Meat

Trash_Vortex

I keep feeling pressured to go vegetarian. But meat is, 1: Extremely pleasant to eat, and 2: By becoming vegetarian, I am not exactly "sticking it to the man". The meat industry still rages on, and I'll probably be wasting more of it this way, as the "ghost meat" I would've eaten will be thrown away. All it is is guilt. (And a fear of Mad Cow Disease that still lingers from the 90's).

Pykrete

What exactly is your pressure?  Health, animal rights, what's the main angle?

Trash_Vortex

@Pykrete: Animal rights I guess.

@Funnyguts: That makes a surprising amount of sense.

I haven't eaten meat for several days, but it means it's actually hard to find things I can eat in the store. I still have some meat in the freezer. But meat's starting to creep me out these days for some reason. Like the fact it's dead and I've become more sensitive to violence and death or something.

Pykrete

When I don't eat enough meat my health starts suffering.  That said, I recognize that this is not necessarily the case for everyone, and with current cultural norms tending to overdo meat, I can definitely see how a vegetarian diet can break even or even give a net positive effect.  If it turns out that you can't manage a healthy vegetarian diet, don't let it gnaw at you.  Like it or not, humans are built to eat a wide variety of things, and a certain amount of circle of life is gonna happen.

Inhumane livestock raising practices are another question, but hey :P

Gelzo

I don't think it's good for me to go without meat for too long.

Super Lazuli

*shrug*

Vegetarianism is most definitely not for everyone. But if you really want it, there's no reason for you not to.

glennmagusharvey

I might eat less meat on the basis of meat generally being more expensive than veggies.  PETA!CookingMama can go stuff it.

She's probably getting a clock for every hour, come to think of it.

Gelzo

Meat is really something that's supposed to be expensive, huh?

For that matter, I hear food in the U.S. is both less expensive and less healthy than food in other places.

snowbull

I don't eat meat because its gross. That stuff was inside an animal, dude. The animal fucked and ate and crapped, and that stuff was inside it the whole time. Am I really going to eat that?

Non-meat products are only marginally less gross, but it still counts.

Pykrete

I don't mind that part.  For the most part you're eating muscle, not poopshoot.  It's MANLY.

snowbull

You ever eaten a hotdog? I wouldn't be so sure.

Gelzo

Dude, everything was all sorts of crap at some point. It only matters that it's sanitary.

snowbull

If it were up to me, I'd only eat food made entirely within large particle accelerators.

snowbull

Freeze dried ice cream sounds either weird or cool.

Pykrete

Freeze-dried ice cream is actually really good.  It's the rest of it that tastes weird.

-went to Space Camp a long time ago-

Pykrete

It's not as good as it sounds, really.  Trying the ice cream was basically one of the one or two decent points of the trip, the rest of it was kinda underwhelming.  Mostly because they have to babysit your group to make sure they don't break something, and you end up just listening to lectures for most of it.  And their cafeteria food is AWFUL.

You're better off with Kennedy Space Center.  Where I believe you can also try the ice cream, but I'm not sure.

TheMightyAnonym

Where does seafood fit into all of this?

Sushi is technically meat, right?

TheMightyAnonym

What [bugs] me is the odd way fish are treated in cartoons with talking animals... unless fish are the center piece.

I love fish to death, and will eat it in all its forms. The "Mediterranean diet" as it is known, is probably one of the healthiest out there. Fish, vegetables, and fruit. Can't go wrong with that.

The environmental issue can be a bit sticky, though if you can make up for the fish you eat by pouring an equal amount of care into the environment, that works fine.

TheMightyAnonym

...

Why trees?

TheMightyAnonym

I think "an eye for an eye" more applies to the ecosystem. I feel that acts of kindness towards mother nature are irredeemable between ecosystems.

If you're going to eat fish, and want to do so while helping the environment, then you have to do something that makes more of the specific kind of fish you're eating.

If you're using paper a lot, *then* you can plant trees.

Khwarizmi

You could just choose your fish carefully, couldn't you?  Like, eating those that aren't in danger of being overfished to extinction.

TheMightyAnonym

^That's pretty much the best idea.

^^I don't really have anything all that specific, I'm not terribly keen to the environment as is, though the subject of how to sustain the amount of fish I eat is an interesting one.

I'll have to look that up.

Trash_Vortex

Funnily enough, after going vegetarian for a few weeks as a sort of experiment, the smell of meat actually disgusts me now, which I didn't expect. Problem solved???

Only risk now is not sounding pretentious when I tell people this.

Gelzo

How is not sounding pretentious a risk? :P

Trash_Vortex

I meant the reverse, d'oh.

Icalasari

...What does it say if I like the taste of meat that is cooked rare and slightly bloody?

Makes me sound like the polar opposite of Trash_Vortex =/