For the Vegetarians members

[Sternly]

what kind of vegetarians exactly are you? and can you live without milk? (I know you can, my question should rather be something like what happens with your calcium levels -Remember I'm 16 *growing*-)

 

The story goes like this. Me wants to become vegetarias, parents don't want and my doctor is an anti-veggie and he said no way I could become one and parents use that as an argument for saying no.

 

I've read it is possible (in fact many people do it) but I don't know for a first hand source and my only friend who is a veggie in a pescetarian (eats fish, eggs and milk) so actually she's not really a veggie at all.

 

Thanks

[musiclover]

Good to see you, Sternly!

 

Well, I'm a vegetarian, and I can say that I'm pretty healthy and I don't seem to have a deficiency of anything, calcium, protein, iron, anything. I am healthy as a horse! If getting a bit chubby from all the sitting around I do at work! :confused: :D

 

You're confusing being vegetarian from being vegan. For vegetarians can have milk and milk products (cheese, yogurt, etc.). I eat greens, legumes, pulses, drink milk, eat cheese, etc. Some vegetarians even eat eggs and egg ommlettes, and some also eat seafood because they think the fishes don't have a well-developed nervous system for them to feel pain. It all really is up to you as to how you want to tailor your diet.

 

Vegans, on the other hand, don't eat any animal products, so they stay away from milk, butter, cheese, etc. But even for them there's soya milk, which has just as much protein if not more.

 

Many meat-eaters, when they switch to being vegetarian (switching to being vegan is very very hard and most don't take that step...i've never been vegan, in fact, only vegetarian!), they start to take multi-vitamin tablets. You can ask your doctor to recommend you some, but those are not a prescription....you can buy them withouth the doctor's note. At least here in the U.S.

 

 

I know many friends who were about your age when they started to think about stop eating meat. And most are happy with their decision. Some go back to eating only white meat (chicken, turkey, etc.) but no red meat at all. And some, after being vegetarian, go a step further and become vegans. None of their healths are worse. If at all, they're happy with it!

 

So do what makes you comfortable. I know your parents will not like it. But its your decision. And being a vegetarian myself, I highly recommend it! :)

 

Hope this helps.

[musiclover]

This article might confuse you more than it helps, because it's written from a totally different context. But I guess it can't be too bad. I really enjoyed it! :)

 

http://villagevoice.com/news/0521,essay,64232,6.html

 

(that is the most-read weekly paper in the U.S.)

 

The Essay

Where's the Beef?

The author might have forgotten why she's a vegetarian—but don't ask her to quit now

 

by Sloane Crosley

May 23rd, 2005 3:55 PM

 

'I tell other vegetarians that I started eating sushi because I developed an iron deficiency. This is a total lie.'

 

I am not a very good vegetarian anymore. There, I said it. Sure, I still like to veg out. Be still like vegetables. Lay like broccoli. But I used to be an exemplary vegetarian. A few years ago The New Yorker ran a cartoon of one woman explaining to another during a meal: "I started my vegetarianism for health reasons, then it became a moral choice, and now it's just to annoy people." Four people sent me that cartoon, including my parents. Who faxed it to me. At work. I grew to accept that my refusal to eat anything that once had the will to crap was funny for others. As part of my acceptance, I had to laugh at veggie jokes that were never very funny. The upside was I got to have (vegetable) stock answers prepared for queries about my diet.

For example: Most of your shoes are made of leather or suede. Why is that?

 

"Because I'm not going to eat my boots, that's why. There's a big difference between stepping on something and making it a part of you. I'm not going to eat sidewalk either."

 

What do you mean "no meat"? No chicken? No lobster?

 

"Just venison."

 

The problem now is I'm not sure I have the right to slyly defend myself in this manner, not anymore. What follows is a roughage exposé, if you will.

 

The first thing to understand is that being a vegetarian is actually a pretty private matter. I am still taken aback by the question "Then what do you eat?" and am embarrassed as I struggle to produce the week's food diary. It's not that I'm ashamed of what I eat, but it's none of anyone's business. I imagine I would have a similar feeling counting up how many pairs of underwear I went through in a week (OK, nine). It's strange to be interested in something so basic that I barely register it as an activity. The only reason opening someone's refrigerator is more socially acceptable than opening someone's medicine cabinet is that people keep beer in their refrigerator. (And what's really socially unacceptable is drinking alone.)

 

In this way—something once between a select few now coming out of the freezer—being a vegetarian in this city is not unlike being gay. Vegetarian restaurants and options abound. I have the same number of veggie friends as I do gay friends. Because it's so common and sometimes even hip to be a vegetarian, it's become socially acceptable to poke fun of us. Being a vegan, of course, is more like the dietary equivalent of being a transsexual. Acceptance isn't quite as contagious as it should be.

 

I tried being a vegan once. Six months of tempeh and kale and I cracked like a rice cake and inhaled an entire box of fluorescent mac and cheese. It was just too hard for me to keep up the charade of a dairy-free existence. The surprising part was how easy veganism was to enter into. You read enough books that make The Jungle look like Goodnight, Moon and you wake up one day to find yourself a recycled-paper-card-carrying member of the tofu mafia. And I knew which books to read, all right.

 

My own private Idaho potato went like this: When I was a teenager a renowned South African acupuncturist moved in next door to my parents. He and his wife (who pronounces lime like lamb, thus leading to the infamous pie recipe debacle) are still the hippest couple my parents know and single-handedly responsible for introducing them to Whole Foods and the Fugees. One day I told the acupuncturist I wanted to be a vegetarian. I wish I could remember why I wanted to stop eating meat, but this was high school and I also wish I could remember my motivation for drinking Zima and wearing flannel in public. I met with a nutritionist in the acupuncturist's office on Fifth Avenue. She took my whim far more seriously than I did. She talked about tahini, how to cook vegetables properly, and the semi-apocalyptic idea that you could soak almonds for days to make "milk." That I never tried. But I did buy a cookbook called The Single Vegan, not because I was single at the time but because this was the only vegan cookbook available. Looking back, I should have taken it as a cosmic hint to be less of a high-maintenance eater—the soy cheese always stands alone. Instead I saw myself as this nutritionist woman saw me: a power vegan. I juiced things. Lots of things.

 

For a while anyway. Damn you, delicious powdered cheese.

 

So that's my story of how I became a veggie—because I couldn't hack it as a vegan. Except the problem now is I can't hack it as a vegetarian either. What can I say? New York is sushi city, and sushi is the one thing I've consistently craved over the past decade (besides the secret craving of every vegetarian: bacon). My education about the moral and environmental impact of eating meat is thorough, but my response to all the statistics has developed a major fissure called "sashimi." At first I started with gateway fish: salmon and tuna. I think it's because when I pictured them, they were in massive schools where, going against the current of every crunchy article I had ever believed in, I reasoned: Would they really miss just one? Probably more convenient with one less car on the road. And wham: Now I'll eat eel.

 

In my lame defense, it's very hard to be a girl and say you won't eat something. Refuse one plate of bacon-wrapped pork rinds and you're an anorexic. Accept them and you're on Atkins. Excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and you're bulimic. Best to keep perfectly still and bring an IV of fluids with you to dinner.

 

I tell other vegetarians that I started eating sushi because I developed an iron deficiency. This is a total lie. But it's a lie that works. Contrary to popular belief, vegetarians aren't holistic Nazis or New Yorker cartoons. They will accept medical betrayal. What they won't accept is that I got lazy, that I decided fish were yummy and didn't have nervous systems complex enough to register pain, that Edward Furlong is a freak for trying to free the lobsters and David Foster Wallace thinks too hard about our acquaintances of the sea.

 

So what's to become of me now? Like anything that begins on the fringe, vegetarianism is dominated by older adherents who will kick you out of the veggie club faster than you can say "grilled vegetable terrine." With raw and organic food available in every zip code, we have it easy compared to them. Back in their day they had to walk five miles, uphill both ways, until their Birkenstocks were bloody, just to get a slice of polenta. They are quick to judge and would rather break bread with a veal eater than a nouveau fad vegetarian. I eat with the fishes so life is easy for me all of a sudden. Thus I have kept my mouth shut about my dirty sushi secret until now.

 

The truth is I'm not particularly sure why I don't eat meat anymore. Any well-educated carnivore could easily thrash me in a debate on the subject—but not dissuade me. Meat (cows, pigs, Bambi) is the final frontier and I can't bring myself to cross it. Alas, I will continue to attend weddings where I have to politely pull the waiter aside and explain my situation. Without fail the exact same plate returns 10 minutes later—a couple of string beans rolling in the juicy outline of a steak. Yes, my proclivity for the chickpea has staying power. And why? Habit. Habit and a penchant for snarky anti-carnivore comebacks.

 

Except now I have to be careful not to make them in the company of hardcore vegetarians. I still consider myself a vegetarian, but after this little confession the tofu mafia will cast me out. It's more acceptable to tailor your own religion (see this first-date classic: "I don't believe in God, but I do believe in something bigger than 'us' ") than it is to tailor your own vegetarianism. My one hope is that if vegetarianism really is some urban faith, this is me throwing my hearts and my palms together and renewing my vows to vegetables. The words are secondary to the sentiment. Praise be to wheatgrass. Artichoke me with okra and baptize me in beet juice. Juices saves.

 

That's what counts, right? It better be . . . or else my fellow vegetarians will eat me alive for it.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

I could never be a vegetarian, I'd kill myself, i cant live without meat.

[musiclover]

yeah, well, you should be thankful to all the vegetarians...we're not eating meat so you can have it all, for cheap, i might add! :lol: :P

[Matter-Eater Lad]

haha i neve thought of it that way..

[musiclover]

out of the (jack in the) box thinking! :wink3: :D

[_Broken_Doll_]

ive considered being a vegetarian many times, but try getting that past my grandmother. or even my mother. shell just ignore the fact that i dont want to eat meat and feed it to me anyway. same wiff my grandmother.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

why would anyone want to be a vegetarian?

[_Broken_Doll_]

have you watched those videos on henet about how they kill cows, pigs, chickens, etc? those scarred me for life.

[labell]

I could never be a vegetarian' date=' I'd kill myself, i cant live without meat.[/quote']

 

me too. i love my steak and chicken and...yeah i just don't think about the bad aspects.

[_Broken_Doll_]

is it normal that the only meat i like is chicken?

[musiclover]

yes, that is usually the reason why most people get turned off by meat. My ex girlfriend stopped eating meat in college, after she had to work as a short-order cook and had to actually see the blood ooze out of the meat she would cook.

 

She's still a vegetarian and loving it... :smug:

 

 

as for family pressure...well, if you really want to be a rebel, you can learn to cook simple vegetarian items for yourself. There are many resources online or at your local library that could be useful in that effort.

 

I'm in Texas...the heart of meat-eating country, and we still have a group of vegetarians that meets here for help and resources. You can find out if there is a local vegetarian group in your area...it helps to be in company of people who think the way you do about food. :)

[Matter-Eater Lad]

have you watched those videos on henet about how they kill cows' date=' pigs, chickens, etc? those scarred me for life.[/quote']

 

NO, lol and I dont plan on watching them. i get grossed out easily.

[Manders]

im a vegetarian. tell ur parents that now adays if there is a lack of something...say protien iron whatever.there is always an alternative. such as veggie burgers. which are very good. im a lacto-ovo vegetarian meaning... i eat dairy and occasional fish but no meat. its working out fine for me. the hard part is to not resort to just junk food. but if i wasnt serious about it id be eating meat alot now. but i am. i thnk that because vegetarians are so common ...there is always a healthy solution to any problems such as not getting this or that. :D REMEMBER NO JELLY! IT COMES FROM COWS FEET mushed up. k :wink3:

[Breakfast_of_CHAMPION]

That story from the Village Voice is so my story as well, I was a Vegan first, for a few months and then got cravings for protien, so i ate eggs, therefore making me a vegitarian, I hated soy milk and so I started drinking skim milk, which is pretty much water anyway, I was then a vegitarian for a year and a half. I then started getting cravings for meat, I ate boca burgers constantly but still felt the need for meat. Oneday when noone was around I ate a piece of bacon and my stomach hurt so bad after that I didnt touch meat again for a long time. Then I was feeling terrible and tired and I began eating Chicken therefore making me a carnivore once more. I am now eating meat again and thinking of going back to my veggie ways. I feel worse now then ever, and unlike the story above I do have an iron deficiancy. I will be seeing my doctor about that soon. Anyway, being a vegitarian is safe as long as you take vitamins and/or make sure you get your nutrients for the day. I say go for it.

[TimeIsOnYourSide]

This article might confuse you more than it helps, because it's written from a totally different context. But I guess it can't be too bad. I really enjoyed it! :)

 

http://villagevoice.com/news/0521,essay,64232,6.html

 

(that is the most-read weekly paper in the U.S.)

 

The Essay

Where's the Beef?

The author might have forgotten why she's a vegetarian—but don't ask her to quit now

 

by Sloane Crosley

May 23rd, 2005 3:55 PM

 

'I tell other vegetarians that I started eating sushi because I developed an iron deficiency. This is a total lie.'

 

I am not a very good vegetarian anymore. There, I said it. Sure, I still like to veg out. Be still like vegetables. Lay like broccoli. But I used to be an exemplary vegetarian. A few years ago The New Yorker ran a cartoon of one woman explaining to another during a meal: "I started my vegetarianism for health reasons, then it became a moral choice, and now it's just to annoy people." Four people sent me that cartoon, including my parents. Who faxed it to me. At work. I grew to accept that my refusal to eat anything that once had the will to crap was funny for others. As part of my acceptance, I had to laugh at veggie jokes that were never very funny. The upside was I got to have (vegetable) stock answers prepared for queries about my diet.

For example: Most of your shoes are made of leather or suede. Why is that?

 

"Because I'm not going to eat my boots, that's why. There's a big difference between stepping on something and making it a part of you. I'm not going to eat sidewalk either."

 

What do you mean "no meat"? No chicken? No lobster?

 

"Just venison."

 

The problem now is I'm not sure I have the right to slyly defend myself in this manner, not anymore. What follows is a roughage exposé, if you will.

 

The first thing to understand is that being a vegetarian is actually a pretty private matter. I am still taken aback by the question "Then what do you eat?" and am embarrassed as I struggle to produce the week's food diary. It's not that I'm ashamed of what I eat, but it's none of anyone's business. I imagine I would have a similar feeling counting up how many pairs of underwear I went through in a week (OK, nine). It's strange to be interested in something so basic that I barely register it as an activity. The only reason opening someone's refrigerator is more socially acceptable than opening someone's medicine cabinet is that people keep beer in their refrigerator. (And what's really socially unacceptable is drinking alone.)

 

In this way—something once between a select few now coming out of the freezer—being a vegetarian in this city is not unlike being gay. Vegetarian restaurants and options abound. I have the same number of veggie friends as I do gay friends. Because it's so common and sometimes even hip to be a vegetarian, it's become socially acceptable to poke fun of us. Being a vegan, of course, is more like the dietary equivalent of being a transsexual. Acceptance isn't quite as contagious as it should be.

 

I tried being a vegan once. Six months of tempeh and kale and I cracked like a rice cake and inhaled an entire box of fluorescent mac and cheese. It was just too hard for me to keep up the charade of a dairy-free existence. The surprising part was how easy veganism was to enter into. You read enough books that make The Jungle look like Goodnight, Moon and you wake up one day to find yourself a recycled-paper-card-carrying member of the tofu mafia. And I knew which books to read, all right.

 

My own private Idaho potato went like this: When I was a teenager a renowned South African acupuncturist moved in next door to my parents. He and his wife (who pronounces lime like lamb, thus leading to the infamous pie recipe debacle) are still the hippest couple my parents know and single-handedly responsible for introducing them to Whole Foods and the Fugees. One day I told the acupuncturist I wanted to be a vegetarian. I wish I could remember why I wanted to stop eating meat, but this was high school and I also wish I could remember my motivation for drinking Zima and wearing flannel in public. I met with a nutritionist in the acupuncturist's office on Fifth Avenue. She took my whim far more seriously than I did. She talked about tahini, how to cook vegetables properly, and the semi-apocalyptic idea that you could soak almonds for days to make "milk." That I never tried. But I did buy a cookbook called The Single Vegan, not because I was single at the time but because this was the only vegan cookbook available. Looking back, I should have taken it as a cosmic hint to be less of a high-maintenance eater—the soy cheese always stands alone. Instead I saw myself as this nutritionist woman saw me: a power vegan. I juiced things. Lots of things.

 

For a while anyway. Damn you, delicious powdered cheese.

 

So that's my story of how I became a veggie—because I couldn't hack it as a vegan. Except the problem now is I can't hack it as a vegetarian either. What can I say? New York is sushi city, and sushi is the one thing I've consistently craved over the past decade (besides the secret craving of every vegetarian: bacon). My education about the moral and environmental impact of eating meat is thorough, but my response to all the statistics has developed a major fissure called "sashimi." At first I started with gateway fish: salmon and tuna. I think it's because when I pictured them, they were in massive schools where, going against the current of every crunchy article I had ever believed in, I reasoned: Would they really miss just one? Probably more convenient with one less car on the road. And wham: Now I'll eat eel.

 

In my lame defense, it's very hard to be a girl and say you won't eat something. Refuse one plate of bacon-wrapped pork rinds and you're an anorexic. Accept them and you're on Atkins. Excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and you're bulimic. Best to keep perfectly still and bring an IV of fluids with you to dinner.

 

I tell other vegetarians that I started eating sushi because I developed an iron deficiency. This is a total lie. But it's a lie that works. Contrary to popular belief, vegetarians aren't holistic Nazis or New Yorker cartoons. They will accept medical betrayal. What they won't accept is that I got lazy, that I decided fish were yummy and didn't have nervous systems complex enough to register pain, that Edward Furlong is a freak for trying to free the lobsters and David Foster Wallace thinks too hard about our acquaintances of the sea.

 

So what's to become of me now? Like anything that begins on the fringe, vegetarianism is dominated by older adherents who will kick you out of the veggie club faster than you can say "grilled vegetable terrine." With raw and organic food available in every zip code, we have it easy compared to them. Back in their day they had to walk five miles, uphill both ways, until their Birkenstocks were bloody, just to get a slice of polenta. They are quick to judge and would rather break bread with a veal eater than a nouveau fad vegetarian. I eat with the fishes so life is easy for me all of a sudden. Thus I have kept my mouth shut about my dirty sushi secret until now.

 

The truth is I'm not particularly sure why I don't eat meat anymore. Any well-educated carnivore could easily thrash me in a debate on the subject—but not dissuade me. Meat (cows, pigs, Bambi) is the final frontier and I can't bring myself to cross it. Alas, I will continue to attend weddings where I have to politely pull the waiter aside and explain my situation. Without fail the exact same plate returns 10 minutes later—a couple of string beans rolling in the juicy outline of a steak. Yes, my proclivity for the chickpea has staying power. And why? Habit. Habit and a penchant for snarky anti-carnivore comebacks.

 

Except now I have to be careful not to make them in the company of hardcore vegetarians. I still consider myself a vegetarian, but after this little confession the tofu mafia will cast me out. It's more acceptable to tailor your own religion (see this first-date classic: "I don't believe in God, but I do believe in something bigger than 'us' ") than it is to tailor your own vegetarianism. My one hope is that if vegetarianism really is some urban faith, this is me throwing my hearts and my palms together and renewing my vows to vegetables. The words are secondary to the sentiment. Praise be to wheatgrass. Artichoke me with okra and baptize me in beet juice. Juices saves.

 

That's what counts, right? It better be . . . or else my fellow vegetarians will eat me alive for it.

 

^ longest post in cping history

:lol:

[Breakfast_of_CHAMPION]

I think you did that just to get max bling! lol

[pharynx]

i really can't see myself as a veggie and i'm so sick of the whole thing otherwise too, all the veggies i know are always so hostile towards me. it's none of their business if i'm eating meat or not. the everlasting brainwash attempts are always on. i just want to eat the sausage and i don't care that much if it was made in the gut of some poor piglet that is so oh pure and innocent. and the hypocricy, this classmate of mine used to be a veggie and she said that she doesn't eat ANYthing that's origin is an animal one and she she still ate candies and stuff that included animal fat and such stuff in their additives. but yeah i'm sure there are also wise veggies out there, prolly most of you guys. ok ok rant over.

[wayne]

I'm a veggie (15 years) and delighted to be so !! I initially became veggie because of my disgust in the way animals are treat in the meat industry. I'm now happy to be veggie for many many reasons. Health being one of them. People ask me "what do you eat if you don't eat meat then !" and the answer is everything but meat !! People just seem to think that meat consitutes the largest part of diet when in reality it's only one part of a meal (mixed grill and bad diets apart). Take a sunday lunch - meat, roast potatoes, mash potatoes, carrots, peas, cauliflower, yorkshire puds - just take the meat out and you've still got loads of stuff. People ask "don't you miss the taste?". Frankly, no, not anymore. By and large meat doesn't actually taste of much - you need to treat it with salt and other flavourings to make it tasty. Constrast that with vegetables and it loses out big time in the taste factor. Vegetables and fruit provide and massive variety of flavours and meat offers little. The main thing most veggies miss about meat is the texture - just use quorn or tofu then. I personally prefer quorn. People give me grief for eating quorn "by eating quorn you obviously miss meat and if that's the case then you're not a vegetarian at all !" as if all veggies must detest meat or something !! crazy !!

 

The most important thing that you do in your life is eat and drink. It happens several times a day EVERY single day of your life and if you're gonna put crap in your system then it'll run crap. I here sooo many people talk about how little fruit and veg they eat as if it's manly or something, yet they're slowly knackering there bodies !! idiots. Yet they'll put the most expensive oil in there cars to look after their engines.

 

Since i became veggy i eat a 100 times more variety than i used to and my health is the better for it. We're not built to be meat eaters - we were always vegetarians until we started hunting and eating animals. Our digestive system is not built for meat - it can certainly deal with it, but not entirely. There's a stat about how much indigested read meat the average person carries around in their bowels - can't remember what it is, but it's not good for you !! One of the main contributory factors to bowel cancer is lack of fibre in the diet - meat doesn't give this in nowhere near the sme quantities as fruit and vegetables. You look up anything related to health and diet and it'll always say eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. I've found that being a vegetarian has made my diet healthy.

 

Being a vegetarian, my advice is DO IT !! it'll be the best decision you'll make in your life. I personally still eat cheese and eggs and drink cow's milk but i only buy organic because this ensures the cows run free in the fields. Gelatine is one of the trickiest things to spot and also deal with not eating coz it means missing out on a lot of sweets :-) I've still yet to find chocolate covered marshmallow biscuits with jam in that don't have gelatine in and neither have i found gelatine free jelly babies - i miss them loads !!! It takes some perseverance at first, but stick at it and you'll eventually be delighted to have made the change.

[musiclover]

wow!

 

I'm so proud of all you people who're vegetarians/vegans or thinking about being that way, after having grown up eating and being fed meat all the time, and being in a meat-eating culture.

 

I was brought up in a vegetarian household so I always got enough variety of veggie foods for me to wonder about not having variety. Have you ever eaten an Indian meal...it's FULL of variety, and all sorts of flavors!! :) :) Now I know some of you people don't like curries so I guess that's that... to each their own isn't it.

 

But I've actually tasted meat. I used to eat chicken but after a while, I gave it up for moral reasons...plus I don't need it to make me happy or feel satisfied. :smug:

 

And the one time I tried out red meat (some pig part sandwich), I had to violently throw up and my body just got rid of it. So no red meat since then...you can't say I didn't try!

 

Lastly, yeah, I love those black-bean burgers or soya-protein burger patties. They're making all sorts of vegetarian alternatives to meat products. It's fun to try some of them out. Though I tried the "meat" lasagna that was made of soya and if it was supposed to taste and have texture/feel of ground beef, it did the trick because i hated it and almost threw up again...!

 

but black-bean burgers are good! :cool:

[wayne]

it was being a vegetarian that got me into curries - they are by far the best takeaway for vegetarians. and i'm pleased to say i've never eaten a meat curry in my life :-) nor have i ever had a kebab (and glad !!!)

[Ireentje]

Go veggies! I'm a vegetarian too, and I find that one will gradually lose the need to eat meat. Anyone noticed that too?

Also a good veggie take-away: falafel :)

[Victoria]

Hi Sternly! I consider myself a vegetarian, even though I do eat eggs and dairy produce, and also a little fish from time to time - but only when it's disguised in breadcrumbs or batter :lol: . I eat LOADS of fresh vegetables and fruit, and use Quorn a lot, along with beans, lentils and brown rice.

 

The reason I don't eat meat is primarily for hygiene reasons. Raw meat (in particular) is COVERED in bacteria and the reason people get food poisioning is nearly always because of contamination due to poor hygiene in handling food - for instance, handling raw meat and then cooked food without washing in between, or eating meat which is not properly cooked, especially minced up meat such as burgers. It's both of those reasons why people often get ill after BBQs!

 

Anyway (I could write a book about this subject but I won't bore you ... ;) ), I just don't fancy having bits of cut up corpses hanging about my fridge or worktops. To me, it just isn't WHOLESOME and It turns me off.

 

Oh, and I never take any supplements - don't need to, with all those lovely fresh vegetables. And for the record, you don't need very much protein in your diet, and certainly not at every meal, so don't get hung up about the nutrition you're getting, just try and eat some of the following: cheese, milk, bread, pasta, rice, beans or other pulses once a day and you'll be fine.

 

It's a lot cheaper, too! ;)

[Sternly]

Ah, Thank you very much! :)

 

You're right Musiclover; I meant veggie not exactly vegetarian. I know If you have a balanced diet there's no problem, the thing is I live in a place with little comodities and I don't get Soya Milk or Tofu; most people eat here just meat with potatoes or spagguetti or salads and that's it.

 

I don't know how to tell my parents, that's the biggest problem. I don't eat bacon, sausages, poultry, hamburgers and chicken so I would actually be taking out only the dairy products, eggs and red meat and I don't really fancy them but I just don't know what to say! I feel it's pretty much like Texas and mine's a meat-eater family (5 times a week at least).

 

Thanks anyway and probably I'm just drawing myself in a glass of water and they'll take it much better than I think they will! :lol: