Is it worth going vegetarian rather than vegan?

[Mississippilessly]

I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with eating meat. I absolutely love it but I am quite sensitive to animal welfare - particularly since having a baby.
At the moment I will only eat free range etc but I'm aware that it isnt enough.
However from my (limited) understanding the dairy industry seems as bad. So is going vegetarian just either hypocritical or a waste of time?
Not being goady at all, I'm genuinely wondering what i should do.

Veggie here and yes it is easier than vegan in terms of what you can eat - so less restrictive. I go for free range eggs and milk for us and DCs..less need for B vitamins also. Find it quite easy, we do eat quorn sometimes in place of mince / chicken.

You can go vegetarian and only eat organic dairy products. Animals are treated and fed better. The products such as cheese and milk also taste a lot better. Going Vegetarian is a lot easier and less restrictive especially when feeding children.

Thanks. As much as I would ljbe to say 'I'm going vegan' I know that brie would break me.

As long as that doesn't mean an increase of dairy and eggs then yes it's worth it.

Im of the opinion that more good would come of lots of people eats significantly less meat and dairy than a few people going vegan.

The problem is I would give DS mear - no way will DH go vegetarian.

Hm. this needs some thought but i'm definitely closer to doing it than I have been before

We tend to buy Yeo Valley milk, butter and local organic eggs. It's not that much more expensive either. It's free range chicken which is.

Yep you get to eat cheese

You should do what you are comfortable with and what suits your life. I stopped eating meat when I was 18 for animal welfare. I then gave up eating fish the following year as it felt hypocritical. I have been vegetarian now for over 35 years. But I still wear leather shoes, own leather handbags, and dont quibble about parmesan not being fully veggie. (Obviously in the last few years it has been more possible to buy veggie equivalents.) I mind restaurants not knowing that fish is not vegetarian, but I will not put up with militant vegans being judgy to me. I am very aware that in the West we have a lot of privilege being able to choose what we eat, so again I dont judge other cultures that deal with food differently.

I have given the in laws quorn mince in a pie and they couldn't tell the difference.

I’m a dairy free vegetarian (I eat eggs and honey), I have never eaten meat and I haven’t consumed dairy for about twelve years. I really dislike the dairy industry, that’s why I gave it up.

You could just reduce consumption, you could have one meat/fish meal a week and change some diary products, I find the only decent non-dairy milk is oat, but dairy free yoghurts are quite good.

Yes making sure I didnt eat more dairy would definitely be something to watch for.

Or just go veggy but be more relaxed about eggs and dairy. So eat them when you go out or to a friends but find a dairy mill alternative that you like for home with cereal. Almond milk tastes great in cereal there are lots of decent icecream alternatives

There are no good brie alternatives sadly

Actually yes dairy free yoghurt is good. And the little choc puddings

SimonJT yes I suppose thats a possibility. I went dairy free for a while because DS had a suspected intolerance. I loved Oatly Barista and Om Bar chocolate (though at 3 quid a bar I'd have to seriously ration myself!)

If going vegetarian is more practical for you, go vegetarian. If serving meat free meals to your DH/DD a few times a week would work too, do that. But better to reduce meat one way or another than not try because the "ideal" seems unattainable.

I really think that every little helps. Some meat free days is better than no meat free days, mostly vegetarian is better than not vegetarian, nearly vegan better than eating animal products frequently. Painting things as black and white doesn’t help.

Every little bit helps. Just do what you feel comfortable with and don’t get caught up in all the recent bullying activism that we keep seeing. Half of that lot will being chewing on a burger in a couple of years and onto their next cause. 🙄

Just make sure you use the right terms. Little fucks me off, more than being offered fish, because someone’s mate is a vegetarian/vegan and eats it. I’ve been vegan for thirty years and I couldn’t even imagine eating animal products now. 🤢 However I cook chicken and fish for my youngest, with SN, as she doesn’t have the capacity to make an informed choice and loves it.

Eat eggs if you like them but use alternative replacements when baking.

You can always have 1-3 Vegan days per week... I do this and it works for us. 1-2 meat / fish days, 1-2 Vegan and the rest is Vegetarian. (My boys love their meat, so can't cook fully veggie)

Being militant and only sticking with it 6 months isnt as good as being relaxed and staying at it forever.

Also you may well go vegan after a couple of years and it won't seem so daunting then.

That's a really good way of looking at it, thank you.

I'm going to stop buying milk completely. I dont actually think DH will notice.i suppose I'd have to buy it for DS when he is a year but I'll get over that. And I'm going to review how much meat and eggs we eat and see how I can reduce that.
Thank you. you've all been really helpful.

I saw the little coconut choc pots and found they are so moreish...

If you watch any of the animal welfare documentary, any form of industrial cattle farming is vile and cruel.
You just had a baby, imagine someone taking your DC from you, leaving you between two metal panels and hooked to a machine to squeeze your breastmilk out. To produce milk, a cow has to give birth and when after several month she stops, she is inseminated again to become pregnant and the whole cycle starts again. Roughly six times before ending in your plate.
Forget about green fields and grazing around. The animals stands in metal barns and even if there is a grid, they usually stand in their own shit.

So from the animal cruelty point of view, the dairy industry is just as bad. The slaughterhouse part is just delayed and the life of the animal just as miserable.

I eat WFPB, whole food plant based. I don't like the term vegan, because the focus is on what you keep out not what you put in, so a doritos and chips diet is technically vegan but so unhealthy as are many of the vegan versions of cheese, burgers.

My diet choice is guided by health reason. I have a genetic 60% risk of cancer, I am trying to prevent cancer by an anti cancer, low protein diet.

Nobody can tell you be or be a vegan. Vegan need to be very well educated as it is very easy to become malnourished. IT takes planning and a lot of reading to do it properly and have all the calcium, iron, zinc, iodine and so on. I wouldn't recommend it now, as you just had a baby and you are maybe breastfeeding. What you can do, is starting to limit meat and especially processed meat, and when the time for weaning will come, start eating both lentils, beans, chickpeas in their natural form, cooked by you and not transformed by the industry into some alien food. Having a varied and colourful diet will benefit you and your baby.

Watch Fork over knifes, What the health, and other similar documentaries and then if you want move to the Vegan activism one. But start with the health. look at the Nutritionfacts videos nutritionfacts.org/video/how-not-to-die/ and make your own decisions.

I'm vegetarian, theres quite a few farms now that do ethical dairy and eggs now, mine is one but we don't sell online, just a small amount locally.
These are three that I know off the top of my head, that sell online.
www.the-calf-at-foot-dairy.co.uk/shop.html
www.creamogalloway.co.uk sells cheese online.
www.ahimsamilk.org for London area

But milk alternatives are pretty good, I like t the coconut and Almond ones.
For eggs, you could ask on your local Facebook group, there will probably be people who have hens in the back garden who live a good life and will sell the excess, even in cities, backyard hens seem very popular right now!

Try oat milk, OP, if you drink tea/coffee. I use Oatly Barista because it’s best for hot drinks. There are lots of different types of replacement milks, so if you don’t like that, try a different one.