Interesting. Wondering what the chicken vs tofu have to do with lactose intolerance (sort of confused there). Also, generally someone who is lactose intolerant can consume cheese and yogurt and it makes me wonder if you have a milk protein allergy instead of lactose intolerance.


Saying vegans are nuts is a bit over the top here. We have vegans on this board and calling them nuts (or any other name) can get a moderators warn finger twitching.

I have no desire to concern myself with the diet of others unless they are coming to dinner at which time I will make sure a vegetarian or vegan will have something they can enjoy but I let them know it may be sitting next to a moose roast on the table.

This a thousand times This. :teehee:

you pansie! its all about raw or rare :mohawk: we had this debate last year Just enjoy your meat and if you meet one, then just wave your veal in their face. but in all honesty, they can eat whatever and their choices have no effect on the meats i enjoy.

Going to have to agree with summer here, your lactose intolerance doesn't make that much sense. Chicken doesn't have lactose to begin with, so you should still be fine. With cheese, the bacteria in it should have consumed a sufficient amount of lactose to begin with.

I only have a problem with the "WE" part of that person's statement about not eating bread.

Lets say that the global population suddenly had a change of heart and agreed that eating bread was morally wrong due to the slaughtering of trillions of single cell fungi required in the process, and stopped eating it today. What will happen to the producers on bread goods? Your bakers, your Little Debbie factory workers, your pizza delivery boys, even your grain farmers, all of them and many others who depend on the income from bread products are going to be unemployed or working in a significantly reduced capacity. Can you imagine what that would do to the rest of the world's economy?

I can respect people exercising personal choices based on their life experiences and beliefs, but I have problems with people proclaiming that the rest of the world, who have different life experiences and beliefs, should make those same choices. Especially when its mostly wishful thinking with the consequences not fully thought out.

Side note: all this thinking of yeasty delicious bread is making me really hungry. I want pizza now.

I can't stand Vegans who can't keep their beliefs to themselves. They just bombard me with images of dead chickens and other sources of meat, and it makes me really hungry.

I'm a vegan who eats no grains, no soy and no added sugar.. it is doable, and it does wondrous things for your body, mind and spirit.

I don't eat meat or milk products because the industries are CRUEL and the products from it are unhealthy and not natural for a human being (really? drinking lactation (let alone another animal's lactation) after you've been weaned? VERY natural (not).. and try taking down a cow with those god-given "fangs" and "claws" of yours and nothing else... riiiiiight. If you want to see a real predator, look at any member of the feline family...they are built to kill)

I don't eat eggs because the egg industry is cruel and abhorrent. And even on organic or "free-range" (corporate ploy) farms, the chickens are slaughtered once they can no longer produce eggs to satiate the gluttony of the masses.

I don't eat grains or soy products because most of them are GMO and produced by Monsanto, which is evil in corporation form. What's more, I find grains and soy redundant and they do nothing for me as far as health is concerned, so I would avoid them anyway.

I don't eat refined sugar of any kind, or added sugar of any kind, because in the case of cane sugar, it is sometimes refined using bone char from animals, and in the case of beet sugar, the industry is monopolized by Monsanto... and I've already expressed my views on that company.

I eat a completely plant-based diet, mostly raw, organic foods; fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, healthy oils... and no, it isn't boring; in fact it is wonderful. I look and feel amazing... I used to be highly overweight, with tons of acne, hormone problems galore, but now I am in perfect shape with clear skin and a functioning hormonal system - and I do virtually no exercise as I am a computer geek to the max. I also find that my mind is more at peace, balanced and it is easier for me to revere nature and connect to the collective unconscious.

Everyone thinks I am eccentric for doing what nature intended for my body... but it is I who am weirded out by the people of this world - feeding on whatever the corporations put out on the shelves... oh well. :shrug:

And for the record, I have no problem with people eating bread - I don't think that yeast has rights, that's seriously pushing it. I believe that any vertebrate and some higher invertebrates (such as octupi and squid), in other words, any creature with the brain capacity to suffer; have rights. I simply avoid grains and starches because I find them unnecessary.

So what do we tell them about the bacteria in their guts that helps them digest food? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRSLQu-d6ZQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zZZpZvpDnM&NR=1

Well, the pot pie is labeled as vegan and is intended to be suitable for a vegan's dietary choice; so, no chicken, no eggs, and no dairy. I buy it because it has no dairy. The tofu... is an odd texture, and really doesn't taste like chicken at all, but I don't mind eating the five or so little cubes of it.

I've read up on cheese a bit. The older the cheese, the less lactose it contains. Aged over 2 years is ideal. However, I seem to be very sensitive to lactose, and even Parmesan can make my stomach a bit upset - even the Lactaid milk, which is treated with the lactaze enzyme, still has enough trace amounts of lactose that it makes my stomach twist in knots.

I've tried goat cheese a few times, like for cheeseburgers. I haven't had yogurt since last year, but I guess I could try it, as I, too, have read that there isn't any lactose to be worried about. I also sometimes do fine with baked goods - I think it depends on the temperature it was cooked at; it'd need to be heated to a temperature that denatures the lactose molecules. Nevertheless, I recently bought some fake butter ("I can't believe it's not butter!") and baked some raisin oatmeal cookies, and they came out well. They actually tasted more buttery than when I baked them with real butter. :blink:

I did have an actual lactose test, so I'm pretty sure it isn't a milk protein allergy. Plus, I can still have dairy with no stomach problems, as long as I take a handful of those lactaze enzyme pills. And I have no problems with whey and milk protein ingredients.

To answer your first part; it is morally reprehensible to feed a CAT (obligate carnivore, REQUIRES meat to live) a vegan diet. I am always getting into fights with vegans about this. You will never see me advocate a vegan diet for a cat, it is unnatural in every way. Not to mention is it highly unethical to force your morals on a creature which lacks the ability to comprehend them.

Secondly, I don't get it either. I don't care about fitting in. I don't eat fake meat as most of them are disgusting, have horrible textures and are unhealthy anyway. I also think that "fake meat" is stupid in itself; I have been vegetarian for 10 years because I have a repulsion to meat; why would I want a mock product?

Homemade almond or coconut milk on the other hand... that stuff is delicious. And it doesn't try to taste like cow's milk either, its completely natural and not stuffed full of synthetic proteins...

Just to any vegan who might be patrolling this thread:

A friend of mine recently went vegan. We usually go out to eat every couple of weeks, and I was wondering if there are any mainstream places that you would suggest. I'm just kind of clueless as to where he'll eat while we're hanging out. A salad from McDonalds just doesn't sound appetizing.

I thought the salads at McD's had sugar in them? Or has that changed since super size me?

Ive been a vegetarian since birth. All i read on things like this is "i have no problem with Vegans but i can't stand the ones who try and shove things down my throat". Yet all i have experienced is people forcing their opinion about how i should eat meat on me. Ive never, nor seen any vegan/vegetarian force their opinions on someone else.

I dont get the mentality that hears a few militant vegan people say something and assumes they are under some moral bombardment. If you like meat, eat it. No one is stopping you. Its pretty simple.

The fries still seem to never change color after being in the seat cushons for 2.5 years.

I remember seeing a documentary on the American Humane Society once. I don't remember which city it was based in, but at one point several cats were brought in because they had gone completely blind. Turns out the owner had been feeding them nothing but white rice, because she wanted to 'make them vegetarians'.
Insert massive facepalm.

On a different note, however, I know several vegans who are all perfectly sane. Mostly, they don't eat meat and/or other animal products for health reasons, and don't have any problem with people who do.
The people who go around claiming that 'meat is murder' and that you shouldn't eat yeast (seriously, what?) are a fringe minority. The only reason people associate them with vegetarianism/veganism at all is because they tend to be distressingly loud about their beliefs. Just ignore them. I can guarantee you most people in their 'group' are doing the same.
By the same token, don't rub the fact that you eat meat in their faces. Seriously people, don't be hypocrites; that's not cool.




MONSANTO. (ノ ?益?)ノ

I don't really understand your reasoning of it not being natural to eat meat, therefore we shouldn't do it. There are plenty things more unnatural that humans do than eating meat. We're doing one of those things right now by using computers and electricity. People have been hunting animals since the beginning of time, even though we've required tools in order to do so. Chimps use crude tools as well, and I would say that's fairly natural.

Thank you for the response. The "Wanting to Fit In' has been the only excuse that I have heard so far that made any sense to me. I've also been told that "Sometimes I just want a burger" which confuses me even more. But I am glad to see someone "on the other side" finds these products as silly as I do.

I'm a postmodern vegetarian. I eat meat ironically.

As with anything large enough to obtain "movement" status, there are people who join simply for the trendiness, and advocate everything that sounds like what they think they're a part of without really knowing what they're talking about. That's probably what's going on here, since green plants are about the only things that don't eat something which used to be alive (and even then, vital nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous in the soil likely came from long-decomposed animals). There are, of course, plenty of "valid" vegans as well. Veganism isn't solely about not killing things, but is just a term to describe someone's diet; WHY they eat that way varies with the individual.

The same thing answers that question about "fake meat". Not all vegetarians and vegans find meat disgusting, and may eat the way they do for moral or health reasons. They can still enjoy, or miss, eating meat, so they get the substitutes instead.

After following this thread I realize my previously scrubbed post wasn't all that bad.....Miltiades and Rohugh just scared me....that's all.

It went something like:

"Vegetarian" translated into most native North American aboriginal dialects is roughly rendered...."Poor Hunter". :biggrin:

People can eat or not eat what they want. Doesn't bother me a bit...and I would never ridicule anyone over the matter mean spiritedly. The only food I cannot eat is cottage cheese.....only because it has a nasty texture, and it's bland and flavorless to me.

I'm talking about what is biologically natural. On a simple, biological level. We have evolved tools that allow us to eat meat and milk, but it doesn't mean our bodies are designed to do so.

People can eat what they want, I'm totally fine with that, as long as they don't try to stuff their personal beliefs down my throat and force me to only eat organic, vegan food. I like meat, I'm going to eat meat. :shrug:

I do take care to buy organic and non-mass produced animal products, though, whenever possible. I almost always get chicken, eggs, lamb, beef and a lot of vegetables from my godfather, who has an organic farm. I know exactly where the food has come from, and I know that no animals have suffered unnecessarily to produce it.

SAVE THE YEAST!!!!!

EATING VEGGIES IS MURDER!!!!

DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY LEMONS HAVE TO DIE JUST SO SOME BRAT KID CAN START A LEMONADE STAND!!!!

STOP THIS MADNESS, START EATING ROCKS!!!!

Teeth are for eating. Om nom nom. You don't need tools. Ask a lion, baboon, chimpanzee, or a bear. Humans also lack a functioning cecum for digesting cellulose.

We are all heterotrophs. Even eating fruit seeds is killing the embryonic plants. I wish I was an autotroph, though.

That's not what your avatar says. :stare:

On topic: Whoever said they won't eat yeast because they are vegan is very confused about what an animal is. To reiterate others, one person's ignorance doesn't represent the whole group.