Vegetarianism - The Debate

[SidewinderINC]

Originally Posted by Bigstan

I was wondering how easy the long term vegetarians found sourcing ingredients for cooking etc. Do you have lists of stuff which you know contain no animal derived ingredients/additives or do you have to stand in supermarkets reading labels a lot?

I'd like to hear semi-pro wasters viewpoint on this, as he is a vegetarian for the reason of just not liking the taste of meat/just not wanting it. not some ethical "meat is murder" reason.

[Roberta]

Stan, I became veggie 21 years ago but vegan 14 years ago and have never had any trouble eating out anywhere or buying food.

Things have definitely got easier due to a lot more products having a veggie or vegan stamp on them so a lot of the time I just have to look for the veggie symbol and check the allergy warning to discover if I can eat it. You'd be very surprised just how many vegan products you use every day without realising it.

I have never been to a restaurant that didn't offer jacket potato and salad as an option and seeing as that is one of my favourite meals I'm sorted! I also tend to eat in chinese and indian restaurants where both serve a lot of vegetable options so again I'm catered for.

Also due to a more health conscious food industry in the last 20 years use of animal fat has been reduced in a lot of products. I remember buying bread that had it in once! These days most indian restaurants use vegetable ghee rather than dairy and more veg oil is used in mass production so that companies can claim their product is lower in saturated fat.

It has definitely improved with most supermarkets/restaurants offering veggie options and clearer ingredient listing on goods.

[goldilocks]

Originally Posted by Bigstan

I was wondering how easy the long term vegetarians found sourcing ingredients for cooking etc. Do you have lists of stuff which you know contain no animal derived ingredients/additives or do you have to stand in supermarkets reading labels a lot? .....
Also, how about restaurants, do you tend to go to vegetarian restaurants or do mainstream restaurants offer a decent variety of vegetarian food?

wellllllll... there are certain things we know we can have - the staple foods we buy every week. the difficult items as you mentioned are baked goods, and also cheeses.
if we're buying something new, or even just switching brands - it does involve a bit of lable reading - i probably annoy people in the supermarkets.
things that you would maybe presume to be vegetarian quite often aren't - why bother having a 'meat free cheese and onion slice' that still has non-veggie cheese in?

through my job i get quite a lot of chocolates / biscuits given to me, and it's awful not being able to eat most of them. i stick to green and blacks / cadbury / hotel chocolate - where i know they'll be labeled as veggie friendly if i can eat them.
i'm still boycotting mars - even though their products are 'technically' suitable for veggies - as they applied for veg society status and didn't get it due to the fact that they only use battery farmed eggs.
anything with red food colouring in is also difficult - we can't have anything with E120 in. other sneaky ingredient we have to look out for is 'whey'.

beer / wine is also pretty tough - Jasper is fine because 99.9% of cider is veggie, but lagers and wines are more difficult.
grolsch = veggie, stella = not veggie - if this wasn't something you actively looked into, why would you presume their ingredients would be that different?
luckily there is a fantastic site (this fantastic site here) that jasper has saved on his phone for such emergencies

the other really difficult thing is when you are offered food / drink / even just a biscuit at someone elses house - it's often easier to turn them down that say 'can i read the box' -

[Stan_Lite]

Originally Posted by Roberta

Stan, I became veggie 21 years ago but vegan 14 years ago and have never had any trouble eating out anywhere or buying food.

Things have definitely got easier due to a lot more products having a veggie or vegan stamp on them so a lot of the time I just have to look for the veggie symbol and check the allergy warning to discover if I can eat it. You'd be very surprised just how many vegan products you use every day without realising it.

I have never been to a restaurant that didn't offer jacket potato and salad as an option and seeing as that is one of my favourite meals I'm sorted! I also tend to eat in chinese and indian restaurants where both serve a lot of vegetable options so again I'm catered for.

It has definitely improved with most supermarkets/restaurants offering veggie options and clearer ingredient listing on goods.

I would imagine clear labelling in supermarkets would make a huge difference when shopping. I know when I was veggie, there was little or no clear labelling and I spent many an hour in supermarkets reading labels and throwing products back on shelves in disgust as I discovered yet another of my favourites was off-limits.

Having baked spuds and salad as one of your favourite meals would come in very handy as a Vegan in restaurants I would think

Originally Posted by goldilocks

wellllllll... there are certain things we know we can have - the staple foods we buy every week. the difficult items as you mentioned are baked goods, and also cheeses.
if we're buying something new, or even just switching brands - it does involve a bit of lable reading - i probably annoy people in the supermarkets.
things that you would maybe presume to be vegetarian quite often aren't - why bother having a 'meat free cheese and onion slice' that still has non-veggie cheese in?

beer / wine is also pretty tough - Jasper is fine because 99.9% of cider is veggie, but lagers and wines are more difficult.
grolsch = veggie, stella = not veggie - if this wasn't something you actively looked into, why would you presume their ingredients would be that different?
luckily there is a fantastic site (this fantastic site here) that jasper has saved on his phone for such emergencies

Being a cheese lover, I was always sorely disappointed with the lack of veggie cheese when I was veggie - there were only 2 or 3 kinds that I could find made with vegetable rennet at the time and they weren't always readily available. I would imagine it's a bit better now. As mentioned above, I spent a lot of time annoying people in supermarkets reading labels due to the lack of clear labelling at the time

I never even thought to check alcohol, it never occured to me that animal products would be used to make it. Being a student at the time, I would probably have been most upset to discover this

[Will]

Why is whey considered non vegetarian out of interest? I consume large quantities of it as a supplement for my training.

[Roberta]

The rennet they use in processing the whey is often from a non vegetarian source.

Info here if you're really interested!

http://www.vegsoc.org/info/cheese.html#manu

[goldilocks]

Originally Posted by Will

Why is whey considered non vegetarian out of interest? I consume large quantities of it as a supplement for my training.

i worked in holland and barrett for about 4 years as a student - where there whey protein supplements used to contain animal fats - most are now suitable for vegetarians

(oh yes, something i was thinking about last night is the limited number of medications we can take as they have gelatin in the tablets / capsules... and i also out of choice would not have a live vaccine which had been animal derived - vegetarianism - it's not all about meat!)

[Will]

I was going to say - the one I get it from is veggie friendly. Thanks for the info though, and to you too Dawn.

[Jonny69]

When we go to restaurants it's limiting where we can go. I do have to compromise on where I want to go, especially when we're on holiday. Luckily she's not too fussy with dairy, cheese etc which makes things easier.

[Jonny69]

Originally Posted by goldilocks

(oh yes, something i was thinking about last night is the limited number of medications we can take as they have gelatin in the tablets / capsules... and i also out of choice would not have a live vaccine which had been animal derived - vegetarianism - it's not all about meat!)

Not much choice for mine though, she's type 1 diabetic. Insulin comes from pigs as far as I know.