Going Veggie

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by Amaris, Jan 16, 2013.

  1. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Well, it's all in good fun. I only get annoyed when someone gets pushy. Up until that point, I'm as pacified as peach pie.

    Thanks, Grey! To be honest, like Count Zero was talking about earlier, I started seeing the animals I was eating, and while that wasn't the biggest motivator to move to vegetarianism (my health is the biggest), it still played a role, and now if I visit a farm, I shall pet the animals with impunity. IMPUNITY, I SAY! :D

    APPROACH ME, LITTLE LAMB, FOR I SHALL NOT SUP UPON YOU THIS NIGHT!
     
  2. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I see you with a jar of mint sauce in your back pocket..
     
  3. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It's for the trees. The trees love mint sauce. :shifty:
     
  4. Sector 7

    Sector 7 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    "Crock-Pot" is a brand made by Rival. When other manufacturers started making them, the term "slow-cooker" came into use. It is a generic term for the same thing.
    I agree, there are as many versions of "chili" as there are cooks.

    I make a simple chili in the slow-cooker/Crock-Pot, with ground turkey:

    1 can Light Red Kidney Beans
    1 can Dark Red Kidney Beans
    1 can Black Beans
    1 pound Ground Turkey
    1 can Diced Tomatoes
    Diced Fresh or Dehydrated Onions
    Crushed Basil
    Cholula Hot Sauce (or other hot sauce/chili powder) to taste

    Brown ground turkey in pan. Add to slow-cooker.
    Add canned items to slow-cooker. Stir.
    Cover with lid. Simmer all day while at work, etc.
    Enjoy a simple chili for dinner!

    [p.s.- for a thicker chili, I have been known to add a small can of tomato paste]
    Apologies to the purists, but being a caregiver and disabled myself, I often use canned food. You have permission:guffaw: to substitute and suggest healthier alternatives.

    For my current batch, I had leftover broccoli stems and celery hearts from a veggie tray I made for friends. I diced them finely and put them all in the chili. Mom and I LOVED it!
    I am very insulted and mortally wounded............ NOT!
    Like I said, tsq, I have always loved reading labels. I just never really knew how to apply what I read to a healthy diet. Carb Counting just... clicked.
    I read several posts from you, Gary7 and others about beans. Thought I'd add something I learned. Not knowing how to cook them & Mom being hungry for beans, I did not rinse the beans... just put the dried beans in the crock pot with lightly salted water with black pepper and simmered all day, stirring occasionally. They turned out great... even I liked them and I'm not a fan of just a plain old pot of beans. :techman:

    This has become my favorite thread on TrekBBS, right behind The Caregivers' Thread!
     
  5. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Oh, man, I love a good old pot of beans. I also like to cut big chunks of Vidalia onion into the pot. It adds this flavor that's hard for me to explain, but it just tastes so good!
     
  6. Sector 7

    Sector 7 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    When I do eat them, I like slivers of raw onion and apple cider vinegar on top. I learned that from my best friend's mom while in college.

    This begs the question to all: How do you like your beans?

    Also, since I am eating healthier... Mom only has upper dentures, therefore she cannot chew food well. I see quite a few raw veggie dishes here. How can I compromise? I need dishes where I can cook the same items crispy/crunchy for me AND softer for Mom. Puree is out of the question. The food becomes mush and too soft even for Mom. An example is Chinese stir-fry: I'll make it normal, eat mine right away. By the time I finish eating, Mom's is soft enough for her to enjoy. With only the two of us, it is much too expensive and time consuming to fix separate meals. [Hope that made sense... I had a big day & am exhausted]
     
    Last edited: Jan 20, 2013
  7. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Apple cider vinegar, eh? Hmm...
     
  8. SmoothieX

    SmoothieX Vice Admiral Admiral

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    You were sitting in short left field? :wtf:

    Good luck with the changes in your diet. A few years back, my cholesterol, triglycerides, and liver counts were through the roof and I had to give up alcohol other than on rare special occasions. Not fun considering I used to brew my own beer. But my levels dropped dramatically in short order, so well worth the investment in my health.

    As for chili, Cincy style is fun. Never had the real stuff, but have made it from a recipe a few times. My favorite is a pork chili verde I conjured up one Super Bowl Sunday a few years back.
     
  9. KimMH

    KimMH Drinking your old posts Premium Member

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    In agreement with you Sector7! Informative and funny! And inspiring. I've always been a committed carnivore. This makes me want to explore other options!

    J. Allen, as for the ethics of vegetarianism, I grew up next to my grandparent's farm. We were trained early to harden our hearts towards what we saw. It was difficult; I think the natural inclination is kindness, and it never occurred to my elders that perhaps they should have allowed is to own our feelings of compassion.
     
  10. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Thanks, Smoothie! :D
    Yeah, we were actually next to second base, which I guess isn't really the short stop position.

    The best Cincinnati style chili will be the one I try to make next. :D

    I agree. You should be able to feel however you wish. I feel that if such a thing doesn't bother you, okay. If it does, that's just as alright. I was never completely comfortable with it, and as I get older, I find it less and less appealing. That's just for me, though, and I would never hold anyone else to that. We're omnivores by nature. What's nice is that it also lets me make a choice, and my body doesn't have to suffer for that choice.
     
  11. Tachyon

    Tachyon Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I went veggie two years ago and I don't feel like I am missing out of anything, really. I didn't have any specific ethical reasons to go veggie back in the day, I simply realized I was eating meat less and less, because I didn't really enjoy it anymore. Now the mere thought of consuming meat is a bit appaling, tbh. :p
     
  12. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I have invented the most awesome summer salad.. I'm eating it now with an icy glass of sauvignon blanc.

    Diced continental cucumber, black beans, squeeze of lime juice and fresh lychees. I was looking at the bag of lychees on my desk when this vision suddenly came to me.

    It is beautiful.

    [​IMG]
     
  13. lurok

    lurok Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yum. I love lychees, esp peeling them, but somehow always feel they taste like perfumed balls.

    How are you with durians? *eek*
     
  14. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I've only had durian ice cream. I saw they were selling durian in woolworths recently but I suspect it was mislabled jackfruit. I sniffed it deeply but failed to detect anything. The durian ice cream was fine.

    I love lychees, "perfumed" is one of my favorite food groups, LOL. Turkish delight, lychees, rambutans, lavender cheese.. but lychees are my favorite. They are cheap here too, I just ADORE them. Rambutans I adore because they appear in the fruit bowls of so many science fiction shows but I don't think they have the same fragrance.

    I will try durian when I get the chance.
     
  15. thestrangequark

    thestrangequark Admiral Admiral

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    ^I like "perfumed" foods too. My mother makes a lot of homemade jams and jellies, and my favorite by far is her strawberry lavender jam. It's AMAZING! Though the sangria jelly she made this summer is a close second! I also love Turkish Delights. I grew up in a state famous for apples, and there is a company called Aplets & Cotlets that makes their own unique variety of Turkish Delight. The company was founded by two middle eastern immigrants (I'm assuming here, I know they were immigrants but I could not find their country of origin) who moved to Washington State to farm. They grew apricots, apples, and tree nuts. Applets & Cotlets are basically apricot and apple Turkish delights with chopped walnuts, and they're amazing. My mother, sister, and I went to their tiny little factory one year, situated in the little town by their orchards and where they give little factory tours. It was actually a lot of fun, and the fresh sweets were mind-blowingly good!

    Anyway, enough being all "This post brought to you by our sponsors..."

    I am trying to take J's motivation to heart and improve my own diet. I already eat really healthy in general, and I actually eat vegetarian by default. I don't exclude meat because, as a type 1 diabetic, the options I have for what will affect my blood sugar are limited enough already, and I found complete vegetarianism just too limiting (though I did do it for several years). I just like my once a year buffalo jerky too much! I hardly ever eat it, though.

    I should get more variety, though. I sometimes make great soups, but usually I just eat the same thing every day: cup of cottage cheese, piece of fruit if my blood sugar is low enough, salad, 1/4 cup of mixed nuts. Yesterday, though, I tried something new (though not veggie). I baked a catfish fillet and steamed some broccoli and those tiny, multicolored potatoes. I can't believe how easy and delicious the fish was, and so much less messy than cooking meat!
     
  16. Sector 7

    Sector 7 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I hope my questions are not annoying or offensive. They are not meant to be. This is addressed to TheStrangeQuark and, well, any others:

    I gather there are different levels of veggie-ism. Vegans seem to be one extreme, but many levels seem to exist.

    Why is it OK to eat fish, but not other meat... or chicken, but not beef? This is something I really don't understand. [Remember, I'm not trying to be offensive, but to learn.]

    Where I live, we don't even have specialty stores. The lychee salad looks great, but I don't have access to many of the ingredients I've seen on here. It's another reason I'm just trying to eat healthier in general. It was different when we lived at the beach, it was a larger city with more variety.
     
  17. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    For asking this question, I'm going to have to beat you, ostracize you, and then beat you again. Fortunately, in between each beating, you will be showered with kisses.

    Seriously, though, in my opinion, fish is meat. So it's more akin to Pescetarianism, rather than Vegetarianism, but that's just my opinion. Generally, this topic is highly debated. Personally, it doesn't matter to me, but I do find it a bit curious.
     
  18. thestrangequark

    thestrangequark Admiral Admiral

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    Not offended at all.

    My sister is a vegan. Her philosophy is that she is in the position to live without using animals at all, and that is what she should do. Her's is a position of ethics, recognizing that we, as humans, are animals. She believes, therefore, that animals deserve the same rights not to be abused, exploited, or murdered as people do. She therefore does what she can to be completely independent of all animal products, from meat, fish, dairy, and eggs, to honey, leather, and wool. While I do agree with some of her philosophy, I don't share it all, but I understand why she feels the way she does.

    As for other lines, I think some people draw the line at meat but continue to eat fish and poultry for health reasons. Others, because their arbitrary line of morality extends only to land animals. For some, it's about the environment the animal lived in: a fish caught from the ocean was not exploited all its life for food. The truth is, no matter where we draw our personal ethical lines it is pretty much arbitrary in the end. Vegans eat mushrooms even though they are far more closely related to animals than to plants, for example. Morals are a choice, and some people just choose differently along the scale. I think every point on the meat-eater to fish-eater to veggie to vegan scale has good moral arguments for it, and good arguments why the line should be somewhere else, so I figure people should be allowed to settle wherever they feel most comfortable and justify their position as they will. :)
     
  19. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I believe you may have answered that question perfectly, tsq. :D
    That doesn't change that I'm still beating him. In fact, if you'll keep an eye on him, I'll go get the comfy chair. :borg:
     
  20. CorporalClegg

    CorporalClegg Admiral Admiral

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    tsq does everything perfectly. Who are you kidding?