Why are you vegetarian? And advice needed.

[biggirlknickers]

I walked passed the back of our local abattoir yesterday morning and I haven’t touched meat since.

The sounds of sheep bleating, a cow calling, men shouting and a couple of loud pops that I suspect may have been a bolt gun.

The sight of a van with empty meat hooks just waiting for the next carcasses.

The smells of a farm - but knowing that it wasn’t a real farm.

I think I’ve just become a vegetarian.

So tell me, why are you a vegetarian?

And what advice do you have for me as a newbie?

My main concern is that DP and DC all eat meat. Meals are hard enough to plan already with fussy children and busy lives. Secondary concern is that I know after a few days I’m going to start craving it! I really don’t want to give in.

If I can’t face the reality of what goes on in an abattoir I have no right to eat meat.

Animal welfare, 100%.

I've been vegetarian for coming up 30 years, I'd be a vegan if I could but I have a few food intolerances/allergies that mean it wouldn't be a healthy option (I can't eat nuts for example)

I became a vegetarian as an early teen, apparently I was never keen on meat anyway as a young child so it wasn't a surprise when I announced I wanted to try giving up meat. I've never looked back, and it's so much easier with all the vegan options now!

Thanks everyone, I’m feelin inspired.

Quirk nuggests and Richmond sausages on my shopping list!

*quorn

For sausages, m&s posh dogs are the best I’ve come across. Not “meaty”, but great texture and taste. I did them on a bbq and they cooked really well, most veggie sausages are a bit grim.

Plant kitchen is great too.

@whatisheupto

I live in rural England in a naice county and in my road is a barn where cows are kept. They are never, ever let outside and they cannot move more than a few steps. Lots of the time they are deep in their own excrement (mixed with hay). The farmer drives up early in the morning to feed them, he's gone after 15 mins. He comes back about 5pm to feed them again and then he leaves after a while. And that's it. They can't see out as their fenced walks are quite high (but I can see in as I walk past on a slope). So they literally just stand or sit in the same small space all day long for months on end. After a few months a lorry comes to take them to the abattoir and a couple of days later the next crop come in. The first few nights are awful... they 'cry' non stop until they get used go their little prison. And that's it. The life of many cows in the UK. Farmer is buying them young, fattening them up and selling them on. No calving or anything.

And what really irks me is I always wonder if he's selling to one of the farm shops or butchers round here and they sell it as "locally reared beef". But I like to hope they'd know their meat sources personally and wouldn't buy from him. Who knows.

That’s so sad and so hideous 😭. Such inhumane cruelty.

Also adding one more thing: i’m raising vegetarian kids. No one bats an eyelid and kids don’t wish they ate meat. In fact, their school serves only vegetarian food anyway.

I remember being horrified being served rabbit in my student halls (gap year in France) and reflecting on it why I was horrified about eating rabbit when I’d happily eat a cow or a pig and how hypocritical it was. I’ve been an animal lover all my life and until then had compartmentalised eating ‘acceptable’ animals so I just stopped. That was 14 years ago and I’ve been very happily vegetarian ever since. It’s been so long now the thought of eating meat is quite disgusting to me so I’ll never go back.

I didn't like the ethics of the meat industry. I've been vegetarian since I was 9. About 10 years ago, when travelling lots for work to very un vegetarian countries I did add a bit of fish, where I was sure of the provenance, so I'm not technically vegetarian these days.

Ethically, I have no problems with game, for example, if it's a clean kill. I will happily look at, handle or cook meat and fish. I grew up in the countryside in a fishing family and this was normal. I do think that sensitively farmed meat, ethically slaughtered, can be part of good land management. But the meat industry is usually terrible for the environment and usually distressing and painful for the animal while it's alive and as it's killed. And now I haven't eaten it for so long I couldn't, I don't think (I have tried on occasion). I just don't factor it in as 'food'.

Same as all the above: not wanting to put dead stuff in my mouth and not wanting to inflict suffering even indirectly. I’ve not eaten meat or fish for 30 years now.

What I do like about our evolving world is that you don’t necessarily have to label your choice so much. You can be what you want to be these days, so it seems.

Much better than 30 years ago when I used to get some very sour looks in restaurants!

@Isolatingperhaps

Also adding one more thing: i’m raising vegetarian kids. No one bats an eyelid and kids don’t wish they ate meat. In fact, their school serves only vegetarian food anyway.

We are doing the same but our 5yr old is desperate to eat meat. Doesn’t sit well but feel we have to let her go for it to avoid the forbidden feeling. She knows it’ll never happen at home but she can choose when at friends etc if she wants. I’d love if she had no interest!

We are doing the same but our 5yr old is desperate to eat meat. Doesn’t sit well but feel we have to let her go for it to avoid the forbidden feeling. She knows it’ll never happen at home but she can choose when at friends etc if she wants. I’d love if she had no interest!

I do think the fact that their school only serves vegetarian food helps. It’s normalised being vegetarian, really.

And bring a veggie school is a great move by the school! It is doing it for environmental reasons as its big on climate stuff.

I hear you though! If my children were desperate to try something, of course they could.

Wow that’s amazing, a veggie school, I hadn’t picked that up. That would help! But I think she’s a kid who’s always going to be fascinated by what’s not allowed (aren’t they all) and we just need to let her explore. She kind of swings between being all pious, telling her friends not to eat it, and telling me ‘mummy I’m going to be a meat girl when I grow up’ DH is more perturbed than me by it which I understand but I’m sure she’ll make many more choices in the future that we think are questionable, time to accept it!

I became a veggie at the age of 12, when I started to think about where the roast chicken on my plate came from and whether its life was more or less important than my dog's.

I've remained a veggie (and since become vegan), because I don't want any part in causing suffering to animals during their lives or deaths.

Also because of the effect on deforestation and climate change.
The reality of industrial factory farming is absolutely horrifying to me. A society that treats sentient beings as though they were inanimate objects and commodities is not a civilized one in my opinion.

My tips are to sub in fake meat/sausages/nuggets etc, or use lentils or soya mince as a base for bolognaise. Nuggets don't really taste of much anyway.

Try doing meatless Mondays with the family, and involving the kids in finding appetizing veggie menus.

Don't beat yourself up if you "slip" and eat meat - you don't have to be 100% pure veggie to make a difference in the lives of animals.

I became vegetarian as a child - just couldn't bear the cruelty. DH is also veggie since childhood and our DS has been raised veggie (now 14 and has never had meat apart from one fish finger after a mix-up on his first day in Reception when he forgot to pick up his lunch bag from his hook and was bundled into the school dinners queue - he hated it).

Tips for a newbie - it is so easy these days with all the readily available vegan ranges in the supermarkets. When I started, my poor mum had to learn an entirely new way to cook and all that was available was weird powdered sausage/burger mix from Holland and Barrett. Tesco, Sainsbury, M&S, Co-Op etc. all have vegan ranges now and there's a huge Quorn range, plus Linda McCartney. Richmond sausages, as mentioned above, are the best substitute I've found. If you want to go the whole hog (so to speak) and give up dairy as well, Oatly Barista is the best milk substitute by miles.

Don't beat yourself up if you "slip" and eat meat - you don't have to be 100% pure veggie to make a difference in the lives of animals

This. Sometimes there’s a lot of snobbery about being veggie.

Do what works. Start be reducing meat, find options you enjoy, and it often comes naturally.

I find if you don’t say you are veggie, people will expect you to eat meat, even if your choice is the veggie option. Even when I say I’m veggie I’ve had people serve me pork casserole and tell me to just try it, if I don’t like it I can pick the meat out….as if I’m a fussy eater…

@spiderlight

I became vegetarian as a child - just couldn't bear the cruelty. DH is also veggie since childhood and our DS has been raised veggie (now 14 and has never had meat apart from one fish finger after a mix-up on his first day in Reception when he forgot to pick up his lunch bag from his hook and was bundled into the school dinners queue - he hated it).

Tips for a newbie - it is so easy these days with all the readily available vegan ranges in the supermarkets. When I started, my poor mum had to learn an entirely new way to cook and all that was available was weird powdered sausage/burger mix from Holland and Barrett. Tesco, Sainsbury, M&S, Co-Op etc. all have vegan ranges now and there's a huge Quorn range, plus Linda McCartney. Richmond sausages, as mentioned above, are the best substitute I've found. If you want to go the whole hog (so to speak) and give up dairy as well, Oatly Barista is the best milk substitute by miles.

Go the whole hog

@Reallyreallyborednow

Don't beat yourself up if you "slip" and eat meat - you don't have to be 100% pure veggie to make a difference in the lives of animals

This. Sometimes there’s a lot of snobbery about being veggie.

Do what works. Start be reducing meat, find options you enjoy, and it often comes naturally.

I find if you don’t say you are veggie, people will expect you to eat meat, even if your choice is the veggie option. Even when I say I’m veggie I’ve had people serve me pork casserole and tell me to just try it, if I don’t like it I can pick the meat out….as if I’m a fussy eater…

I would be bloody furious at someone serving me meat, knowing I’m a vegetarian, and expecting me to just try it or pick the meat out!

So many times on MN I read about people refusing to pander to people’s dietary needs when they come to visit. ‘They should just eat what’s been made!’ They’ve maintained that attitude even when the guest is a vegan or a vegetarian. Unbelievable rudeness from the host.

im vegetarian. 1 of my kids is and 2 arent. Dp isnt.
I cook vegetarian food at home and theyre welcome to eat meat when out and about. At school, at others houses etc.
I would probably be vegan if it wasnt for them, but vegetarianism is super easy these days

David Attenborough has really had an impact on our whole family turning veggie. It’s been almost a year now. So many fantastic substitutes though haven’t found a good one for tuna or bacon yet. But hardly a deal breaker.
I couldn’t stand gristle in meat, or accidentally chomp down on a lump of fat or bone I would literally gag and it would put me off the rest of the meal.
Fantastic substitutes we’ve found are:

Richmond veggie sausages
Meatless mince from The Meatless Farm range
Quorn nuggets
Plant pioneers fake chicken chipotle goujons
Quorn roast
Quorn vegan fishfingers
Linda Mc Cartney no shredded hoisin duck

Quorn broccoli and cheese escalopes

I just discovered thus recipe and it's become a favourite!

elavegan.com/vegan-mushroom-stroganoff-gluten-free-recipe/

I’m a vegetarian for exactly the same reason you’ve given here. Except, I was 8 when I saw this and I’d actually been taken there by my father, who for some reason thought this would be a good/fun/exciting thing for me to see

As others have said, there are now so many good substitutes available. I particularly like some of the Linda McCartney products, especially the pulled pork and the mozzarella burgers. I’ve had a few less pleasant things from that range too though, so best to try a few things I think.

If you want to cook without meat substitutes, I find the BBC Good Food website pretty good for inspiration. Lots of easy, tasty, vegetarian recipes there:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/category/all-vegetarian/amp