Any vegetarian/vegans here?

Where I live, I do know of a few gay men who are vegan / vegetarians, out of about 330 acquaintances I've connected with on social media.

And then, of course, there is that lesbian stereotype about vegetarianism! (Of which there are a few jokes about in the movie "Pride"...)

Among gay men, I don't know if it's more popular than in the rest of mainstream society. Being 100% vegan is a big commitment.

I'm kind of surprised that in a big city (metro area of >700K population) you'd get that kind of a response. Maybe it's not fashionable in your area. Where I live, veganism/vegetarianism is somewhat popular, particularly for environmentalist reasons (sustainability of feeding a growing human population with plants, rather than throwing away 90% of the energy having animals turn plant calories into meat).

In the USA, a chain of vegan restaurants, Native Foods Café, is slowly dotting the landscape in progressive cities. I like going there even though I'm personally unlikely to adopt a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle.

 

I know a lot of vegetarians and vegans. Not all of them are part of the LGBT community though. I've tried going veggie a bunch of times. Every attempt ended in less than a day, usually after hearing something like "do you want BBQ *insert type of meat here* for dinner?" I am weak :lol: But I respect people for going veggie or vegan and have never found it ridiculous at all.

 

Here is a link to Native Foods' Web site: https://www.nativefoods.com/

This chain has sprouted up in the last few years. They have three locations in the area where I live (a metropolis of about 2.5 million). Before then, it was a similar situation - a few small vegetarian / vegan restaurants that while in central neighborhoods, were a bit off the beaten path and hard to find. I'll have to try some of these smaller / independent places the next time I want a guilt-free dinner.

 

I'm not vegetarian but I do try to avoid eating factory farmed meat. That means eating vegetarian or vegan when at restaurants, and buying my meat from a local farm for home.

 

I like my meat lol
But I could honestly not give up my diet of a combination of everything. I mean I like vegetarian and vegan dishes, but I'm not gonna worry if I eat a chicken caesar salad, a pizza, soup, or even bacon. Just as long as it's in moderation. But yea my aunt is on a gluten free diet.

 

And here's an article from the IEEE Spectrum. Yes, there are engineers and scientists eager to improve plant-based meat substitutes, so the massive-scale slaughter of animals for food can be reduced or eliminated.

Link: The Better Meat Substitute - IEEE Spectrum

One company, Beyond Meat, is developing extrusion processes to mimic the flavor and texture of meat. They thought about the issue differently - that we as humans are using animals as "machines" to convert plants to protein (muscle). But imagine if you could build a machine that imitates those biological processes, so an animal doesn't have to die for you to have a nutritious dinner with complete protein?

I hope they succeed. A lot of non-vegetarians (myself included) appreciate the environmental / sustainability reasons to go veggie, but find it very difficult to do in practice. Attacking this problem from another angle might get more of us on plant-based food without sacrificing our nutrition or enjoyment of food!

 

I have been thinking of becoming a vegetarian or even go as far as to becoming a vegan. I've started eating more and more vegetarian food, and more often try to avoid meat when I would usually eat it.

It truly disgusts me how we keep animals in tiny enclosures treating them like nothing but sacks of meat, food to fulfill the needs of us greedy humans. All the people sitting around eating meat at fast food restaurants, with no thought of where it came from, how the animals were treated, just nothing. Ohh, and the double standard! How we can sit around watching animals get killed and sliced open, but as soon as we see a dead human everyone becomes sentimental. People will actually fucking puke when they see a dead human, but a 100 dead pigs hanging from hooks in the ceiling sliced open, not even a flinch. I guess we don't have a problem with it as long as we don't have to do the killing.

It just disgusts me that people can be so incredibly blind. I wish people would realize how fucked up the meat industry is. I wish they could imagine the machinery, the ruthless killing; but imagine it happening to humans instead of animals. Slaughtered and chopped to pieces, one after another. Kinda sick right? Well that's the reality of it.

I can eat meat without too much guilt as long as the animal had a good life. I will eat "game meat" because those animals had lives in the free, in their natural habitat. They weren't born in a cold metal room only to be killed, ground and crushed into burgers without spending a second of their lives in the free where they should be. It's so fucking sick I have a hard time wrapping my mind around how cruel we humans can be.

 

It is really popular right now to lose weight with low carb, but I went to Costa Rica and ate local cuisine - a lot of rice, bread, beans and veggies and not a lot of meat (or sugar, either). I lost 10 lb. in the week I was there, even though I ate plenty. Forced me to reconsider the best way to lose weight and eat healthy.

 

I will without a doubt watch that documentary. I'm a bit torn though since I've started going to the gym and going "full vegetarian/vegan" will make it so much harder to get the protein I need. I've seen some really good blogs on vegetarian/vegan bodybuilders though that I'll have to start reading more regularly to get some great tips

 

Eggs are great protein and at least here where I live in Michigan, it's reasonably easy to find people who sell eggs from hens that are kept in humane conditions. I used to keep hens myself. They really are enjoyable to have around.

The eggs cost more than grocery store eggs - I pay $3 a dozen, but that's really still pretty cheap.

 

My girlfriend is a vegetarian, I'm not, I like vegetarian food, I just kind of like all food though. I'll try anything and I'll always eat what's put in front of me! I used to be picky as hell but I'm not at all anymore... I've given serious thought to going vegetarian but I haven't figured it out fully yet... I like to cook you see and I'm still trying to find good recipies that I can make on the fly and enjoy!

 

I like not being vegetarian, as I dislike most vegetables and love seafood.

The reaction you got reminds me of those vegetarians get in Japan. Vegetarianism isn't a thing there, some people don't even know what it means, and everyone thinks it's a thing only foreigners do.