Vegetarian, good for the body 'and' the soul?

[Vinayaka]

....got room for another at your dinner table tonight?

What's pink dal consist of?

The dal is pink lentil, and it turns yellow when cooked. (masoor dal) I start it by frying mustard seeds, cumin seeds, sometimes some chopped onions, with the dal. Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add water. Any veggie or no veggie could be added, but tonight it will be a potato. A pinch of salt, or some other masala sometimes too. Incredibly cheap protein. We buy our dal from an Indian store, 10k at a time. That'll last 6 months or so. When Boss cooks it, she usually goes 50/50 with yellow dal.

 

[JustGeorge]

The dal is pink lentil, and it turns yellow when cooked. (masoor dal) I start it by frying mustard seeds, cumin seeds, sometimes some chopped onions, with the dal. Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add water. Any veggie or no veggie could be added, but tonight it will be a potato. A pinch of salt, or some other masala sometimes too. Incredibly cheap protein. We buy our dal from an Indian store, 10k at a time. That'll last 6 months or so. When Boss cooks it, she usually goes 50/50 with yellow dal.

Ah! Masoor! I hadn't heard it called pink dal before. Its my favorite to cook, because it goes the fastest. It was the first dal I'd ever cooked... just a bit of garlic, turmeric, and chili powder. Think I found it in a Bengali cookbook.

 

[Secret Chief]

10k

That's serious dal.

 

[Valjean]

It's been my experience that being vegetarian is no less costly than it was back when I consumed meat. For one that doesn't cook, it can potentially be more costly, especially for those that purchase meat substitutes, i.e. plant based meats. Have you looked at the cost of a pound of Impossible beef or Beyond beef vs a cost of 90% lean ground beef?

I rarely will eat plant based meat anymore, but when I did, it was quite expensive.

Most vegetarian diets are more healthful than the 'normal', western diet, with its heavy reliance on prepared foods and junk food.

I'm veggie, and my food costs are very low. I try to keep my meals at <$1.00 each, but then I don't try to imitate meat dishes and products with expensive -- and usually very prepared -- meat or dairy substitutes.

 

[Valjean]

I can understand that.

The longest I went without any meat was three months, and then I had a hamburger and thought I was going to die! It set like lead.

So you went back to eating meat???

 

[Vinayaka]

Ah! Masoor! I hadn't heard it called pink dal before. Its my favorite to cook, because it goes the fastest. It was the first dal I'd ever cooked... just a bit of garlic, turmeric, and chili powder. Think I found it in a Bengali cookbook.

It's always been my favorite dal. Back a long time ago when we camped with the kids, we made a hearty soup with dried vegetable flakes and masoor. Nice on a chilly evening.

 

[Vinayaka]

That's serious dal.

We live in a large Indian community with maybe 15 Indian stores nearby. The supermarkets compete with them as well. But lots of stuff comes in discounted large amounts. All the rices, etc. We buy the 10k bags of rice too. Basmati brown for me.

 

[Vinayaka]

Chick peas are another very cheap food when bought dry. We'll boil up a huge pot, skim the foam, then freeze them in meal size bags.

 

[Secret Chief]

We live in a large Indian community with maybe 15 Indian stores nearby. The supermarkets compete with them as well. But lots of stuff comes in discounted large amounts. All the rices, etc. We buy the 10k bags of rice too. Basmati brown for me.

We've got them too but that would just be too much for us. It's cheap as heck of course. We did used to buy enormous tubs of yoghurt for a few pence though.

 

[Valjean]

I see nothing inherently moral or immoral about eating meat. A rabbit isn't spiritually superior to a tiger. It's just part of life, and herbivores in the wild are often caught eating meat, too. There was a news story a few months ago about a deer caught munching on a cadaver at one of those body farm forensics facilities, for example. Food is food, and meat is brilliant for getting a huge load of nutrients at once.

Other animals, though, have little choice in their diets, moreover, they aren't moral agents, nor do they have an understanding of the consequences of their actions.

Me, I'm veggie because I have a choice, and I find it morally repugnant to cause or contribute to unnecessary pain or suffering in other beings capable of experiencing these, as well as because killing a healthy, usually young, animal is a theft of life.
I also prefer to tread fairly lightly on the planet, and not cause unnecessary ecological damage.

 

[Vinayaka]

We've got them too but that would just be too much for us. It's cheap as heck of course. We did used to buy enormous tubs of yoghurt for a few pence though.

It's amazing sometimes to watch an Indian shop. Some can guy garlic the way I'd buy onions.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Other animals, though, have little choice in their diets, moreover, they aren't moral agents, nor do they have an understanding of the consequences of their actions.

Me, I'm veggie because I have a choice, and I find it morally repugnant to cause or contribute to unnecessary pain or suffering in other beings capable of experiencing these, as well as because killing a healthy, usually young, animal is a theft of life.
I also prefer to tread fairly lightly on the planet, and not cause unnecessary ecological damage.

That's nice. I'm still having a steak for dinner. And you're just wrong about other animals not being moral agents. Other species have their notions of right and wrong in their communities. Certainly there are human communities with little choice over their diets, as well. But we've been over this multiple times over the years, and I'm not interested in discussing it more with you as it never goes anywhere. We'll never agree. You enjoy your plants and I'll enjoy my meat.

 

[Lain]

Chick peas are another very cheap food when bought dry. We'll boil up a huge pot, skim the foam, then freeze them in meal size bags.

As soon as I get an InstaPot I'm gonna begin doing this. Tofu, seitan, and chickpeas are the gods of cheap to relatively cheap protein to me (for they taste the best to me).

 

[Vinayaka]

As soon as I get an InstaPot I'm gonna begin doing this. Tofu, seitan, and chickpeas are the gods of cheap to relatively cheap protein to me (for they taste the best to me).

Besan flour (chick pea flour) is even cheaper than the chick peas themselves. (Ever try buying wheat berries?)

 

[PruePhillip]

This time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is one when humans collectively eat billions of animals. The habit feels rooted in nature, and in our nature. How can it be a happy holiday if we are not feasting on turkeys, pigs, cows and lambs?
The carnivorous cravings of a world of almost eight billion people have radically changed the definition of life on this planet. As societies get richer, they get more meat-hungry, building up industrial food chains to put steaks on every plate, bacon on eggs, and chicken breasts on buns. The movement of a billion people in Asia into a modern middle-class lifestyle in the last few decades has amplified our consumption of domesticated animals.
The upshot: There are now some 25.9 billion chickens alive, a billion cattle, and about a billion sheep and a billion pigs, all numbers that have been rising and challenging our environment and resources. They are also crowding out wild animals. The biomass of domesticated animals is now dozens of times more than that of wildlife.

The word vegetarian was only invented in the 1840s, but the concept has been around since ancient times. The Egyptians and Greeks realized that meat was clearly dead flesh, in contrast to living plants, and was grounds for abstinence, for various reasons. Pythagoras, for example, taught that animals had souls that were immortal and reincarnated after death, possibly in humans. Some Egyptian priests, and later, Buddha and Pythagoras, chose to not eat meat. Later, religious movements like Hinduism, the Seventh-day Adventists and some radical Quakers made vegetarianism part of their creed. The Enlightenment also included a vegetarian movement. “Often the vegetarian creed has been one of dissidence, comprising rebels and outsiders, individuals and groups who find the society they live in to lack moral worth,” writes Colin Spenser in Vegetarianism: A History.
Is it time for Catholics to stop eating meat? | America Magazine

I like what Jesus said about diet. What enters your body can't defile you, it's what comes out
of your mouth. I am having a ham sandwich for lunch - it doesn't effect my 'soul' because what
God seeks is your moral behavior, something people in this modern world (see below) don't
want to think about.

 

[mangalavara]

We eat meat since the animals were given into Noah's hand and then of course in the Life of the World to Come will no longer, neither will anything die. Blessed be God. Such is my opinion.

I am glad you brought this up. When I was a Protestant (the wannabe Catholic type, lol), one thing that inspired me to become a vegetarian was the passage in Isaiah, I think, that says the animals would no longer hurt each other in the World to Come because they would be 'filled with the knowledge of the Lord.' If they won't harm each other due to being filled with the knowledge of the Lord, then very likely human beings filled with the same knowledge won't hurt them either.

I think one of the most important stages in becoming a vegetarian is when you learn to forget about finding alternatives to meat in your meals. Just think and plan differently.

I agree.

When I became a vegetarian in July 2019, I was not interested in meat alternatives because tofu burgers and tofu hotdogs reminded me of what I chose to avoid from then on. At the time, I was a Christian, and my pastor happened to be a vegetarian. He once mentioned that I might like a certain brand of veggie burgers, and I informed him in response that I didn't bother looking for vegetarian alternatives to burgers, hotdogs, and the like. He was surprised. Lol.

Basmati brown for me.

Nice! I love brown Basmati rice! I had some today as Rāma prasāda.

Me, I'm veggie because I have a choice, and I find it morally repugnant to cause or contribute to unnecessary pain or suffering in other beings capable of experiencing these

I like your perspective and I share it.

 

[Lain]

I am glad you brought this up. When I was a Protestant (the wannabe Catholic type, lol), one thing that inspired me to become a vegetarian was the passage in Isaiah, I think, that says the animals would no longer hurt each other in the World to Come because they would be 'filled with the knowledge of the Lord.' If they won't harm each other due to being filled with the knowledge of the Lord, then very likely human beings filled with the same knowledge won't hurt them either.

That is one of the things which inspires me to it as well and helps form my perspective on the matter. This is also the reason why many of the Saints are at peace with animals and nature or even begin to cease eating meat. One of the Church Fathers mentioned this being like the recreation of Eden in the lives of certain monks and so on, for the end will be like the beginning and in the beginning these things were not so. So those who already are being divinized by God often will experience that.

 

[mangalavara]

One of the Church Fathers mentioned this being like the recreation of Eden in the lives of certain monks and so on, for the end will be like the beginning and in the beginning these things were not so. So those who already are being divinized by God often will experience that.

I like that association of vegetarianism in some individuals with divinization/theosis. Thanks for mentioning that too!

 

[kaninchen]

Totally concur. We think in terms of a grain, and a legume. The couple of veggies are a natural. My turn to cook tonight so it's red rice, pink dal, brussels sprouts, and eggplant, with cucumber raita. I think it helped us a ton, as we became vegetarian almost 50 years ago when there was no fake meat. So I've never really gotten the concept. I did have a Tofu hot dog maybe 30 years back, but I puked it. But newer vegetarians seem to be smitten with fake meat.

I'm a relative newcomer , I went veggie at Uni 30 years ago and went on to raise a veggie family.

Mostly, I do 'Italian' but it's just one of the many traditions in which the food of the poor was made delicious.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

This time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is one when humans collectively eat billions of animals. The habit feels rooted in nature, and in our nature. How can it be a happy holiday if we are not feasting on turkeys, pigs, cows and lambs?
The carnivorous cravings of a world of almost eight billion people have radically changed the definition of life on this planet. As societies get richer, they get more meat-hungry, building up industrial food chains to put steaks on every plate, bacon on eggs, and chicken breasts on buns. The movement of a billion people in Asia into a modern middle-class lifestyle in the last few decades has amplified our consumption of domesticated animals.
The upshot: There are now some 25.9 billion chickens alive, a billion cattle, and about a billion sheep and a billion pigs, all numbers that have been rising and challenging our environment and resources. They are also crowding out wild animals. The biomass of domesticated animals is now dozens of times more than that of wildlife.

The word vegetarian was only invented in the 1840s, but the concept has been around since ancient times. The Egyptians and Greeks realized that meat was clearly dead flesh, in contrast to living plants, and was grounds for abstinence, for various reasons. Pythagoras, for example, taught that animals had souls that were immortal and reincarnated after death, possibly in humans. Some Egyptian priests, and later, Buddha and Pythagoras, chose to not eat meat. Later, religious movements like Hinduism, the Seventh-day Adventists and some radical Quakers made vegetarianism part of their creed. The Enlightenment also included a vegetarian movement. “Often the vegetarian creed has been one of dissidence, comprising rebels and outsiders, individuals and groups who find the society they live in to lack moral worth,” writes Colin Spenser in Vegetarianism: A History.
Is it time for Catholics to stop eating meat? | America Magazine

There is nothing unhealthy about eating meat. As with all diets, you have to compare like with like -- a balance omnivore diet with plenty of fruits and veggies, with a balanced vegetarian with plenty of protein sources. You can have a good diet either way. This is not true of veganism, which avoids dairy products and thus has no animal products at all. In veganism it is extremely difficult to get all the vitamins and minerals you need, and impossible to get enough B12 through a vegan diet--all vegans MUST take B12 supplements.

It should also be noted that not everyone requires the same diet -- some people do just fine eating breads and cereals, while others have to avoid carbs and have a very high protein diet to avoid diabetes. If you need to be on a high protein diet, you really have no choice but to include animal products -- if you tried to go high protein on a vegan diet, you would end up 300 pounds from eating so much food. The easiest way to have a high protein diet and have a normal body weight is to eat meat.