My Life Choice

We are going for a ride through dimensions where I, your lovely host throughout the entire journey will take you all exploring every dimension about the whole family of plant eating family. The vegetarians, its sister, the vegans, and the whole family tree.

First stop, I would like to clear the cloud about vegetarians and vegans. Most of the time we mixed up those two terms just because of the first three words ---veg--- in which we automatically think “Oh, they eat vegetables, so vegans are the shorter form of saying vegetarians.” Yes and no. We DO eat vegetable, it is obvious! Yet, those two words are not derived from ‘vegetable’ but from vegetus (Latin), which means lively. Vegetarian are people who choose not to eat meat or food products that are obtained by killing animals in the process. Therefore, a vegetarian could eat free-range eggs, milk (dairy products) and honey. But still no mink coat, genuine leather shoes/bags. Listen to me you Hollywood stars!!! Well, not all of them. While, vegans are pretty much the same but they do not even eat animal derived products as I mentioned above, and of course still no usage of animal products.

The different types of vegetarianism

DIET NAME	MEAT (incl. fish)	EGGS	DAIRY
Lacto-ovo vegetarianism	No	Yes	Yes
Lacto vegetarianism	No	No	Yes
Ovo vegetarianism	No	Yes	No
Vegan	No	No	No

There are some other type of no-meat eating practices, one of them being fruitarians, which eats only gathered fruit, seeds, and nuts. It obviously did not harm any ‘living’ organism at all. However, there is the far cousin of vegetarians family named flexitarianism (an occasional meat-eater, but still generally eats their greens). There are still so many far cousins in the family which if I were to write here, I would get bored myself. Please refer to wikipedia for this one, just type in vegetarian.

The point here is pretty much about not killing animal to satisfy our needs.

Humans are actually vegetarians by nature. Look at our teeth; we have molars to chew vegetable. But then you might say about canine, it is for self-defence. Just like the gorillas, they do not eat meat but the have these large canines. We do not have claws unlike tiger. Unless for some women who went to a manicure salon to get those ‘claws’ and consider themselves as ‘tigers’ or ‘cats’. Ok, I’ll stop, this is getting cheeky!

Moreover, our intestines are long (6-10 metres) unlike those carnivores (2-3 metres). So those carnivores do not have to worry about how much meat they eat, it gets out quickly! In contrast to humans, the meat will decompose in the body. Yuck! Those of you who have smelly fart now you know why.

Vegetarianism is mostly practiced by the Buddhist monks and Hindu because of their spirituality and cultural beliefs; also by some new-age followers. Christians seldom talk about vegetarianism, but if we were to remember way beyond until the time of the first human still live on Eden, there is no way Adam and Eve ever said to eat meat. Their job is to name them and not to savour them. Well……until they committed their first sin that is. From the economical point of view, it is those who do not have enough money. More, those who have ethical issues with animals being killed and environmental concerns (like me) also choose to be a vegetarian ---usually, this starts on teenage years.

Some health factors also taken a role for people being vegetarians. In some light case of breast cancer, the patient was told to change her omnivore diet to a vegetarian diet. After a while, POOF!! The annoying little bugger disappear forever, still need to maintain the healthy diet after that though. The change in diet to a non-meat diet could prolong life expectancy, less risk in heart diseases, renal problems (that is kidney to you who does not take science! Just jokingJ), and Alzheimer. Yes! I am talking about the terrifying disease that attacks the elderly.

I hope by now some of you are thinking “Hmm…..I could get away with all those health problems by eating vegetarian diets. But it is so hard to give up meat!”

Yeah, I do agree! When I first started out, I was overwhelmed as the fact since I was a kid all I eat is chicken. But after seeing that cow forced to drink gallons after gallons of water and slaughtered on TV and other brutal animal killings, I was soooooo disgusted that I do not ever ever ever want to eat meat again. I feel sorry for them. Those animals have a dream! (A friend of mine is miffed every time I said it.)

My tips for beginner are that to try that no-meat diet three times a week, then four times a week and so on until it you became so used to it everyday. Food substituting are not that hard really, nuts and beans provide you with daily protein.

-Eggs supplied you with the essential amino acids (just don’t it too much, two to three eggs are quite enough for a day. It is high in cholesterol).

-Leafy green veggies are high in vit C, calcium, iron, and etc.

-Mushroom gives the sort of like meat texture (ex. Portobello).

-Brown rice, grains, pasta, potatoes are good sources for vit B and other minerals as well. These means, you do not have to give up that delicious spaghetti you have every weekend. I, many times succeeded cooking up tasty and yummy spaghetti and carbonara without any meat, it means you can too!

If you have no idea what to cook, try the net ---they have all these ideas. More importantly, be creative!

Food consumption will be doubled tripled in the next few years thanks to the booming population. Although in the present, look at Ethiopia and a few other third world countries. Millions of people are starving every minute. It is only right that we should not be happy and feel full while they can hardly get a drink. Well, this is my choice and how about you?

I am so sorry if there's any grammar mistake (as usual....my grammar sucked!). And also if there are any of the info that are not to your liking. Please let me know, and I'll clarify it to you or let meknow if I post something that is not accurate.