I am now a humorless vegetarian

[Aszurom]

So, I've always been a little weak about being able to eat things that resemble animal body parts. McNuggets are as related to real chicken as marshmallows, so that never was a problem. I can do highly processed so long as it doesn't taste like hell. But man, if it has fat in/on it, a bone in it, I'm kinda grossed out. If there's a vein in there or something I'm gonna projectile vomit.

I read some Michael Pollan stuff. Saw "Food Inc." and some similar stuff. Then I saw THIS gem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkFt43gjtlU

I especially like the "kosher slaughter" segment. That's really a vegetarian-maker scene.

I was pretty much off red meat, because the only way I can eat a steak is if it's cooked until there's nothing remotely pink about it. Eating a chicken sandwich doesn't flip my guts, yet, but I'm pretty rare about doing it lately.

I'm to the point where I'm just grossed out about eating animals that the option is rapidly going away. Now what? I'm not wanting to be a militant vegan or anything - I just have to not be grossed out about what I eat. I'm finding my options in restaurants around here to be pretty slim. I'm still cool with fish mostly, and shrimp, shellfish don't bother me.

Who's in my boat? What do you do?

[Enidigm]

I admire your conviction, and pretty much agree with it, honestly. I can't make the step for lots of other, selfish and scientific reasons, but good luck!

[Lunch of Kong]

A buddy of mine went vegetarian for several years after he went beaver trapping with a friend up in the Canadian boonies and had to kill, skin, and prepare the beaver skins and carcasses.

Then he moved to Texas, smelled Rudy's Bar-B-Q (http://www.rudys.com/), and started eating meat again.

True story.

[Lunch of Kong]

As for myself, well I grew up in Turkey where people slaughter and dress sheep in the streets every year (go Biblical Abraham!) so the blood-letting scenes in that video don't bother me. The horn cutting scene did, though.

Everyone has different limits, though, and I think you found yours. I mean, we'll still love you if you're a vegetarian. I'm all for vegetarian marriages, even.

I'd caution you against going on a fish-heavy diet: you can very easily get mercury poisoning if you are not extremely selective about the types of fish you eat.

[Enidigm]

Ah, Rudy's. Not a fan of the sausage, very fatty, generic and porky, but everything else is hard to beat. Even the small town spots i know of in central Texas have a hard time competing with their quality.

Oh, and i used to hunt all the time with my father and his friends, so finding a prostrate animal you killed lying dead, then it cut up, haul back over several miles across mountainous terrain, and then preserve to eat later... i'm a bit more familiar with the cycle of life stuff.

It's why i try not to eat pork, honestly. I have a harder time justifying eating pork considering the awful conditions compared to beef, which generally tend to live a good part of their lives on the open range. And chickens, well, ...

[Aszurom]

I have a harder time justifying eating pork considering the awful conditions compared to beef, which generally tend to live a good part of their lives on the open range.

WHAT? You really think cows live on open range like in the movies?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuPDWb8mPq4

Cattle are on small farms and ranches and such until they're sold to "finish" at a feed lot. There, they are fed a fattening diet of corn to bulk them up for slaughter. This is also why american beef is the highest fat content in the world.

Here's a video of the NICE GUYS doing it. Really, they're probably the best and this isn't some gross-out PETA video. This is as good as it gets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnCpSs9ASLI

So when you buy "grass fed" beef, be careful about it being pastured cattle until the last 3-4 months when it was pumped full of corn. You want beef that was pastured to the end.

In the not so great feed lots, you have hundreds of thousands of cattle that live knee deep in their own shit. Antibiotics and steroids are given to them not only to prevent their getting sick from standing around in their manure, but also to keep them from dying from stomach ulcers from eating a steady diet of corn.

[Enidigm]

Oh, no i know it's not perfect. But it's better than what a pig must endure.

I don't know if you've ever been to a dairy farm but... dairy cows are filthy, sickly, unhealthy emaciated disease traps compared to ranch cattle. Up in North Texas (Panhandle, i can't quite grok the NT vs. Panhandle difference) i was moving back and forth between a ranch and a dairy farm constantly and the difference was like night and day.

I'll agree with looking for non-corn fed beef, however.

[caesarbear]

If it weren't for Barbecue and chili-cheeseburgers I would totally go veg.

[Acid]

My parents used to buy Black Angus beef by the side. All of the cows were free-range. They grazed freely, and in the evening they came back to the barn and ate corn, equally freely. The farmer gave us a tour; nowhere were there legless, eyeless cows on racks being injected with corn and growth hormones. (Yes, hyperbole, but point stands). All of this guy's cattle lived nice little cattle lives until they died for my delicious dinners.

[Demon G Sides]

That video made me hungry.

[Aszurom]

I have a great respect for http://polyfacefarms.com/ and I'd eat anything that came off their land without the slightest bit of queasiness.

There's a problem with cattle and pig slaughter though. No matter how the animal lived, ate, etc. I want to know how it died.


Most countries have laws in regard to the treatment of animals at slaughterhouses. In the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States), there is the Humane Slaughter Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humane_Slaughter_Act) of 1958, a law requiring that all swine, sheep, cattle, and horses be stunned unconscious with just one application of a stunning device by a trained person before being shackled and hoisted up on the line (chickens are exempt from this Act). The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is opposed to the Humane Slaughter Act, and violations of the Act carry no penalties. Since stopping the line to re-knock conscious animals causes "down time" and results in fewer profits, the Humane Slaughter Act is usually bypassed and ignored by USDA supervisors (Eiznitz 1997 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse#CITEREFEiznitz1997)). There is some debate over the enforcement of this act. This act, like those in many countries, exempts slaughter in accordance to religious law, such as kosher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashrut) shechita (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita) and dhabiĥa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhabi%C4%A5a) halal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halal). Most strict interpretations of kashrut require that the animal be fully sensible when its carotid artery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carotid_artery) is cut.

[Adree]

Plants have rights too.

http://i50.tinypic.com/mlgnq1.gif

[Raife]

Scientologists, however, do not have rights.

[WarrenM]

So when you buy "grass fed" beef, be careful about it being pastured cattle until the last 3-4 months when it was pumped full of corn. You want beef that was pastured to the end.
Yes, look for "grass finished" not just "grass fed". All "fed" means is that the animal ate grass at least once it's lifetime - in other words, it's a pointless label.

Whole Foods has started putting labels on meat with a 1-5 rating system denoting how organic and/or well treated the animal was prior to slaughter. I forget which number means what, but the higher the better.

[Gunmetal]

I went out with a vegetarian for a few years, so I had to make a few substitutes in order to be able to make her dinner. And if we went out to a normal sit-down restaurant, her options were usually extremely limited - usually just some sort of pasta dish. Strangely, if we went to a fast food place for lunch, they would have veggie burgers, although they're
a) cooked on the same grill as the meat and
b) 90% of the time cooked improperly which will give you crazy indigestion

Anyway, when we were eating in, I found all the Gardein (http://www.gardein.com/products.php?t=fresh) stuff to be really good. In Canada, we also have things like this President's Choice Meatless beef strips (http://www.presidentschoice.ca/LCLOnline/products.jsp?type=details&catIds=cat40002&tags=100094&catIds=114&productId=18430) (made by Gardien) and Meatless meatballs (http://www.presidentschoice.ca/LCLOnline/products.jsp?type=details&catIds=159&productId=16781) which I now eat all the time.

I have a couple of other friends who are vegetarian and they all had to do some research in order to make sure they're getting everything they need from their diet, which is something you need to watch. Vitamin B12 is a big one, iirc.

[DennyA]

Woot. More steak for me! Medium rare, baby.

[Marged]

I have a couple of other friends who are vegetarian and they all had to do some research in order to make sure they're getting everything they need from their diet, which is something you need to watch. Vitamin B12 is a big one, iirc.

You only need to worry about B12 if you're going vegan. It's present in animal products like dairy and you need barely any to prevent a deficiency.

[Staff Sergeant]

I admire your conviction, and pretty much agree with it, honestly. I can't make the step for lots of other, selfish and scientific reasons, but good luck!

Is this sarcasm? I don't think abstaining from something that he finds nauseating displays conviction. I mean, if I threw up every time I ate a chicken leg I would probably stop, too, and I wouldn't expect any congratulations.

[Jon Rowe]

I am sorry for your loss.

[Adam Eayrs]

I'm in your boat. When I stop to think about the dismal life cycle of the meat on my plate before I eat, it's hard to continue. Depictions of industrial meat operations also make me pretty sad and guilty.

I washed dishes in a restaurant that served a tip-to-tail suckling pig entree. Head cheese, rarebit bacon, roast crackling, etc. The unbutchered pigs would be hung in the narrow stock fridge, and it was impossible to retrieve anything without shouldering by the pigs and feeling their awful inert heaviness. If I'd had to prepare the cranial stock for the headcheese, I would have quit outright. It was bad enough having to see someone carving the ears, nose, and tongue out of a human-looking pig's head.

RE: pasturing. Cows range all over Crown land in BC and Alberta. They're stupid as shit and will not yield for a vehicle until you're bearing down on them. It's a big challenge for reforestation, as the cattle will range over replanted cutblocks and eat any regenerative growth. It is also unnerving if you're out for a jog in the country and you're confronted with 150 cattle all silently staring at you in unison.

I've seen finishing lots from the highway in the Okanagan valley, and they honestly did not look too bad. I am not generalizing to the industry at large, and I realize that there's ecological blowback when you stick 500 cows and their shit at the confluence of two river systems, but the feedlot itself didn't look like cow hell.

I don't refuse to eat meat because it would cause disharmony in the home, but I avoid it when I'm cooking for myself. I switched to whey powders and the like for my protein needs. Though, as Enidigm points out, dairy is still a pretty brutal process too...

[Matthew Gallant]

But plants grow from from the sun-- and moist poop-enriched dirt. What is grosser, grass-fed beef or poop-fed carrot?

[Demon G Sides]

Honestly. Plus they literally just tear those poor vegetables from their homes, savagely by hand, then throw them into buckets! THE HUMANITY!

[Post-It]

More meat for me! Woo!

[Kevin J Baird]

Think about all the children on the surface of a strawberry. One bite is like genocide!

[RepoMan]

Scientologists, however, do not have rights.
Plus eating even the free range ones can give you Mad Clear's Disease.

[triggercut]

I'm a total vegetarian. Except for beef, pork, seafood, poultry, and dairy--which let's face it, YUMMY--I'm utterly commited to a vegan lifestyle.

[nKoan]

I'm like half vegetarian now that I've moved in with a vegetarian.

[Jason McCullough]

Oh, and i used to hunt all the time with my father and his friends, so finding a prostrate animal you killed lying dead, then it cut up, haul back over several miles across mountainous terrain, and then preserve to eat later... i'm a bit more familiar with the cycle of life stuff.

Technically I think this just means you're used to it, like soldiers are used getting to blown-apart bodies. Doesn't say anything about the ethical implications either way though.

[snowcrash22]

I have been a non militant vegetarian for over 4 years now. It was the book Fast Food Nation that did me in. Didn't even finish the book. I never sought out the gross videos that I know exist, I get no value from them, but it also seemed that I was also the only dude in my high school that didn't watch Face of Death on VHS in the mid 80's.

I do know that rule number #1 to being a good vegetarian is to NEVER talk about being a vegetarian when you are eating with people who still partake.

My advice to you is to go slow, don't set yourself up for failure. Don't say this is the day I am a vegetarian but not have an idea of what to eat for the rest of the week, month, holidays, cookouts and what not.

Often I see it recommended that people ease into a veg lifestyle by meat type. First cut out animal #1 for a few weeks, then animal #2 and so forth and so on. Maybe you'll find after researching a bit that you would rather be a hardcore pescatarian and that is fine if that works for you. Maybe after a little more research you'll find that you are fine with a local humane meat provider who charges you a little extra but you know deep down that you are voting with your dollars in a niche industry you support. For me it's just too much work to have to do this type of research and fretting over food so I just go with a blanket no-meat rule.

I switched over a little differently, I wasn't concerned about this type or that type of meat, I was more concerned about what I was replacing those meals with, so I instead eased into a veg lifestyle by meal type. First lunches. For a month of so I was a vegetarian at lunch. This was easy because I had naturally gravitated to a fruit and nut packed lunch without even realizing it so I concetrated on being a vegetarian when I would go out for lunch and learned the menu options as it were. But I didn't beat myself for continuing a normal dinner routine. Then came breakfast meats, cut those out for a while and by the end of that transition I was ready and had a cache of receipe resources that dinner was a cinch.

For the humorless part, that simply won't do. Feel free to use these stock vegetarian deflectors, since I really don't care to talk to people about being a vegetarian (mostly I just don't care to talk to people at all, but enough internet asperger insinuations)

-Why did you become a vegetarian? Because I was running out of ways to annoy my wife.
-They say that vegetarians live ten years longer than meat eaters. It's actually not true, it just feels that way.
-Vegetarian is the Indian word for "terrible at hunting"
-I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals, I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants (stolen from A. Whitney Brown riffing on Woody Allen)

I would also suggest you to find some sort of community to reference. Even though I rarely posted I found Veggie Boards (http://www.veggieboards.com/boards/index.php?) to be a helpful place to a) read about what to do right and wrong b) see what an asshole you can look like if you insist on being militant. I haven't been back there since I got over my 6 month hump, so I hope it's still a good starting place.


As far as restaurants go, I don't know what to tell you. Part of non-militantism is not throwing a fit and boldly claiming I can eat anywhere but sometime that means a plain baked potato and side salad (hold the bacon)...such is life. I do stick with it because I want to vote with my wallet and let vendors know that there is a market out there for vegetarian dishes. Yes the variety sucks, but the options are increasing. Ruth's Chris has a vegetarian plate, Burger King stocks the Boca burger... so little by little things are opening up. Maybe in ten years we'll have 3 options on the menu instead of 1.

Also don't be shy about mixing and matching ingredients. Not sure if triggercut has any horror stories but seriously if all you're going to offer is a veggie burger, I'll help you out for the next militant vegetarian and suggest you fix up the grilled portabellos/asparagus/brocolli whatever from dish A and use those to replace the meat in dish B. I eat out at least once a week and have never run into any problems.

well, I'm all typed out. Either post here or PM if you have any specific questions. good luck.

[krayzkrok]

The fact is, we are living organisms whose bodies require the consumption of other living organisms in order to survive. While it's possible for some people particularly in privilaged society to replace most if not all animal tissue with plant tissue or even artificial product, it's simply not a realistic option for the majority of the world's population. That doesn't make animal farming resistant to ethical scrutiny, but it's basically a necessity given economic and social constraints. If everyone turned vegetarian do you think we'd suddenly not require land and resources to feed them? But if everyone decided to hunt their own food it would be chaos, and lead to all kinds of pressure on those resources.

Unfortunately there are way, way too many humans on this planet to solve ethical dilemmas with how food is produced. Seriously, I'd love to see someone come up with a workable solution for every single person on the planet that is ethically, environmentally, socially and economically feasible. So we're basically left with personal choice and personal satisfaction with the way we feed ourselves. I think it's great that you can do that Aszurom and I wish you luck.

While we were in Maine a couple of months ago, we stayed with friends where one was practicising being vegan, and the other was trying to keep her happy! We ate quite a bit of her vegan cooking and she did a fantastic job with it. In fact I was surprised at just how much animal product could be replaced in terms of taste. However, she was visibly suffering from this diet (too much weight loss) and resumed eating the occasional bit of animal product to keep it under control. But even so, it's changed our diets somewhat to include less meat - not because we have any ethical issues with eating meat (I support traditional harvest for a start) or taste issues, but for health reasons. We still eat meat (and we love it) but try and limit it to less impactful products because it makes us feel better.

[Demon G Sides]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5vSia_tLeI

Sorta my views, though he's a lot more aggressive about it.

[VegasRobb]

Welcome to the club. I think vegetarians have to figure out what answer they'll use when folks ask about their eating habits because it does make a difference. The strident ones tend to answer using some of the links and commentary listed upthread and that does not help the cause because it alienates and forces folks to take sides. Suddenly, a simple Q&A becomes PETA versus the worldview.

[Tim Partlett]

While it's possible for some people particularly in privilaged society to replace most if not all animal tissue with plant tissue or even artificial product, it's simply not a realistic option for the majority of the world's population.

Actually, meat is a luxury. Eating meat is a privilege, and simply not a realistic option for many of the world's population, at least not on a daily basis. Many people are vegetarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_and_beans) by fact of poverty, rather than by ethical choice.


That doesn't make animal farming resistant to ethical scrutiny, but it's basically a necessity given economic and social constraints. If everyone turned vegetarian do you think we'd suddenly not require land and resources to feed them?

Meat is not a necessity at all, for nutritional, economic or social constraints (?). If everyone became a vegetarian, we'd be able to feed many more mouths with far fewer acres of land than the typical modern diet. Meat is a luxury because meat is inefficient compared to vegetable crops.

I don't think everyone should be a vegetarian: we all can make our own choices, but your facts they need some checking :).

[Jason McCullough]

Technically some mountain areas can't support anything but goats, so they pretty much have to eat a significant amount of animals unless they want to live entirely on imports which they're too poor to afford anyway. In general though, yeah.

Vegas, I am continually amazed how touchy and preachy people get about stating that yes, you're a vegetarian, and leaving it at that. It'd be as if announcing you're gay led to long discussions of how great straight sex is from offended-for-no-apparent-reason straight people.

[Zylon]

Because bacon, that's why.

[Aszurom]

Oh shit... no bacon? Hrm...

Yeah, I haven't started my rant against CORN yet. I'll get to that sometime. If you've got Netflix put "King Corn" on instant-watch and spend a couple hours with that.

It's the other thing I'm trying to push out of my diet. Much like meat, not entirely, just being actually aware of when I choose to eat it. Why? Because it's in everything. I've completely avoided anything with "high fruc corn syrup" and "modified corn starch" for like a year. I'm sure some has snuck past, but I'm being mindful of it.

And yeah, I agree about the "preachy vegan" bullshit. In fact that's why my thread is titled for the in-joke at QT3 of "humorless lesbians".

The bonus of this plan is that it moves me a little closer toward Buddhism, which is I think if I need to choose a fairy tale to believe in, the lesser evil.

[krayzkrok]

Actually, meat is a luxury. Eating meat is a privilege, and simply not a realistic option for many of the world's population, at least not on a daily basis.

For many, I'd agree, but for the majority? I know it's argued that most people in the world are vegetarian due to poverty, but I'm fairly sure this statistic doesn't consider them to be obligate vegetarians. I may be mistaken right now because I'm not up with the latest modelling and statistics, but what I read a couple of years ago showed that you could cook the stats either way. Reading between the lines, it seemed that with the exception of extreme poverty most diets that are primarily vegetable-based still include meat occasionally. Those that survive without meat in poor countries necessarily suffer as a result, although they survive. Whether the world can afford to bring healthy vegetarianism to the entire population is the debatable point.

I'm probably also biased because I live on a massive continent where the majority of it is unsuitable for raising crops, and it's not alone in forcing subsistence hunting at the very least. Once Australia runs out of mining resources to export, I'm not sure how we could afford to import all the additional vegetable matter necessary to replace meat entirely.



Meat is not a necessity at all, for nutritional, economic or social constraints (?). If everyone became a vegetarian, we'd be able to feed many more mouths with far fewer acres of land than the typical modern diet. Meat is a luxury because meat is inefficient compared to vegetable crops.

I didn't say meat is a necessity for all, but that it's a necessity (for some). I shouldn't have said farming because that's more debatable - those countries rich enough to farm may be able to eliminate it, although I'm not convinced (see above). I tend in quickly written responses to pose questions that appear as statements of opinion, bad habit!

[Gunmetal]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5vSia_tLeI

Sorta my views, though he's a lot more aggressive about it.

Ironic, considering the first thing said in the video, and your first post in the thread.

[philosophist]

Ah, Rudy's. Not a fan of the sausage, very fatty, generic and porky, but everything else is hard to beat. Even the small town spots i know of in central Texas have a hard time competing with their quality.



Salt Lick (http://www.saltlickbbq.com/)...

[DennyA]

Salt Lick (http://www.saltlickbbq.com/)...
Holy crap, Salt Lick ships? Anyone ever ordered their BBQ from out of state? I'd love to get some of their brisket and sausage...

[Enidigm]

Technically I think this just means you're used to it, like soldiers are used getting to blown-apart bodies. Doesn't say anything about the ethical implications either way though.

I think it does; there is the revulsion at killing itself, and there is the philosophical desire to do no harm. There are lots of people that eat meat but recoil at the butcher's window. I suppose there are also vegans that have no problem with killing another animal but still choose not to do so, though i suspect such would be far fewer.

[Enidigm]

Salt Lick (http://www.saltlickbbq.com/)...

Innman's kitchen in Llano (http://www.inmanskitchen.com/) (about three blocks past stupid overpriced Cooper's). Well, at least for the Turkey Sausage and Bavarian style bread.... really good bread there, for some reason.

[Wisbechlad]

Just made up a big batch of pasta meat sauce to freeze up this weekend.

Celery/onion/carrot/garlic base sweated together
Meat in the ratio of 2 parts beef mince, 2 parts pork mince, 1 part smoked bacon, 1 part chicken liver, all browned
Canned tomato, bottle of red wine. Put in oven at lowest setting for 4-6 hours.
Freezes really well.

I do get puritanical about meat eaters who are squeamish about offal. If you are going to eat the cow's thighs, then at least have the courtesy to eat her tripe, tail, brains etc.

[Jon Rowe]

Well... by posting in this forum about your newfound vegetarianism with links to videos that made you that way...

You have started your journey.

[Sarkus]

The question you have to ask is whether you are changing your eating habits because you don't like the way meat is processed or whether you are doing so because you philosophically have decided you don't think killing other animals for food is right. It's one thing to complain about how animals are treated - you may have valid points that society should consider, though I've seen plenty of videos where it's clear the makers have no idea about how animals have to be butchered for safety reasons and have no real understanding about how things die. It's another thing to go beyond that. Ask yourself this question - would you eat a chicken you raised yourself and butchered in the traditional way, i.e. catching a relatively tame bird and chopping it's head off? If the answer is no, then you are changing your eating habits for philosophical reasons, not because of concerns about how the meat is processed. This is where I think aggressive vegitarianism gets it's bad reputation - arguing that it's about the "right way" to turn animals into food while really believing that we shouldn't be eating animals at all.

We live in a society where we've seperated animals from food in our minds. Sure, as adults we know there is a theoretical link, but deep down we still think of Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny and other animal characters of our childhood, and that's changed how we see things. A century ago, few people would have thought twice about eating rabbits, for example, but good 'ole Bugs has changed that. But this approach we have is a luxury of our relatively easy lifestyles. Most poorer countries don't have that luxury. If it moves they eat it, whether it's chickens, cows, pigs, deer, or even rats and insects.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes in the future, whether vegitarianism or veganism continue to rise. After all, we could probably get by with bland, tasteless food cubes from a nutritional standpoint.

[Dan Lawrence]

I'm a transitory vegetarian, I say transitory because I suspect that vegetarianism is going to become a dead philosophical branch once scientists perfect growing meat in vats. No doubt it'll probably be cheaper in the end and eventually taste the same too so then most of the world will effectively become philosphically vegetarian (not killing animals) while still getting to eat the same animal protein we've come to know in the same forms.

No doubt some wealthy princes will still claim that science is an abomination and that we must slaughter animals to get the true, natural, taste of our organic fathers.

This will also lead to several popular sci-fi shows including meat-vat poisoning horror storylines in their plots before this future actually comes to pass and the meat becomes tediously regulated and tested.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6936352.ece



SCIENTISTS have grown meat in the laboratory for the first time. Experts in Holland used cells from a live pig to replicate growth in a petri dish.

The advent of so-called “in-vitro” or cultured meat could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals — if people are willing to eat it.

So far the scientists have not tasted it, but they believe the breakthrough could lead to sausages and other processed products being made from laboratory meat in as little as five years’ time.


Also vitally this:



Global meat and dairy product consumption is expected to double by 2050, according to the United Nations. This could have an unprecedented impact on climate change because the warming effect on the atmosphere of methane, a digestive by-product from farm animals, is 23 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. The UN has attributed 18% of the world’s greenhouse gases to livestock.

[krayzkrok]

Would it really double, though? World population by then will have increased by a third on current projections, poorer countries will probably show an increase in meat consumption per capita, but richer ones may have a) become more enlightened and/or b) found artificial / more efficient solutions by then. Who knows.

But regardless, isn't that whole issue missing the point somewhat? The main problem we face is that world population growth has exceeded the capability of the planet to provide sufficient resources and to deal with all the waste products. The need for more food (and the resulting waste) exacerbates things but it's more consequence than cause. This isn't going to be fixed by everyone becoming vegetarian - the problem is much deeper than that, but I'm not sure that humanity is ready to address it. What are we going to do? Instigate a cull? Ship a bunch of people off to Mars? Let "nature take its course" with the resulting disease / famine?

Hey, I'm in a philosophical (you might say argumentative!) mood.

[Hans Lauring]

As far as I know we haven't reached that point and if everyone did turn vegetarian today, we could feed the world without the waste that livestock causes (we already can - we just waste tonnes of food and areas that could be used for food growing in various ways).

I'm not a vegetarian, but I do take care in picking how the meat I eat was raised (a part from foie gras, that's where I turn into a complete hypocrite)

[krayzkrok]

Yes, I saw an article about food waste about two months ago that was pretty shocking. I can't find it anymore, but plenty has been written (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091124204314.htm) about it recently (150 trillion calories a year wasted in the US alone simply from good food that's not consumed, regardless of origin).

[WarrenM]

While we were in Maine a couple of months ago, we stayed with friends where one was practicising being vegan, and the other was trying to keep her happy! We ate quite a bit of her vegan cooking and she did a fantastic job with it. In fact I was surprised at just how much animal product could be replaced in terms of taste. However, she was visibly suffering from this diet (too much weight loss) and resumed eating the occasional bit of animal product to keep it under control. But even so, it's changed our diets somewhat to include less meat - not because we have any ethical issues with eating meat (I support traditional harvest for a start) or taste issues, but for health reasons. We still eat meat (and we love it) but try and limit it to less impactful products because it makes us feel better.
My wife and I joined a religious friend last year in one of their fasts. Basically, we had to go vegan for 2 months or so. We did really well, actually. I got a vegan cookbook and we had great tasting stuff available all the time. I could have continued with it but my wife was feeling less energetic and not really herself by the end of it. When we started eating meat again, she perked up and was her old self within a week.

This doesn't prove or disprove anything, of course, but it does cement further in my mind that some people function better as meat eaters. I can go either way as I seemed to do fine on the vegan diet and I had surprisingly few meat cravings (other than for the occasional burger).

So, in the end, we do the same as Hanzii. We eat meat but we pay attention to where it came from and how it was raised. We pay attention to where all of our food comes from, truthfully, and we try to buy as close to home as we can. Sometimes you can't, and that's OK as long as you do it when possible.

[Aszurom]

My reasons for doing it are pretty much that I personally find chewing on something that rather resembles myself on the inside a little gut flipping. I also think that the current farming system isn't what it could be, and it's doing a hell of a lot more damage than anyone who hasn't takes the time to look at it could realize. Building a pig farm here in NC is akin to telling people you're starting a chemical weapons factory, pretty much. It just devastates the area in ways you can't imagine.

To me, an Ohio kid, a farm is a mix of chickens, pigs, cows, goats, and whatever is being planted. The animals have a function on the farm. Cows mow grass and fertilize. Chickens suppress the bugs, and spread the cow manure. Pigs dig the manure out of the barn in the spring. They have jobs, and aren't raised from birth to death in a 3x5 box in the dark 24x7.

And yes, being selective about what's on my plate is a luxury choice. I have the ability to make it though. Then again, buddhists have been vegetarian for how many thousand years in some of the poorest places on earth. Could be an interesting study to find out how.

I don't operate on some fairy tale notion that pretends all life on this planet doesn't kill and eats everything else. Turn on discovery and watch a lion eat an antelope. There's no slaughterhouse ethical debate going on there. It's more "I caught you, I'm eating you, and at some point in the process of being eaten you'll die". It ain't pretty, and it isn't painless. However it has been going on for more birth/death cycles than anybody can conceive of. It's how the planet works.

Humans are just making it a lot uglier than it needs to be. Why? Because we are completely undisciplined about keeping our own numbers in sustainable limits, and our ability to pump out kids and keep them alive is amazing. If we can't feed ourselves within reasonable means, maybe there are too many of us. Slow down a little with the baby making.

[sam and the firefly]

I was a vegetarian for about 10 years before moving to Japan. I think it's absolutely the right thing to do, and so easy in the UK that it's almost weird not to - on the other hand, I don't think it's morally wrong to eat animals and my beef (...) is mostly with the excessive consumption in the Western meat industry. I only quit because you can't order a bowl of ramen over here that doesn't treat pork like an essential condiment.

[Demon G Sides]

Ironic, considering the first thing said in the video, and your first post in the thread.

Your definition of irony is off the charts, since the my first post was "that video made me hungry", and my second post was obviously very tongue in cheek. I could care less if someone <3's only vegetables, as long as they don't crusade against my meat eating I have no problem.

[Wallapuctus]

I'm not vegetarian, I tried it for like 2 weeks and broke the first time I was hungry and there was nothing to eat but meat. I wish you luck, the meat industry is disgusting and contributing to the destruction of our planet.

People can be total dicks about it, but don't let it get to you. For every guy who respects your choice there will be twenty who say "How can you live without BACON?!?". Those people are assholes.

[Demon G Sides]

I don't think people who ask how someone can live without bacon are being assholes, and it's pretty narrow minded to think so. Its the people who put someone down because of it that are assholes, not the one's who ask innocent questions like that.

[WarrenM]

I apologize, but...

http://16.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ku07fnP8jl1qapoo8o1_500.png

[Enidigm]

That's actually been the problem with vegetarianism. Historically agricultural societies tended to be less healthy than nomadic because it's easier to eat a well balanced diet with meat than without when you lack a scientific understanding of nutrition or face a paucity of vegetable crops to choose from (there were a few places in the world, like India and Central America that were blessed by fortune with a very wide variety of edible nutritious vegetable products). Man really can't live on bread alone, and premodern agricultural societies tended to have larger populations but suffer from malnutrition and famine much more regularly than their pastoral cousins.

That's not an excuse today, but it is still much harder to create a well balanced vegetarian diet that provides all the nutrients an omnivorous diet provides than most vegetarians (esp. young women who tend to do it as much for weight control as ethics) are willing to formulate and carry through if they wish to maintain the same level of health over the long term. I've heard plenty of stories of multi year vegetarian women passing out during exercising or having long term health problems that can only be rectified with an omnivorous diet.

[olaf]

There is no way I could go w/o beef.

Rudy's is good stuff, certainly good for a BBQ chain. The original in Leon Springs is still the best.

Recently I found this place in San Antonio that is great:

http://www.twobrosbbqmarket.com/

I hear that Lockhart (Kreuz, Smitty's, etc.) is the BBQ mecca in Texas but I have never made it out there.

[ceolstan]

I was an economic vegetarian pretty much all through grad school. I could afford only chicken thighs/drumsticks when they went on sale. I've no problems with a vegetarian diet. All it means is expanding options instead of restricting them. My husband, who won't eat mammals, wants to be a vegetarian, but I won't let him because he doesn't eat a lot of green vegetables. For him, veggies can be red, but not green. Salads don't count, since lettuce has the nutritional value of tissue paper. If you can't bring yourself to eat kale, spinach, broccoli, etc., then don't go veg.

Interestingly enough, one of our faculty is a vegetarian, yet she and her husband have a working farm raising beef and goats. Her concern is with animal welfare. She says that her cattle have a good quality of life and are humanely slaughtered. She is an FDA inspector, among other things, and spent some time researching local slaughterhouses so that she could find one that passed her standards of cleanliness and humane killing.

She still doesn't eat the meat she raises, though.

[Mightynute]

Kudos on the decision to go vegetarian. I'm an unabashed carnivore myself, but really - as long as you're healthy, there's nothing wrong with selecting any particular food-related lifestyle. Vegetarian, omnivore, vegan, organic-food-only, Atkins Fanatic, what-have-you. Yeah, you'll get people doing the stupid "But meat is so TASTY!" - yes, but so's a nice caprese salad.

[Wallapuctus]

I don't think people who ask how someone can live without bacon are being assholes, and it's pretty narrow minded to think so. Its the people who put someone down because of it that are assholes, not the one's who ask innocent questions like that.

Actually, they are. Go up to a gay guy and say "How can you live without TITS?!" I guarantee the guy doesn't give a shit about what you like and is sick of hearing about it.

My fiancee is a vegetarian, and has been for over 15 years. Hearing that from people gets old, fast, and I've only been with her for 5 of those years.

I tried to convert for her sake but I'm a lazy hypocrite, and have no problem admitting it.

[Brian Seiler]

Kudos on the decision to go vegetarian. I'm an unabashed carnivore myself, but really - as long as you're healthy, there's nothing wrong with selecting any particular food-related lifestyle. Vegetarian, omnivore, vegan, organic-food-only, Atkins Fanatic, what-have-you. Yeah, you'll get people doing the stupid "But meat is so TASTY!" - yes, but so's a nice caprese salad.

Well, except for how some of those aren't healthy food-related lifestyles. Most food-related gimmicks aren't healthy. Atkins, so far as I have been able to tell, is approximately as effective as any other diet beyond the initial weight loss that comes from essentially starving yourself for a couple of weeks, probably dangerous for your heart, and if it worked at all it would work by causing ketoacidosis, which is not a thing you want. Organic food only is basically a marketing gimmick - there are very few regulations on what can get the label and the actual food isn't substantively different (organic corn is still corn - it doesn't get more corny when you fertilize it with cow turds and rainwater; it just gets less efficient).

Vegetarianism can work, though, and if knowing that an animal died to make your meal really makes you squeamish, more power to you. Not caring is my open doorway to deliciousness, but it's definitely not for everybody. If you're not going straight out, pants-on-head vegan, you're probably going to be fine (milk, cheese, and other related products that cast a shadow or whatever their weird standards are will bridge most of the gaps for you).

[hahahabonk]

Woot. More steak for me! Medium rare, baby.
Next time order it blue, or join the vegos.

C.

[Jason McCullough]

I think it does; there is the revulsion at killing itself, and there is the philosophical desire to do no harm.

I don't recall where I read it originally, but "the argument from ick" fails pretty badly once you start including other people's opinions. Lots of people apparently find gay people icky; I certainly did in high school. Probably doesn't mean gay people are icky.

[WarrenM]

Lots of people apparently find gay people icky; I certainly did in high school. Probably doesn't mean gay people are icky.
I know a few. They're a'ight.

[Aszurom]

Vegan pants-on-head is not a concern. Kung Pao shrimp in lunch today. I'm not to the point of having warm compassion for what amounts to oceanic cockroaches. And they're tasty. Mmm.

It's the red meat that is gone. And I'll make occasional exception for properly disguised chicken. Fish and seabugs are always on the menu.

If I went full Buddhist you're technically not supposed to eat any animal. But I'll stick with being a well meaning hypocrite this lifetime.

[Brian Seiler]

Well in that case, rock on. There's all sorts of crazy terrific seafood you can make, and you don't even have to slaughter a bunch of dolphins and whales for some of them, and that should satisfy your dietary requirements that come best from animals (with a bit less fat to boot). I'll, like, pour out a steak on the curb for you or something, but your diet should be just fine.

[Mightynute]

Well, except for how some of those aren't healthy food-related lifestyles.

Which is not what I said - a person can still be healthy even on a poor diet. There's folks who can live off McDonald's hamburgers and Red Bull that can thrive and be healthy while their neighbor who eats a full and balanced diet might be weak and sickly. There's some obvious necessities (your body needs protein because you are made of protein and thus need more of it to repair yourself, you have to consume some form of food that will provide the basic chemical energy needed for body function, etc) - but diet alone is not an indicator of health.

[nKoan]

Which reminds me of this:

http://notalwaysright.com/delicious-perhaps-not-so-nutritious/1789


Delicious, Perhaps Not So Nutritious
Coffee Shop | Santa Cruz, CA, USA

(A blond freshman girl comes in with a few of her friends.)

Customer: “Oh my gosh! You guys are out of oranges!”

Me: “Yeah, sorry. But we have apples and bananas, and orange juice.”

Customer: “No! Your guys’ apples suck! And I’m going on a HIKE; I need an orange!”

Me: “Well…”

Customer: “No, no it’s OK. I understand.”

(She suddenly notices a display of baked goods next to her.)

Customer: “Oh my gosh, are those chocolate cupcakes vegan?”

Me: “Yeah, I think so. I can check.”

Customer: “Well, I just want to know if it’s healthy. You know, vegan equals healthy.”

Me: “…it’s a cupcake.”

(She stares at the expression on my face for a second, and then walks out.)


You could eat a completely vegetarian (or vegan) diet in a manner that in no way healthy.

[Brian Seiler]

Which reminds me of this:

http://notalwaysright.com/delicious-perhaps-not-so-nutritious/1789


You could eat a completely vegetarian (or vegan) diet in a manner that in no way healthy.

Agreed. One of the largest people I have ever met in my life (and I doubt that it was all layer upon layer of Kingpin-style muscle) was a Vegan at UT. I think he was also one of the ones who threw a gigantic fit when there was a roasted pig at the luau.

[sam and the firefly]

Your definition of irony is off the charts, since the my first post was "that video made me hungry", and my second post was obviously very tongue in cheek. I could care less if someone <3's only vegetables, as long as they don't crusade against my meat eating I have no problem.

You should be okay, then. In my experience this is a lot more common;

http://www.mitchclem.com/nothingnice/comics/20050613.gif

or

http://www.mitchclem.com/nothingnice/comics/20050617.gif

You'd think this kind of stuff would be annoying and obnoxious the third time you hear it, and it is.

[Zylon]

Back of the bus, univore.

[Demon G Sides]

You should be okay, then. In my experience this is a lot more common;

http://www.mitchclem.com/nothingnice/comics/20050613.gif

or

http://www.mitchclem.com/nothingnice/comics/20050617.gif

You'd think this kind of stuff would be annoying and obnoxious the third time you hear it, and it is.


Funny, but not so much relevant to that post, but I get what you're saying. I've never come across someone who's so blatantly attempting to persuade someone one way or the other. Most vegetarians I've met are just like "Do what you want, I don't care for it" and I respect that and don't go "BUT WHAT ABOUT BACON!?" except to one of my ex's, but that was just to annoy her.

[Austin Arlitt]

A buddy of mine went vegetarian for several years after he went beaver trapping with a friend up in the Canadian boonies and had to kill, skin, and prepare the beaver skins and carcasses.

Then he moved to Texas, smelled Rudy's Bar-B-Q (http://www.rudys.com/), and started eating meat again.

True story.

I'm a vegetarian in Austin, TX. To the first bit, I've killed, gutted, cleaned, quartered, cooked, & eaten my own food all in a day, multiple times. I don't have the slightest squeamish-type problem with it. I just no longer see the point. I can be a perfectly healthy little human without all the killing.

To the second point, there are two Rudy's stores within just 5 miles of my house, in either direction. The sausage is lousy, but everything else is fantastic from what I remember. That made me sad for about two weeks while I sorted how my diet was going to stack up.

There are three things I've discovered:

1) If you live in an amazing city like Austin, there are veggie/vegan restaurants everywhere---if not 100% veggie, then very veggie friendly with lots of yummy dishes. The cities like this also tend to have grocery stores that stock good food with actual nutritional value. If you don't live in one of these cities, you'll probably have a bit of a problem with vegetarianism & might want to reconsider. Here's a site that helped me find some places originally. From there I just asked other vegetarians around the city where else they ate.
http://www.happycow.net/

2) Other vegetarians love to cook things, especially in groups. I'm not sure why it's so easy to get people to cook things at my house (maybe it's merely a local phenomenon), but it has been. I've been hosting cooking nights at my house roughly once a month, and (being the host) can then eat off just the leftovers for the next week. My favorite cookbook is Veganomicon (http://www.amazon.com/Veganomicon-Ultimate-Isa-Chandra-Moskowitz/dp/156924264X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262675812&sr=8-1), which hasn't created a bad meal for us yet. We like it because baking without eggs, milk, & such is challenging, which keeps things interesting. Improvising is also really easy with this one.

3) The human body is quite efficient when it needs to be. I was expecting some kind of nutritional gap, but my doctor told me I was doing better than any of his other patients. I've only paid attention to the following:
Protein - Rice & beans by themselves are incomplete proteins, but together they give you everything you need. Quinoa does the whole job by itself, as do a few other complete proteins. Just be sure to get some of this in your system at least once a week, preferably more than that. Asian food is your friend, and also almost universally veggie friendly with all the fake meats.
Iron - I've never directly paid much attention to this. Quinoa has sufficient amounts to increase anyone's average iron intake. It is, however, the common mistake. If you become anemic, this is why. But unless you're very susceptible to that, it's easily avoidable.
Vitamin B-12 - It's the one real gap you'll have. Fortunately the body just builds up a store of B-12 that can last you multiple years. I just take supplements every so often from a $10 pack I found in the grocery store. My levels are on the high end, and as far as I'm aware, the only natural source I have is eggs, which I don't eat unless I'm at an IHOP somewhere.
Omega 3 - Most people get enough Omega 3 fatty acids from fish, but you can also get Omega 3 from flaxseeds. I just mix them into oatmeal at breakfast. Tossing them into things from time to time is probably a good idea.


That's about everything I can think of that I still think about. You'll get the hang of it in just a couple of months. Tom Scholz once pointed me in the direction of vegan.com, which has a bunch of helpful little guides on how not to die with a vegan diet. Following those tips & adding milk/eggs on top of it will make you a stable nutritional powerhouse. And you could always just eat meat too. It's got all of the same stuff in it, and usually in higher concentration. I hope some of this helps; good luck with your new diet!

EDIT: A quick follow-up post within a post...

Plants have rights too.
Just as a serious response, from the Utilitarian ground for vegetarianism would also follow environmental conservation. The two rules of thumb would be: if it's living, probably best to take care of it; and if it has a central nervous system that senses pain, why cause any more harm than necessary? These are in no way absolute rules, by definition. And to throw a little David Hume on top of it, the only reason we'd even say it ought to be that way is because we might have a better feeling associated with that.


My advice to you is to go slow, don't set yourself up for failure. Don't say this is the day I am a vegetarian but not have an idea of what to eat for the rest of the week, month, holidays, cookouts and what not.
I did this on a whim. That first week certainly caused indigestion, but years later I'm alive & well... and would further your recommendation against just immediately jumping into it. Crowd out your diet with other sources of the same nutrition. I should also mention that I was quite healthy before I abruptly switched diets. If you have gaps beforehand, you'll have even bigger problems afterward.

[alexlitel]

I'm a quasitarian; don't eat pork or seafood or fish and usually only eat meat and/or poultry one or twice a week.

Really don't understand how someone could eat living things every day of the week; I guess that they do explains the trend of obesity in the United States.

[Austin Arlitt]

They also smell funny.

Being unable to smell with that kind of precision, I can only gather that meat itself often smells awful. However, I'm frequently told I smell nice, and am now wondering whether this diet-as-deodorant myth holds any merit. More to the point, doesn't showering & hygienic living more than overpower any smell that could be induced by too much meat consumption, or is there still some real taint from all the extra meat in America?

[Mightynute]

I'm a quasitarian; don't eat pork or seafood or fish and usually only eat meat and/or poultry one or twice a week.

Really don't understand how someone could eat living things every day of the week; I guess that they do explains the trend of obesity in the United States.

That's why you make sure they're dead before you eat them. Otherwise it's just impolite.

You can become obese on any diet - hell, look at all the carbs in pasta and that's like a staple of most vegetarian diets.

I eat animals because they are made out of food. As I see it, the claim that it's unethical to eat them is like saying it's unethical to drive a car. The car exists to be driven, the cow exists to be burgers. Everything in its place. That's just my personal rationale for an omnivore lifestyle.

[alexlitel]

That's why you make sure they're dead before you eat them. Otherwise it's just impolite.

You can become obese on any diet - hell, look at all the carbs in pasta and that's like a staple of most vegetarian diets.

I eat animals because they are made out of food. As I see it, the claim that it's unethical to eat them is like saying it's unethical to drive a car. The car exists to be driven, the cow exists to be burgers. Everything in its place. That's just my personal rationale for an omnivore lifestyle.That's a pretty poor rationale. Even though some parties may try, we generally don't manufacture cows part-by-part in factories.

[Mightynute]

That's a pretty poor rationale. Even though some parties may try, we generally don't manufacture cows part-by-part in factories.

Actually, it's a very good rationale because it works for me. Hence the qualifier "personal". And actually, yes we do "manufacture" cows. Instead of factories, we do it on farms. Breeding and raising livestock is just another form of production and refinement of a resource.

[Post-It]

Omega 3 - Most people get enough Omega 3 fatty acids from fish, but you can also get Omega 3 from flaxseeds. I just mix them into oatmeal at breakfast. Tossing them into things from time to time is probably a good idea.



FYI - If you're not grinding your flax seed, you're not getting anything out of them. Your digestive tract will pass them whole. They need to be ground first (coffee grinder, or whatever) to actually release the oil inside so it's available to your body.

[Athryn]

Really don't understand how someone could eat living things every day of the week; I guess that they do explains the trend of obesity in the United States.

Actually, it's all the cheap calories from corn and sugar that make us fat. Michael Pollan was on The Daily Show last night, and his first word of advice for people? Eat real food.

[ElGuapo]

Ah, this thread brings back fond memories of the meat shield. Never again.

[Zylon]

Ah, this thread brings back fond memories of the meat shield. Never again.
http://www.jinx.com/Content/Tweakfest/20/027ebe895583452eac849.jpg

WTF are you talking about?

[Raife]

WTF are you talking about?

Guapwoman made him hide his food when he ate with some kind of a barrier so she wouldn't be subjected to his brutal mastication of meat product.

Then he asked where to buy guns online.

Then he got divorced.

Then the hot tub thread began.

This is all covered in the tutorial.

[Austin Arlitt]

That's a pretty poor rationale. Even though some parties may try, we generally don't manufacture cows part-by-part in factories.
Trying to say cows exist to feed humans because we've found them to be useful for that, is a bit of a backward argument. Rather the human digestive system developed the way it did because the available food (including cows after some point) already existed the way it did.

Just as an example, if I were to say 'Money exists in banks so that I can steal it. It is useful for that purpose.' I'd be making roughly the same is/ought fallacy by ignoring that money exists in banks for a reason entirely unrelated to theft. Just because cows are useful for eating does not necessarily mean that they ought to be eaten.

And just to throw it full circle, I once had a Utilitarian tell me that factory farmed animals, as opposed to much healthier free range animals, have been engineered to be sickly, practically brainless, meat-growing machines, which are barely conscious of the process, and certainly not enough to outweigh the significant utility gained by humans from their nearly non-suffering. I didn't really buy it, but certainly there are arguments in either direction on the ethical side of things. They'll all be irrelevant when we perfect the growing of meat without a nervous system attached. It'll be cheaper and probably nutritionally denser.


FYI - If you're not grinding your flax seed, you're not getting anything out of them. Your digestive tract will pass them whole. They need to be ground first (coffee grinder, or whatever) to actually release the oil inside so it's available to your body.
An excellent point, and they do sell them pre-ground. EDIT: Your fridge can help preserve it for a while. He's correct about just keeping it out on the counter.

[Griddle]

I have to admit I'm a tiny bit ashamed, every time my brain processes this thread title, I read it as vagitarian.

[Adam Eayrs]

Ground flax seed goes rancid pretty quickly, if I'm not mistaken (and I could very well be). I would self-grind.

[Zylon]

Guapwoman made him hide his food when he ate with some kind of a barrier so she wouldn't be subjected to his brutal mastication of meat product.
Ah, found it (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=1368085&postcount=87).

[Lunch of Kong]

WTF are you talking about?

Show me a pretty nymphomaniac vegetarian exmodel gamer and I'll show you a guy tired of her fucking meat shield (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=1368085&postcount=87).

doh, you found it before I did.

[ElGuapo]

I could take her beating me at DOA4.

I could take the insane crazy sexual demands that you only find on specialized websites.

I could take the stories of doing coke off Kate Moss's tits and taking baths in champagne in hotel rooms in Milan.

I could not take the MeatShield.

[Mightynute]

I could not take the MeatShield.

Things are clearer after reading the original thread. I initially thought "He dated a fighter with INT as the dump stat?"

[Zylon]

Things are clearer after reading the original thread. I initially thought "He dated a fighter with INT as the dump stat?"
In fairness, you weren't entirely wrong.

[Rimbo]

http://www.dontevenreply.com/view.php?post=78

[Rimbo]

Guapwoman made him hide his food when he ate with some kind of a barrier so she wouldn't be subjected to his brutal mastication of meat product.

Then he asked where to buy guns online.

Then he got divorced.

Then the hot tub thread began.

Holy shit. I didn't know that. A fucking meat shield????

You know, I am so glad I didn't stick with that gal I was dating in HS who became a Vegan. Now I live in a household where the rule on food is, "Just as long as it's nobody we know." I've learned to smile appreciatively when the food tastes good and not ask what it was... you know, before. And man, boy, does it taste good!

Come to think of it, I haven't seen Uncle Mark since we had him over for dinner and he had to cancel at the last minute.


This is all covered in the tutorial.

Serves me right for skipping that level.

Edit: Oh Jesus Christ, I was in that thread when he told the story. Like, right there.

Old age is a bitch.

[Rimbo]

I have to admit I'm a tiny bit ashamed, every time my brain processes this thread title, I read it as vagitarian.

That'd be meat curtains, not shield.

[Aszurom]

Hey, vegetarianism doesn't apply to sex right?

Cuz when I said I was giving up chickens... well, I didn't mean all the way.

[ElGuapo]

This place is a sausagefest.

[Rimbo]

terribly so

[DennyA]

I'm just still pissed my attempt to derail this into a barbecue thread failed.

[Aszurom]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOUR__Ximp8

[Griddle]

I'm just still pissed my attempt to derail this into a barbecue thread failed.
I dunno about that... yet.
http://www.thijs-spices.com/TS%20Welcome_files/Brisket%20004.png

[Dan Lawrence]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_N2BhEoP4PZE/RXu3ItCXXTI/AAAAAAAAAC0/2lqHwPtiJCU/s400/DBBQ.gif

[Griddle]

http://jalapeno-carls-bbq.com/images/Ribs-2.jpg

[Post-It]

Mmmm... ribs. Nothing like chewing charred flesh straight off the bone!

[RyanMichael]

If it's charred, you're doing it wrong. In fact, if you're chewing ribs, you're also doing it wrong.

[Zylon]

If it's charred, he's grilling, not barbecuing. Both fine choices.

[RyanMichael]

Good point, I often used the terms interchangeably.

[ElGuapo]

I don't think Aszurom is going to find these pictures very humorous.

[Aszurom]

I couldn't give a shit. I'm not grossed out by a rack of ribs. Just the process of making them from hoof to grill.

Big bonus points for the dinosaur-yet-topical effort. Dizzam.

[WarrenM]

http://rlv.zcache.com/dinosaur_vegetarian_t_shirt-p235044309060831335u7by_400.jpg

[shift6]

http://www.freepressrelease.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/veggiesaurus_lex-227x300.jpg

[Griddle]

If it's charred, you're doing it wrong. In fact, if you're chewing ribs, you're also doing it wrong.
That's why the grilling gods created the smoker, charring ribs is an affront to them, all will be punished for their charring.

::EDIT FOR CONTENT::

I made some curry tofu, cauliflower, and eggplant a few months ago. I expected the worse, but amazingly extra firm tofu really does well absorbing flavors and not falling apart. The local Chinese joint has General Tsao's Tofu, I'm debating on it for dinner some time this week, should be interesting.

[ElGuapo]

I couldn't give a shit. I'm not grossed out by a rack of ribs. Just the process of making them from hoof to grill.

Big bonus points for the dinosaur-yet-topical effort. Dizzam.

(that was a joke about the thread title)

[Wallapuctus]

Hard tofu is actually delicious. I hate the soft stuff, mainly because of the texture. It feels like I'm eating boogers.

Usually when we make tofu at home we get the extra firm and pan fry for a long time so almost all the moisture is gone. I like it crisp and chewy.

[nlanza]

Big bonus points for the dinosaur-yet-topical effort. Dizzam.

Dinosaur BBQ (http://www.dinosaurbarbque.com/) is actually pretty damn delicious for NY.

Mmm.

[Griddle]

Hard tofu is actually delicious. I hate the soft stuff, mainly because of the texture. It feels like I'm eating boogers.

Usually when we make tofu at home we get the extra firm and pan fry for a long time so almost all the moisture is gone. I like it crisp and chewy.
Ever tried frying it with onions, garlic, and cumin before adding the other stuff? it's glorious.

[Rimbo]

http://jalapeno-carls-bbq.com/images/Ribs-2.jpg

drooooooooooooooooooooooooooooolll

[Raife]

Somebody needs to photoshop the stealth anti-whaling boat crashing into those ribs.

Somebody who isn't me.

[Griddle]

Somebody needs to photoshop the stealth anti-whaling boat crashing into those ribs.

Somebody who isn't me.
RUN RIBS RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!
http://i50.tinypic.com/2v7wbk0.jpg

...well, there's 3 minutes I'll never get back.

[Raife]

Hooray!

[BobJustBob]

Really don't understand how someone could eat living things every day of the week; I guess that they do explains the trend of obesity in the United States.

Really don't understand how someone can be too stupid to know plants are alive.

[ElGuapo]

Really don't understand how someone can be too stupid to know plants are alive.

I think he meant, you know . . . things that can make "I'm in pain" sounds.

[RyanMichael]

I think he meant, you know . . . things that can make "I'm in pain" sounds.

Spoken like a plant murderer. Haven't you heard the cries of the carrots???

[Griddle]

Spoken like a plant murderer. Haven't you heard the cries of the carrots???
http://thegauntlet.ca/imgcache/250__%7Egauntlet_eg_eg2_20090115_JenGrond-carrot.jpg

[Mightynute]

Spoken like a plant murderer. Haven't you heard the cries of the carrots???


Salads are only for murderers,
coleslaw's a fascist regime.
Don't think that they don't have feelings,
just cause a radish can't scream.

I saw a man eating celery,
so I beat him black and blue.
If he ever touches a sprout again,
I'll bite him clean in two.

I'm a political prisoner,
trapped in a windowless cage.
Cause I stopped the slaughter of turnips
by killing five men in a rage

I told the judge when he sentenced me,
This is my finest hour,
I'd kill those farmers again
just to save one more cauliflower

[Rimbo]

Reminds me of the old Bloom County comic where Binkley tries to get everyone to stop from killing things completely, even to the point of having people dangling from tree branches so that they wouldn't accidentally step on bugs. And then he realizes... with horror... "We're breathing in and slaughtering millions of germs!"

[Aszurom]

There are buddhist monks that not only sweep the ground in front of them with brooms lest they step on a bug and take a life, they also strain their water so they don't drink any little critters they can't see.

As for me, I'm gonna keep stepping on bugs wherever I see 'em.

[Aszurom]

Friend sent me this... and he's not even aware of my new eating habits, so it's double awesome

http://www.nataliedee.com/010710/MW-i-dont-care-what-you-eat-tell-me-about-it-again-and-i-will-eat-YOU.jpg