Question for vegetarians and vegans!

[runnyeggontoast]

I’ve been strongly considering going vegan, or at least vegetarian, for a while but my will power just isn’t strong enough.

I don’t eat red meat often (I don’t hate it but I don’t really like it that much anyway) so I only eat chicken but even then I’m not fussed about it. I eat a lot of seafood and fish mainly. I don’t eat much dairy in a pure form so I wouldn’t miss that (cheese, milk, cream etc) but I eat lots of things with dairy in it and I’d struggle to give that up. I eat a lot of eggs too. I’m quite a fussy eater and found I didn’t like a lot of vegetarian or vegan substitutes and it made it even harder for me, never mind the fact my will power is rubbish.

but I love animals. I have dogs, horses and spend a lot of time around cows, sheep and chickens and it breaks my heart to think of what goes on in slaughterhouses and it makes me sick to think of them as food.

I don’t want to eat meat or dairy or eggs but my willpower is rubbish because ultimately I like fish and I like chocolate and I like chicken.

Does anyone have any advice, or does anyone know of any information about it that will convince my brain and upset me enough to stop eating meat and dairy?

TIA 😀

I have sort of gone for a middle ground - I don't eat meat (or, where I can help it, dairy) if I don't know that the animal had a decent life and death. It's why I buy almost all my meat and dairy from Waitrose because their animal welfare standards are good (an acquaintance used to work for Compassion in World Farming and rated them), they win awards for their welfare standards and they also follow the Humane Slaughter Society with regards how animals are slaughtered. To me, how an animal dies is as important as how it lives.

Yes, it's more expensive but that just means I eat less of it and/or use cheaper cuts.

Other than that, I eat vegetarian or vegan which is a lot easier than it used to me - I tried to do the same thing about 25 years ago and gave up because veggie food in the 90s was dire or non-existent!

Oh, and a point I forgot to add in as to why I shop how/where I do - I want to support producers who are doing the right thing.

Vegetarian or vegan substitutes for meat products aren't great IMO. I agree with pps saying the easiest way is to cook from cuisines like Indian, Malaysian, Thai, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern etc, that are naturally heavy on veg/pulses etc and light on meat. You don't feel like you're missing out on things and you don't have to substitute much; maybe oat or other plant milk instead of dairy milk (which works fine in cooking and baking). Non-dairy yoghurt is getting better too, I think, and there's also coconut yoghurt, which is rich and delicious and definitely a treat not a trial!

I’ve been vegan for 5 years now and was veggie before that. I don’t miss anything now to be honest. I really love vegetables and alternatives are everywhere now. I think for me I just stopped cold Turkey (or cold tofu?) and over time it became natural. The thought of consuming milk or meat makes me feel sick now.

It was a Netflix documentary about 5 years ago that made me never want to eat meat again🤢 think it was called what the health.

You just need to eat whatever you're comfortable eating! I've never had a bad vegetarian dish, and when you do more vegetarian/vegan cooking you realise that there's so much more to veg than peas and carrots! My 4 bean chilli is the best chilli I've ever had in my life, my meat eating husband agrees!

Vegan is hard - you need to be fully committed to checking every ingredient list on everything you buy to make sure there's no honey, eggs or dairy etc. For cough mixture alone I've never considered vegan - need that honey!

At the end of the day there's no judges panel checking if you're a 'good veggie'. Even swapping out 2 or 3 meals a week to try veggie alternatives is a good start. Helps the environment and won't do your health any harm! Also, it's so much cheaper!

Maybe not in the UK, but certainly sheep are farmed for their wool e.g. merino sheep in Australia and NZ.

In your situation I would consider the alternative approach of reducing your consumption and switching to high welfare meat/dairy.

I agree with other posters that it's better to cut down on meat/dairy and do things gradually then to become too obsessed with labels or ethical purity. I've been vegetarian for over 20 years but am pretty pragmatic about it. For example, if there's an option to select a vegetarian cheese I'll do it, but if I go to someone's house and they put parmesan cheese on something I'm not going to refuse to eat it. I eat vegan quite often but at this point have no intention to formally become vegan.

We like Meatless Farm products.Their "mince" is lovely and tasty and low in fat too.I have several veggie friends .Like fish and do eat chicken although not fussed really .Like to be veggie just working on it ATM

Meat substitutes in general are ultra processed, don’t taste very good and aren’t healthy. In general I don’t concern myself with the macronutrient balance to my diet. I cook eat food based on whole food ingredients and assume that overall it balances out. My usual protein sources are lentils, chickpeas, beans, tofu (and I do eat eggs and dairy too).

Personally for me, I think having vegetarian or vegan options your are excited to eat and enjoy if more likely to change your diet than shame. I agree with the above posters who say that basing your diet on food cultures and recipes designed around plant ingredients is going to be better than trying to replace meat. If you want cookbook recommendations then Meera Sodha is my current favourite cookbook author. Her recipes are reliably delicious, interesting, varied, simple and healthy enough for day to day cooking, and don’t rely on too many speciality ingredients. Her second two cookbooks (Fresh India and East) are vegetarian and she runs a column in the Guardian, The New Vegan if you don’t want to buy a book. My husband eats meat, but almost always eats vegetarian with me at home because he loves the food and doesn’t feel any depravation because it’s so tasty.

As others have said, the secret is not to be so strict. Yes it means you can't officially declare yourself as 'Vegan' or 'Vegetarian' but who really cares. The main thing is that you are dramatically cutting back on those food types, yet allowing yourself to indulge in them every so often.
I know a lot of Vegan stuff suggests you need to be all in, but if Vegans were being honest they would rather see 60% of the population partially vegan, than 10% of the population fully vegan.

Take a look at accidentally vegan on instagram (maybe WWW too) and you will see that there are loads of things you can eat that are vegan (and therefore also vegetarian) - my favourite is Jammie Dodger biscuits!

The jury’s out on that one:
vegancalm.com/do-mussels-have-brains/

Yes, I think this is the most realistic way to live.

Also, you can call yourself whatever you like. I’m only a teacher Monday-Friday, I still say I’m a teacher at weekends.

For me it was watching the Earthlings Documentary on YouTube. It horrified me and I never went back. It’s a hard watch though!

You could start gradually, by only buying meat that has been well cared for/organic/local etc. we buy our eggs from a local farm and can see their chickens roaming free (when there isn’t a bird flu restriction). Our local butcher can explain which farms their meat comes from. I don’t eat chicken in restaurants or in ready made meals as it will have come from poor welfare environments etc

Currently pescatarian, have been veggie now for 5 years. Highly recommend Rukmini Iyer's 'The Green Roasting Tin'. We started off having meat substitutes of everything, when you let that go and start thinking about each ingredient and flavour it's a total game changer. I'm a far better cook for it!

Hi OP,

What kind of things would you struggle to give up? Fish, chocolate and chicken?

What vegan/vegetarian alternatives have you tried? There are many out there, some delicious and some not so much. I do eat fake meat, and there are some products I really love.

When I first became vegan, although I had already stopped eating meat, I struggled with milk because I like coffee, and I don't like it black. When I found an alternative that I loved, I did a happy dance. I also learned to cook and looked up recipes so that I could replicate dishes with meat and dairy in them. I've made seitan dishes, which are great if you can eat gluten - I've made pretty much most cakes vegan, even jaffa cakes.

Being vegan is not just about what we eat though - it is a change of lifestyle. We avoid buying products made from animals, or which aren't cruelty-free. Medication is an exception to this though, because there is currently no alternative.

There is so much information to take in, and at first, it can feel overwhelming, but it does get easier, and as a PP said, if you decided to go down the vegetarian/vegan path, and you do eat something which isn't veggie, don't beat yourself up.

You do need to learn and educate yourself too - think B12. There are loads of groups on social media that support and give advice to people starting out. Things like Veganuary. I'm not on any of these SM platforms, so can't provide links sorry.

Learn about what goes on with animals. All you have to do is Google. There is a documentary called 'Land of Hope and Glory' which was on Netflix. It documented the way animals are treated in some abattoirs. Be warned, it is very distressing though and I managed to watch about 8 minutes of it. There are other documentaries on Netflix about living a vegan lifestyle which look at it from an ethical perspective, as well as from a health and environmental pov.

I've been a veggie for over 40 years and mostly manage to eat a decent diet. I do use a range of meat substitutes so I can cook in parallel for a meat eating family. You need to live your life to suit you. I didn't know until probably 5-10 years ago that Parmesan wasn't veggie - so I continue to eat that. If I am buying I buy the veggie alternative, but don't mind if I am out. Whereas I will actively avoid fish in sauces (eg ceasar salad dressing, puttanesca sauce etc). I wear leather shoes as I don't believe the fake leather wears as well. So if you want to continue eating fish then do so - plenty of people are pescatarians.

My DD at uni does her best to be vegetarian, eats fish still and will eat meat if someone has made her dinner. She's a flexatarian. But agree you don't need to label what you are

Don’t label it.
Eat what you feel is ethical.

I like this approach! One of the things that puts so many people off even talking about reducing/changing certain foods, let alone doing it, is that there are those who see it as all-or-nothing and that everyone who doesn't agree with them needs "educating". Do what you feel is best - it's not a competition, a purity spiral or a club you have to be good enough to join.

As a mate put it "People that preach and judge make me hate vegans and I AM a fucking vegan"

Realistically what can people say that will make you change your mind? You’ve said you get so upset over slaughterhouses/you love animals and can’t stand to see them hurt… but you love chicken and chocolate so what can you do?

Do you love animals more or milk chocolate more? Decide that, then make a choice on what you’re going to do based on that.

Although unfortunately I think it’s one of those things it’s hard to do halfway, because once you’ve said ‘I’m going to reduce my chicken consumption because the treatment of chickens in the farming industry isn’t in line with my personal principles’ how can you then say ‘except when I fancy a KFC?’

It’s like once you’ve accepted that you don’t agree with it as a concept it’s hard to then decide that you’ll still do it sometimes.

@runnyeggontoast

You can still make a huge difference to animal welfare and carbon emissions by just reducing things like red meat and dairy and being careful and doing your research on the things you do eat and making sustainable low emissions choices. You don’t have to go fully veggie / vegan and tbh if you continue to buy some meat / fish / dairy but make ethical sustainable choices then you’re doing a good thing and also sending a message to retailers and producers that consumers care about how food is produced and not just about taste / cost.

Re chicken. Chicken is much lower in carbon emissions than other forms of terrestrial animal protein, and if you buy high welfare slow growing chickens / eggs then they also have reasonably good lives. You can either buy free range organic from supermarkets or order from high welfare farms and delivery schemes.

Re fish. The carbon emissions from most fish and shellfish are drastically lower than for most meat, especially if you eat things lower down the food chain like wild caught sardines, mackerel, cod, farmed mussels etc and avoid things like farmed salmon or swordfish. Go for sustainably certified fish which means it’s much more likely to come from fish stocks that aren’t being overfished and where fishers are required to reduce their impacts on marine habitats. If in doubt, or if there are no certified labels on something you want, ask your fishmonger or supermarket where it came from and how it was caught. If they don’t know, don’t buy it, it’s a bad sign.

Re chocolate: coco supply chains are notoriously hard to keep track of, and open to a lot of fraud and problems. Same goes for tea, cotton, palm oil, gold, sugar etc. If you buy fair trade organic chocolate, you’re at least more likely to be eating a product where the beans etc have been produced more ethically and you’re sending a message that there is demand for these products.