when vegetarians eat chicken?

[AMAZINWOMAN]

I know so many people that say they are vegetarians but eat chicken on a regular basis! They can't be true vegetarians then if they eat it!

One friend ate chicken in a restaurant-but had vegeterian gravy!

Well, one reason to aspire to be a vegetarian is that, if there weren't so many cows, global warming would not be such a threat. Methane from cow farts is, apparently, one of the major causes of global warming. If we all became veggies, there'd be very few cows and consequently fewer farts. Although I don't think anyone has done any research into the effect of eating more fart-inducing pulses and beans........

Very weird to call yourself a vegetarian if you choose to eat any kind of meat I'd have thought!

Upwind, you make a very good point about the venison.

In a similar vein, I'm sure I read that that road kill bloke who's been on the TV and in the media quite a bit is usually a vegetarian - out of principle - but will eat wild meat that has been killed by accident .... working on the basis that its death may as well fulfil a purpose, and as opposed to just letting the carcass rot away (or be eaten by other carnivores of course).

Freckle, the environmental benefits of vegetarianism are much bigger than that. If we ate the grains/vegetables ourselves instead of growing them to feed animals to eat, it would be much more efficient. More food to go round/less use of chemicals/less use of energy, etc. etc. etc.

Only veganism would do away with cows though - vegetarians still eat dairy!

i did know a callous twat at university who said chickens were just vegetables with legs.

I'm vegetarian (have been for twenty years, though I did eat fish when pregnant as I craved it) and used to live wwith a vegan, but we once found a roadkill pheasant and ate it. It was farking revolting.

I know quite a few people who are vegetarian/vegan but who go through the supermarket skips for food that has been thrown out but is still edible - some of them will eat meat or fish that they find on the basis that it (and the resources that went into prducing it) should not be wasted. Freegans, we call them.

Crumbs! All you omnivors do get upset easily about other people's eating habits, don't you??

dd had always been curious about my vegetarianism, as I explained over the years why I was so (gently, no big sell). Then one day she was looking dubiously at some sausagesI had cooked her. I asked delicately "can you not eat them, dd?". >

"No" she said......>

"there's not enough tomato ketchup."

"oh...."

ClassAct, not at people's eating habits but at pretending to do something for ethical reasons rather than admitting to faddy eating. I can't think of any ethical grounds for eating chicken but not red meat. Especially when lamb, for instance, is pretty much free range and intensively reared chicken is kept in truly horrible conditions.

Edam - what would you do with the land not suited to growing cereals or veg? Surely raising livestock is the most efficient use for, e.g. most of Scotland?

My Mil is a 'vegetarian' and every time she came to stay I would also do a nice fish dish and never a joint of meat in sight , much to the dissappointment I think of the FIL who loves a roast but never gets one !

Anyway one day DH and MIL were talking about a meal at his sisters . It was chicken , apprently his Mil would eat chicken as she had made the effort to cook it ? ! (hmm).

Roast dinner next time she came to stay !
Really annoys me , especially when people go out of their way to do a veggie meal !

I respect people who are vegetarian for ethical or religious reasons. I do roll my eyes at a certain class of female "vegetarian" who will eat fish. Probably because I met so many of them who chose this way of eating to control their weight.

An example of one so called vegetarian saw no hypocracy in calling herself such and wearing fur coats. . I finally cornered her faulty semantics, and she admitted that she refused to eat other meats because she lost 20 pounds when she gave up red meats and chicken, and she was afraid of gaining it back. grrrrrrrr.

Ooh yes morningglory, that is irritating.

A woman I know is a 'vegan' for such purposes, IMO she has a fairly serious eating disorder in reality. She feeds her kids meat (the dread Gregg's sausage rolls and suchlike), wears leather, etc etc.

I'm sure that I lost weight everytime I stayed with my vegan friends . A lack of heating in their house (in November) probably burnt more than a few calories as well . Strangely enough, they still drank alcohol - presumbably yeast didn't count as a lifeform for them.

I'm vegan. Some wines are fined using isinglass which comes from fish. Most vegans I know wouldn't drink that.
Yeast is a plant. No central nervous system.
When I was 20 I argued but now I can't be bothered. I loathe the thought that animals are commodities and hate hypocrisy where poeple fawn over cats and dogs but don't give a thought to the suffering of cows/sheeps/pigs etc but after 20 years of trying to change poeple's minds I gave up.
My mum doesn't want to know about eggs even though she's been veggie for 20 odd years. She didn't want to hear that male chicks are crushed alive or gassed because they are useless, she doesn't want to hear about how dairy cows suffer and then become beef anyhow. Like most people, she puts her taste pleasure ahead of other beings suffering.
I do think if people watched slaughter then more people will be veggie but climate change will also hasten that day. As oil runs out it will become stupidly expensive to import NZ meat, cart foodstuffs around the world to be fed to animals and truck animals up and down the country. Meat will become as it once was. A rarity

I really don't know why someone would call themselves veggie or vegan yet eat meat/fish. Do they think it makes them look 'special'?

Thinking about it, they only drank lager .

Martian Bishop: like the phrase "dressing a food preference in ethical clothing".

I know so many people who are merely fussy eaters, but come up with a myriad of po-faced reasons why they can't eat this or that.

(Beware - there was a thread on spurious food allergies a while ago - light touch paper and SCRAM!)

dunno why they can't say 'I hate such and such'. Back in the days when I ate at other people's houses (and even that was rare. Do people really go to endless dinner parties?) I would say I hate celery and swede. Much more polite than gagging
Not eaten at a restaurant for years and years so don't get a chance to make a fuss. Anyone want to babysit a loud SN toddler?

to be pedantic, yeast isn't a plant, it is a fungus.

Biology teacher exits stage left.......

LongMeg - "I have a friend who classes herself as veggie, but who eats meat from animals which she considers to have a small brain - so chicken, turkey, fish" dunno wy but that really made me laugh!

I know some people who would fall into that category, would she consider....

I'm wild me - I'll eat just about anything (though if its chicken or pork prefer free range organic), I'll even eat ... carbohydrates [gasp]

I don't eat lamb but that's as I don't like it, not for any ethical reasons. If someone presents themselves as vegetarian though, somehow I do expect them to stick by their (self)professed principles.

I'm a faddy eater - but I tell people I'm a faddy eater - I don't try dressing it up as anything else! I don't like fish or lamb and I tell people I don't can't see the point of making up some bollocks about why I don't eat them. If you eat chicken you can't possibly be a vegetarian. I also think the same applies to fish, which also die in a rather unpleasent manner (i.e. they suffocate).

The idea of someone calling themselves vegetarian but eating chicken or fish makes me laugh - why not just say "I don't eat red meat/red meat/whatever". I don't let it bother me, though.

What really pisses me off, though, is the "Meat is murder" line. That makes me furious.

It really is annoying when people put something down as a vegetarian option and it contains meat or fish. My partner has been vegetarian for 20 years and for 10 of those he was vegan.

He's still very committed to animal welfare (but no longer spends every saturday running across country trying to disrupt events ) but has decided that he'd rather eat eggs (local farm organic), cheese and drink milk as he's gotten older.

If you're going to call yourself a vegetarian and then eat meat or fish, don't complain when I very loudly protest that you're an ar*e.

What's wrong with the "meat is murder" line MsHighwater? I would never say it to anyone, (I'm not Morrissey - who allegedly eats fish!) but technically, ya know...

The "Meat is Murder" line angers me because it's not. You can't murder an animal, only humans.

Killing them for food might be distasteful - it's not something I relish and I abhor any inhumane treatment of animals reared for food - but equating it to murdering a person I find rude and insulting. I'm glad you wouldn't do it, bohemianbint.