To miss genuine veggie food

[IdiotIntrusion]

In the light of all the vegan options coming out, what's happened to veggie food? Granted veggies can eat vegan but I want real cheese or mayo on my burger instead of the fake stuff.

Not even allowed to add a coffee to a 'vegan' meal at burger king, I assume because of the milk. Had to pay separately.

Just having a moan. It's annoying as hell. Anyone else?

Most will be killed after hatching or they will be passed onto the meat industry.

Egg laying chicken breeds and meat chicken breeds are totally different.

Egg laying breeds are scrawny things optimised for laying lots of eggs. You'll never get enough meat off one to make it financially worthwhile rearing it, when the cost of incubating another egg from a meat breed is so low.

If, however, the friend has rescue chickens (which you can get via www.bhwt.org.uk/ ) then those hens have been saved from slaughter, will continue to lay (albeit at a reduced rate) and even the most ardent vegan would struggle to find a welfare issue with those eggs.

My sisters rescue chooks lay eggs. Not a cock in sight.

@PaintAndPirouettes

Most will be killed after hatching or they will be passed onto the meat industry.

Egg laying chicken breeds and meat chicken breeds are totally different.

Egg laying breeds are scrawny things optimised for laying lots of eggs. You'll never get enough meat off one to make it financially worthwhile rearing it, when the cost of incubating another egg from a meat breed is so low.

If, however, the friend has rescue chickens (which you can get via www.bhwt.org.uk/ ) then those hens have been saved from slaughter, will continue to lay (albeit at a reduced rate) and even the most ardent vegan would struggle to find a welfare issue with those eggs.

I’m aware that the egg laying and meat breeds are generally different but the meat industry is bigger than just meat fit for human consumption. My family member owns a chicken farm, she sells eggs and sells egg laying and fancy breed chickens to people wanting to keep chickens and some of their older males and expired hens will be sold for meat, I presume for things like animal feed although admit I’m not 100% sure.

In terms of eating eggs from rescue hens, some of the vegans I know would argue that if the meat/ egg industry didn’t exist then there wouldn’t be a situation in which hens could be rescued, and that as such eating the eggs of them is still supporting an industry they disagree with. I think for many vegans (at least the ones I know) the underlying thought isn’t just that it is wrong to eat animal products because it is cruel but because using an animal for produce is ethically/ morally wrong.

That said I do personally agree that there isn’t much direct harm to eating eggs from rescue hens, but I suppose the argument is if everybody stopped eating eggs then the entire industry would have to end and so on some level eating eggs (regardless of where they come from) sends out a message that eating eggs is fine, when many vegans would feel like it’s not.

I feel your pain OP (and all the other veggies!) I also can't stand that lots of restaurants around here have decided to make their veg/vegan options as meat-like as possible. Hello?! Some people eat plant based diets because they DON'T LIKE MEAT. My choices of eating out are fairly limited now. Bring back the bean burger!

I’m aware that the egg laying and meat breeds are generally different but the meat industry is bigger than just meat fit for human consumption. My family member owns a chicken farm, she sells eggs and sells egg laying and fancy breed chickens to people wanting to keep chickens and some of their older males and expired hens will be sold for meat, I presume for things like animal feed although admit I’m not 100% sure.

Sounds like she's very much at the small end of chicken farming, if she's selling purebreed chickens to the public? It's not a typical sort of farm that supplies the supermarkets by the sound of things.

Ex laying hens / breeding cockerels will be (a) tough and (b) if off an egg laying breed, scrawny. If they're being sold for meat, it'll be for soup, pet food and other similar low grade uses. You wouldn't roast one if you had any sense.

In terms of eating eggs from rescue hens, some of the vegans I know would argue that if the meat/ egg industry didn’t exist then there wouldn’t be a situation in which hens could be rescued, and that as such eating the eggs of them is still supporting an industry they disagree with. I think for many vegans (at least the ones I know) the underlying thought isn’t just that it is wrong to eat animal products because it is cruel but because using an animal for produce is ethically/ morally wrong.

I find this argument bizarre tbh.

The BHWT literally goes to egg farms on the day the hens are going to slaughter. They take as many as they have homes for, and the rest go to slaughter the same day. These hens will exist and will go to slaughter unless people rescue them.

Once rescued, there's literally no way to stop them laying - and at that point I take the view that the eggs should be used for something, though if the owner themselves doesn't want to eat them all they should be sold / given to friends, family and neighbours. Food waste is a major environmental issue, and there are far too many people going hungry in this country as it is.

Would they also say that rescuing a dog, via a charity, is supporting puppy farming if that dog was originally born in a puppy farm? Mind you I did once have a lodger whose vegan girlfriend told me that keeping pets was a form of slavery...

Meat eater here who also likes the veggie option some times, but as most of it is now 'fake meat' vegan burgers, I am eating it less.

My local pubs were all terrific for veggies until about a year ago - now the main 'V' option in one is baked squash and the main in another is roasted cauliflower. Both of these should be side dishes!

@PaintAndPirouettes

I’m aware that the egg laying and meat breeds are generally different but the meat industry is bigger than just meat fit for human consumption. My family member owns a chicken farm, she sells eggs and sells egg laying and fancy breed chickens to people wanting to keep chickens and some of their older males and expired hens will be sold for meat, I presume for things like animal feed although admit I’m not 100% sure.

Sounds like she's very much at the small end of chicken farming, if she's selling purebreed chickens to the public? It's not a typical sort of farm that supplies the supermarkets by the sound of things.

Ex laying hens / breeding cockerels will be (a) tough and (b) if off an egg laying breed, scrawny. If they're being sold for meat, it'll be for soup, pet food and other similar low grade uses. You wouldn't roast one if you had any sense.

In terms of eating eggs from rescue hens, some of the vegans I know would argue that if the meat/ egg industry didn’t exist then there wouldn’t be a situation in which hens could be rescued, and that as such eating the eggs of them is still supporting an industry they disagree with. I think for many vegans (at least the ones I know) the underlying thought isn’t just that it is wrong to eat animal products because it is cruel but because using an animal for produce is ethically/ morally wrong.

I find this argument bizarre tbh.

The BHWT literally goes to egg farms on the day the hens are going to slaughter. They take as many as they have homes for, and the rest go to slaughter the same day. These hens will exist and will go to slaughter unless people rescue them.

Once rescued, there's literally no way to stop them laying - and at that point I take the view that the eggs should be used for something, though if the owner themselves doesn't want to eat them all they should be sold / given to friends, family and neighbours. Food waste is a major environmental issue, and there are far too many people going hungry in this country as it is.

Would they also say that rescuing a dog, via a charity, is supporting puppy farming if that dog was originally born in a puppy farm? Mind you I did once have a lodger whose vegan girlfriend told me that keeping pets was a form of slavery...

The eggs should be fed back to the chickens to replace the nutrients that they have to use to produce the unnatural amount that they now do.

The eggs should be fed back to the chickens to replace the nutrients that they have to use to produce the unnatural amount that they now do.

I've heard it all now.

Good quality layers pellets will provide what they need to produce eggs and stay healthy.

We do feed our chickens some of their eggs back actually, plus I grind the shells of the ones we've eaten to use as a calcium supplement. Its cheaper and less wasteful than buying a commercial preparation and quite effective.
Ours usually lay 1 egg per chicken per day in the summer and less in the winter. At the moment we're getting between 0.5-1 egg per chicken per day which is more than enough for us.
What would happen to chickens if everyone stopped eating eggs altogether I wonder? Whilst they are lovable pets, I can't see many people keeping them and then not eating the eggs (if we don't eat them, rats etc seem quite happy to and I don't really want a garden full of vermin) and I can't really envisage flocks of wild chickens roaming the country unchecked.

I'm not strictly veggie (or vegan!) but in recent years I've really gone off meat and often just prefer the veggie option anyway.

My big beef (sorry! ) is what seems like a recent explosion of quorn or otherwise fake meat options instead of 'proper' food that is vegetarian.. Like, I don't want a fake meat burger, I want a bean burger or mushroom or halloumi...

I was just talking about this the other day! It infuriates me and reminds me exactly what being a veggie was like 15 or so years ago, we'd come so far in the time since.

@PaintAndPirouettes

The eggs should be fed back to the chickens to replace the nutrients that they have to use to produce the unnatural amount that they now do.

I've heard it all now.

Good quality layers pellets will provide what they need to produce eggs and stay healthy.

Not everyone is going to feed them a high grade pellet though are they, And don't chickens naturally eat their own unfertilized eggs anyway?

To be fair the best thing you could do to rescued chickens is give them the hornonal implant that stops them laying and the best chance at a long(ish) quality life.

I don't really get people assuming that being vegan is restrictive or unhealthy. Of course, it depends how you do it (you could only ever eat Oreos and still be vegan!) but personally I'm eating so much more healthily since giving up dairy and eggs, since those calories have been replaced with veggies and tofu, legumes, etc. It's also massively improved my cooking, and made me more creative. For me personally, I don't eat a whole lot of the processed stuff, mostly I eat beans, lentils, wholegrains, and a whole lot of fruit/veg - but then sometimes it's nice to add a bit of fake bacon to your tofu scramble with greens and mushrooms, or to have a Beyond Burger or something like that if you feel like having a bit of a "junk food" day for once.

There seems to be some weird misconception that those processed foods are what vegans always want to be eating, not only among people generally but also among (non-vegan) restaurants. I imagine it's probably "easier" for restaurants to simply replace a beef burger with a processed vegan burger, for example, simply because they don't have to put any further thought into how to make a decent vegan meal. Luckily though, most places I've been to lately will have both healthy and unhealthy options available, so for example the Smokehouse my brother works at does a "meaty" vegan burger, but it also has a vegetable gumbo or spicy mushroom fajitas.

Also, to whoever it was complaining about oat milk contaminating coffee machines - I feel your pain, as I've occasionally had coffee out and then felt really sick afterwards, which I can only assume was because of dairy contamination (I never bothered to do the tests to find out for sure, but I'm pretty sure I was always lactose tolerant and just didn't know, as all the really horrendous stomach pains, bloating, etc. that I used to get on a very regular basis almost never happen anymore since I stopped eating dairy).

I don’t think I have ever seen vegan food that looks like meat. Can you give some examples?

What? This is what half the thread is about! Take a look at the vegan section in the supermarket or whatever fastfood joint that is selling impossiburgers...

@DalarnaHorses

I don’t think I have ever seen vegan food that looks like meat. Can you give some examples?

What? This is what half the thread is about! Take a look at the vegan section in the supermarket or whatever fastfood joint that is selling impossiburgers...

But burgers don’t look like meat. When was the last time you saw an animal that looks like a burger? Burgers are just a convenient way of shaping food so it fits into a bun. A burger made of ground up seasoned vegetables is no more fake than a burger made of ground up seasoned cow.

@zurigirl

The thread is about vegetarians who do want to eat diary and eggs feeling that they are no longer catered for, because restaurants just choose to offer a vegan option.

I don’t think anyone is especially suggesting vegans eat a lot of processed food, but obviously that is all some restaurants offer.

This type of thing is definitely becoming more common.

There’s one vegan burger that really looks like a bloody patty of meat. I thought it had been put back on the wrong shelf when I saw it. I’m not squeamish but I thought it looked yukky.

I hear your pain.

My daughter is a recovering anorexic. Veganism is common among teen anorexics and a sign of restriction. Her dietician doesn’t want her to follow a vegan diet and neither do we. As a compromise she suggested adding dairy cheese back. It’s now almost impossible to find veggie options with dairy when eating out or buying ready meals. Default vegan is wrong in so many ways particularly for teens. Aside from everything else the amount of processed crap in a lot of vegan food is a concern for me.

How will she feel with the new calories in menus thing? Will that be really stressful for her?

When I turned veggie (early teens) I read up on nutrition and got loads of recipe books. I worked my away through these and made sure I was eating balanced food - there wasn’t much ‘ready made’ veggie stuff available back then - I remember some boil in the foil filed pasta - Rapunzel brand?) otherwise it was cool from raw ingredients and try thinks like tartex (which I like) and sticky brown stuff a bit like marmite (yeast?).

You can buy so much off the shelf now - and I’m not sure if people on general eat more prepared things than before (I suspect so) but it does look more like meat than it used to (even the names like ‘This isn’t Chicken’ rather than ‘soya chunks’).

The vegans I know these days are part time ones so will eat non-vegan food without any guilt - whereas if I was really hungry and there was only non-veggie food, I’d go hungry (as has happened on a few flights!).

Some great food is naturally vegan - so some Persian stews and ash (really thick soups) are vegan (people might add some lamb or chicken at the end) but with rice (if you don’t have any yoghurt) and it’s really healthy - lots if veggies, beans, fruit and herbs. Compare that to a commercial vegan burger!

Not everyone is going to feed them a high grade pellet though are they, And don't chickens naturally eat their own unfertilized eggs anyway?

Farmers are very much motivated to have their animals well nourished, as that will mean they produce well. Layers pellets are always made with that in mind.

The hens I'd worry about from a nutritional point of view would be those with very ignorant owners who feed them on scraps, grain and nothing else.

Occasionally hens will eat an egg, but this is not routine (though the odd hen will make a habit of it). Some nest boxes are designed so they roll away out of a hens reach once laid but I never bothered with that and only very occasionally found an eaten egg. Frankly they haven't a clue if it is fertilised or not so that won't determine whether or not they're going to eat an egg. They certainly know when they're broody but then they'll try and hatch anything, including pebbles of about the right size. They're not the brightest animals.

To be fair the best thing you could do to rescued chickens is give them the hornonal implant that stops them laying and the best chance at a long(ish) quality life.

That's a new invention since I last kept chickens. But Google suggests it costs about £60 per hen every 6 months. If someone won't give their hens adequate nutrition, they're hardly going to spend £120 per hen per year on this stuff. If you have ten hens you'd be spending as much on that as you would on your council tax fgs.

@Dahl1a

I hear your pain.

My daughter is a recovering anorexic. Veganism is common among teen anorexics and a sign of restriction. Her dietician doesn’t want her to follow a vegan diet and neither do we. As a compromise she suggested adding dairy cheese back. It’s now almost impossible to find veggie options with dairy when eating out or buying ready meals. Default vegan is wrong in so many ways particularly for teens. Aside from everything else the amount of processed crap in a lot of vegan food is a concern for me.

You can be perfectly healthy as a vegan in recovery actually - I speak from personal experience. The NHS itself allows this in some inpatient units.

Very much agree with most of this thread. I've been veggie for ever and watched as things slowly got better, with actual choices we enjoyed, and now things are going downhill again. So many restaurants only offer soulless meat subs and no options with cheese/egg/milk/cream - all of which I enjoy. I can't stand the fake meat, I'm veggie because I really don't like meat or fish, so why would I want to eat something pretending to be something I don't like in the first place?
This is why when we eat out now we mainly go to Indian restaurants - wide, delicious choices. But going out to pubs etc is now generally a miserable experience because of this. The number of times I end up just ordering chips or a side salad now, and then the looks of disapproval from staff...

It's all about lazy restaurant owners who show no creative flair and just want to lump all those pesky veggie, vegans, GF etc together with the lowest common denominator of what passes for food. So frustrating to see things going backwards.

@PaintAndPirouettes

Not everyone is going to feed them a high grade pellet though are they, And don't chickens naturally eat their own unfertilized eggs anyway?

Farmers are very much motivated to have their animals well nourished, as that will mean they produce well. Layers pellets are always made with that in mind.

The hens I'd worry about from a nutritional point of view would be those with very ignorant owners who feed them on scraps, grain and nothing else.

Occasionally hens will eat an egg, but this is not routine (though the odd hen will make a habit of it). Some nest boxes are designed so they roll away out of a hens reach once laid but I never bothered with that and only very occasionally found an eaten egg. Frankly they haven't a clue if it is fertilised or not so that won't determine whether or not they're going to eat an egg. They certainly know when they're broody but then they'll try and hatch anything, including pebbles of about the right size. They're not the brightest animals.

To be fair the best thing you could do to rescued chickens is give them the hornonal implant that stops them laying and the best chance at a long(ish) quality life.

That's a new invention since I last kept chickens. But Google suggests it costs about £60 per hen every 6 months. If someone won't give their hens adequate nutrition, they're hardly going to spend £120 per hen per year on this stuff. If you have ten hens you'd be spending as much on that as you would on your council tax fgs.

I'm talking strictly about those who rehome rescue chickens re the implant. We don't rescue dogs and expect them to provide a service for us! That being said obviously you're not going to get the same companionship from a chicken as you would a dog...

Back yard eggs are obviously better but I still won't eat them.

I'm talking strictly about those who rehome rescue chickens re the implant. We don't rescue dogs and expect them to provide a service for us! That being said obviously you're not going to get the same companionship from a chicken as you would a dog... Back yard eggs are obviously better but I still won't eat them.

I was talking about any keeper of chickens who isn't aiming to make money tbh. £120 per hen per year is really expensive when you need at least 2, preferably 3, and most have more.

Here's a question - is it better to rescue 20 ex battery hens from slaughter and let them lay, or to rescue 3, allow the other 17 to go to slaughter, but have those 3 on this expensive implant?

Plenty of people have dogs and expect them to provide a service of one sort of another. Mine fancies himself as a guard dog and pest controller, though he did choose his own job titles...

Guide dogs, people who do agility or flyball, hearing dogs for the deaf, working collies, search and rescue dogs, sniffer dogs, terriers who catch rats on farms... They all spend most of their lives as pets but do something that could easily be construed as a service. Some of them started out life as rescue dogs.