegan diet is you either need to eat large varied portions or take supplements. Done wrong this can be just as bad for you as someone that lives off takeaways and avoids veg.

Not easy to go vegan, requires a lot of research and not to mention label reading in supermarkets which must get incredibly tedious 

 

[DarkFruitsRam7]

Oh yeah, if you eat meat and condemn other cultures for eating dogs, guinea pigs, etc, you’re an idiot.

[David]

6 minutes ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

Oh yeah, if you eat meat and condemn other cultures for eating dogs, guinea pigs, etc, you’re an idiot.

Who eats Guinea Pigs?? ??

[DarkFruitsRam7]

3 minutes ago, David said:

Who eats Guinea Pigs?? ??

I remember Philip Schofield got hammered by the media for eating a guinea pig a few years back.

[David]

6 minutes ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

I remember Philip Schofield got hammered by the media for eating a guinea pig a few years back.

Well me and Philip Schofield have different tastes in what we put in our mouths ?

[angieram]

I was vegetarian for about 25 years, hit the menopause and had severe iron deficiency. GP advice - eat more meat.

Still sway towards the vegetarian options but do enjoy fish. The meat is a duty thing, rather than a pleasure (iron supplements just don't agree with me.)

Not sure I could become vegan though as I like eggs and cheese too much.

[nottingram]

Been trying to go a bit more veggie for a while but always get sucked back in to eating meat because it feels loads easier to cook a meat based product with mash or chips.

Missus is lactose intolerant so if we do eventually manage to go veggie it will be very close to being vegan, eggs and lactofree products aside.

Anyway, made this tonight. Really easy and about 1000000x better than any meat based chilli I’ve ever made

https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/veggie-chilli/

 

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

2 hours ago, Ramslad1992 said:

All I’m saying is... if we aren’t meant to eat meat then why is it so tasty? 

2 to the left and still very tasty ask the chinese and they got no lines. A chinese proverb says eat everything with 4 legs apart from the table.

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

46 minutes ago, David said:

Who eats Guinea Pigs?? ??

National dish in Peru I believe

[Ramslad1992]

4 minutes ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

2 to the left and still very tasty ask the chinese and they got no lines. A chinese proverb says eat everything with 4 legs apart from the table.

I actually quite like rabbit... I’ve knowingly had horse once and god knows how many other times without knowledge!

[alanmarklewis]

56 minutes ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

2 to the left and still very tasty ask the chinese and they got no lines. A chinese proverb says eat everything with 4 legs apart from the table.

I feel like it's worth pointing out that the exploitation of animals has got us into our current predicament.

[Steve How Hard?]

15 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

 A book I wrote last year had a chapter on the future of ethics and I was quite proud of the line: "Presentism uncritically holds the past to the moral standards of the day, and always finds it wanting." Will our descendants look more kindly on us than many today are looking at those who did a mixture of good and bad in our past?

Maybe there will be a reality show covering all this. We could call it "The Only Way is Ethics."

 

 

 

 

I'll get me coat. 

[1of4]

I can never understand why food manufacturers go to all the bother and expense of processing plant based products, so as to have the texture and appearance of meat. If people don't want to eat animal flesh, why produce plant base food that looks and tastes like meat?