To quit my vegetarianism and become a hypocrite instead?

[OverTheHammer]

Became a veggie back end of June. Had wanted to do it for years but always thought it would be too difficult. Anyway after watching numerous PETA videos the guilt got too much and I became a veggie. I've since shared PETA videos on Facebook trying to encourage others to follow suit.

Anyway it was piss easy at first and I was telling everyone how easy it was but 2 months later I'm struggling. I've totally lost my appetite. The thought of anymore quorn makes me feel sick. I'm anaemic and never even thought about how vegetarianism would effect my (already extremely low) iron levels. I've also joined a gym and am struggling to eat enough calories to actually keep me going.

My appetite has always been dodgy, I'm also a fussy eater, a shit cook and busy person so can't be faffing every night making lentil this and lentil that ...

Most of the recipes I look at call for meat. Restaurant veggie choices are limited and shit - it's just so fucking difficult.
Then to top it all off, I watched a video last night showing how chickens are mistreated when used solely for egg purposes. I still eat eggs. So really, I'm a hypocrite anyway aren't I?

WIBU to go back on everything I've been saying these past two months and just start eating meat again?

Every vegetarian who says it's for ethical reasons but continues to eat diary is a hypocrite

Entirely true, but then every vegan who uses a car/phone/computer is also a hypocrite. Everybody uses animal products.

I have gone back to being vegan after stopping for medical reasons. When I stopped being vegan I started eating meat too because I felt like a hypocrite being veggie (egg and milk industry is terrible and people saying "it isn't like that in the UK" are willfully ignorant).

All vegans/veggies draw their own line and OP should too. If you can't be veggie cut down on meat, try and buy meat you know came from a decent farm and not a factory farm (again we do have these in the UK) etc etc. Draw your own line and stick to it and fuck everybody else.

I'm not a fan of PETA but I do think their definition of vegan is really useful when thinking about these things.

If anyone goes vegan and looses weight then they need to make cashew cheesecake

m.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jy69LgE1og

Learn how to cook a few recipes? Even veggie bolognese is easy enough (and fast prep time!)

My teenage son became vegan a few months ago. I make sure he has a blanched diet and so far haven't had to resort to quorn (most quorn products aren't suitable for vegans anyway). I work full time and thought it would be a nightmare but it's been fine. I make veggie chili and curry in bulk and freeze in portions. I e also resorted to buying vegan stuff from Great Food which looks result good, and which DS loves (quinoa and beetroot burgers, broad bean falafel etc). I also do lots of stir fries with spinach, broccoli etc.

He tends to have sandwiches at lunch
Time rather than salad
He has peanut butter, marmite or hummous and salad in them. So far he doesn't seem anaemic. He is due to give blood this month so they will check his iron levels

He plays loads of sport and is really active, he seems to have lots of energy.

I think eating veggie or vegan is perfectly doable but it's a personal choice. If you choose to eat meat because you want to, that's fine. But don't feel you have to give up being veggie because you can't work out what to eat.

Being veggie or vegan does nothing for animal lifestyle. Health, choice, personal taste are all up to you but don't fool yourself that one person not buying meat makes a difference.

If you really want to affect the life and death of meat animals choose responsible meat. Responsible slaughter.

Farmers go with the money (as do most people, not a judgement). People paying more for better treated meat will get through better than not eating it at all. It's capitalism in action. Vote with your pound.

Bufferingkisses

You understand the first part of your post contradicts the second right?

Why sing you try eating organic meat once a week rather than go completely back? Prepare for ribbing after sharing videos to try and convert friends though- particularly after only a few months.

YANBU in my view. There's no point doing something if it makes you miserable.

YWBU to post videos on Facebook though, I hate stuff like that. I'm an adult and can make my own informed decisions, I don't need to be preached at on Facebook.

It's rubbish to say most vegetarians eat lots of bread, cheese and pasta. I am not keen on cheese so eat very little. I do eat pasta but only probably once or twice a month.

Lots of my family and friends are vegetarian and we all cook interesting meals. It's not difficult

Buffering your post makes no sense. If you don't eat meat then why would you be killing an animal.

I am now vegan but I haven't eaten pasta bread or cheese I am allergic to dairy and wheat

Bufferings post does make sense.

If (for example) 10% of people stop buying meat, there is less demand for meat, that's true, but does nothing to change how the meat that the other 90% of the population is eating is produced, or the health and welfare of those meat animals.

If 10% of people decide only to buy organic/outdoor raised/high welfare raised meat, eggs and fish, that has a knock on effect what the other 90% eat because more farmers will farm that way, more shops will stock those products, they get cheaper, more people will upgrade to those products at least some of the time.
That is actually what's happening now, more and more people are buying higher welfare meat at least some of the time and it's is changing whole industries for the better (especially, I say, poultry/egg and pork production).

Buffering if you disagree with animals being killed to feed humans then of course being vegan makes a difference

I do think that for meat eaters, less meat and choosing only higher welfare meat, also has an impact, but ridiculous to suggest that veganism isn't an ethical choice.

(I'm a meat eater by the way)

And I'm not convinced that the more popular organic / free range / higher welfare meat becomes, the cheaper it will become. It's expensive because those methods are less intensive and more expensive.

Oh OP! People like you sharing bloody PETA videos, literally I suppose! You're the reason I get so much head tilting and stupid questions about my choices, which I keep quiet about unless I have to say dietary requirements.

And did you think about it for two minutes? Yes eating out choices are limited. I hate cooking. I work out. I'm fine with being veggie. In fact my iron has gone back to normal, I used to take supplements.

Of course go back to eating meat if you want but please in future stop preaching at people on the next bandwagon you pick.

Bufferings post is ridiculous and illogical.

Maybe things have changed in last 17 years.
From 1982-1999 when I was a vegetarian, most of us relied heavily on bread & cheese -- especially the students.

Of course the word pescatarian didn't even exist until 1992. So lots has changed, tbf.

I liked what Buffering said. Not sure I agree, but interesting perspective.

Be careful with PETA as the USA has much different standards to us here in the UK.

I come from beef and pig farmer and chicken/eggs and my family have reared healthily happy animals. It's all part of the circle of life and if treated humanely it's all good in my opinion.

Also sorry it posting peta videos on fb to try and encourage people to go veggie is so vulgar. You make your choices leave others to theirs.

Buffering does make sense. If more people bought less meat, but only bought high quality meat, there would be less demand for low welfare meat., perhaps to a stage where it wasn't worth producing.

A lot of the problem is that there are lots of people who's mentality towards meat is 'cheap and plenty of it'.

It's all very well saying that if the only meat available was expensive high welfare meat, then it would be affordable to many. But as meat is far from the only food available, people can just eat something else.

Making a chicken last for more than one meal is widely derided on here, but that's what we need to go back to. A chicken being combined with other foods to provide three days meals, eg roast from the breasts on day 1, pasta bake, curry or simlilar with the thighs on day 2 and the scraps being made into a chicken and vegetable soup on day 3. Not cheap, mass produced chicken that most people can afford to eat lots of on most days.

You can obviously do the same thing with other meats and that's the origin of things like cottage or shepherds pie and scouse etc.

lljkk - I'm sorry I don't agree that 'most people relied on lots of bread and cheese' at that time - not if you were doing it properly. I became vegetarian quite a lot before that - my mother did lots of home cooking, made 'burgers' in bulk to freeze, made curries, stir fries etc - lots of interesting things. I was a student during that period and even then I didn't rely on lots of bread and cheese - yes for sandwiches, but not in general.

Even when I was a student I cooked 'proper' vegetarian meals - in fact it is much better being vegetarian as a student as it's generally a lot cheaper than eating meat.

Bufferings post doesn't make sense and reiterating it with more words doesn't make it any more sensible.

The cognitive dissonance people will employ in this subject baffles me.

Ha! I think I'm quite delighted to find out I and all the other vegetarians I used to hang out with were improper vegetarians. Bit like being a failed feminist. All these narrow little identity clubs to not belong to. Just like OP is realising she doesn't want to be part of.

OP, why not just get on with your life without letting all and sundry know about your dietary choices on Facebook? Just saying...

I've been vegetarian for nearly 30 years, but I'm not remotely fussed about why others eat.

You've been a bit daft and holier-than-thou with the videos so you're probably going to have to suck up the inevitable piss-taking, but if you don't want to be a vegetarian anymore then it would be abut silly to force yourself to continue because you're worried about what people will think. Chances are only a few people will even notice.

I've been veggie since 1991, when I gave it a go for a week to see if it was feasible (veggie boyfriend). I found it piss-easy even then, without quorn. I just don't eat meat. There's so much other stuff to eat. And then of course, there's the times I've lived on cheese and chips :-O That would be a lot of the time. I'm not dead.

Linda McCartney is your friend. I completely avoid soya protein cos it is hormonally a nightmare unless it is fermented. I love stuff like aubergine parmigiana, stuffed mushrooms etc. It's well worth getting a good cook book and going from there - I tend to knock up massive batches of soups and bolognaises and chili and so on when it's a quiet weekend, and then freeze stuff for easy meals at other times. But loads of stuff is veggie - most of what meat-eaters eat is veggie.

I am currently going vegan, because I recognise the cruelty in eggs and milk (I have been vegan before, but it didn't stick cos I did it too quickly and only to sort my skin). So I have milk in my tea in the morning first thing, and then move to herbal teas and no more milk. This is a massive cut down for me; a huge milky tea-drinker.

If it helps you to occasionally have a bit of meat on your journey to vegetarianism, then so be it - no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I can't imagine there's many veggies who haven't 'fallen' at least once. One day at a time.

But don't make the mistake of thinking that fish is somehow lesser and ok to eat on a regular basis. Every effort you make to decrease animal suffering is worth it - and fish are animals too . xx

Oh, and don't worry about the stuff you posted - yo u never know, you may have a convert! But I'd stop now, and concentrate on why you are finding this so difficult. It's early days - it seems harder than it is.