15 Reasons to be a Vegetarian

[peasnluv]

I've had quite a struggle with this issue. I'm an on again off again vegetarian. I really really really want to be a vegetarian, I really do. It's just that since I grew up on meat, every once in a while my body craves it. I honestly can go quite some time without it, but I can't turn it down if a friend or family member cooks spaghetti and puts ground beef in the sauce. The only thing I've really accomplished is not ordering anything with meat in it when I eat out. Cooking at home is a different story. I always want to get fresh salmon from Earth Fare or Tilapia, or even grilled chicken breasts with a marinade. Can anyone tell me what you did to push yourself over the edge and give up meat for good? Or am I not such a bad person for liking fresh meat every now and then?

PS - It might be good to tell you I'm passionate about animals, which is the 1st reason I wanted to give up meat. 2nd - well, I'm a hypochondriac, and the scare of diseases kind of keeps me at bay from eating a lot of it.

[Hunker]

I've had quite a struggle with this issue. I'm an on again off again vegetarian. I really really really want to be a vegetarian, I really do. It's just that since I grew up on meat, every once in a while my body craves it. I honestly can go quite some time without it, but I can't turn it down if a friend or family member cooks spaghetti and puts ground beef in the sauce. The only thing I've really accomplished is not ordering anything with meat in it when I eat out. Cooking at home is a different story. I always want to get fresh salmon from Earth Fare or Tilapia, or even grilled chicken breasts with a marinade. Can anyone tell me what you did to push yourself over the edge and give up meat for good? Or am I not such a bad person for liking fresh meat every now and then?

PS - It might be good to tell you I'm passionate about animals, which is the 1st reason I wanted to give up meat. 2nd - well, I'm a hypochondriac, and the scare of diseases kind of keeps me at bay from eating a lot of it.

Your not a bad person. For example Pamela Anderson Is all PETA yet she has breast implant that were conducted on animals first. Try a diet vegie for a week and give yourself an "out" once a week. I do that with soda pops just one a week them just water and wine. Tolapia is good with burned butter sauce and baked almonds. An addictive person will all ways be addicted yet we have he resourses to help adiction.

[peasnluv]

Your not a bad person. For example Pamela Anderson Is all PETA yet she has breast implant that were conducted on animals first. Try a diet vegie for a week and give yourself an "out" once a week. I do that with soda pops just one a week them just water and wine. Tolapia is good with burned butter sauce and baked almonds. An addictive person will all ways be addicted yet we have he resourses to help adiction.

Thanks! I will most definitely try this approach out!

[Hunker]

No kiddding I learned this from a counselor at school who said I will always have an addiction....because it made me "positive" - I took up football and long distant running. I made basketball and racing chairs i nthe 80's. sO COOL

[Mona~on~wheels]

I'm needing more protein.
I'm going to try quinoa. That sounds great being a complete protein!
I was going to try protein (soy) drinks & Tofu.
My pca is a vegeterian and she lives on those 2.
But studying up on both of them online, they have hormones.
Are there any soy or tofu products w/o hormones?

Juke I didn't think you were vegan?
Don't you eat fish?

One more thing, when you stop eating meat (being a complete protein)
you can't just eat good nutritious veggies, or worse anything but meat.
You have to have a certain % of complete protein per day.

I babysit an 18 mo old whose parents were vegan and I was brushing his hair and it started coming out in handfuls. bad

Now my pca who's 53 vegan is almost bald. I haven't the nerve to tell her she needs more protein.

[Juke_spin]

Mona, if you're going to try quinoa you might find something useful here:

/forum/showpost.php?p=711929&postcount=1

No, I'm not vegan or even vegetarian and eat some fish, less chicken and very little pork or beef. I believe in veganism as a goal and my adoption of miso soups and stews has gone a long way toward propelling me toward that goal.

[Mona~on~wheels]

Mona, if you're going to try quinoa you might find something useful here:

/forum/showpost.php?p=711929&postcount=1

No, I'm not vegan or even vegetarian and eat some fish, less chicken and very little pork or beef. I believe in veganism as a goal and my adoption of miso soups and stews has gone a long way toward propelling me toward that goal.

Oh no! Sorry, for sure I'll read directions.
Thanks for the recipes.
So you like it now? lol

[adi chicago]

BERKELEY-- Human ancestors who roamed the dry and open savannas of Africa about 2 million years ago routinely began to include meat in their diets to compensate for a serious decline in the quality of plant foods, according to a physical anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
It was this new meat diet, full of densely-packed nutrients, that provided the catalyst for human evolution, particularly the growth of the brain, said Katharine Milton, an authority on primate diet.
Without meat, said Milton, it's unlikely that proto humans could have secured enough energy and nutrition from the plants available in their African environment at that time to evolve into the active, sociable, intelligent creatures they became. Receding forests would have deprived them of the more nutritious leaves and fruits that forest-dwelling primates survive on, said Milton.
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/relea...-14-1999a.html
In many parts of the world where people have little access to meat, they have run the risk of malnutrition, said Milton. This happened, for instance, in Southeast Asia where people relied heavily on a single plant food, polished rice, and developed the nutritional disease, beriberi. Closer to home, in the Southern United States, many people dependent largely on corn meal developed the nutritional disease, pellagra.

[Juke_spin]

ADI, I imagine you think you have a point. I mean beyond that since you routinely eat meat, it's the thing for everyone to do in this day and age?

[deborans]

I like meat and i will always eat it!!! if i don't eat meat i become angry!!!

[ChuckB]

Veg. is the only way to go! Just one small thing is giving up the meat.