I am seriously considering switching to a vegetarian lifestyle. What would be the benefits of this?
Physiologically not too much, but less bread, red meat and dairy is good for you. As is eating relatively organically, be very careful with vegetarian diets though, alot of them are full of BS as there is alot of money to be made in getting you to eat a certain way.
The caveman, or paleo diet is also interesting, and worth looking up.
I am seriously considering switching to a vegetarian lifestyle. What would be the benefits of this?
You'll need to change your avatar and screen name. Dragons are carnivores, or maybe omnivores.
I am seriously considering switching to a vegetarian lifestyle. What would be the benefits of this?
As I understand it, the main benefit, for you personally, would be FAT.
Another benefit would be ANTIBIOTICS.
Still another benefit would be WASTE.
Yet another benefit is CRUELTY.
Another benefit would be ANTIBIOTICS.
In an effort to force their animals to gain weight more quickly (since meat is priced by the pound/kilo) animals are fed "sub-theraputic" doses of Antibiotics as part of their normal diet. There is good reason to believe that this is a major contributing factor to the rise of treatment resistant diseases.
That's a great point if you live in the U.S., especially U.S. poultry, that stuff gives me nightmares!
Dude
Switched to a veggie diet 12 years ago and have never looked back. For the record I was a bonafide Scottish carnivore - loved ma steak and liver...
Feel ALOT more healthy - there's plenty of great veggie food outthere and just get creative and there's no need to shortchange on the taste and variety of your diet.
I train olympic lifting and MMA 5 times a week and am a strong 200lbs so the pasty, ill nutritioned veggie is a definate image of the past imao.
My diet's now lower in fat, has a high organic content [by choice] and yeah there's the ideological angle to consider too [won't preach as that's not my bag]
Downside is that you'll have less choice when eating out, but that's no biggie...
I'd recommend giving it a try and see how you go [that's how I did it - went veggie for "Vegetarian Week" as a bet with my wife and 1 week become 12 years and counting :]
Kudos for giving it consideration
BD
Director of Narrative
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My situation is much like Black Dow’s. Back in ’95 I went veg for a week as a bet, and maintained that diet since (In the last few years I’ve occasionally incorporated seafood back into the mix, but I’m not proud of it).
The first thing I noticed when switching to a vegetarian diet was an increase in energy levels over a longer period of time. I also used to have minor stomach issues that went away once I stopped eating meat. It’s been a long time, but I remember generally feeling better, but I suppose some of that could have been psychosomatic, just knowing that I was eating cleaner, less-fatty foods.
I started eating a vegetarian diet when I was working in a restaurant and cooking at home all the time, so I didn’t notice one of the drawbacks mentioned above – eating out at restaurants. While you can find *something* to eat pretty much anywhere, it won’t necessarily be a balanced meal or even good. I work a normal 9-5 job these days and go out for lunch pretty much every day. When I eat with my coworkers, we have to be somewhat selective where we go, but since I live in Austin, the options are certainly there.
I’ve never had any weight issues, but I’ve known dozens of people who have lost a good amount of weight choosing a vegetarian diet. (I’ve also known slacker vegetarians who eat a bunch of fried garbage who did not see these results.) Also, since cholesterol mostly comes from animal fats, eating a vegetarian diet can reduce bad cholesterol levels.
I’m not a doctor, dietician nor nutritionist, (I also haven’t visited either of these kinds of people in ages) so if you have any outstanding health issues, you may want to talk to someone knowledgeable. Good on you for giving it a try. I hope it works out for you.
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The only thing I would add is make sure you find out the protein rich foods you'll need to maintain your health. Beans and rice, peanut butter, stuff like that.
And learn to love avocados. "Fat" gets a bad rep, as there is good fat and bad fat. So just do your research and make sure you cover all of your bases.
The only thing I would add is make sure you find out the protein rich foods you'll need to maintain your health. Beans and rice, peanut butter, stuff like that.
And learn to love avocados. "Fat" gets a bad rep, as there is good fat and bad fat. So just do your research and make sure you cover all of your bases.
My mom makes milkshakes and adds whey/powdered protein to it, so I think I've got that covered.
And avocados are one of my favorite foods.
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Cool, so you're not going strict vegan. That does make keeping a nutritional balance much easier. Were you to go strict vegan, you'd have to make double sure you were getting all of the nutrients, minerals and amino acids you need.
I say go for it, I've seen friends benefit from a flesh free diet, so, even though I'm an avowed carnivore, I think it's a good lifestyle choice.
So, today is my last day as an omnivore. I had a chicken-saurkraut sandwich for breakfast today to close out my final day as one.
I second (or third) being very careful on the protein intake. I vegged for seven years and ended up falling off it because I didn't properly account for protein. The resulting weakness is not at all fun. I think I was also short of iron.
Also be aware that vegetarianism is not a cure-all for weight issues, particularly if you go ovo-lactose. You can still get a ton of fat from butter, cholesterol from eggs, more fats from vegetable oils.
I'm not trying to discourage you by any means, just be aware that you have minimum protein needs, you must intake that much to stay healthy, and you still have to watch the fats and other baddies (like sugar and salt).
If you go that way, good luck and enjoy! I still love veggie dishes.
RE: Cruelty angle
Prove that plants can't feel anything. It takes a lot longer for them to actually die than it takes animals. What if they feel pain that whole time, as pain relates to plants? Just because they don't have muscular systems to move...
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Others have covered a lot of good advice, so I'll offer just a couple of points.
- Despite the rhetoric of the "Meat is Murder" crowd, in fact, the meatless marauders will not haul you away in the night to the great compost pile for lapsed herbivores if you have the occasional bit of meat. Experiment and decide what's right for you. Perhaps you will decide you'll only eat x meat meals per month, for values of x smaller than the typical US standard of 60+. Or maybe you will want to make meat a special occasion food. Catholicism in the middle ages had a lot of food rules for both the feasting holidays and the fasting holidays, and there were many of both types of day, for instance. Maybe you can get by with bacon only on paydays, or fish on Fridays, or ice cream only as part of a date.
- Why not just reduce the portions of meat at each meal, instead of quitting cold turkey? Most of the famous world cuisines (the various regional Chinese and Indian, Thai, etc.) you sample in restaurants are dressed up and bulked up peasant fare anyway. Just reduce the meat until it's back down to a very small part of the plate, almost like a condiment. The USDA definition of a serving of meat is something about the size of a standard deck of 52 playing cards, and you could do fine with a serving being something the size of two cigarette lighters, for instance.
- Lastly and most importantly, cook your food, with actual cooking techniques, plural. Having everything the same way every time is boring and can burn you out. For instance, the flavor of onions totally changes depending on how they're cooked; my brother was shocked to discover how sweet and heatless they can be when blasted as a topping in a pizza oven. Who knows what similar revelations await you? Another reason to cook your food is that if you train yourself only to eat the stuff you make, simple laziness will help you cut back. The french fry would not be America's most popular 'vegetable' if every American had to cut them by hand and deep fry them themselves. Also, since omnivory is the natural state of affairs, eating in a rut can lead to not eating some of the things you need, nutrition-wise.
RE: Cruelty angle
Prove that plants can't feel anything. It takes a lot longer for them to actually die than it takes animals. What if they feel pain that whole time, as pain relates to plants? Just because they don't have muscular systems to move...
Improbable as a great many plants use 'eat bits of me' as part of their strategy to spread their prodigy far and wide. Since there is no difference in the make up of such plants when compared to ones that don't use such a strategy we can reasonably come to the conclusion that they don't really feel pain in the way that mammals do.
Beyond that biologically they don't seem to have any center for registering pain. They may not be keen to die and they have various defence mechanism but there is no evidence that mowing the lawn is a particularly brutal and cruel act - where as burning the left wing off of every chicken in a chicken coup is pretty clearly cruel and inhumane treatment of a creature.
I dunno, man....those plants on The Happening seemed pretty pissed to me.
Just had a salad for lunch.
Beyond that biologically they don't seem to have any center for registering pain. They may not be keen to die and they have various defence mechanism but there is no evidence that mowing the lawn is a particularly brutal and cruel act - where as burning the left wing off of every chicken in a chicken coup is pretty clearly cruel and inhumane treatment of a creature.
They should not have risen up against their masters!!!
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Just had a salad for lunch.
Good luck to you buddy. Seriously tempted to try it myself, don't think gf would let me though as she tends to cook the meals...
I think being a vegetarian is a more moral choice, but its not one ive taken yet. + A lot of my family are vegans and its so irritating trying to cater for them...