Ever considered becoming vegetarian?

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I went vegan for four months around five years ago. I became anemic and my hair started thinning. I could have maybe managed to continue if I had taken higher dosage iron supplements but I started craving meat and cheese. I’m now on keto so did a 180 basically.

When I leave home I think I'll eat mainly vegetarian with a bit of free range meat.

I don't have a problem with an animals being killed after having a good life. I have a problem with an animal doing a life sentence before being eaten.

Have you ever tried hunting?

I don't have the guts to "clean" an animal. Deer and pigs are pests in NZ though

I think most people get over that after doing it a few times.

My Dads friends a hunter so maybe

This is pretty much how I feel. I'm aiming to become vegetarian though because I don't think I could handle hunting emotionally and I don't trust myself with a gun.

My food sensitivities are making it hard though. I'm doing the best I can but it'll be a while before I can go all the way there. What helps me feel less guilty when I do eat meat is to say a few words first to express my thoughts for the animals I'm eating.

Food sensitivities especially those that restrict your diet a lot and exculde whole food groups (e.g. gluten intolerance, allergy to milk, nuts, beans) don't go well with other dietary restrictions such as vegetarianism that restrict other food groups. I see vegetarianism work only with having to avoid cholesterol, but if you can't eat important sources of protein that aren't meat, it doesn't work well. If you cpuld eat just beans and no nuts, no milk and no eggs and no gluten/seitan - that is going lead to lead to protein deficiency very fast.

Think vegan diets can be hit and miss on what works best for your body ...think someone needs to post the actual research on the protein requirements for a normal human body ..?

About 30 or 35 years ago, I was a vegetarian for a couple of years. It wasn't due to some notion of being nice to animals, it was because the problems went away about two days after I cut out meat at the suggestion of a Chinese woman I knew.

I was, I think, more of a practical vegetarian. I didn't entirely avoid meat, I just ate it rarely. I rarely ate beef or pork and didn't eat chicken very often. On the other hand, I ate a turkey sandwich about once a month and I ate fish about once a month.

After a couple of years, I gradually starting eating meat again the problems I had been having never returned. It was kind of strange how bad meats tasted after not having eaten them for a couple of years.

What I missed most was mustard -- there just wasn't much to use mustard for. Toward the end of my time as a vegetarian, I did realize that I could mix mustard with beans with good results.

One of my favorite meals was Vegetable Tempura with rice (most things went with rice). I loved this and would buy an apricot sauce at the store to dip the pieces of vegetable tempura in.

Another after a while was bean sandwiches. I would make some beans and smush them up to keep them from rolling around and smear them on a toasted whole wheat hamburger bun. Spread mustard over the beans and top with a thick onion slice and some alfalfa sprouts. Slip on the top of the bun and eat. I usually ate this with French fries.

There was a cafeteria about three miles from the house. I would go over there pretty often and get a salad, beans, another vegetable or two, a roll, and a piece of pie. I ate pretty well like that.

There was also a local Mexican restaurant where i would always order the chalupas with no cheese. These were basically a flat corn tortilla that had been fried with refried beans on it and topped with some salt, onions, tomato pieces, thinly sliced lettuce, and salsa, and with refried beans and fried rice on the side. The restaurant's kitchen was completely open to the front dining room -- after a bit when I walked in and sat down in the back dining room, they would bring out my chips, tea, and chalupas all at the same time. Life was good back then.

On occasion I would go to a local Chinese restaurant where there was no really good vegetarian options so I would usually order a chicken dish.

When I went to Subway, I would get either the turkey sandwich or a tuna sandwich.

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I'm thinking of going vegetarian again because I'm having trouble with meats again, but not the same issues I had years ago. Meats just don't taste that well to me now. I can't hardly taste beef at all. I can taste chicken and pork a little, but it doesn't necessarily taste right. The last couple of times I made tuna sandwiches, the flavors were really subdued. I can still get some flavor from salmon.

I think that for quite a while, when I have eaten meat, it was more about the spices and flavorings. For example, I still ate hamburgers up to about three months ago, but if the toppings were few and didn't cover the hamburger, it was nearly impossible to eat. I'm thinking of going to the local drug store lunch counter and try a hamburger again this Thursday for lunch or supper. They make the best hamburgers in the county.

I made some baked beans the other day and put a pretty good amount of bacon in it. I couldn't taste the bacon at all but the beans were fine.

So I'm seriously thinking about going back to being more or less a practical vegetarian. During my previous round, I didn't eat Indian food but I have learned to love it since then. So I'll cook and eat Indian food two or three times a week. I might even go back to my old practice from about 25 years ago of keeping a revolving Indian buffet going by fixing enough of an Indian dish to last about four or five meals and just dishing out a variety of Indian dishes and warming them up for each meal.

I'm also thinking about keeping a daily pot of beans of different recipes. Some baked beans, some charro beans, some more or less plain pinto beans, some bbq beans, ..., as well as field peas from time to time.

I think that the main thing is to mix the ingredients to get a complete protein. Beans and rice are a good choice. Or beans and corn.

Also, Vitamin B12 is normally absorbed from the meat that you eat. If you don't eat meat, you need Vitamin B12, either from pills if you can absorb enough Vitamin B12 from the pills or by injection if you can't. I'm now giving myself Vitamin B12 injections every other Friday. Supposedly, after going vegetarian you will deplete your Vitamin B12 within one to two years and you must supplement it to stay healthy.

Also, I am currently having issues with breads and pastas. Neither are doing much for me any more.

Sometimes, recently I think 'bout it often. Honestly it's pretty hard matter for me.
I feel guilty some nice animal was killed to land on my dish, from other side I can't give up on it's taste. Or actually just making up excuses, idk.
Theoretically I could live on dairy and fish (For me they are like "more advanced" insects, lacking any sensitivity), but had yet enough motivation for that. Generally I don't have problem with selective eating.

Ze thing that's for sure, if I wasn't given meat or able to get it without hunting / gutting (oh crap...) then I wouldn't consume meat, possibly even fish

This is a commonly stated myth that science has shown to be wrong. I recommend the book What a Fish Knows by Jonathan Balcombe.

(And yes, I like fish as much as the next person and since my last post here I've continued to fail at cutting meat out of my diet, so I don't mean to be hypocritical. I'm just attempting to prevent the perpetuation of falsehoods.)

^ Idk bout research on it, but I personally fail to see any sign of affection etc. in fishes, hence comparison. And so I don't really feel guilt of it being killed (Tho very likely I would still hesitate if that'd be me to kill / gut it)

There are a number of fish that stay with their parents for a while after they are born. In one case, the females will stay with their mothers for life.

As for spiders, have you ever seen a wolf spider?