But that doesn’t take into account the fact that leftovers last through the week.

Make chili or carne asada on the weekend, it features in dishes throughout the week.

Cooking a big meal on the weekend to have during the week is so convenient.

So I overthink things. Sorry eh?

why meat is lumped in with dairy. I have yogurt and kefir every single day but meat (not beef) 3 or 4 times a week.

No animal products. IDK if honey is vegan...

I could never be vegan because I cannot tolerate soy, tofu, beans or any other non meat source of protein and I love eggs too much 😊

Much more nutritious than any vegetable or soy product. Eggs contains all the B vitamins, all the amino acids and every vitamin.

“6 Reasons Why Eggs Are the Healthiest Food on the Planet”
“
Eggs are so healthy they are called “nature’s multivitamin” and top many lists of superfoods. Here are 6 healthy facts you may not know about eggs.

Eggs are so nutritious that they’re often referred to as “nature’s multivitamin.”

They also contain unique antioxidants and powerful brain nutrients that many people are deficient in. “

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/6-reasons-why-eggs-are-the-healthiest-food-on-the-planet#TOC_TITLE_HDR_1

I have a vegan friend who does eat it.
Her reasoning is that eating honey doesn't harm bees.
(Actually, harvesting honey usually results in the death of a few bees, but I haven't told her that).

You don’t have to actively kill bees for their honey.

No wonder it's not working.

does not harm a hive. I don't know the "rules" for veganism.

Strict veganism means not using any animal products deemed "harmful" or not.
However, many vegans (like my friend) will make exceptions for honey since it does not require the death of bees like meat requires the death of an animal.

Non-fertile eggs can fall into the same category.

Strict vegans have the moral stance that animals were not created for us to use or enslave (like hens kept for their eggs).
So all animal products are off limits.

will assure you that they are living their best lives. Everything provided, lots of room to roam tomatoes and watermelon in summer, cantaloupe most of the year... They are quite happy and proud of their bright orange yolks.

I would love to have backyard chickens.

I wasn't speaking for myself, I'm not a vegan, I was presenting their point of view.

One of my best friends is a vegan (I know, I know) so I'm somewhat familiar with the ideas/issues, etc.

Neither is gelatin.

I am "only" vegetarian, but I will not eat gelatin or anything including gelatin (like many marshmallows and "gummie" candies).

Gelatin does require the death of animals, whereas honey does not.

Some vegans will eat honey, others will not, as it is an animal product.

Because honey is an animal product, it's avoided. At least with gelatin I've seen enough vegan options (and I think jello is pretty disgusting anyhow) that it didn't matter.
Where does yeast figure in? I knew one vegan who refused leavened bread and beer because of yeast, but that seemed pretty extreme to me.

Never heard of that one before.

I know some vegans who won't drink wine, because most wine is filtered with a fish product.
It doesn't get in the wine, but the use of an animal product in the process makes it non-vegan.

then honey shouldn't be.

I'm really not sure tbh

to produce the milk.

Also, the dairy cows are turned into hamburger when they get past their milk producing years.

Finally, the calves born to the lactating cows, if they are male, meet a fairly horrid fate.

I saw a clip of the calves being separated from the cows - it was honestly heartbreaking.

Little babies crying for their mamas.

I really want to give up dairy.

I just need to remember those crying babies every time I'm tempted.

It's just too easy to forget and ignore.

I really hope it I can make the switch.

Little changes add up!

Different people do well with different foods. I’ve always done well with organic milk and organic yogurt. I make my own kefir daily.

So many people online feeling way healthier on meat. Lots on the carnivore diet have healed from health problems. Eating grass fed/grass finished beef is great for good energy. It’s hard to get all the high quality amino acids & B protein thru vegetables esp aminos like taurine. I will not eat meat that is not grass fed but I’m lucky I live in ranch country and my girlfriend has a ranch & only finisheds her cattle on grass - not corn.

I cannot eat garlic, broccoli, spinach - I’m sensitive to them. If I eat them, I will instantly want to go to sleep. I do great with root vegetables. Everyone is different.

The dangers of a vegetable diet are high if your veggies are not all organic. You will definitely have high glyphosate levels in your body.

People have started cooking in organic beef tallow - for the good fats. OMG! Eggs cooked in beef tallow are the best. Even Walmart now carries organic beef tallow as it’s so popular.

Especially with cows, since we somehow regard cow milk as a more acceptable beverage than human milk.

Only half of cattle are useful in making dairy products of any kind. What to do with the other half?

I'm not a friend of industrial scale meat and dairy production.

Cows happily grazing on green grass hillsides isn't how it's done.

The big feed lots and dairies in California's Central Valley are not pretty places.

I've tried my own breast milk. Bleh....
Never tried human milk yogurt or cheese

Also not crazy about having human milking farms...YMMV..LOL

Making a good effort to cut back.

Vegetable soup and some kind of veggie risotto are two of my favorites.

Especially in the cold weather.

With barley and navy beans. And fresh baked biscuits of course.

I consume more dairy

Now it's just dairy. I'm finding it harder to give up cheese than meat.

Why pull up short? Take the half court shot!

It doesn't allow for the fact that Orthodox fast a lot. Now I admit I am not real good about certain fasts, like Nativity fast and Apostles' Fast, but I am good about Great Lent and I try to be good about Mary's fast. So although I might eat meat 4-5 times a week during some parts of the year, during other parts, I don't eat it at all.

I eat whatever I have a taste for. Love veggies, beef isn't that tasty anymore.

Turns out not so much. Refined ones aren't great but saturated fat is so much worse. I regret buying into the hype about keto and intermittent fasting.

My health vastly improved using a keto diet and intermittent fasting.

I use cream in my coffee, which I drink every day, and cheese is my go-to snack.

Meat about 5 times a week.

from it. We're down to one meal w/ meat a week. As tough as I thought it'd be, it turned out my own stubbornness and intransigence were the only real obstacles to overcome.

She's an wizard with just about any ingredient combo, so I really shouldn't have worried.

I cut it out and I don't even miss it. Or the eggs I used to love.

Makes me wonder how much our appetites are influenced by advertising.

welcome to DU and good luck with your intolerance!

and everything. Has been showing up and thrilling 3-5 times daily for over 20 years

That is using milk from a local dairy less than 20 miles away. Thus limited in terms of environmentally damaging and among the healthiest foods one can eat. Lumping cultured dairy with red meat or other dairy products is problematic in trying to make a point if saturated fat/health is the issue. Just ask the most long-lived people of Bulgaria and elsewhere or read the work of Nobel-winning researcher, Ilya Mechnikov. As to the environment, both animal and plant foods locally sourced are night and day less harmful from the standpoint of climate change than the majority of foods shipped, imported, processed, and transported.

until I no longer could digest it if eaten occasionally. At that point, I stopped eating
all land animals over 30 years ago. I still eat seafood and fish four or
five times a month and eat a little dairy, most days.

Not sure, I will ever become a full vegan, but do enjoy lots of vegan meals often.

I do not miss eating meat at all.

I'm hoping vegan cheese is decent cause I want to cut that out next.

I love meat and cheese. I don’t drink milk though.

As part of a near-keto diet, I eat full fat yogurt and cheese regularly. I eat meat rarely.

Now I think it's all a hustle backed by industry. The science isn't ambiguous and I'm really disappointed in the doctors I listened to who said it was healthy.

I use it to control type 2 diabetes. As long as I don't consume more than 21 net carbs in a 2-hour period, I can keep my A1C in the normal (non-diabetic) range without medication.

Used to control weight - and taken to extremes - it is as gimmicky and unhealthy as any fad diet. Used for medical purposes (to control diabetes and seizures, for example) limiting carbs can be healthier than the alternatives. Most diabetes organizations recommend far more carbs than most diabetics can handle without increasingly more powerful medication. My spouse is also diabetic and is on Jardiance because she can't control her eating habits (cognitive issues more than anything else). It is not only extremely expensive, but the side effects scare me. She's had several yeast infections, is now urinating all the time and is becoming incontinent. Those are relatively minor - but there are others which are potentially deadly.

Essentially, my diet swaps carbs for fats. Since I don't eat many meats, I am essentially eating a vegetarian diet with a lot of low-carb veggies, as well as high fiber carbs (beans, for example),and cheese/full fat yogurt. Counterintuitively, this diet also keeps my cholesterol in the normal range.

ETA (after reading your response to another post): I have also effectively used intermittent fasting in combination with limiting carbs as a tool to control blood glucose - especially as a tool to combat dawn phenonenon.

It is effective no doubt. I just found some research that convinced me that it wasn't as effective as other methods. Here's to your health, it's so important!

It may be variety of diabetes-specific. Mine isn't weight dependent, so losing X% doesn't have any impact. It is a very strong heredity-based variety. Everyone descended from my maternal grandfather has it, my age or older, has it regardless of weight. My grandfather, uncle, and cousin are/were underweight based on BMI. My mother and I are overweight. My mother followed the doctor's advice to lose x% of her weight. She did, and her A1C continued to steadily climb. So she lost more, and it continued to climb. Her weight is now steady and her A1C only started to drop when she cut out most carbs. My A1C was normal when I was, using BMI, obese - and it has been between 6.7 and 7.3 when I am, using BMI normal weight. The only time it is 5.7 or below is when I limit my carbs.

I've done a fair amount of literature review, am in consultation with my doctor, and watch all of the relevant numbers for secondary diseases. For me (and I think for the flavor of diabetes which runs in my family), carb limitation seems to be most effective. I also have a number of inflammatory processes going on in my body, and lowering carbs lowers inflammation. So I am in a lot less pain when my carb consumption is lower.

I do #MeatlessMondays meals.

Rotisserie chicken from Costco, several dinners for two people with different sauces, and then soup made from the bones and skin.

I have absolutely no plans to be a vegan, but thank you for asking in General Discussion.

So I'm literally paid to eat cottage cheese, yogurt and sour cream daily as part of quality control 🤣

I also have a flock of 14 chickens for eggs, and my daughter and I hunt deer, turkey, rabbits, squirrels, and woodchucks in the fall to fill the freezer.

It doesn't count as meat for kosher.
Is this about nutrition or veganism, or about the environment?

Ethically, I'd love to be vegan for environmental reasons, but I'm just too lazy.
I wouldn't give up honey though.
Also I have half and half in my morning coffee - don't know if there's a good vegan alternative.

I've tried vegetarian diets and once made it about 8 or 9 months but I felt really really ill so it's just not for me.

But I do try to treat meat as a flavoring or topping and not the star of the show. I think we can get in this all or nothing mentality that isn't always that helpful. Two of my favourite dishes of all time are mapo tofu and fish-fragrant eggplant - both of them have veggies as the main ingredient but in a sauce with minced pork in it.

And I usually do all my cooking on the weekend and then eat leftovers all week. So of the 4-5 main recipes I cook on the weekend 2-3 might be vegetarian or mostly vegetarian. I almost never have a whole day with no meat but I usually have at least one meal every day that is veggie-based.

I'm off the BP meds, statins, and Meloxicam for arthritis and joint pain. My A1c was 6.2 (diabetic) now 5.3 (normal).
NAFLD (Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease)reversed and I rarely take so much as an ibuprofen or acetaminophen pill.

As a side effect I lost 70 lbs in the 1st 8 months and have kept it off.



It's not for everyone but it worked for me.

BTW, I'll be 76 in April.
If I live.

I do 95% of the cooking in our house and, since I'm too lazy to cook separate meals, I mostly eat what my wife eats.

We both eat eggs about once a week and sometimes use them baking. I also cook with cheese once or twice a week.

These days I don't like to have raw meat in my kitchen, freezer, or refrigerator. I will cook it for carnivorous family and friends who expect it. We also have dogs. I don't expect them to be vegetarians either.

I could probably calculate about how many "retired" laying hens our dogs have eaten as kibble, but I'd rather not.

My wife is lactose intolerant so I don't buy milk. When our children were in elementary school I was still buying milk, because that was accepted as a normal thing to do, almost a parental duty, but then I noticed they preferred the soy milk their mom drank, and that was that, I quit buying milk. That was almost twenty years ago. These days I haven't a clue how much a gallon of milk or a pound of ground beef costs because I never buy any.

Trying to get 200 grams of lean high quality protein while keeping calories ~2000 requires it. Breakfast is always a whey protein shake and my two meals a day are generally chicken, turkey, lamb or lean beef with some kind of complex carb and some veggies.

I'm allergic to dairy and I have a long list of plant/nut allergies. I need meat to get my calorie count up high enough not to starve to death. Or die from chronic anemia.

That's why I find it annoying when vegans and vegetarians assume that everyone can eat like them, when that is utter and complete rot.

What's the point of being at the top of the food chain if you're going to eat vegetables??

Besides, BACON!

Have not eaten red meat since the late 70s - no pork either.
Eat seafood and chicken - turkey once or twice a year.
I do eat cheese and love cream in my coffee - no sugar.
I eat lots of fruit and veggies but I love a piece of chocolate and enjoy ice-cream from time to time.
I never drink plain milk - as is not ever - even as a child

Ground turkey and chicken, whey protein shake for breakfast, lots of fruit, no where near enough veggies. Massive sweet tooth that I give free rein during the Christmas season. Ice cream occasionally but mostly frozen fruit bars. Works for me.

I do eat a lot of fish.

I also eat a lot of fresh fruit and veggies, usually several servings a day.

We evolved as omnivores.

I saw this documentary called Dominion and I just wish we could do more to change things

known as rape racks. Cows are strapped in while being forcibly impregnated.

No meat (and yes, fish is considered meat/animal flesh), dairy, eggs, honey, etc. 24 years running, thankfully.

You and a few others here inspired me to move this direction. It's taken a long time but just wanted to say thanks for your posts about veganism over the years

And yeah why do so many people differentiate between fish and meat? Fish is clearly meat so I don't get that at all.

and that's wonderful to hear. Good to see your move in this direction, and may you inspire others!

No idea about the "is fish meat??" mystery. I'll never figure that out.

People who are missing portions of their stomachs cannot eat enough plant based protein in a day. The only way to get enough protein without a processed source (shake, etc) is to include animal sources because they are far more nutritionally dense in protein.

...and we eat some form of animal protein with dinner most days.

I stick with lean meats, try to add good fats (lots of olive oil), and I love cheese.

I try to minimize added sugars and excess carbs.

Beer was my big weakness for a long time, but I've cut back there.

Calcium and vitamin d (you should eat them together) without dairy products.

For me, going vegan amounts to being forced to eat the foods I hate the most; it reminds me with child abuse I suffered at the hands of a couple of cruel house mothers. I associate vegetables with those I was force-fed when I was a kid in residential treatment: canned broccoli, canned spinach, yams, cauliflower (the smell is repulsive), etc. The childhood food trauma is too deep-seated for me to overcome it now.

I prefer lean meats, including lean beef, chicken breast (dark meat is too fatty), turkey when in season, tuna, sausages (sparingly), etc.

I haven't eaten meat for more than 20 years now.

I'd need about 6 does and a couple of bucks (one to be a spare).

most truck stops don't offer much as far as vegetarian or vegan, and most places that do don't offer much in the way of truck parking.
Besides, I love my meat and potatoes, but I hold zero problem with anyone who wants to live their lives like they want.

Usually take 3 or 4 deer a year and go saltwater fishing several times a month, supplies about 75% of the meat I eat in a year.

Around where I grew up, deer ate a lot of corn and had no "gamey" taste.

Have no problem at all with hunting. We got rid of all the predators, so now we have deer who go hungry in the winter or wander into traffic. A good hunter kills humanely. I don't hunt myself but have been on a hunt. SO much more humane than a slaughterhouse.

Hearing a complicated heart murmur last year my PCP recommended I get a CT calcium test which came back shockingly high, indicating extensive plaque in all 3 major coronary arteries. Stress tests indicated less than 50% narrowing consistent with my physically active lifestyle. Nonetheless, I cut out all animal products except fish once a week, so I consider myself 98% vegan. The hardest part for me is that I have to cook for at least 2 (and sometimes 3) different diet preferences (others in the household), and vegan dishes tend to be time consuming (lots of chopping vegetables, frequent use of a food processor, tons of dirty dishes). Given that I do like beans, mushrooms, grains and all veggies, I've never eaten better, and I don't miss meat (including chicken) at all. I follow dozens of Vegan influencers on Instagram, save their recipes, and I'm trying new really delicious dishes all the time. I do worry sometimes that I've joined a cult! Healthwise, at 68 I'm down to the weight I was in my late 20s, and when I referee soccer I find I can physically keep up with any level I encounter including 18 year olds. 😀

And be mindful that you're getting the right nutrients. Not all vegetables are equal.

I'm not vegan but know others who've experienced the same health benefits as you. Congrats.

Lactose intolerance issues. I find almond milk delicious, and plant-based margarine hardly discernible from the "real" thing.

Refraining from lean fish, animal, and fowl proteins are not an option. Nuts can also tear me up. Too much greens get me too. I have found a happy medium that works for me.

I am a dietary mess who subsists on lean proteins, healthy fats, low glycemic vegetables, some brown rice pastas. I also refrain from processed foods, deli meats, and carbonated sodas due to phosphates. It is difficult to find products not loaded down with bad fats, Sodium, Sugars, etc.

In my view, limiting refined carbs is the most crucial element in staying healthy. Proteins and fats (except for trans fats), are a lot less harmful.