Question for you vegans out there, because I never thought about this until this thread got going: Opinions on insect products (honey) and breast feeding (obviously it comes from animals, but there is no consent issue)?Oh, and I just made four delicious loaves of banana bread, something that would be perfect for vegans (though of course, you'd need to substitute out the yogurt, which I use as a substitute for buttermilk (yuck). I would think soy juice (sorry, no such thing as soymilk) might work.
I'm not technically a vegan (or really a vegetarian because I eat fish and I've been told that that is why I'll be going to hell/coming back as a tapeworm, despite the other heinous crimes I've committed), but I've gotten enough Vegan Food Theory 101 from my crazy art school associates to answer with relative confidence.
The most strict vegans I know will not eat honey. I've heard the objection as "because the bees are enslaved". I don't really buy it, personally. Insects are nature's robots, they make that stuff on autopilot without any interference and it doesn't seem like taking it hurts them in any way. But then again, I eat dairy products. There's probably another reason, likely involving their role in pollination that raises a larger objection, but the "insect sweatshop" reason was what I was told.
I don't see a problem with breast milk (personally or dietarily). As a human, the mother provides milk by choice and the kind of milk an infant is supposed to be drinking. Completely natural.
Cheese with Rennet? Wouldn't that be torture for that guy? Hasn't he been through enough?
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B12 supplements are supposedly made from bacterial cultures. That's where it comes from naturally anyways- it isn't meat specific. It's just if you run a sterile kitchen and cook your vegetables you've probably killed the bacteria that makes it already.
As far as I know honey just depends on the vegan you are talking to. A more liberal vegan might use it, but many do not. Also- lots of vegans don't use refined sugar because it supposedly had some kind of bone usage in the refining process. I don't know that is true though. Seems like a I read somewhere that this isn't the case these days.
The most strict vegans I know will not eat honey. I've heard the objection as "because the bees are enslaved".
Funky, but I was thinking along the same lines. Thanks!
Cheese with Rennet? Wouldn't that be torture for that guy? Hasn't he been through enough?
Rofl, holy crap is that an odd coincidence...
B12 supplements are supposedly made from bacterial cultures. That's where it comes from naturally anyways- it isn't meat specific.
Yep yep. B-12 isn’t actually made by plants or animals, just the bacteria that sticks to them. I wonder if there is any group that avoids offending bacteria? No clue what they’d eat though. Water and air?
Also- lots of vegans don't use refined sugar because it supposedly had some kind of bone usage in the refining process. I don't know that is true though. Seems like a I read somewhere that this isn't the case these days.
Bone char is used to bleach the sugar white. I prefer my sugar / flour unbleached anyhow, so that wouldn’t be a big deal. Shew, no honey, no sugar would be tough, although stevia might be a good alternative (especially considering how bad HFCS is for you).
Interestingly enough, bone char is also used in water filtration, thus making the water you drink potentially non-vegan. Funky, eh?
It is interesting to see where discussions go. I am glad to have tossed up something that generated interest, even if the discussion is largely tangential to the original topic.
Personally I don't care much about bee rights, but I also don't need anything containing honey. It doesn't cost me anything not to buy products that contain honey.
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Every book I buy is leather bound even the monthly comic books and if they arent I send em off to get refurbished as such. I love leather my furniture is made from leather as are my boots, coats,and the seats in my vehicles. If you weren't suppose to eat animals and wear their skins they would not have been made out of meat n leather.
IMHO kept bees, like pets, do not have to spend as much time finding resources as their wild counterparts. Kept bees still have enough food to survive their winters.
Does a sustainable diet include the antiboitcs needed to keep beef alive long enough to harvest? Or the increased feed that has to be shipped to cattle yards when they have outstripped their current locations? Or the techs needed to pull calves since beefstock can no longer get calves passed their 'meat-bearing' skeletons? Or the greenhouses most of your vegies come from? Or the hydroponics lab the 'matoes grow in? Or the gasoline all the above need to get from there to you?
Sustainable? O:)
Personally I would like to see leather used more often. Considering how many cows are killed, there must be more than hamburger we can make from them. We should all be in leather shoes, clothes, furniture, houses, spaceships. by now O:) Oh and, of course, books O:). Granted, beef cows are probably not good leather, but some comprimise should be possible imo.
Funny. Hemostatic collagen, which is used to stop bleeding during surgery, comes from bovine flexor tendon. I actually pursued a/the company that makes it, asking them whether there was any way of creating a synthetic alternative. The rep told me that they harvest it from cows that are going into the food supply anyway.
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We recently hired a new guy and when he learned that I was vegetarian he said the oddest thing I have ever heard in response to that. He asked, "What does your doctor think about that?"
One of my best friends is a vegetarian, and it just so happens that he's the kind of vegetarian your co-worker was referring to.
After taking an ethics class in college, he decided to forgo meat, eggs, and seafood (but not milk), due to his conclusion that "eating anything with a soul is a deadly sin." Now, normally, I'd think this was OK, but this dude thinks that not eating meat is an excuse to eat all sorts of s~~@ with no nutritional value whatsoever (ramen noodles immediately come to mind). His hair has lost all color, his eyes are bloodshot as all hell, and his skin looks like newspaper. Even worse, he's six feet, three inches tall, and weighs all of 125 pounds. And he smells like rotting meat.
Not good at all.
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Out of curiosity, where do you suppose the B-12 comes from that gets into the vitamins you take?IIRC sauerkraut is a non-animal source where B-12 comes from.
Need for sauerkraut is also a good reason not to be a vegan, in my opinion...
Hey, what's wrong with sauerkraut? It's the only way to make cabbage tolerable outside of egg rolls.
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Every book I buy is leather bound even the monthly comic books and if they arent I send em off to get refurbished as such. I love leather my furniture is made from leather as are my boots, coats,and the seats in my vehicles. If you weren't suppose to eat animals and wear their skins they would not have been made out of meat n leather.
HELL BENT!
HELL BENT FOR LEATHER!
Funny. Hemostatic collagen, which is used to stop bleeding during surgery, comes from bovine flexor tendon. I actually pursued a/the company that makes it, asking them whether there was any way of creating a synthetic alternative. The rep told me that they harvest it from cows that are going into the food supply anyway.
Plenty of enzymes and whatnots which cannot really be synthesized efficiently and are used in medicine, science, etc. are harvested from cows (insulin nowadays is synthesized even if cows and pigs were original sources, so one can be vegan and diabetic now).
Honey is a bit questionable matter, main problems with that, I believe, are matters of beekeeping: harvesting the honey etc. does kill some of the bees, queen's wings are sometimes clipped to prevent it from swarming, and kept bees rarely are kept for their natural lifetimes. So there are issues more than "it's slavery!"
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IIRC sauerkraut is a non-animal source where B-12 comes from.You can get B-12 from a few vegetable sources, but none reliably. You can also get it from not washing your hands after defecating (gut bacteria produces B-12, that’s how you get it from meat), but I wouldn’t recommend that one either!
Need for sauerkraut is also a good reason not to be a vegan, in my opinion...Bwahahahaha. On that note, reading about how cheese gets made (specifically, cheese with rennet) certainly makes one consider veganism.
I really enjoy soy meat substitute (soy meatballs freaking rule), but I have to limit my soy intake because it is goitrogenic. :(
Question for you vegans out there, because I never thought about this until this thread got going: Opinions on insect products (honey) and breast feeding (obviously it comes from animals, but there is no consent issue)?
Oh, and I just made four delicious loaves of banana bread, something that would be perfect for vegans (though of course, you'd need to substitute out the yogurt, which I use as a substitute for buttermilk (yuck). I would think soy juice (sorry, no such thing as soymilk) might work.
The Vegans in my gaming group wouldn't eat honey. I started to seriously dislike vegans because it's so much extra effort to accomodate them. I have no problem with Vegetarianism (although I do think it's hypocritical), but veganism makes you go this extra mile that while worth it for the right people is just so much more time and effort than you want to get into for a weekly gathering of friends.
...Does a sustainable diet include ...
I'm...confused. Are you arguing for or against in your statement?
I actually pursued a/the company that makes it, asking them whether there was any way of creating a synthetic alternative. The rep told me that they harvest it from cows that are going into the food supply anyway.
I'm willing to be the frontman for this question, having spent the last four months in the living hell that is synthetic thyroid hormone. Within one hour of taking hormone removed from pig thyroid, I was me again. One hour. The synthetic, sucks. Do I feel bad about the pigs? I do. Bad enough to become a zombie again? Not so much. I'd still buy the crap if it was made from ground children. It's that much better.
Meat or no meat, a balanced diet is essential for good health. I wish I could afford to eat more fish, though. I adore fish in all of its many varieties and preparation methods.
In fact, I think a gumbo might be in order this week...
Anyway, being somewhat of a foodie, I think there is a lot to be said for examining vegetarian diets and dishes. Too many of us got force fed bad vegetables as kids (canned peas, anybody?) and never experienced the good stuff, and frankly, as we get older, we could use more veggies in our diet than a limpid salad and the occasional carrot stick.
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** spoiler omitted **
oops. forgot the spoiler!
Nothing like turning your populace into cannibals! Did they enjoy a nice Ciante with their Soylent Green?
Back to the OP - Going for humor here, NOT trying to start a flame war. Maybe the covers are being made from people who didn't convert to 4.0?
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Meat or no meat, a balanced diet is essential for good health. I wish I could afford to eat more fish, though. I adore fish in all of its many varieties and preparation methods.
In fact, I think a gumbo might be in order this week...
Anyway, being somewhat of a foodie, I think there is a lot to be said for examining vegetarian diets and dishes. Too many of us got force fed bad vegetables as kids (canned peas, anybody?) and never experienced the good stuff, and frankly, as we get older, we could use more veggies in our diet than a limpid salad and the occasional carrot stick.
Agreed, as a fellow foodie, I actually when I can afford to eat as much veggies as possible, I've gone to a sonny's and ruby tuesdays just to eat the salad bar and nothing else, sweet tomatoes also rocks. So even though I don't eat any less than my good friend, he is twice my size because for him, if it ain't salad, it's just meat and cheese. So gross, don't get me wrong, I love meat and cheese (I'm an exotic cheese lover) but to only ever eat meat bread and cheese is what makes him twice my size.
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Foodie here too.
Starting my Sommelier apprenticeship/certification!
Also, a Vegan for many years. I'm cool with honey; honeybees, especially where I live, are becoming more and more endangered. Propragating colonies of the guys not only greatly stimulates local agriculture, it helps bolster their ranks. They also make 3-4 times as much honey as they need to survive. Siphoning off some of that, in a sustainable manner, is a-ok in this vegan's books.
...Does a sustainable diet include ...I'm...confused. Are you arguing for or against in your statement?
Neither for or against. Just saying the logic you apply to vitamin supplements can be applied to all the vegies in the market, all the beef on the grill, and all the dairy in the fridge. Without 'some chemist in some lab' most of us could not afford to eat.
By 'all' I mean the major chain stuff, locally grown and organic might be an exception, but I was addressing the logic.
Agreed Lilith. I actually have gagging reflexes kick in with spinach, broccoli and brussel sprouts, going back to the frozen vegies of my childhood. Then someone slipped fresh spinach onto a salad of mine. Surprisingly I liked it. So I broadened my vegies to include other fresh vegetables . What do you know? They are good!
The Vegans in my gaming group wouldn't eat honey. I started to seriously dislike vegans because it's so much extra effort to accomodate them. I have no problem with Vegetarianism (although I do think it's hypocritical), but veganism makes you go this extra mile that while worth it for the right people is just so much more time and effort than you want to get into for a weekly gathering of friends.
Oh, and I just made four delicious loaves of banana bread, something that would be perfect for vegans (though of course, you'd need to substitute out the yogurt, which I use as a substitute for buttermilk (yuck). I would think soy juice (sorry, no such thing as soymilk) might work.
We never really have this problem - if their going to be Vegan then their on their own in terms of finding and consuming munchies. It pretty much just does not come up as an issue at my table.
I have no problem with Vegetarianism (although I do think it's hypocritical), but veganism makes you go this extra mile that while worth it for the right people is just so much more time and effort than you want to get into for a weekly gathering of friends.
Just out of curiosity how can practicing a diet be hypocritical?
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Fresh, home grown veggies are the best!
My mom keeps a garden and grows her own tomatoes, oregano, zuchini, cucumbers, artichoke and bok-choi. Nothing is as good as home-grown tomatoes. The commercial farmers around here (SoCal) over-water and harvest their tomatoes before they are ripe. Consequently, they taste like pulpy wet cardboard; they even have no smell.
When I tried the beefstake tomatoes my mom grew, I could smell the tomato the instant I cut it open with the knife, and the color was a deep, deep blood red, the color of tomato-sauce, not pinkish and watery like the commercial ones.
Grow your own, people! Reward your taste buds and save money! (If you leave a few of the later fruit to be plowed under, the seeds will sprout and propagate themselves, so your initial payment for seeds will pay for itself in a season!)
Fresh, home grown veggies are the best!
My mom keeps a garden and grows her own tomatoes, oregano, zuchini, cucumbers, artichoke and bok-choi. Nothing is as good as home-grown tomatoes. The commercial farmers around here (SoCal) over-water and harvest their tomatoes before they are ripe. Consequently, they taste like pulpy wet cardboard; they even have no smell.
When I tried the beefstake tomatoes my mom grew, I could smell the tomato the instant I cut it open with the knife, and the color was a deep, deep blood red, the color of tomato-sauce, not pinkish and watery like the commercial ones.
Grow your own, people! Reward your taste buds and save money! (If you leave a few of the later fruit to be plowed under, the seeds will sprout and propagate themselves, so your initial payment for seeds will pay for itself in a season!)
Amen! Though our growing season is short here in MI I've been growing tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and cukes for years (rotating as neccessary). My neighbors and co-workers love me come August/September.
My neighbor next door has a 108! year old mother that 'reminds' him constantly to bring home grown tomatoes when he visits. To her I'm 'That Tomatoe guy'. It's a good feeling.
Fresh, home grown veggies are the best!
My mom keeps a garden and grows her own tomatoes, oregano, zuchini, cucumbers, artichoke and bok-choi. Nothing is as good as home-grown tomatoes. The commercial farmers around here (SoCal) over-water and harvest their tomatoes before they are ripe. Consequently, they taste like pulpy wet cardboard; they even have no smell.
When I tried the beefstake tomatoes my mom grew, I could smell the tomato the instant I cut it open with the knife, and the color was a deep, deep blood red, the color of tomato-sauce, not pinkish and watery like the commercial ones.
Grow your own, people! Reward your taste buds and save money! (If you leave a few of the later fruit to be plowed under, the seeds will sprout and propagate themselves, so your initial payment for seeds will pay for itself in a season!)
Oh if I could, tomatoes would be at the top of my list. Alas, the farmers markets are an acceptable substitute. :) Salsa made from fresh garden tomatoes is heavenly. :)
I tried growing a garden this year at my new house but i get too much shade adn the soil is too acidic. Beans and various herbs were the only success for me, I'll have to do some research for next year. (And maybe cut down a tree or two!)
Not the trees! Say it ain't so CJ!
*switches back to real life*
There are products out there to help neutralize the acidity but you gotta have that luscious sunlight. Patio tomatoes are also a work around for the soil problem. We love having fresh-off-the-vine grape tomatoes with our salads. BBQ a couple of steaks (sorry V people), grill some fresh corn on the cob, zucchini in olive oil...
Darn you all! Now I'm hungry!
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Yeah, i have to figure out which veges like acidic soil and then figure out which stuff I'm okay with using to try and fix the various problem. I'm fine with topsoils and some fertilizers but I draw the line at pesticides and certain other products.
Sorry, E7, some trees got to go. (Especially because of the F*^%*& amount of leaves falling right now!)
Yeah, i have to figure out which veges like acidic soil and then figure out which stuff I'm okay with using to try and fix the various problem. I'm fine with topsoils and some fertilizers but I draw the line at pesticides and certain other products.
Sorry, E7, some trees got to go. (Especially because of the F*^%*& amount of leaves falling right now!)
I find marigolds work well as a natural barrier. Seems to keep the bunnies and bugs away for me.
And those leaves make great compost! Don't look a gift tree in the mouth!
Hey, what do vegans think about beer? Are the yeasts too much like animals for eating?
I ask because yeasty homebrewed beer is a B-vitamin source. It's also a source of chromium, which you need to make insulin receptors on your cell membranes. Especially if you can stand a fork in your pint.
I have a question. I'm not a vegan, but my fiance is vegetarian. Last night she took me to a vegan chinese food place. I ordered crab rangoons and the General Tso's chicken.
Why does vegetarian food feel the need to imitate meat dishes?
If I had ordered vegie dumplings and tofu w/peapods (peapods? why are they in General Tso's chicken), which I recieved, I might have had a better experience. Instead I went for the tried and true favorites, and was bitterly dissapointed. I was this close to getting the half a duck, but my fiance talked me out of it.
I don't get it. I thought vegetarians liked vegetables. Why try to disguise them as meat?
Because we ate hotdogs and hamburgers and all that crap as kids... and suddenly switching to tofu and peadpods is, for some of us, like moving to Mars. Certain foods are familiar... and bring the comfort they brought during childhood.
The Vegans in my gaming group wouldn't eat honey. I started to seriously dislike vegans because it's so much extra effort to accomodate them. I have no problem with Vegetarianism (although I do think it's hypocritical), but veganism makes you go this extra mile that while worth it for the right people is just so much more time and effort than you want to get into for a weekly gathering of friends.
Ouch. Well, as a vegan, I just pack a lunch and don't make my dietary restrictions my host's problem.
You wanna go out on a limb here and try telling me how my dietary practices are hypocritical? I am not amused.
I ask because yeasty homebrewed beer is a B-vitamin source. It's also a source of chromium, which you need to make insulin receptors on your cell membranes. Especially if you can stand a fork in your pint.
The yeast byproduct at the bottom of your homebrew is Vitamin B12, which often gets dried out and sold at an exhorbitant fee as a vitamin/diet supplement. :P Drinking the byproduct helps prevent bad hangovers (as does drinking lots of water and having food with, but that's a separate issue).
On the gardening note, has anybody tried out an AeroGarden? I've wanting one (or three) for ages and I'm curious to know what others think. The possibility of having fresh herbs at hand makes my culinary mind jump up and down with glee.
It never feels good when someone you like insults a group you belong to. They seldom mean it personally, but the person doing the disparaging is never the one feeling the sting of it.
Vegetarians are one of the groups that it's still fashionable to hack away at. People don't really want to understand, they want to generalize, and to gloss over each invidual's deep reasons for becoming what they are. Generalization leads to discrimination.
It's like when people find out a vegetarian is in the room and suddenly launch into a programmed fear response about vitamin deficiencies and child abuse. They're just out of their depth, but fear alone is still great fuel for cascading blather. I don't have vitamin deficiencies and I'm in far better health (never get sick for more than a few hours, and rarely at that) than anyone who's ever taken that tack with me.
"I'm going to put down this Little Debbie Snack Cake carton just long enough to tell you the cautionary tale I read in this week's People, kiddo! When you get to be my age..."
"Lady... I'm thirteen years older than you."
That all said, I've known people who don't do well with vegetarianism physically... in some cases they need B12 shots. The only issue I've ever had is that I have to carefully balance my intake of argenine with non animal source lyseine if I'm going to eat argenine at all without geting canker sores. Ah those silly amino acids.
I was really hoping you'd find this thread.
Heckuva thing after a long day's work. I turned on my computer... went to Nick Logue's site, saw some bastard hacked it brutally...
Came to Paizo. Got a kick in the head.
What's next? Flesh sizzling acid in my jasmine scented scrote cream?
You do all use scrote creme, right? Right? Oh come on... I can't be the only one.
Whatever you do, don't try the Jalapeno. That's for guys with crank problems.
What's next? Flesh sizzling acid in my jasmine scented scrote cream?Well not the "Flesh Sizzling" brand. Mine's only the hair singeing kind.
It's easy to rip on something (or someone) that you only have half information on. As we've seen on other theads...
True true, Moff. I was actually just thinking about you today. Hey, that sounds weird. Well, it's true. I said it.