But I am curious where we actually stand, as there is a certain amount of bluster (on both sides) in that thread. That can make people less likely to speak up.

Bryant

limiting our meat intake is one of the best things we can do for ourselves and our planet. If you can't (or won't) stop, cut down 2 or 3 meals a week. Eat more locally grown fruits and veggies. It's not that hard.

Or just vegetarian (buttered)?

Every time my elbow bends, my mouth flies open.

I'm a gym type, so I get those big bags of frozen thinly sliced breast from Costco and eat 2-3 of those each day and also consume a lot of egg whites. Sure, I use a powder supplement, sometimes grind up cousin turkey, and fishnap the occasional salmon, but my stomach is its own factory farm for the most part.

Plus veggies, brown rice/quinoa, and dairy accompaniments.

I'm fine with this.

Perhaps you already do?

That isn't to say I haven't thought about it. I have. But, humans have been hunting for a few million years, and not every death was a kill shot. In fact, most of them probably weren't. The whole process of killing for food is a cruel, horrible series of events. Nature is horrifying if you look at it for more than three seconds. But, this is where we are evolutionarily.

Now, you might argue, we've evolved and should know better, etc. And I actually almost concede the point. Unfortunately, knowing better means paying a lot more, and I can't ingest the kind of protein I need on the budget the state of California has deemed adequate.

So, here I am. In a survival mode. Where animals lose and a human wins.

If I could afford tons of non-animal protein to meet my needs on my budget, no problem. Chicken is horrible when you have to eat it day after day after day. Believe me, there's no enjoyment in shredding that stuff and having it on the daily. You come to loathe every mouthful.

But until a viable, sustainable, affordable alternative presents itself, it's a bok bok nightmare.

Enough for four meals. The rest is vegetable based protein. Mixture of health concern, drought concern, tainted meat scares in CA, and yes, the fact that the animals aren't raised in humane conditions.

Most meat consumption probably goes to corporate vendors though, I don't think individual diet choices do much to impact the meat industry.

Whether I prepare it myself or someone else does. If my guests have dietary preferences, I prepare meals to suit them.

Myself, I am an omnivore and try not to be a dick about it. I just cannot get my shorts in a bunch about other people's diets. That is, unless they are being a jerk about it. Then, the sarcasm flies, directed at vegans and carnivores, and anybody between.

Actually, probably the most healthy diet for humans is a diverse one, with lots of veggies and very moderate meat consumption. After all, humans evolved as omnivores. I try to abide by this, often less successfully.

The main problem with vegans, IMHO, is not their diet but their incessant preaching based on an ideology that denies human omnivorous heritage. They seem to think that such an obvious Darwinian adaptation can be eliminated by shaming. Like the very recent Cecil lion vegan post, which was utter rubbish and does nobody any good. Not Cecil, and certainly not vegans who open themselves up to ridicule for such ridiculous arguments.

Are you a vegan? Good for you. I hope you eat plenty of beans, which are a good source of protein. I am sure you get plenty of other nutrients from the other veggies. Too bad about eggs, though.

Myself, I could only be a kosher veggie. Veggies plus fish (only I would eat shell fish, shrimp, and snails -- Yummy!).

Alas, I am an omnivore. But I promise never to shove a steak down your throat if you don't want it. And if you are a vegan visiting my house for a meal, we'll have to go shopping together before hand, and you'll have to serve as kitchen supervisor, but my food philosophy is like my music philosophy. It it tastes good; it is good. No matter what it is. (Hint to vegans. I absolutely love barley!)

My regards.

now realize it is worth being vegetarian for moral reasons.

He makes an excellent case for vegetarianism on moral grounds.

No dairy. I eat eggs because I have chickens, all hens for bug control and they lay eggs. More than I want to eat, the dogs get eggs in their food if the hens are super active.
Rice, beans, tofu, nuts, vegies,a little bit of fruit. Mostly drink water. I haven't eaten meat or fish or any dairy in over a year. Lost 40lbs.

That means seasonally and includes meat but not as much as we used to eat. Fish is mostly from the North Sea (Norway, Scotland). Our vegetables out of season generally come from Spain (typical in Northern Europe). It's a similar diet to the one that I followed in the US-I try not to eat mass produced meat and produce and franken-foods.

Our farmers in Belgium and the farmers in France just staged protests blocking trucks bringing in products from other countries. So the farmers' union is very strong here which generally means a higher quality of food.

restricted diets do make sence but if you have to travel outside of your eating comfort zone things can get very complicated .This falls into a do as l say not as I do argument about omnivores .

I LIKE TO VOTE .

much about it.

Bryant

It was like a vegan diet based on grains and local veggies , chewing a gazzion times was important just to piss off non followers .It was very Eastern and tragically hip but the other side of the food fight was the onslaught of fast food poison that has taken over the world .Us humans aren't devolving but we are lost in a materiall world .Please do not cue up that fucking Madonna tune .

Been that way for a good few years here.

and people can try to food police all they want. I do not care. My body, my choice. Eating eggs is not killing Cecil. The analogy is ridiculous. Livestock are not endangered. If fact, humans perpetuate their survival as a species by raising them. Now, I don't eat mass produced meat because I don't want to, not because a net nanny tells me I'm a killer because of it. I don't eat meat even close to every day, but I do it eat it every week. I buy grass-fed, pasture raised; it tastes better and it doesn't scare the shit out of me. If the cows and chickens are happier, that's a bonus.

You can argue being domesticated has been hugely beneficial to those animals that were domesticated. They've migrated and populated the globe along with the humans. Those large animals that we were not able to be domesticated by people are slowly going extinct. This isn't a hard phenomenon to notice. People that talk about the morality of domestication don't dwell on that. Cecil the Lion is news exactly because Lions have not shown the ability for ready domestication.

I'm one of the few unlucky people who cannot properly digest most greens. I get painful gas and diarrhea eating most vegetables. I love corn and spinach - they don't love me back. I also have GERD and, as much as I love tomatoes, I cannot handle them.

I can't stand spicy peppers, seasonings, spices, etc. (I get very sick if I do eat spicy stuff) and so on. I'm lactose intolerant. So I'm pretty much stuck to eating meat of some kind.

I love beef - I like it as rare as possible. It's one of the few things that does not cause me to become a bubble of noxious gases and/or an all-day worshiper of the porcelain gods.

Have you spoken with a doctor about these digestive issues? Just curious-- I know little about it apart from what I've heard about bacteria being involved in digesting a lot of plants.

I had a vegan friend who found that he couldn't digest certain things after living as a vegan for some ten years. I don't know if it was psychosomatic, or if the bacteria he needed had died of starvation, or if it was something altogether different, but I always thought that was interesting.

I've reduced by serving of seafood to once a month.

I haven't eaten beef or pork for 40 years but I still would have an occasional piece of chicken. I quit chicken about 3 months ago.

The book "Eating Animal" was my inspiration and why I will ultimately cut our seafood.

and about 95+% in diet. my only deviation is prepared protein shakes that contain a combo of dairy and soy. as a weightlifter, i need protein. i am working towards concocting my own vegan version of the shakes.

its not a meal for me.

a couple times a week. We eat eggs that I purchase from a local farmer. I try to buy more locally raised meats whenever possible. I have friends who hunt and will sometimes drop off venison, turkey, the occasional duck. I have other friends who have dropped off fish and I've seriously considered going back to fishing again. (I have all the equipment that I need-just need to get the license.)

I also try to garden whenever possible and make most of my own baked goods, including bread. My diet doesn't include lots of processed foods for both health and financial reasons, except for the occasional diet Coke or Sonic Limeade on a really hot day.(We are sun tea people, unsweetened, black coffee or iced water people in my house.) The other night we stopped at the Jack in the Box drive thru after a 14 hour day at a concert and it made me a bit queasy after I finished it.

I'm surprised there would be any confusion.

Bryant

Mostly I decide to buy, or not to buy meat, for environmental reasons.

Eating lower on the food chain, foods that require less energy to get to my table, the treatment of animals, etc..

I'm not a vegetarian. My wife is.

I simply don't eat meat most days.

Humans are omnivores, and always have been for the millions of years there have been human animals. So I'm not going to dwell on that. I have dogs too and I don't think it would be right to force them to be vegetarians. Dogs are omnivores just like us to some extent, co-evolving with humans, but they are still less capable vegetarians than humans. Cats are simply carnivores. It wood seem hypocritical to me if I was a vegan because I didn't want to kill animals, but then I fed my dogs or cats meat.

I grew up with fish as our family's primary animal protein, mostly fish my dad caught until we were old enough to go ocean fishing with him. I've caught fish that weighed more than I did, but I didn't weigh much last time I did.

Modern industrial scale commercial fishing does terrible damage to the ocean, and internationally there is also great abuse of workers, some of them existing in conditions of slavery, their bodies thrown overboard as they die, or abandoned on the nearest shore when they are injured or just too old and worn out to work.

In my perfect world big fishing fleets would be banned, just as the commercial hunting of migratory birds in North America was banned. Shoot a couple of ducks as a licensed hunter to feed your family, that's fine. Shoot thousands of ducks to sell in the markets of New York City, no.

I might eat more grass fed beef if I could afford it. (My great-grandparents were ranching and dairy people; my mom's cousin and his son still have the original family homestead.) I don't like eating "factory farm" pork. Conditions in many of these industrial scale "pig farms" are horrible and inhumane.

I've no problem at all with people who hunt the wild pigs of California, so long as they eat them. I'd rather have the California wolves and grizzly bears back, and I oppose anyone hunting wolves or bears. Pigs are now the most dangerous wild animals in California, and they are destructive too, sometimes worse than overpopulations of deer. (If pigs hunted deer like wolves do then maybe things would be back in balance again, but for now things are not in balance. There are too many pigs and too many deer.) I don't hunt pigs or deer, but I won't turn down offerings of sausage. Wild pork prepared by an expert is nothing like bland corn-fed factory farmed supermarket pork.

I eat little fruit and no green veggies. Ever since I have been a child the texture of most fruits and veggies has made me gag. I was told to keep trying them occasionally and eventually I would like them. At age 30 I gave up.

My diet is meat heavy, with lots of cheese, grain products, and other starches. Despite my diet I am almost never sick, my weight is healthy (BMI of 25), and my BP and cholesterol are both excellent. In my experience being active, watching my weight, and avoiding stress outweighs the negatives of my diet.

(I do take a multivitamin daily, and a vitamin D supplement every other day)

and the deer is generally on a natural diet. I also eat dove (also hunted), squirrel when available, and waterfowl. I like beef, but am increasingly concerned with antibiotic "irrigation" and how they are feed-lotted.

Last night I fixed a venison stew in much the same way as beef stew. Most vegetables were also organic. Quite good.

I try to stick to local fruit.

Occasionally, a bit of fish or beef, but it's rare.

I reluctantly eat heart-healthy salmon. Am a ridiculous animal lover. Will pick up occasional bugs in the house with a Kleenex and release them outside. Never, however, preach, or even talk about, not eating meat to others.

Kicking myself for not going vegan earlier.

I haven't eaten mammal meat since 1998.

I rarely eat carnivores, and never any that are endangered.

Fact.

It's about the fact that there aren't many left.

If there were only 30k chickens left in the world, folks would care more about them too.

Plus beef, chicken, fish, lamb, etc. I will eat all the meats. Except pets.

It seems like it would be closer to beef in taste than venison. What is your opinion on it?

How does it taste?

I like the sausages and stuff. Reindeer is better though. They sell reindeer dogs down town that they wrap in bacon and grill. Fucking delicious.

with gravy and mashed potatoes

I am keto-adapted, and eat all kinds of meat, grass fed if I can get it, plus game, seafood, and poultry including duck. I burn fats for fuel primarily, rather than glucose from carbohydrates.

So I eat saturated and monounsaturated fats, and some type of meat or seafood every day. I eat veggies sparingly.

but that includes tons of veggies. So I do eat meat products quite a bit, but not every meal. I have a couple of low carb vegetarian books I rely on. My basic diet is coffee for breakfast (lol), a large salad for lunch, and 2 kinds of cooked veggies, a salad and meat for dinner. Sometimes, if there are left overs from dinner (rare, because I don't make much meat, it's too expensive for me and my 4 kids) I will take it to work for lunch.

I tried being vegetarian before, I've tried being vegan - it just doesn't agree with me. Too many blood sugar swings for me. I still have fits of wanting to be vegan/vegetarian and I'll switch for a month or 2...then it catches up with me again and I go back to eating mostly low carb. I think I could be vegetarian because vegan is just too strict for me, but I have lactose intolerance, so my options are limited for animal proteins (I can have SOME cheeses but that's about it)

I rarely eat fish. I have never acquired a taste for it - my brother has a deadly fish allergy that was so bad you couldn't even cook fish in the house and he'd get sick...so we never ate it when I was growing up. I'll have salmon or trout once in awhile but not as often as I should. I do eat shellfish though quite often. But again, it's costly.

I don't eat pork very often either - something about it does NOT agree with me. I've tried organic pork even and it doesn't matter. I'm all bloated, in pain and gassy after I eat pork. Every single time. Like I drank a gallon of milk or something. So, the meat I eat is mostly chicken and beef. When I lived up north I used to have moose and bison added in there too but it's not readily available where I live now.

I try to buy organic, grass fed free range meat when I can - but I cannot afford it most of the time. I still add it in to my diet though to support local organic farmers. I sometimes get organic produce delivery as well. And the last few years I've grown my own veggies in the summer. I always have an over abundance of lettuce, carrots and zucchini, LOL.

So yeah, it's complicated.

What kind of coffee?

Certainly some of us are on a diet to lose weight. I am trying to cut back on eating and exercising more. I am using a protein powder that makes you feel full for lunch. The powder is ground vegetables and is mixed with water. At first it tastes awful, but after a few days I got use to it. If anyone is interested there are lots of good products on iherb.com.

Eat meat occasionally but only when going out and eat fish every once in a while because when you live on an island it comes up a lot.

But almost everything we cook at home is vegetarian, usually one Indian dish or another.

Mmmmm...

I try to reduce carbs as much as I can, but being poor limits me in what I can afford so the family is full and satisfied. We eat dinner, and if there are leftovers that's lunch the next day. Sometimes we have Ramen or grits for lunch. I've had a cheese stick and some peanuts, or a tablespoon or two of peanut butter many times when there wasn't anything else.

I was a vegetarian for a year on doctor's orders. I gained 60 pounds, and my health deteriorated. Turns out, carbs are not good for me. I've tried just about every diet a doctor could point me to, and a couple from women's magazines. This was before gastric bypass, liquid diets and other stuff.

After that, I rebelled by eating at McDonald's three or four times a week, with processed junk for the rest of my meals (and my kids'). Blood pressure and cholesterol still very good, but the weight was starting to inch up.

Through all that, my blood pressure stayed low, so low that it once freaked a nurse out during a checkup. My cholesterol was so good the doctor always did the tests twice, just to be sure. My weight was a little high, but not bad, about 30 pounds over my "normal".

I was convinced to go low-fat again, because I was overweight and getting older. I only lost weight when I ate less than 800 calories a day and exercised like a fiend. My health continued to worsen.

I can't tell you how depressing it was to eat nothing except low-fat, low-calorie foods for years. No butter, oil, milk, cheese. No salad dressing. Turkey instead of beef or chicken. Tofu. Oh dear god. I tried and tried to like it, or just tolerate it. I shudder to think how much I threw out, because it was just nasty.

I exercised daily, walking for miles after work, using weights, on top of having a physically demanding job and taking care of two kids and a house by myself.

What really killed me was getting pregnant with my third son. Oy, did I gain! Even though I was sick the first three months and barely ate, I gained 80 pounds. I eventually lost most of it, again on a starvation low-calorie, low-fat diet.

I can open my fridge and tell you exactly where all of the food, be it meat or veggies, comes from.

three times a day.

I've never been able to eat that much of it. For me, it's a flavoring to be balanced in with other things. For instance, I'll be making posole verde later in the weekend, half a pound of ground turkey stretching out for the next four days, at least. Seeing a slab of any critter on my plate as a main event is not a terribly appetizing prospect.

I was a strict veg head for about 10 years. Only going back to school and running out of time to cook caused me to add meat back in. The good thing about meat is that it tastes like what it is, no matter how indifferently it is cooked and I had someone else to feed.

breath the air and don't want to prolong the misery of life .

I was an omnivore for roughly 26 years, then a vegetarian for 4, then back to an omnivore for the last 16 or so, but have cut back on intake since being diagnosed with gout a few months back. I still should eat less, though.

Was vegan for a number of years but eat cheese and eggs when depressed. Am planning to give them up again now though, for the sake of the animals and my body (gained a lot of weight. Some is due to my psych meds which need to be adjusted but cutting back on fats will help me too)