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Zeusthecat

Is It Wrong To Eat Meat?

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I became a vegetarian when I was about 15 or 16. I remember how it occurred to me quite suddenly that, outside of personal taste and habits, I could only find good reasons not to eat meat. Eventually I lapsed into pescetarianism, where I still reside. I will eat virtually anything except for conventional white and red meats - I don't miss them at all.

 

I remember having a sort of crisis of conscience over the one food group that seemed borderline permissible: molluscs. If oysters, clams, mussels and the like are sustainable, and grown like plants, and have little in the way of manifest consciousness, is it right to consider them animals for the purpose of eating?

 

I wrestled with this problem for a while before I finally gave in and admitted to myself that I enjoy seafood far too much to give it up entirely. I have no particular justification for it: I know industrial-scale fishing brings with it its own set of problems. I've never been happy having to kill a lobster with a knife through the skull, even though they are basically just giant bottom-dwelling sea bugs. I like cephalopods; I avoid eating them, and wish we didn't catch them at all. And the dairy industry is its own thing entirely.

 

Still, I would hope that it is no longer a controversial statement to say that most people, and society in general, would benefit from consuming a bit less meat. One thing I find tiresome is the way in which our culture seems to demand absolute moral commitment: either you're a veggie/vegan, or you're not; and if you are, people expect you to have reasons beyond 'I would prefer not to'. In a way, it would be helpful to eliminate those subcategories altogether. It's good to encourage thinking about food in a way that doesn't necessarily result in becoming a 'tarian' of some sort.

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I stopped eating meat a little while ago. I was one of those kids/teens/young adults who would never eat vegetables and everyone would joke was a "meat-atarian" or whatever. I've been thinking about not eating meat for a long time, but I always thought it would be too difficult for someone like me, so I kept putting it off. Eventually, I started enjoying meat less and less, because I felt like my principles and my actions were totally at odds. So I stopped. And it hasn't been as difficult as I imagined.

 

I don't like being called a vegetarian necessarily, because I don't like being described based on a food group that I often eat but still don't actually like that much. I'd rather be called a "pasta guy" or a "significant rice eater", or I guess, a "non meat-eater", which would make the most sense. Although, I agree that the binary between "meat-eater" and "vegetarian" is silly. I think some people react so strongly to the idea of vegetarianism that it stops them from considering the benefits of simply eating slightly less meat, even if they don't cut it out altogether. We all live with contradictions; everyone just draws their lines at different points. There's a ton of space between "eating all meat" and "not eating any meat" that I think gets lost in the way we talk about these things.

 

On a more practical note, since there seem to be some long-term vegetarians in this thread: one thing I'm having a hard time replacing is deli meat for sandwiches. I've found some vegan salami that I think is OK/fine, but I'm curious what else you guys use to fill your quick sandwiches for lunch?

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Living in the Netherlands makes it easy to buy cheep and awesome cheese. So that's what I use.

 

There's quite a few soy-based sausage analogues in the stores but I haven't really tried them to be honest.

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I sometimes have simple peanut butter and jam sandwiches but more often go whole salad. With sandwiches containing some mix of tomato (or sundried tomato), lettuce, red/white onion, cucumber and bell peppers. Usually with hummus or a mayonaise style thing instead of butter. Neither of those specifically helps for the meat style sandwich though, I don't have a good suggestion on that front if you were looking for a more direct replacement.

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My go to sandwich is avocado and almond spread on lightly toasted bread. 

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If you can get some, avocado on bagels is great. Especially spiced with salt and lime, optionally topped with red onion and tomato.

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Avocado does a lot for a sandwich imo.

Roasted beets also work. Both are a bit slippery though.

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Thanks for the recs everyone! I will definitely have to try avocado, although I'm worried it might be a bit expensive where I am. I think I just need to get comfortable with the idea of using more ingredients, instead of relying on one big, significant filler element that meat sandwiches are based around.

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Here's a list of sandwich ideas I had written down somewhere:

 

Hummus + cucumbers + tomatoes + thin sliced red onion + drizzle of pomengranate molasses
 
Balsamic roasted eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms + tomatoes + basil and arugula
 
Grilled, marinated portobello mushrooms + roasted red peppers + hummus + basil
 
Tempeh bacon + Vegan Russian dressing + Sauerkraut
 
Pesto mixed into a little vegan mayo + tomatoes + olives + roasted eggplant
 
Crispy tempeh bacon + Avocado slices + lettuce + tomato slices
 
Breaded, fried tofu + veganaise mixed with a little relish or capers + generous squeeze lemon
 
Lettuce + Cucumbers + Slivered almond s+ grapes + olives + crumbled tofu + Greek dressing
 
Tons of raw spinach + thin sliced red onions + red pepper hummus
 
Mashed cooked chickpeas + diced onion and carrots + relish + vegan mayo + salt, pepper and paprika
 
Roasted Eggplant + Spinach + tomato chunks in tahini miso dressing (equal parts tahini and miso plus a little warm water and agave nectar)
 
Roasted sweet potato mashed + mushrooms + onions + corn + spinach + hot sauce
 
Mashed black beans + salsa + guac + jalapenos
 
Sliced, roasted beets + avocado slices + sweet mustard + sliced onion
 
Baba Ganoush + roasted red peppers + roasted zucchini + squeeze of lemon
 
Cucumber + tomatoes + sliced onions + lettuce + Italian dressing
 
Falafel + red cabbage slaw + hummus

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I like doing baked tofu for sandwiches. The baking gives a chewier texture I guess? It's a good deli meat replacement. You can also marinade it in various things for a few hours beforehand to blast some flavor in there.

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11 minutes ago, Professor Video Games said:

I like doing baked tofu for sandwiches. The baking gives a chewier texture I guess? It's a good deli meat replacement. You can also marinade it in various things for a few hours beforehand to blast some flavor in there.

Do you have a tofu press? I got one recently and I have really enjoyed what it does to the texture and flavor absorption

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I'm not a vegetarian anymore, but I was for three years in high school. My best friend was a vegetarian (because of her religion) and she dared me that I couldn't do it for a month. I'm stubborn so I had to prove her wrong, and I just got in the habit of it and didn't eat meat for three years. I started eating meat again in college though and I still do. Right now I enjoy my beat steak from lunch box ( bought a few on https://allinpackaging.co.uk/food-packaging/ ). I cooked meat almost every day now and I am not going to become a vegetarian anymore, it's expensive.

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In my experience reducing meat consumption is not significantly more expensive. Were you buying processed foods or cooking it yourself?

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What a sick situation to be in, when it's cheaper to buy a piece of murdered animal than some fucking vegetable.

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15 minutes ago, Roderick said:

What a sick situation to be in, when it's cheaper to buy a piece of murdered animal than some fucking vegetable.

 

Corn-subsidies for animal-feed in the U.S. is something that bothers me because it makes meat cheaper. We are all losing our antibiotics and compassion. 

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5 hours ago, MuntyG said:

nope, but if you are a vegetarian then it's your choice

I might be alone in this, but I think it's a little rude to show up in a thread that's explicitly an ongoing conversation (i.e. this is not a "show off  your latest work" thread or a "post funny pictures" thread or whatever) and just ignore everything so that you can write your own opinion. We've covered this sort of thing already, and if you're not interested in engaging with the conversation, it's not clear what business you have posting in the thread in the first place. If you just want to drop knowledge bombs on the rest of us and who gives a fuck what we've got to say, perhaps you could start a new thread with your pronouncements rather than bumping an old one for no reason.

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Regarding expensive veggies: here in the Netherlands it's not that bad (yet). It's still much cheaper to eat vegetarian, though there is nowadays a host of delicious meat replacement products of high quality in supermarkets. Not particularly cheap, but it makes everything much easier. Honestly, there is a chicked replacement foodstuff that is extremely tasty. It's been a boon to my curries.

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Lately I've been getting into nice cheeses all the while knowing full well that dairy in America is a hellscape for the animals. I'd love it if science delivered some way to make nice cheeses without animals suffering.

 

I also recently found out that part of halal is providing good lives for the animals and what islam considers compassionate slaughter. It's made me consider getting it when I do eat meat.

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23 hours ago, clyde said:

I also recently found out that part of halal is providing good lives for the animals and what islam considers compassionate slaughter. It's made me consider getting it when I do eat meat.

Can you say more about where you heard this? My impression is that the main requirement for halal meat is that the animal be slaughtered by cutting its throat, and because there's no requirement that it be stunned first, many animals die extremely painful deaths. I've never heard of anything about providing good lives for animals.

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To be honest, it was just some Youtube video that seemed like a person with progressive-politics trying to combat a particular strain of islamophobia.

Not the best source of information. I'll look into it more.

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