Who Is Vegan Or Vegetarian?

I'm super glad you started this thread!!!! I've been vegetarian for years. I am because I love animals too much to want to kill them and eat them. Plus, it's hard to get meat that is raised humanely, although it is possible to find that. The only "meat" I eat is oysters, and I have not yet justified/unjustified eating oysters. I have learned to eat very well as a vegetarian. For breakfast, I have oatmeal with hemp hearts and 1 tsp of brown sugar, with a little bit of almond milk poured over it. For lunch almost every day I have an Amy's brand frozen bowl. Can you get those where you live? They are delicious and have lost of vegetables in many of them. I also eat canned vegetables with every meal, including breakfast. I have a small supper. Sometimes it's a can of Amy's brand soup, sometimes it's low fat unsweetened yogurt with added hemp hearts and 1 level tablespoon of glucose. I don't have sugar or honey in the house anymore only glucose/dextrose and brown sugar which I keep for my oatmeal. I found out recently from my pdoc that I've put on 15 lbs since 2017 when I started Mirtazapine. I'm going to have surgery on Sept. 30, but after I recover I told my pdoc that I insist on getting off Mirtazapine, and maybe Remeron, too, and find a different med. I told her I made a decision years ago never to take medication that put weight on me. I'm very unhappy to know that I have put on 15 lbs. I thought I had "only" put on 8 lbs recently. I'll read some of the other posts to see if there are any vegetarians on this thread. I'm not at all interested in becoming vegan.

Re the environment, I think the main thing is for people to eat less meat (and dairy/eggs), but cutting it out entirely is not necessarily required. Hopefully we'll have good artificially grown meat soon, although I believe some people object to that.

I'm of the opinion that if you do eat meat, you shouldn't be squeamish about acknowledging where it came from. Something about honoring the animal I suppose.

I was a hardcore vegan for the animals - eco warrior for 10 years. before hitting burnout. It wasn't just the food, I wore or purchased no leather or wool, and only used cruelty-free toiletries and cosmetics. I was taking my own grocery bags to the store when no one else was - at least not where I lived.

My physical health was fine , however, in hindsight it was all a bit crazy-making.

Back in the day, and this still exists today, there is a lot of pressure on ethical vegans to be good representatives for the cause. This means remaining thin. Although the animals don't really give a toss if you're fat or thin, just that you're not eating them. There remains a lot of fat phobia within the vegan movement also lot of omnivores would just not take a fat vegan or vegetarian seriously So it it was often preached especially by the strictly vegan for health types, that we were doing a disservice to the animals if we allowed ourselves to get fat. Despite having gone vegan for the animals it was pretty easy for this little bipolar person, to get caught up in a lot of disordered eating practices in order to appear the "good vegan" ...not too thin, not too fat. For years I was caught in exercise bullimia and a never ending restrict/ binge cycle.

Going vegan for animals is great, but doing it for "health reasons" or in other words chasing thin and getting sucked into that healthism/diet culture aspect can be dangerous territory for people with mental illness and a history or disordered eating. And many vegans who are in it strictly for the animals can get sucked into this aspect as well.

Same with the eco-warrior approach, this can quickly become a crazy-making, obsessed/religiousity for those of us with mental health issues - it did for me.


TL;DR ... in my experience, folks with mental illness should tread very carefully when restricting what they eat, regardless of the reasons behind it.

Thanks!! Will check out Amy's.

Thanks for this message. What is artificially grown meat? As I wrote in my first post here, I eat farmed oysters. I have read that farming oysters helps purify the ocean. I wonder if this is true. Does anyone know?

I have been a vegan for 3 years.And i try to buy cruelty free products.Also i try to live zero waste and plastic free.maybe i am not good at this.idk last year i bought a menstrual cup (maybe it can't be comfortable for everyone) i wanna buy reusable pads too.i am planning to buy solid shampoo .i love nature and animals.i am two cats mom .