A question for vegetarians

Most people I know eat free range eggs these days, vegetarian or not. This is proven as they're one of the food products that demand is rising rapidly for. Also, if your teenager is eating battery farmed eggs, then it's up to you not to buy them. Unless you get your teenager to do your food shopping?
 
A Take her out to the country and show her some lambs gambolling in the countryside and ask her how cruel that is.
Then take her down the slaughterhouse and show her the bloody awful sights there. ;)
 
Then take her down the slaughterhouse and show her the bloody awful sights there. ;)

Certainly, I'm a great believer in people knowing where their food comes from and how it gets onto the plate. People who eat meat should be aware that the shrink-wrapped pork chops were once living breathing pigs and aren't miraculously produced from the supermarket store room by some 'straight from Star Trek' food replicator. Also be aware that try as you can it's almost impossible to get away from eating factory farmed eggs, in one form or another,unless you're a very well informed vegan. What frustrates me about this kind of debate is the lack of differentiation between, as overkill puts it, bloody, and cruel. You can't prepare lamb chops without spilling blood, but so long as the animal is killed quickly and humanely (ie within EU guidelines) its not cruel. Bloody certainly. Unpleasant if you're not used to it or squeamish, messy without a doubt, smelly-oh yes! but dead is dead and you can't be cruel to a dead animal.
 
Certainly, I'm a great believer in people knowing where their food comes from and how it gets onto the plate. People who eat meat should be aware that the shrink-wrapped pork chops were once living breathing pigs and aren't miraculously produced from the supermarket store room by some 'straight from Star Trek' food replicator.

I was thinking about that the other day and how you don't really see dead animals any more until they're all packaged up. My mum used to work at the local butchers around 25 years ago and I used to go in and see all sorts of things up on the hooks but now that the supermarkets are where most people get their meat from all of that seems to have become unpallatable and it's all hidden away.
 
Certainly, I'm a great believer in people knowing where their food comes from and how it gets onto the plate. People who eat meat should be aware that the shrink-wrapped pork chops were once living breathing pigs and aren't miraculously produced from the supermarket store room by some 'straight from Star Trek' food replicator. Also be aware that try as you can it's almost impossible to get away from eating factory farmed eggs, in one form or another,unless you're a very well informed vegan. What frustrates me about this kind of debate is the lack of differentiation between, as overkill puts it, bloody, and cruel. You can't prepare lamb chops without spilling blood, but so long as the animal is killed quickly and humanely (ie within EU guidelines) its not cruel. Bloody certainly. Unpleasant if you're not used to it or squeamish, messy without a doubt, smelly-oh yes! but dead is dead and you can't be cruel to a dead animal.
This is another debate within itself. A depressing number of butchers and slaughterhouses gets prosecuted due to gross infringement of EU regs every year (let's face it, due to the risks involved even one is bad enough!) and lesser infringements never get caught up with due to lack of manpower at DEFRA.

Nevertheless, UK slaughterhouses and Butchers have a far better record than many on the continent and elsewhere, yet we are happy to eat their produce without really knowing where it comes from, our how it was kept, killed or stored. For example, an animal that's been abused should not be used for meat (the damaged tissue is bad for us!) yet they sneak said animals in after the inspections are finished (UK) or just through dubious inspection procedures elsewhere.

Sometimes I'm glad we still have some of our 'primitive' body functions otherwise the incidents of food poisoning would be even higher than they are!:eek:
 
Take her out to the country and show her some lambs gambolling in the countryside and ask her how cruel that is.

No-one is saying that's cruel. The cruel bit is when the animal gets its throat slit (usually whilst hanging upside down if it's a chicken), a bolt through its head (cow) or it gets electrocuted.

Someone mentioned shoes up-thread. I bought some vegetarian shoes for work from here a while ago. So far I have no complaints at all. They are pretty hard-wearing (I walk a lot during the day), comfortable and easy to clean. I bought a belt from the same place.

I don't really like discussing my vegetarianism. Many meat eaters just don't seem to get vegetarianism or why a person would want to give up meat. They also tend to stereotype vegetarians in the worst possible way. If other people want to eat meat, that's their decision, and as long as they respect my decision not to do the same thing, then so be it.
 
maybe you coud introduce her to vegetarian haggis:D
Thinking about it the options for a veggie north of the border cant be all that gr8. Thistle soup ?

on a serious note the moral question surely must be how animals are reared and killed not whether we should eat them or not.We are meant to be omnivorous after all but do have some responsabilities. The real barbarity is factory farming
 
aye, my ex stuffed tofu down like there was no tomorrow....wasnt a vegetarian as such, she just didnt like meat except fish.....once in a blue moon she might have lamb....

if the eating vegetables is a problem, the stir fry (not fryup!..lol) is the best solution....fun bright colour vegetables......mixed peppers, beanshoots, sugar snap peas (they rock, like fat mange tout but not as stringy), shrooms, egg noodles, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil (yummy stuff!), egg......takes 5 minutes to prepare, 5 minutes to cook.......bingo....also one wok to cook it!
lots of other veg you can add too, i'm just a little disorientated atm with a whopping headache so not sure what else i normally put in..lol
oh yeah, finely shredded cabbage is good, the white cabbage or red cabbage, not the normal green stuff....also shallots are brilliant instead of onion, slightly sweeter :)

anyway, if you get her a proper wok (asda, sainburys wherever, they do good decent size deep woks that are non-stick now quite cheap, just make sure the handle feels solid), a nice simple shaped wooden spatula (that way it can be left in the wok without burning and melting over the food like plastic ones..lol) and show her how to do it, i bet she'll end up cooking all her own food most days in it.....heh.......

quick guide...

heat toasted sesame oil in wok at full temperature till the oil runs very quick (best to prepare veg first as once it gets full temp it will smoke the oil and ruin the non-stick coating if nothing else is put in..lol)

then add extra watery veg like onion/shallots and beansprouts...

cook for a minute or so, constantly moving the food around, dont let it sit still for more than a few seconds

add sugar snap peas or other similar hard coated veg (ie mange tout, minicorn cobs), cook for another minute or so

then add the rest of the veg (ie peppers, cabbage etc) and cook for around 2 minutes

then add the egg noodles and a few hefty splashed of soy sauce....keep moving or noodles will burn, cook for 1 minute like this....

then make a hole in the centre of the mix around 3in diameter and inch deep or so.....add 1 (or if cooking a big mix for a couple of people) or 2 eggs, pre-mixed up, not whisked like for omelette, just use a fork to mix the yolk and white, in to the hold, let the whole thing sit for about 20 seconds, then twist the spatula in the egg mix but dont disturb the noodle/veg mix, do this a few times like scrambling an egg almost for around 30 seconds...

then just mix the whole lot up, dont worry if the egg wasnt cooked through, you need to move the noodles or the ones touching the wok will burn, keep mixing it around for a good minute until it looks like the egg will have been cooked....

and bingo, you get a good, solid, healthy meal with protien etc.....easy to cook, fun to cook tbh.....and you can vary it in lots of ways by adding flavours or removing them....just pick up lots of unusual bottles and spices etc :)

should we not have a recipe forum/thread?
 
Someone mentioned shoes up-thread. I bought some vegetarian shoes for work from here a while ago. So far I have no complaints at all. They are pretty hard-wearing (I walk a lot during the day), comfortable and easy to clean. I bought a belt from the same place.

Nice one. Use the site myself.

I think the "Alpha Boot" are the must have shoes at the moment for those that are enlightened and stylish.

Total vegan myself and desperately trying to resist all the contradictory discourses in this thread.
 
I don't really like discussing my vegetarianism. Many meat eaters just don't seem to get vegetarianism or why a person would want to give up meat. They also tend to stereotype vegetarians in the worst possible way. If other people want to eat meat, that's their decision, and as long as they respect my decision not to do the same thing, then so be it.
Exactly. I love the stereotype that all 'vegetarians try and force their views on us' by the meat eating 'lobby'. Who and when? :confused: I'm not a vegetarian, I'm married to one, I know plenty, yet none have ever 'come on to me' about it. If anything I hear more patronising coming from the meat eaters.
 
Unfortunately some veggies tend to be rather anal : "I dont eat my friends" stormed one numpty as she stormed out of a restaurant leaving her firends aghast. Another replaced the cooker in the house she moved into because meat most likely had been cooked in it.:confused:
we have a couple of friends whoa are veggies but they never try to foist it on anyone esle. Its a personal thing. Even their 3 kids are meat eaters.
 
i eat meat....i eat veg.....sometimes just one, sometimes the other, sometimes both....in varying proportions...heh

i couldnt care less if someone doesnt want to eat meat.....used to make a 'chic' talking point in a conversation, nowadays it just leads to arguements...lol

i prefer a veggie to let me know if i am likely to be cooking a dinner, then i'll happily cook something that they can eat.....as i showed above, dont need meat to enjoy food :)
however i prefer them not to give me pamphlets on how i can become one myself and show me pictures of things being butchered to try and turn me off....sorry but you should see the kind of films i watch, it aint gonna work...i happily munched my way through a rather messy looking curry watching Ichi The Killer (live action version).....i'm sure anyone who reads this will realise what i mean...lol....
Dont mind if veggies want to put up leaflets/posters or that sort of thing tho.....dont mind victimless propoganda (example being adverts for a charity on TV, the opposite, where there is a victim is when someone knocks on your door shaking a tin in your face, dont like that....not so bothered by them rattling tins in shopping centres, i can walk past, its public place, but my own house is my own house, dont want to be disturbed ta....)

edit: just thought i'd add something so no one misreads what i've said and think that i think all veggies are on a crusade against the dark hordes of meat-eatery.......i dont! i know various veggies, whether for animal cruelty reasons, dietery reasons, medical reasons, etc, most of the grown up ones tend not to say anything (other than remind me if they are coming over for dinner so i can cater for them), the younger ones are a bit of a split, some like to talk about nothing else, others are very personal about it and are more like most of the older ones........any that do go on a crusade, most of the time i just sit and listen and nod my head if they are younger....nothing worse than quashing a young persons ideals, if they are older then i'll usually entertain some lighthearted debate on it, but soon as i get the feeling they are going to go a little overboard in defending it i'lll change subjects.....
 
should we not have a recipe forum/thread?

personally i think a cooking forum would be rather nice....heh....however to sneak it past stuart (da boss) we might need to make it a 'Kitchen LCD Panel Forum (& recipies)'.....just to keep it a little AV related :D

mind you, there is only so many versions of chili con carne, curry and pasta sauce that can be done before its obvious they only vary by the odd few pinches of something....lol

not that i'm stereotyping (pun intendeD) AV users in to a favourite category of food or anything....heh
 
Hailing from South-Africa where we have meat for breakfast lunch and dinner I find vegetarians very strange creatures. One of my wife's friends is a vegatarian yet she is allergic to eggs, mushrooms and wheat. With her though it's not that she cares about the animals they are there to be eaten anyway but she doesn't like the taste of it. I just think she should have never been born ;)
 
I'm with Jeremy Clarkson - it's an animal's duty to be on my plate in time for dinner.:D
Obviously i would prefer it not to suffer on its way there, but mainly because the meat invariably tates better if this is the case.......:devil:

By the way, in all this cruelty lark, have we mentioned halal meat yet? It always amazes me that the animals rights nutters hardly ever murmur about this.

And a final thought - it's well known that plants release certain hormones in times of stress, so how do we know that pulling a carrot out of the ground isn't causing it untold agony?
 
I was thinking about that the other day and how you don't really see dead animals any more until they're all packaged up. My mum used to work at the local butchers around 25 years ago and I used to go in and see all sorts of things up on the hooks but now that the supermarkets are where most people get their meat from all of that seems to have become unpallatable and it's all hidden away.

A short walk through China Town in London will fix that. :D
 
I'm with Jeremy Clarkson - it's an animal's duty to be on my plate in time for dinner.:D
Obviously i would prefer it not to suffer on its way there, but mainly because the meat invariably tates better if this is the case.......:devil:

By the way, in all this cruelty lark, have we mentioned halal meat yet? It always amazes me that the animals rights nutters hardly ever murmur about this.

And a final thought - it's well known that plants release certain hormones in times of stress, so how do we know that pulling a carrot out of the ground isn't causing it untold agony?
A great post. I will be using as a recruitment poster for vegetarianism. ;)

On Halal meat, several butchers and slaughterhouses that sell Halal have in fact been shut as a result of evidence supplied by animal rights activists. So, they have done a bit more than 'murmur'.

On the last one, that's yet another 'internet' myth. ;)
 
A short walk through China Town in London will fix that. :D

Not really sure I could justify a trip to London just for a walk down meat memory lane:)
 
I'm with Jeremy Clarkson - it's an animal's duty to be on my plate in time for dinner.:D
Obviously i would prefer it not to suffer on its way there, but mainly because the meat invariably tates better if this is the case.......:devil:

By the way, in all this cruelty lark, have we mentioned halal meat yet? It always amazes me that the animals rights nutters hardly ever murmur about this.

And a final thought - it's well known that plants release certain hormones in times of stress, so how do we know that pulling a carrot out of the ground isn't causing it untold agony?

I'm a Vegan and quite comfortable about the fact that people have every right to eat meat if they so choose.
I find it frustrating though when the opportunity for inteligent conversation descends into stereotypical meanderings.
Mod Edit: Line removed.
If you want to present your case, maybe I'd choose someone other than Clarkson to quote.:smashin:
 
Exactly. I love the stereotype that all 'vegetarians try and force their views on us' by the meat eating 'lobby'. Who and when? :confused:

I knew a couple of them in University (in the same way you generally only meet communists and anarchists at university as well) but no adult I have met has expounded such views. I live with my vegitarian girlfriend, her twin is vegitarian as is their best friend. Captain slaugherhouse here is allowed to eat what he wishes (except kippers) without interferance. I like variety in my diet and for me maximum variety means getting all of those food groups in there.
Most people irrespective of diet don't talk about it. As with anything though, a couple of vocal lunatics from any side of the divide can change the perception of this. Over to PETA...........
 

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