Been Eating Mostly A Vegan Diet

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RSteve

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Several weeks ago, my younger daughter moved her family to mostly a vegan diet. Vegan, not vegetarian; no dairy or eggs. My daughter has lost considerable weight and some skin issues she's had all her life have disappeared. I've been along for the ride. It's actually been much easier than I thought, mostly because there are so many vegan products available today. I don't know if any of the manufactured meat substitutes are healthier than meat, but my LDL has plunged.

I've been buying Impossible Burger and Beyond Beef, two ground beef substitutes. Each has some positive attributes pertaining to taste and mouth feel Lately, I've mixed together 16 oz. of each, added granulated garlic, onion powder, a little salt, and some Wright's Smoke Oil. The burgers would fool most people into thinking they are beef.

A friend, who is a vegan/retired physician visited me to chat and have lunch. I served him one of the burgers and after a couple of bites, he couldn't eat it, saying it felt and tasted too much like an animal product.
"When was the last time you had a real hamburger?"
"Probably 50 years ago."
"So, how do you know it tastes like real meat?"
"It just does."

I'm mixing up a batch of the fake burger in a few minutes to take to my daughter's house for a cookout tonight. I've only cooked them on a black French steel skillet. I hope they don't stick or fall apart on the gas grill.
 
I've enjoyed Impossible Burgers and they are impossible to tell from the real thing IMHO. I'm primarily vegetarian but do eat dairy. There are whole loads of tasty vegan options out there and I have no issues with any of them. Too many folks think being a vegetarian/vegan is all about bland foods and tofu. Not accurate at all. And then some folks seem hostile to the whole idea, as if the notion challenges their lifestyle choices. Never understood that.

For me it was a natural progression I made back around age 30. It has nothing to do with moral, ethical, ecological, environmental, philosophy, religion issues or the like. I do however feel that the health benefits to me are worth it. And I have no soapbox to stand on. It's just a personal choice.


Cheers,

RR
 
For me it was a natural progression I made back around age 30. It has nothing to do with moral, ethical, ecological, environmental, philosophy, religion issues or the like. I do however feel that the health benefits to me are worth it. And I have no soapbox to stand on. It's just a personal choice. Cheers, RR
For my daughter it was specifically about ecological/environmental issues for both humans and the animals. For me, lowering my LDL is very important. My food bill is certainly less. For me, other than fairly lean burger, beef meant buying rib roast or tenderloin.

Plus, I love Trader Joe's bean burritos.
 
I think it is difficult, or willingly difficult, for some people to realize ethical dieting isn't a stance against patties. "Why would you eat fake meat if you won't eat meat?" That whole argument is a weird one, and a weird one I don't think they've bothered to actually contemplate. I've been on a certain diet for nearly 30 years, and not once...not a single time...have I started a conversation about it. However, I can't count how many times I've been passively aggressed because of it. Rhetoric disguised as questions with no real interest in listening to answers.

Certain cultures and religions have been vegan, or vegetarian, for thousands of years. This is not a recent invention. The options to our culture are rather recent inventions. The marketplace functioning with good result. That's a positive for sure, even if you are an eyeroller.
 
Cows eat grass, I eat cows, does that count, lol? Just kidding. I have no problem with vegans, vegetarians, or any one who chooses that lifestyle. It was a bit of a problem couple of years ago when a friend, who is a total vegan, and her new husband came to stay with me for a week. Problem, what to fix them for dinners, breakfast, so on. Made them some vegan chili, Morning Star fake sausage, etc. Needless to say, we ate out a lot.
 
My daughter lived and taught in 3rd world countries. She saw how scarce clean water is in many countries. Statistics indicate 80% of U.S. clean water is intertwined in raising cattle. She wants to know that there will be clean water for her three children.
 
My daughter lived and taught in 3rd world countries. She saw how scarce clean water is in many countries. Statistics indicate 80% of U.S. clean water is intertwined in raising cattle. She wants to know that there will be clean water for her three children.
Unrelated, but related...as toilet paper was being hoarded, bidets became popular on Amazon etc. The kind of bidets that can be self-installed in 15 minutes. They say that a single roll of toilet paper requires 37 gallons of water to manufacture. I'm not sure if that is accurate or not. But adding a bidet to your toilet adds around 4 gallons of water use per week. Also is said to cut the toilet paper use down by 75% or so. That's a lot of water savings in the general scheme of things. And the people who never thought they'd want or use a bidet seem to love them and never want to go back. I've watched a couple youtube installations, and it is incredibly simple.
 
My daughter lived and taught in 3rd world countries. She saw how scarce clean water is in many countries. Statistics indicate 80% of U.S. clean water is intertwined in raising cattle. She wants to know that there will be clean water for her three children.
Because 3rd world countries do not have the science or resourced that we do. When I lived in the midwest we got the bulk of our water from reclaimed sewage, cleaned, filtered, and chlorinated. Subsidized by water from the Missouri river. And, you could drill a well down to 80 feet and get water. We are very lucky to have the resources we do.
 
Certain cultures and religions have been vegan, or vegetarian, for thousands of years. This is not a recent invention. The options to our culture are rather recent inventions. The marketplace functioning with good result. That's a positive for sure, even if you are an eyeroller.
In Minneapolis-St. Paul, there have been many popular East Indian vegetarian restaurants for decades. I'd be surprised if even a small number of their patrons are vegetarian. They frequent these establishments because the food is excellent.
 
Why in the heck would it take 37 gal of water to make paper? Would like to see the stats on that.
I couldn't find anything besides the addition of how much electricity, wood pulp, and chemicals like bleach are used as well, but it really wouldn't surprise me. I remember making paper in art class in grade school, and we used a lot of water just to make one large piece of paper. Wash it. Bleach it. Wash again. Wash again. Then set it.
 
I I've been on a certain diet for nearly 30 years, and not once...not a single time...have I started a conversation about it. However, I can't count how many times I've been passively aggressed because of it. Rhetoric disguised as questions with no real interest in listening to answers.
Reminds me of the old joke, and I mean really old joke.
A Roman Catholic priest and an Orthodox Jewish rabbi are seated next to one another on an airplane. The flight attendant brings each the same meal. The rabbi looks into the plate and sees there appears to be pieces of meat in his pasta dish and immediately calls over the flight attendant.
"Miss, there appears to be some meat in my meal which is not kosher. I cannot eat it. If you have no plain pasta, just bring me a couple of pieces of fruit."
The priest turns to the rabbi and says, "I fully respect your adherence to your dietary laws, but am curious. Do you think the time will ever come when you might deviate from those laws?"
The rabbi, with a chuckle, responds, "Perhaps, at your wedding."
 
Generally, I've never kept track of what I spend on food. I've always spent whatever I want to eat costs. Going primarily vegan, I have noticed that my food tab is significantly less than when I was buying meat and seafood.
I should add that when I bought beef it was usually whole tenderloins and boneless rib roasts, which tend to be more costly cuts. I rarely ever bought ground beef. For ground beef, I usually bought chuck, round, and brisket and ground a combination myself with about 15% fat trimming from the brisket.
I usually bought a side of salmon every week at about $10.00 lb.

On Monday and Friday, I meet my grandkids at the school bus stop and make dinner for the six of us. On Wednesday, I make dinner for my older daughter and her husband and eat with them. Inevitably, I find myself volunteering to make dinner for one of the daughters on at least one more day a week.
That's the primary source of my food costs.
 
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If you can trust the news cycle, the farmers and grocery stores aren't making the money from the inflation. The only step in the chain seeing the profits are the big boys at the slaughterhouses. The farmers aren't seeing higher prices on their meat. The grocery stores are still working on the same profit margins. The conglomerates are reporting record profits.
 
If you can trust the news cycle, the farmers and grocery stores aren't making the money from the inflation. The only step in the chain seeing the profits are the big boys at the slaughterhouses. The farmers aren't seeing higher prices on their meat. The grocery stores are still working on the same profit margins. The conglomerates are reporting record profits.
While I'm not buying meat, I do see meat prices are rising.
 
I'm not vegan or even vegetarian, however the wife and I do eat a lot of vegetables and I like them. I've even had vegan food that I enjoyed, ex. chicken tenders from a vegan cafe in Ventura that were great. That said, I'm not giving up meat and potatoes, lol. And yes, meat prices are rising rapidly so may have to rethink that.
 
And yet while Americans consume huge amounts of beef, most would never consider eating horses. According to statistics between 2015 and 2019, 355,821 equines were exported for slaughter from the U.S. to Mexico. Additionally, 92,992 equines were imported to Canada for slaughter between 2015 and 2018, reported AgriFood and Agriculture Canada/StatCan.
and
China is the biggest consumer of dog meat globally, consuming about 20 million dogs per year. Dog meat has a long tradition in China and is still eaten in many regions of the country, such as Yulin, which holds a dog meat festival every year. The Lychee and Dog Meat Festival is widely protested; however, it draws a huge crowd every year, driving up the demand and prices for dog meat.
The most well-known country for eating dogs is Vietnaam, where dog is a dietary staple. The Vietnamese use almost every part of the dog in stews and soups and serve it spiced on a stick. Many believe that dog meat has medicinal properties and brings good fortune. Unfortunately, Vietnam has no regulations regarding dogs and dog meat, and so many dogs are stolen from homes to be slaughtered and used as food. Vietnam is the second-largest consumer of dog meat behind China.
Also in Vietnam In Vietnam, rats are a popular food.
 
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In Vietnam, rats are a popular food.
There was a PBS documentary on how rats are raised to be released into the already harvested rice fields to reach a marketable size from feeding on the leftover rice. When I was in Vietnam, I learned "the hard way" that roadside spring rolls sold to foreigners may contained the meat of river rats. After eating a couple of delicious spring rolls, over a three week period I dropped a lot of weight and could not trust even the sense of a tiny fart approaching.
 
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