What’s It Like Being a Vegetarian

Posted by: redwinerevelry on: March 4, 2009

In: Advice & Opinions
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So let’s say you’ve decided to take the plunge and go green (as in go vegan). What can you expect from people? To start off with, once people know you’re a vegan chosen-as-a-lifestyle-and-freewill-choice, be prepared to be bombarded by heaps and bags of questions. I’m a vegan and I’ve been asked same questions over and over and over again by different people, I can practically recite the answers in my head.

So if you ever feel like converting to vegetarianism or being a vegetarian-for-a-week wether you want to lose weight, detoxify your body or just because your doctor asked you to, it’ll do you some good to read this post.

I’ve listed down some of the most common questions I often get posed with. These answers are based on my own views and isn’t the same for all vegans.

Don’t you feel any desire to eat meat?

As a matter of fact, no. Really, I don’t. So stop smirking. I was brought up since the day I was born, without meat. That’s why I don’t find it hard at all to resist meat dishes that surround me daily. Sometimes (as in very seldom) I do feel the urge to eat meat, but that’s mainly out of curiosity.

Anyway if I ate meat that just means more animals around the world being tortured in the most malicious, cruel, nasty, shocking way with living conditions so horrific it would be much better if they were killed immediately. No biggie.

If you’re thinking of becoming a vegetarian after years of being brought up as a meat eater, then you’ll probably feel a gnawing, yearning, longing, craving (I just love using adjectives) desire to eat meat for a very, very long time.

Just joking.

Actually, I don’t know. I suppose it depends on why you decided to turn vegetarian. If you really cared about animals and hated the fact that they have to be slaughtered to satisfy your tastebuds, then the desire to eat meat will be only temporary. But if you were forced to go vege because you had to get rid of that depressing roll of fat before Valentine’s Day, then obviously you’re not commited enough.

In any case, you’ll still need discipline and will power to break your old habit though. But it’ll be worthwhile.

But you’ll be lacking important nutrients found “only” in meat!

Believe it or not, these types of questions are usually posed by “smart”, “intellectual”, “brainy” people. I tell you what. If I were lacking in “important nutrients found only in meat, I’d be long dead by now. These so-called smart people abide by the book rules too much.

The most common deficiency vegetarians are said to “suffer” from is lack of protein. Well, I’d say that’s a load full of bullshit. Yeah, yeah, fish is one of the main sources of protein and yada, yada. But that’s just one source. Protein can be gotten from tofu, soya bean, tempeh, and etc. To know more about other sources of protein, look up wikipedia. I’m no nutritionist.

Another so-called deficiency is lack of iron. Some of my friends have proof that I lack iron at times. That’s because in the morning it’s so goddamn cold my hands and lips become pale (which indicates lack of haemoglobin, which means lack of iron). Another thing is maybe I didn’t eat as many vegetables as I’d like to the day before, so my iron store ran out of supply. For normal people, you’ve got your red meat, but for vegans, we depend a lot to get our daily iron intake from lots of green, leafy vegetables

Conclusion is, vegans are, in no way, deficit in anything. So get your facts right.

I pity you. Vegetarian food is so bland!

Well, if vegetarian food was that bland, I wouldn’t have trouble losing that extra few pounds at all!

And vegetarian food is nothing to be pitied about. The variety of vegetarian food is as wide as meat food nowadays. We’ve got vegetarian fish, vegetarian chicken, vegetarian sausages, vegetarian ham, vegetarian duck, etc. Basically anything that you can think of that’s meat, add the word “vegetarian” in front of it and there you have it! These fake “meat” foods not only look real, it taste really good too! And healthier than real meat too. But still, don’t go and overdose yourself with vegetarian meat if you don’t want to end up looking like a pumpkin. Vegans aren’t immune to looking like Santa Claus, you know.

But obviously, the best types of vegan food are obviously fresh fruits and vegetables and nuts. That’s a no-brainer.

What do you gain from being a vegetarian?

Everything! Just pick up any Vegetarian health book and it’ll list down all the pros of vegetarian food. And mind you, its one heck of a long list! It’s obvious isn’t it? A vegetarian diet nowadays is considered a cleansing, detoxifying diet targeting better health. Nowadays, more and more people are opting to go vegan. You can literally see it with the increasing numbers of vegetarian shops sprouting everywhere like button mushrooms.

I believe that when you eat good food, wether vegetarian or not, you’ll get a mental or physical boost or both. As you know, good food = fresh fruits/ vegetables/ wholesome nuts/grains = vegetarian food = mental/physical boost.

Quite contrary to some people’s belief, most vegetarians actually grow (physically) at a much higher rate. Not sideways mind you, but in height and muscle. Of course there are fat vegans. That’s because they eat more carbohydrates like lots of bread, cakes etc. than wholesome food. But I think most vegetarians wouldn’t end up obese or anything because at that stage, they’d already be very health-conscious. If not, why’d they even bother becoming a vegan?

Currently I don’t use any facial cleanser or whatever (secretly, I’m hoping to buy a skin serum with a ridiculously hefty price tag that’ll make my mom’s eyes’ pop right out of her sockets…heehee…) yet I think I have a pretty good complexion. Not amazingly polished and satiny, but smooth enough. What’s more, I’m using any normal bar of soap that’s totally considered a no-no in the skincare business as it’ll “dry your skin up”. I do get breakouts here and then, but I blame it on the junks I eat like cookies and chocolates and stuff like that. Hey, my mom opted for me to be a vegan. I still have the license to pig out. Hehehe…

And guess what? Before my mom turned vegetarian, her “adult height” was 158 cm (pretty short eh?), but after turning vegan, she actually grew a couple of inches taller! And she’s “supposed” to stop growing when she’s an adult! Of course everybody’s different and so the effects won’t be the same, but I sure am damn confident the results will be on the positive side of the health scale.

Do you like being known as a vegetarian?

Ideally, if I had it my way, I wouldn’t want anybody to know I’m a vegan. Know why? Because people are really annoying busybodies. Some people get so “concerned” about what I’m eating, that they’re literally poking and peering into my food with remarks such as “Wei, you sure this is vegetarian ah?”, “Let me taste your food first. I wanna check wether it’s vegetarian or not.”, “What?! You’re eating an egg?? OMG!! Noooo…!!!” I’m not saying everybody acts like this, but you know certain people.

On the other end of the scale, there’s the super nice people who’ll go out of their way to not eat meat in front of vegans. Personally, I don’t care whether you’re eating a snake in front of me or not (okay, that I do care). But seriously, it’s absolutely fine by me. I’m not going to be offended or anything.

I think you might be wondering why, by Merlin’s baggy ripped jeans, I’m writing this if I don’t want people knowing that I’m a vegan. That’s because chances are, you know me and you probably already know I’m vegan (in the past, I just loved telling the whole world I was a vegan). For those who don’t know me, well… good, let’s keep it that way. Kidding. I suppose I can’t forever keep a secret. Almost everyone who knows me will, at one point or another, find out I’m a vegan.

Some people scorn vegetarians. Once, during lunch, my dad’s colleague invited my family to have lunch with his family. Apparently, he looked down on our family’s vegan choice stating that by being a vegetarian, children can’t grow properly and they’ll have stunted mental growth. And he was showing off his fat son as a “properly nourished child”! My father tried not to snort but I nearly choked on my food then.

LOL, that’s the corniest piece of advice and no doubt corniest piece of evidence I’ve ever heard and seen! Oh well, you can’t blame them for being totally ignorant.

But the fact is when people think that vegetarians are undernourished and they try to talk you out of being vegan that means they really think that they’re doing you a favour. So just let them talk. I bet some of them don’t even know what a vegan is. Best advice is let them yap and watch their ego expand.

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So there you go. Next time you ever meet another vegetarian or ever wonder how vegans can stand being, well…vegans, this is roughly how they think.