Any vegans? Anybody try it?

Otto Maddox wrote: I have levels of vegetarianism in my mind. I try not to eat pork, because pigs are pretty much like really fat dogs that taste good. Would you eat your dog if it tasted good? Beef is E36 M3ty meat healthwise, in general. Unless I buy the $9 a pound whole foods stuff, I don't eat it. Not sure about whether cows are too friendly to kill, like pigs. I eat chicken in dishes but rarely by itself. Chickens are stupid. But the chicken industry is nasty. I've seen it firsthand. I eat a good bit of seafood. I sometimes eat eggs. I drink almond milk with vanilla because it tastes a million times better than dairy milk. And I like cheese.

So, given that seafood tastes like absolutely nothing even more than chicken does... what I'm taking is that tastiness is a direct correlation with intelligence.

I'm not sure if this leads to a good conclusion....

I was a vegan for 2 or 3 years. I finally quit because I couldn't keep my weight up - I'm naturally pretty thin and I had lost 15 or so pounds over that time period, 15 pounds that I did NOT have to lose. (6'0" and 130lbs is too small for me.) It would work great for a naturally larger person because they would be able to stay in a healthier weight range. There's absolutely no shortage of protein or any other nutrients in a vegan diet as long as you're not living on ramen and diet soda like some "vegans" I've known. Lots of grains, beans, etc.

You do not need lean mean to get protein, in fact most Americans get too much protein in their diets. I love meat and have managed to get up to the lofty 165 lbs by eating like a pig .. and by eating pig .. but I don't have any illusions that it's somehow necessary to survive. It just isn't. But if I'm not going to be eating constantly throughout the day I need to have a bit of meat in my diet.

The human body wasn't "designed" to do anything, we've adapted to our diet but the actual fact is that we can live just fine without any meat at all. There is no evidence in existence that shows a meat heavy diet, like most of us have (be honest, not idealistic) is in any way actually better than a vegetarian one.

Does weight-lifting the baby all afternoon count as exercise? What about walking her around all night?

I know I need to do more, but it's really hard to find the time. Working full time, home for lunch hour, dealing with 3-month-old baby, and trying to find sanity time. The 944 has needed an oil change for a month. The oil and filter are sitting on my toolbox, and have been for a month. Berkley me.

Dude, a 15 - 20 minute routine every night 5 days a week seems like enough to me!

Knurled wrote: So, given that seafood tastes like absolutely nothing even more than chicken does... what I'm taking is that tastiness is a direct correlation with intelligence.

I'm going to have to disagree with you. Fresh caught fish (you know, the kind that are still flopping a minute before they hit the pan) is some of the best tasting stuff in the world, at least to me.

If you're not water side, the key is to gut and gill the fish and get it on ice as quickly as possible without having it actually touch the ice or ride around in the melt water. The best way to do this is to gut/gill and then put into a big baggie and put the fish on top of the ice.

For certain fish (king mackerel, for example) as soon as you catch one, ice it and head home. You're done for the day =)

I heard somewhere (I think it was Dirty Jobs) that mussels are the cheapest form of protein to farm, period. They also taste pretty good.

Fresh mussels (as in, thrown in the pot still alive) are awesome.

I think my Karma just shuddered. Heh.

Osterkraut wrote:

mtn wrote:

Klayfish wrote: A lot of people do it for political reasons, "kindness to animals" reasons, or a host of other things. And that's fine. But the scientific reality of it is the human body was designed to run most efficiently on a good balance of carbs, protein and fats. The best source of protein? Lean meat. You can find workarounds, but the body functions best using lean meat.

Have you talked to an RD (registered Dietitian) lately? Because this is largely incorrect. Besides that, the meat that you get nowadays--even lean meat--isn't nearly as nutritious as it should be.

You find me a dietitian that says lean meats aren't the best source of protein, and I'll show you an agenda-pushing quack. Especially with the rise in popularity of grass-feed meats. What are your better sources of protein? Legumes? Beans? Nuts?

Okay, I guess I misspoke a little. It is true that lean meat (poultry and fish specifically) are the best sources for protein if you are only looking at protein. My point was that if you are eating a complete and healthy diet, you should be able to get more than enough protein from other sources that are already part of your diet.
These sources would be legumes and dairy products, followed by nuts and grains, then certain vegetables. And none of these are hard and fast rules--for example, Quinoa is something of a superfood-is a grain that is one of the highest protein contents of anything, including meat, and also is a complete protein (better than the protein in meat).

Of course, if you are body building or in a physically rigorous job/activity, you probably do need more.

Living a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle is obviously second tier and requires work-arounds to get what we really need.

I eat quinoa like crazy, that stuff is actually good! Douse it with some BBQ sauce and red beans. Way better than rice to me.

Me too! I mix it half and half with red rice and some chopped up sweet potato, a few cups of water and nuke it at 25 minutes.

I don't even know what that stuff is.... sounds scary.

UGH UGH MOAR BEEFZ UGH UGH

In reply to 92CelicaHalfTrac:

Try living a little. It's a grain. You know like that stuff they make booze out of (wheat, barley). Cook it and eat it like rice, except it actually has taste and texture.

Javelin wrote: In reply to 92CelicaHalfTrac: Try living a little. It's a grain. You know like that stuff they make booze out of (wheat, barley). Cook it and eat it like rice, except it actually has taste and texture.

You haven't lived until you've eaten quinoa!!!!

Sounds interesting, i'll give it a shot!

Lesley wrote: Me too! I mix it half and half with red rice and some chopped up sweet potato, a few cups of water and nuke it at 25 minutes.

I'm skeptical

mtn wrote:

Osterkraut wrote:

mtn wrote:

Klayfish wrote: A lot of people do it for political reasons, "kindness to animals" reasons, or a host of other things. And that's fine. But the scientific reality of it is the human body was designed to run most efficiently on a good balance of carbs, protein and fats. The best source of protein? Lean meat. You can find workarounds, but the body functions best using lean meat.

Have you talked to an RD (registered Dietitian) lately? Because this is largely incorrect. Besides that, the meat that you get nowadays--even lean meat--isn't nearly as nutritious as it should be.

You find me a dietitian that says lean meats aren't the best source of protein, and I'll show you an agenda-pushing quack. Especially with the rise in popularity of grass-feed meats. What are your better sources of protein? Legumes? Beans? Nuts?

Okay, I guess I misspoke a little. It is true that lean meat (poultry and fish specifically) are the best sources for protein if you are only looking at protein. My point was that if you are eating a complete and healthy diet, you should be able to get more than enough protein from other sources that are already part of your diet. These sources would be legumes and dairy products, followed by nuts and grains, then certain vegetables. And none of these are hard and fast rules--for example, Quinoa is something of a superfood-is a grain that is one of the highest protein contents of anything, including meat, and also is a complete protein (better than the protein in meat). Of course, if you are body building or in a physically rigorous job/activity, you probably do need more.

Quinoa (once I figured out how to pronounce it), is great, and it's does have a very high protein content for a non-meat food. However, at roughly 8g of protein in ~180g, it pales to the simple chicken breast, which has roughly 40g of protein in roughly the same weight. Similar weight of salmon has over 60g of protein, steak 20g, and so forth.

Even the ideology that meats can't provide a nutritional profile that non-meats can is flawed, salmon for example provides an excellent spread of protein, amino acids, v&ms, mono-saturated fats, and Omega-3s and 6's that no vegetable I've encountered can hope to match.

There is a reason vegans are recommended to supplement B12, and encouraged to supplement calcium, iron, D (though even a well-rounded omnivorous diet needs extra), and omega fatty acids (how do vegans get this, flax seed?)

B12 is the real slayer of "you don't need meat to have a well rounded diet." Of course, as with everything dietetic, there have been counter studies and anecdotes that disagree. For example, I tend to align myself with the thinking that the food pyramid and much research on human nutrition (see the "people eat too much/enough protein already" argument) is fueled by the massive grain lobby.

For me, personally, it would be very difficult to get the proteins and fats I need to function via vegan means, without soy products, which, to put it bluntly, give you bitch tits.

Osterkraut wrote: Of course, as with everything dietetic, there have been counter studies and anecdotes that disagree. For example, I tend to align myself with the thinking that the food pyramid and much research on human nutrition (see the "people eat too much/enough protein already" argument) is fueled by the massive grain lobby.

It is. (Source: director of a dietetics program at my university)

Oh, and I'm cooking up some chorizo right now... Yeah, no chance I'm ever going veg or vegan.

In reply to 92CelicaHalfTrac:

I just meant try new stuff, even if it's a new animal (buffalo is tasty, alligator is crap). I didn't know what quinoa was until I met Mrs. Jav. Other new stuff I've tried that turned out to be good includes couscous, hummus, kale, and kiwi.

In reply to mtn:

Funny, the only veg meat substitute that I've ever found to be good (and taste like the real thing) has been the chorizo and kielbasa. Oh, and the chicken.

Try substituting quinoa for rice or couscous, it makes a great salad or tabouleh.

It's not very popular here, but buckwheat makes a good side dish instead of potatoes or rice.

How do you prepare it? I tried it once and thought it was horrible.

mtn wrote:

Osterkraut wrote: Of course, as with everything dietetic, there have been counter studies and anecdotes that disagree. For example, I tend to align myself with the thinking that the food pyramid and much research on human nutrition (see the "people eat too much/enough protein already" argument) is fueled by the massive grain lobby.

It is. (Source: director of a dietetics program at my university)

Glad to know I'm not TOTALLY crazy.

@Osterkraut, etc.:

If you guys wanna eat all the meat go right ahead. Don't come in here and try to argue us that our vegetarian diets are somehow unnatural or wrong though. I don't see why non-vegetarians constantly have to get so worked up about this... I've never taken a supplement in my life other than vitamin D because I live in northern Germany where there's like 16 minutes of sunlight a day in the winter, and meat doesn't provide that anyway. That soy = estrogen = man-tits thing has been discredited for like 20 years now.

...and don't even start with the "grain lobby." You guys live in the U.S. where the cattle & dairy lobby own like half the politicians. I'm sure there is a grain lobby, but they're pretty much the nervous skinny dude sitting between the two giant mobsters in the back of a limousine. Guess who is telling the driver where to go?

Not to bring up the "paleo food" thing again, but gorillas eat what is considered a high protein diet (20-30%) in the animal kingdom - and they are almost universally vegetarian. It all comes from plant sources, and obviously they don't have the tailor-bred foods that we do. Their nutritional requirements are very similar to ours, their diet is not.

They are also the largest & most powerful of all the great apes, including us. They can kick our scrawny butts.