I’m just gonna say this, recently I became vegetarian (mostly - this Louisiana boy can’t give up crawfish, oysters, shrimp… okay, anything that you pull out of the sea) and I find myself to be generally less hungry. It’s exactly the opposite of what I expected, but what the fuck else is new.

Food fight!!!!!!

Are Cheetos a vegetarian item? It’s not like there’s real cheese in there…

The hedonic tradeoff is, surprisingly, on the side of veganism.

The first time I saw a surprising hedonic trade-off on the side of veganism was in Tijuana many many years ago, but I think they’ve closed those joints…

Veganism is religion for some. I know a Type 1 diabetic who is vegan, and is constantly going hypoglycemic and passing out but she just lives on salad and figures it is the “purist” thing she can do. A little protein, even just an egg, would do wonders for keeping her blood sugar stable. And no, she doesn’t bother to eat tofu; it doesn’t go well in her salad-only lifestyle.

I know veganism can be “done” properly (but you’ll still be low on B12), but when it is religion instead of a carefully planned lifestyle, it gets a little weird. The smugness is annoying too, as McArdle’s partymates soon discovered.

McArdle spends the night at a book party, chatting about her eating habits and how they’ve caused her to think less about food.

I don’t think this woman ever reached the mirror stage.

Okay, I was going to defend the vegan, being a vegetarian (though not vegan) myself, but then I had to think back to all the conversations I’ve had with self-righteous, judgmental vegans. Most of them last a year, tops, then you find out they would sneak the occasional chicken sandwich, anyway. I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 years and I think it is great for your overall health, but I don’t think I could do it without a little cheese pizza and cereal with milk. Life needs a few pleasures.

my recent conversion to an animal-free lifestyle.

Sheesh. Whenever I hear things like this, my first impulse is to smash someone’s guitar. Or grill up a steak.

I know, I’m petty and reactionary, but there’s something in the language (a lot of things, actually), that grates on every nerve I have.

What normal people say: “I recently became a vegan” or “Since becoming a vegan” what may follow that construction might be as annoying to my petty, reactionary, tastes, but at least it doesn’t smack of religion or delusion (yeah, ‘animal-free’, seems pretty narrow to me — animals were harmed in the farmland that changed the ecosystem, etc.) with the added “lifestyle” making the entire sentiment insufferable.

To me.

The exploitation of our vegetable brothers and sisters must stop! I don’t eat anything but it hasn’t affected my appetite.

So that’s how an old man like you stays alive…. Got any groat clusters?

Nope, the bastards won’t deliver in Sector R after dark.

“my recent conversion to an animal-free lifestyle”

Psssh. Someone’s been reading Skinny Bitch. Apparently all the Trixies are vegans now. Vegan is this year’s Ugg boot!

The smugness is annoying too, as McArdle’s partymates soon discovered.

That’s why I’m considering myself “strict vegetarian” instead of “vegan”. It lacks the requirement of being a self-righteous dork. I eat the way I do for health reasons, not because I’m worried about how I treat bees.

After 4 years of McCain, we’ll all be living on Soylent Green anyway.

Hot dog, groat cakes again! Heavy on the 30 weight, mom!

And you can believe me, because I never lie, and I’m always right.

That’s one seriously smug link ya got there; pretty much proves the point about vegans in general and McArtless in particular. Looks like by calling myself a vegetarian I am in serious risk of harshing their morally superior mellow if I leave out the “atari” part.

I consider myself a nonputzatarian, meaning I try not to act like a self-righteous putz about diet issues; I do this by not attempting to out-martyr others regarding their food choices. I haven’t met a vegan yet who follows my creed.

I’ve got half a jar of mayonnaise…

I thought she meant she stopped banging her sharpei.

Oh, horseshit. This is a woman who doesn’t think babies should get fed if their parents don’t eat what she thinks they ought to.

I work in advertising in Manhattan. Veganism: it’s not just a moral statement, it’s a diet plan.

As a long-time reader and fellow (gal?) animal lover, I’m really disappointed in you, Tbogg, and your commenters. You may not be ready or willing to give up animal products, but doing so is clearly the more ethical path. Mocking those who are more ethical than you are is not progressive, or even mature, behavior.

For those who need a refresher, here is the UN report about how meat production contributes hugely to global warming:
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en.....index.html

And here’s some data about rampant human rights abuses in the meat industries:

*In an article entitled Finger-Lickin’ Bad in the February 21, 2006 issue of the online environmental publication Grist, author Suzi Parker documents the exploitive and antiquated sharecropper-type business model used by poultry agribusinesses to dominate the small farmers who actually raise many of the birds sent to slaughter.

*A January 26, 2006, The New York Times article entitled Rights Group Condemns Meatpackers on Job Safety,begins, “For the first time, Human Rights Watch has issued a report that harshly criticizes a single industry in the United States, concluding that working conditions among the nation’s meatpackers and slaughterhouses are so bad that they violate basic human rights.”

Of course there’s also the non-greenhouse environmental degradation (http://www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms/), and the health problems with eating meat.

Who really are the smug people in this dialog? And who are the suckers, who buy into agribusiness agitprop and poison their bodies, the planet, and the body politic?

Looks like your lifestyle has not helped your Asperger’s. Sorry (hint: It’s not the diet, it’s the self-righteousness, which incidentally is also not mature behavior).

As for ‘animal-free’, does that make Megan a vegetable or a mineral?

Drawing attention to facts that you don’t happen to like or feel comfortable with =/ self-righteousness (or Asperger’s, for that matter).

“Drawing attention to facts that you don’t happen to like or feel comfortable with =/ self-righteousness”

How very right you are, lifelongactivist.

However, referring to oneself as “those who are more ethical than you are” and the persons you are addressing as “the suckers, who buy into agribusiness agitprop and poison their bodies, the planet, and the body politic,” well, that’s a whole boatload of self-righteous right there.

stillSTH - thank you for your comment, which has some validity…i think it is clear from the context that I was using the word ethical to refer to actions, not people - however, my phrasing could have been better.

and you are right, I shouldn’t have used the term “sucker.”

are you similarly willing to call out all the meat-eaters in this thread who have been mocking vegans and calling them names?

Okay, I’ve just read through all the comments again and the only names I see are “dork” and “putz.” And plenty of mocking, sure, but that’s what this place is all about.

You’ll notice that many of the comments are from people who are vegetarian or vegan. It seems to me that the unifying theme in the comments is that nobody has a problem with vegetarians or vegans; what people object to (and please correct me if I’m wrong here, folks) are the sanctimonious, the self-righteous, the obsessive, and the condescending members of those groups. And I’m afraid they are legion and, damn, are they ever noisy. As I said to my vegetarian then-boyfriend some years ago, “being a vegetarian doesn’t mean you’re a better person than I am, it just means you don’t eat meat.”