being veggie the best for the environment? Or for our bodies

[mommasturn]

Does anyone have a positive experience trying to go veggie? And can you have milk,cheese and eggs and still be veggie?


My teenage daughter recently gave being veggie a try, it is'nt going to well. She is constantly starving and craving the worst stuff.
I bought her veggie protien and salad stuff and tried to limit everyone else's meat consumption around her. But she just needs protien.
I tried to eat veggie with her for a weekend when her dad was out of town, I felt awful. I was not able to feel satisfied and kept eating breads and snacks. We made salad for dinner and I just crashed at about 9:00 pm. I made an egg with cheese and after about 20 minutes my headache went away.

Is it like smoking and trying to go cold turkey? I can appreciate the sympathy for animals. I have a great respect for nature and how the circle of life works (when not interupted by constant expand of civilization).

Not only are we spending new money on stuff that no one likes to eat. (wasting growing resourses) The mood swings and weight gain from constantly trying to satisfy what our bodies need is not having a positive effect in our household either.

I recently read that a mostly veggie diet with small portions of chicken/eggs is better for the environment due to the need for optimal soil and constant farming involved in sustaining the all veggie diet. All veggie diets are supposed to be better than diets heavy in red meat though. Cows eating up stuff and then the processing and shipping. Chickens are supposed to be more earth friendly (just pick the free range that get to run around and eat as they want. not the force fed antibiotic ones)

I was raised on a farm and the guys always hunted (it is better for the deer popultaion to be thinned out each year otherwise many of them starve to death from lack of food). We never felt bad about eating our meals because we put the work into obtaining the nourishment and only took what we needed. It is processed meat that is big business that I boycott. When I do buy meats I try to choose the most healthy alternatives that are raised and processed most naturally. The cheapest stuff on the shelves at the local market is something I try to avoid.

I for one accept that everyone has different needs and ideas. But as for me...veggie just doesn't work. So once in while I'll have a burger or share a steak with someone. But I never eat meat to excess and like anything in life, moderation is the key.

If anyone has helpful ideas I do wish to support my daughter even if I can't join the cause personally.

[Crisstti]

I think that you need, first, to tell what is the vegetarian diet that you ate and said it didn't work, and the diet your daughter is having.

There can be a diet of french fries and coke. There can be a diet of only salads. Etc.

I don't see why you would have felt ill and had headaches... unless your vegetarian diet wasn't well balanced at all.
As for the protein, there's at least as much protein in vegetable as there is in meat, so that just couldn't posibly be the reason. Unless, like I said, your diet and your daughter's are really unbalanced...

Vegetarians can eat eggs and dairy products. They're called lacto-ovo vegetarians. But if they eat chicken, they are NOT vegetarians.


Vegetarians who don't eat eggs nor dairy products, are called vegan.

Some people are "raw-foodists" and it mainly uncooked food (vegetarian). That is suppoused to be the best choice for your health, but I recognize I find it a little hard. Especially considering I live in Chile, and here we don't have any health food stores. Even though I haven't actually tried.

As for organic meat, I don't think it's ethically much better... after all, those animals were also killed.

Anyway, if you tell me more or less what is the vegetarian diet, I can tell you more. Any vegetarian diet should contain a certain amount of nuts.

By the way, you shouldn't give up just because once it didn't work My sister had tried a some years ago to go vegetarian as a New Year commitment, and she couldn't for long... but last New Year she tried again, and it really seems to be working now.

[Scott Dossett]

Not trying to be a smart arse here but I'm a Carnivore...mainly because that's how I was raised but also because I also feel weak without meat...especially red meat.

I don't like the idea of how we actually get our meat because I love most animals (hate snakes) and raising them to eat is just bad to think about...I could never work in a slaughterhouse (slaughterhouse doesn't sound good either) and I am not a hunter because I don't like the idea of killing...I do my hunting in the grocery stores where the meat is already processed.

So, I don't like the killing of animals but I'll eat the ones that have been killed. Damn, I'm a hypocrit when it comes to this subject.

p.s. I love veggies...just not exclusively.

p.s.s. Filet Mignon...medium rare

[mommasturn]

okay so i have been gone for quite a while. This is maybe my first half hour of FREE time in months.

Anyway, my daughter still tries to make a conscious effort when eating, but we are definetly not going total veggie. SOrry to those who disagree, but we just need to eat meat sometimes. We do have much smaller portions and load up on veggies as much as possible.

I was raised on a farm in a part of the country where hunting is neccesary to keep population under control so the idea of an animal beingused for meat is not a big problem for me. What is a problem is how corporate farmers have been massproducing animals only for slaughter. If you raise an animal for food and do the work everyday, when it is time to "harvest" that is a totally different thing than picking up a plastic wrapped side of something to grill later.

Of course I disapprove of slaughter houses and mistreatment of animals.

Perhaps when I am older and kids are moved out I may try a bit harder to give up meats, but right now with such a crappy economy and food prices so high, I will gladly accept some venison from my 92 year old grandpa this winter. (Along with some sweet potatoes and squash from his garden.) It will make a fine chili.

I admire those who can stick to their ideals, but right now surviving life with hungry teenagers is all I can concentrate on. If they want a turkey sandwich, I will happily give them that, but not so much with the fast food burgers.