Is anyone here a vegaterian or vegatarian-symphatizer and how has it benefited you?

I don’t eat dairy either (lactose intolerant) and I have been a vegetarian also for a few years. It is most definitely the best decision I have ever made. Your body will feel so much healthier. Honestly you won’t be saving any animal’s lives by becoming vegetarian. Weather or not you eat meat, they will still kill the same number of animals as they would had you continued eating meat. The decision must be for YOU, it has to be YOUR choice. Human bodies aren’t actually designed to eat meat. We have flat teeth (herbivores) not fangs and sharp meat eating teeth like carnivores. Also our insides are made to digest plants and berries, not meat (sorry about the terribly vague use of the word ‘insides’, Didn’t pay much attention is anatomy). There are plenty of great supplements to aid you in the transition and throughput your life to ensure you get the goodness and nutrition your body needs. If you are thinking of excepting fish or chicken, I would suggest fish rather than chicken. It’s hard these days to find a good, healthy piece of chicken without the fat and flavoring. Fish on the other hand is very very healthy and high in all sorts of nutrients for our bodies. It’s also very versitile- you can work fish into any meal, and every restaurant has a fish option (actually every restraunt has a vege option now too…). But yeah it’s a good transition to think about. Just make sure you don’t substitute meat for chips and cake. You should make sure to eat lots of fruit and veges, beans, berries, and drink lots of water (and tea!).

Thank you, I’m thinking of becoming one because I’m tired of the taste or red meat and it makes me feel a bit ill to my stomach. Do you also eat bread? I don’t and was wondering if cutting out meat, bread and milk is a problem if I do decide to go over.

Well I’m not a veg or vegan, but my bff is. On my birthday, I was gonna bring pretzels into my class, but my bff wouldn’t have one because she said she wasn’t a “Junkitarion”, so that really hurt me. They were just small, Philly pretzels too!

I’m a vegetarian and it just makes me feel good that I’m not eating corpses of dead animals -shiver- [I use that phrase when my friends are eating ham sandwiches. It’s always puts them them off. Not that it’s not okay to eat meat :] ]

It makes me feel healthier too :]

I am. I just have a TINY peice of chicken once in a while

(I know this has nothing to do with it, but I cant resist). Humans are omnivores. We have 8 incisors and 4 canine teeth (= number of molars). Humans were hunter gatherers for a long time before we learned how to grow crops and settle down. Thus the human body is well equipped to deal with meat. By all means, be a vegetarian. But dont twist facts. And Irene, you dont have to eat bread. Just make sure you are getting enough healthy carbs (since wheat is out, that does complicate things a bit).

What besides whole wheat bread would constitute healthy carbs?

Ty: Humans live on a large variety of diets. In some places people live on little else but raw seal meat and whale blubber while in other places they live on tubers, nuts, and berries.

Humans are obviously omnivores but our physiology is much closer to that of a herbivore than a carnivore. This would indicate that mankind for most of its evolutionary history ate mostly plant foods. When food is scarce being able to eat very nutrient dense food like meat is a huge survival benefit but when food is plentiful rich foods become a liability.

Irene Krugar: other healthy carbs would we be brown rice, Quinoa, nearly any kind of bean (though beans have more protein), starchy vegetables like corn or potatoes.

Thank you.

I’ve been a vegetarian for 30 years. Certainly the meat that me and millions of other vegetarians don’t eat reduces demand and leads to farmers slaughter less livestock. The argument that being vegetarian doesn’t make any difference just doesn’t hold water.

I’m lacto-ovo and truthfully I didn’t really feel healthier than I did when I ate meat until I also started to avoid dairy. If you are a vegetarian who just substitutes cheese for meat like I did than there really isn’t any health advantage.

Oh sorry if I got that wrong, but I did read it in a book called ‘Human’ about the human body. I was actually shocked about it too. :/ And Irene: It’s fine if you don’t eat wheat either, just make sure, as I said before, that you don’t replace it with candy and energy drinks (as I have seen other people do…) Berries and fruit are great sources of sugar (try to stay away from canned fruits as they are very fake), and things like rice and noodles will give you carbs- you can mix-it-up with things like veges (capsicum, cabbage, olives, celery.. all fried in a natural oil). Also potatoes are great too- you can slice and fry them, mash them etc. I’ve found that a food you really must eat are beans like chickpeas and lentils. They are just soooooo good for you!! and you can boil them and mash them to make patties for vegetarian burgers. Just add some salt and anything else you want to add (eg: mashed veges like spinach or carrot and corn) and fry them in a frying pan… YUMMM.

Also hummus makes a great easy-snack, you could have hummus and celery sticks or carrot sticks, hummus on a cracker… anything you think of you can just whip some hummus on it. It’s great because you can even make your own hummus easily. just blend up some chickpeas and add whatever you want (avocado for guacamole..) even things like a sliced tomato! Add a bit of curry powder to bring out the flavors.

Funny thing is that beef was never special to me. My uncle raised cattle and gave us all the beef we wanted; we just had to pay to have it butchered; I guess having beef so often it just wasn’t special. I can remember thinking of fish sticks as a treat because otherwise we had steak, pot roast, hamburgers, etc. almost every night. The only way I really liked chicken was fried.

Seafood was the hardest thing for me to give up since it was my favorite. I lost my taste for beef, pork, and chicken pretty quickly but seafood still sounded good for a long time. Over time your taste for meat does subside and you learn to love other foods.

Ironically limiting my dietary choices by becoming a vegetarian lead me to eat a much wider variety of foods. When I was a meat eater I was very much a meat and potatoes kind of guy most of the time. I didn’t like salad, most vegetables, and fruit was ok but I wasn’t used to eating it. When I went vegetarian I discovered a lot of new tastes, textures, and ethnicities of foods. It forced me to get out of my dietary rut.

No such thing as soy milk. But have fun with your diet. I dont eat as much beef as I used to and I feel good. I prefer fish or chicken, but I love a good steak every once in a while. :)

The same for me. We eat red meat every day of the week almost and my father even owned a butchery at one stage. I am just so tired of it and feel a lot better when I don’t eat it. And thank you for the reply.