If I had a nickel for every LotR Vegan/Vegetarian meme I’ve seen I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
Transcipt
Uruk-Hai Orc labelled “vegans”, holding chickens: “They are not for eating!”
Mordor Orc labelled “vegetarians”: “What about their eggs? They don’t need those!”
I must be genetically predisposed to veganism because I genuinely don’t like cheese or bacon very much.
Still really like lamb and chicken though, so 🤷
When I first saw this meme, I was a vegan… Now I’m a vegetarian
Dairy is the most challenging thing to give up. There are good alternatives - particularly when they’re made of nuts and seeds that have been fermented traditionally - but they’re good in their own way, don’t expect them to be the same.
The stuff made out of almost pure coconut oil is universally disappointing, and coconut is arguably not vegan given the environmental footprint and resulting animal endangerment.
I’m lactose intolerant and even for lil old vegan me is difficult to avoid the seductive siren song of cheese.
From my experience, there is no good Vegan cheese. Daiyo cheese is awful.
I mean, Daiyo is an example of the artificial-basically-mostly-coconut-oil cheeze I mentioned previously. Most stuff that you can find in the average grocery store is going to suck. Have you tried anything along the lines of, say, this almost award-winning plant-based cheese? Stuff like that is way better, but again, unique. Don’t expect it to be the same, although things may be changing soon since people have figured out how to get one of the key dairy proteins from non-animal sources.
There’s also homemade stuff, which varies. It’s pretty easy to make super creamy mac and cheese with plant-based sources only, for instance.
One of my close friends went vegan right around the pandemic beginning, when everything first started shutting down. Our local bar shut down the day of St Patrick’s day so we invited him over to our place instead for shitty beer with green food dye (it was 3 of us total and we worked in close proximity daily, AND we were very pro-mask)
He used it as an opportunity to introduce us to a vegan version of the cheesy spinach and artichoke dip from like Applebees/Chilis/insert old people restaurant here, but it was made with cashews.
It took him an hour but OH MY LAWD my husband and I still talk about that dip to this day as non-vegans. Better than anything we’ve ordered at a restaurant. We tell everyone about that shit.
Damn that sounds tasty. People hate plant-based food, until they try good plant-based food.
I’ve had some good vegan cheese, and I’ve had bad real cheese, but only one of them cost 3.50 for a pound
Listen, I’m going to cast it into the fire, sure.
But then it’s going to get all goopy and crispy and I’m going to pull it back out again to eat it.
POV: you’re lactose intolerant
Could be worse, I can’t eat lentils or wheat. I mean I can eat wheat but I don’t like to clean my toilet everyday. And lentils make me throw up.
I actually went about it the other way. After seeing how bad dairy cows have it in the daily (I have in-laws who are dairy farmers) compared to cows raised for their flesh, I tried giving up just cheese, because it’s the one thing I told myself I could never do. I remember specifically saying to a lactose intolerant person that I would kill myself if I couldn’t eat cheese lol.
I can’t imagine eating cheese now, just the smell grossed me out. Like I was cleaning a plastic case that held cheddar (my partner’s) and I swear I couldn’t get the stink out of my fingers for hours. Even cow milk which I used to think was neural and creamy smells and tastes funky and cheesy.
Anyway, that’s all to illustrates how malleable tastes are. I think it must have been so hard to quit, because I remember what I said and did, but not how I felt. It’s like the urge just faded away. Like it was a temptation one moment, and then the next I forgot what I ever liked about it.
Anyway from there reducing and eliminating other products was easy, since I’d already fought the animal product boss battle.
I like eggs. And baking.
My eggs are sourced from a dozen of the most spoiled hens I’ve ever seen. They have a half acre of bugs, grass, and weeds to run around in. They are more pets than livestock.
I mean the critique of cheese (honey and eggs, too) is that they, like all foods, are statistically near always sourced from factory farming methods that are harmful to all involved. The only difference is that wheat isn’t sentient enough for ethical consideration. I’m glad your chickens are treated well. I’m glad you ethically source your eggs. Being “one of the good ones” isn’t a defense though; we still need to end factory farming as it exists today.
Im doing what I can to avoid factory farmed food, because for all the talk of ending factory farming I have yet to see any progress outside of angry internet comments. Im going for harm reduction in my own life.
Whats the difference between vegans and vegetarians?
one is a diet, the other is a religion.
Dairy and eggs. Aka animal products that don’t involve flesh.
…unless you’re Catholic in which case you make up bullshit to spread your religion and call beavers and fish vegetarian for…reasons.
I know you don’t care but the fish thing has to do w symbolism not ethical constraint. Just fyi
I cut way back on cheese because of the salt, also it’s expensive and high in calories. I could easily go through a large block (or even two--8000 calories!) of sharp cheddar in a week, and that was too much.
This is why I gave up red meat, and processed meat:
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/is-red-meat-bad-for-you
Here’s something you may not realize: The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies red meat as a Group 2A carcinogen, which is described as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Carcinogens are substances with cancer-causing potential.
A review of studies on the relationship between red meat and cancer found that eating high levels of red meat is associated with a higher risk of:
Breast cancer
Colorectal cancer
Uterine cancer
Hepatocellular carcinoma
Lung cancerThat’s not all: Processed meats are categorized as level 1 carcinogens. This puts them in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos and means they’re known to increase your risk of cancer.
Something is better than nothing. “I could never be a vegetarian/vegan because of bacon” “Ok, then eat vegetarian AND also eat bacon then?”
Right? Anything is better then nothing
flexitarian is the way to go first: my understanding is thats its more controlled, not everyday (maybe even only to special occations) eating of meat
just because you don’t always eat meat, doesn’t mean you need to pick a label for it
flexitarian is a ridiculous term, essentially everyone eats vegetarian or vegan foods sometimes
if I dont have a label and a flag how can I tell everyone all aspects of myself as the main character in life?
Someone who cuts most meat out of their diet is closer to a vegetarian than they are to the average diet. But saying they are vegetarian most of the time is going to upset a lot of people.
they’re still just an omnivore…
See, this is why the label exists, so we can say “I decided to cut my meat eating down to ecologically sustainable levels and support animal cruelty as little as possible while acknowledging that it’s a hard, nearly impossible thing to do on a budget to go even fully vegetarian, much less the reality that there’s so many many things going wrong in the world and not everyone can care about everything,” only with one word because the vegan dorks will cry about you being vegetarian too anyways.
my understanding is thats its more controlled, not everyday (maybe even only to special occations) eating of meat
IS IT???
I thought flexitarian was someone who can perform very flexible oral sex. 🤯
Flexual intercourse?
🎵 When I get that feeling, I need flexual healing🎵
I’ve never tried to convince anyone to take up veganism. Instead I avoid bringing it up at all cost because people get weird about it.
If you’re a vegan do this and partake in society, you are brain rotted.
That’s almost a real sentence
Could always source ethical human milk…and other cheeses.
ethical human milk
Imagining this overlayed on a man with a big smile on his face.
My Hu-cow sub consents.
Cast it into the fire! Grill it!
Great, now I want halloumi…
