Vegan Food Blogs

A good diet for vegans is the everything raw food diet. But its alot of work!

I will take a look for you

http://vegweb.com/

http://www.simpleveganrecipes.co.uk/

http://www.veganvillage.co.uk/recipes.htm

wooah that's a surprise!!! mind you you never said you would never go veggie/vegan! well done.

It was something that's been playing on my mind for quite a while now.

I always used to be a full on carnivore, but then I saw some cows going to be milked when i was on the way home from Glastonbury... and they looked in awful condition. It was really really upsetting to see- and since then I've realised that those cows were treated with more respect than most dairy cows. I'm also one of the 75% of the world's population that has a (slight) lactose intolerance. After seeing that, I decided to 'drastically cut down on dairy'. And yeah, I started drinking soya milk and going for dairy free whenever I could but I was too lazy with it.

I always said I'd go vegetarian/vegan when I moved out, but the other day I was thinking about reasons why people go vegetarian- and it's because of cruelty to animals, right? So then surely that makes vegetarians lazy vegans (No offence veggies plz!) because both chickens and cows are treated with zero dignity.

Yesterday I read a booklet about it and it was the kick up the bum I needed. It's not just about animals for me, it's about health too. Drinking cow's milk is hella unnatural. The only milk that humans need, is their mothers when they are babies. After that you don't need it. Getting calcium from animal sources is bad for you- it makes your blood more acidic, so the kidneys have to work extra hard to filter, and when they filter out acid they take calcium out too- so the more animal calcium you take in, the more you urinate out. The best source for calcium is plants. Plus, in order for cows to keep producing milk- they have to constantly be made pregnant, and then their calves are taken away from them.

Also people seem to believe that free range chickens is the ideal solution- it isn't. They're from the same breeds as the battery hens, so it's not in their nature to be used to roaming about in all sorts of weather will all sorts of bugs. Yeah, they seem happier when they do it- but they have a high mortality rate. Also Hugh Fernly whittingstalls' chicken farm was a tiny little one where he looked after his free range chickens really really well. When people are producing eggs for the public, and the chickens begin to get destressed from this new environment and start pecking their feathers out, a lot of farmers cut the end of their beaks off.

I'm not going to give up wool- because I believe that sheep need to be sheared, else they just get enormous big coats. I also doubt I'm going to be able to curb my love of fur coats. But then, I love them fake just as much as real ones- and I'd never buy a new real fur. Vintage only!

Sorry if I sounded like I'm preaching- I just wanted to explain!

Well that's what I do...explain because people seem to panic when you say you're vegetarian/vegan. 'Do you eat fish' 'no' 'no you can cuz that's veegan' 'not it is not shut up' lol. People go 'we've eaten meat for aaages' yes but a hundred years ago we'd be looking after our own chickens or hunting, taking what we need rather then nipping into asda and getting it pre killed and pre packaged. People go 'but vegetarians aren't healthy, we neeed meat to survive' I felt more awake and energised when I stopped eating meat and also it got me cooking more. Felt like a rant that but I was encouraging you hehe!

If you keep milking an animal it will keep lactating, so they don't have to keep being made the have babies...but still, I thought a while ago how unnatural it is really, no other animals drink other animals milk! I do keep meaning to get soya milk btw. As for free range chickens, well we sometimes buy these eggs that are blue from a breed that is completely free range. I know someone who adopted some ex battery hen chickens and they did fine, but there was only a few of them. It's better then a cage.

My reason for being vegetarian is that I feel bad that something had to die because of me. I try to avoid wool most of the time, they have been bred to have such big coats however I like that it's natural fibre, actually why the hell do I avoid it, it's better then fake fibre which make pollution!! There's this thing where they cut the sheep under the tail to stop fly strike, but that's more good then bad! (uurgh I make myself feel all morally obligated and get myself confused!) I go no where near silk because they have to kill the silk worm for it. I try to avoid leather too, it's easy to get fake leather. The reason I haven't gone vegan is because animals didn't have to die for dairy but I do get that animals are still treated like crap so we go for free range, it may not be completely good for the chickens but it's a start and as I said I do mean to get soya milk. The industry is changing now though, everything has a consequence mind, the more soya milk people drink the more soy that needs to be grown, so more destruction of forests etc. It's catch 22 really.

The current climate that the press is at though I have no idea what to believe because we're told all these things about food that leaves me thinking for fs sake we're not immortal, we're gonna die whether we get cancer from eating crap food or not..etc. Just found an article about how soya is bad for us now too...gah! http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2004/nov/07/foodanddrink.features7

Are you going to give up honey too? I would love ideally to be a vegan, but I couldn't afford to here in Iceland, alternative lifestyles are not really catered for here, and what you can buy is very expensive.
I read a vegan girls blog, it's very good. She has even written a book and I think she is the same age as you Roma.
http://bittersweetblog.wordpress.com/

Good luck to you

its ok Roma, I'm a veggie...I used to love cheese but I am lactose intolerant

I am going to eat honey that comes from my mum's friends beehives, because I know she treats her honey bees well, I've visited!

I know bittersweet well, Hannah's very accomplished for her age!

I feel much healthier without meat in me. In the past when I've gone meatless for a couple of days I felt fine and dandy! And now I'm feeling good s'more.

I actually don't feel so bad about the animals dying for me, it's them having really bad lives which upsets me. I guess this opinion'll change soon and I'll feel bad about them dying too, but the quality of life is what bothers me- which is why i have to give it all up, and not just meat. I feel sad when I think about how much of the animal goes to waste when it dies, I guess. In a perfect world, it's flesh would be for meat, it's skin for leather, it's bones for china... But it just doesn't work like that. That's why I'm happy to wear vintage furs and leathers, so the animal didn't die in vain.

I don't think that sheep being bred for big coats is necessarily bad. Breeding is ok, it's genetically modifying the animal while it lives which is a bit oo-er. After all, all pedigree dogs have been bred from wolves, selectively so we get nice friendly labradors, or ferocious terriers, or big poofy poodles!

Land to grow vegetables on, or soy, would take up a lot less room than land to keep livestock on. And there are always alternatives to soya milk, rice milk, oatmilk, almond milk! The list goes on. I'm prepared to swap milk for soya milk... I know it's certainly healthier for me personally.

Ahh, I had a delicious vegan curry last night! Tofu, curly kale and potato. Yum yum.

Well of course you are free to have your own reasons for not eating something, or wearing something.
We had 2 vegans stay with us a while ago from Australia, they found it pretty expensive to eat here, so they just ate veggies i think and a couple of soy yoghurt things. I was shocked to find out vegans don't eat honey, I mean it does make sense, but it's just not something I ever thought about!
I read somewhere that men who eat tofu have lower sperm counts, http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12792&feedId=online-news_rss20

Well you could eat everything and use most of the animal, but in the western world we stopped doing that and now we get grossed out by it all.
I am of the opinion, that if you eat meat, you should be able to watch the animal being slaughtered, or handle the raw meat yourself. You can't be dumb to the fact it was a live cuddly animal at one point.

oh god yeh I feel bad when they live in awful conditions too, its a given really with being veggie but the be all and end up for me is that they had to die. I had a moral dilemma with the wool thing, it's not a bad thing. They reckon the wolf choose to live with humans, easy life but of course I don't agree with the sick breeding things they do...that is different to sheep breeding in my opinion, a farmer will breed healthy sheep only, you'd think dog lovers would want to do that even more so...anyway just saying because I hate it when I think people might not have understood me lol uurgh...

I agree with what you said there opposites about being able to watch it be killed and stuff...and another thing is, I wouldn't eat my dog, or an eagle or something so why is a cow any different. People say things like 'animals don't have souls' or 'they don't feel pain'..feeling pain is one of the most primal things ever of course they fucking feel it..sorry ranted. I don't mind other people eating meat at all, the ignorance and lack of respect pees me off though. I don't get why animals stopped being treated right in the first place, oh yes I do pull of the industry but I mean how can people eat something that was ill when it was alive or ill when it produced eggs etc.

I just remembered, I accidently ate a bit of chicken today I think a bit of chicken from Mike's pizza fell off and onto mine in the oven! Now I know I really won't be going back to being a meat eater, I can't really explain why, the texture was really strange not just the fact that it was an animal thing. Almost a year *waves ickle flag*

Well I don't think animals have souls, as I don't think humans do, but I do agree they feel pain, of course they do. You just have to lessen it for them.(when they are being slaughtered)

I'm sorry you ate the chicken today! That must have sucked when you realised.

I go into kind of like shock! I still have the disascosiation (hard word to spell) between animals and the meat though, kind of a good though or I'd cry every time I saw a steak lol Jelly tots are vegetarian yeeey!

ive been vegan for over two years now and i loveee it! if you want some good info go to peta2.com and request the info packet. i think this is the link: http://www.peta2.com/livevegpak.asp

just fill that out and theyll send ya some neat stuff. i dont totally support peta, im vegan for my health first, then the animals but they are really helpful.