Vegans... Animal cruelty at slaughterhouse. :( I'm done with meat. Now what?!
I'm in TX and the news showed a video of of people at a slaughter house pushing the animals and prodding them with a fork lift... and last but not least, a cow trying to walk on the upper part of her back legs because the lower part was broken and bent forward. I was crying so hard I started hyperventilating. I'm not even religous, but just started saying "God, please forgive us"..It's making me cry now.
I will no longer eat anything that causes another living creature to suffer. So.... What do I eat to make sure I'm getting all the nutrients my body needs, if I don't eat meat?
Answers: Obviously the animals must be killed some way before I go to the grocery store, but I guess it's been easy to not think about it, until yesterday.
I'm in TX and the news showed a video of of people at a slaughter house pushing the animals and prodding them with a fork lift... and last but not least, a cow trying to walk on the upper part of her back legs because the lower part was broken and bent forward. I was crying so hard I started hyperventilating. I'm not even religous, but just started saying "God, please forgive us"..It's making me cry now.
I will no longer eat anything that causes another living creature to suffer. So.... What do I eat to make sure I'm getting all the nutrients my body needs, if I don't eat meat?
The one thing to remember is that you need to replace the nutrients you are no longer getting from meat with other food. Major concerns for most people are protein, iron and b12(although they shouldn't be since they are easy to get). There is no special nutrients in meat that cannot be obtained from a vegetarian source(despite what many people think, meat is not some magical food that you have to eat to stay healthy).
Protein
The average person only needs about 50 grams of protein per day. Protein is in everything, just look at the side of boxes. In todays world it is very hard to be protein deficient if you are eating a wide variety.
High protein foods include:
soy milk, tofu, nuts(Almonds, Cashews, Filberts, Hemp Seeds, Peanuts, Pumpkin seeds, Sesame seeds, Sunflower seeds, Walnuts (black)), seeds, legumes(Garbanzo beans, Kidney beans, Lentils, Lima beans, Navy beans, Soybeans, Split peas), grains(Barley, Brown rice, Buckwheat, Millet, Oatmeal, Rye, Wheat germ, Wheat, hard red, Wild rice), vegetables(Artichokes, Beets, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Green peas, Green pepper, Kale, Lettuce, Mushrooms, Mustard green, Onions, Potatoes, Spinach, Tomatoes, Turnip greens, Watercress, Yams, Zucchini), fruits(Apple, Banana, Cantaloupe, Grape, Grapefruit, Honeydew melon, Orange, Papaya, Peach, Pear, Pineapple, Strawberry)
Iron
Like vitamin b12, iron is a crucial component of red blood cells. Dried beans and peas, lentils, enriched cereals, whole-grain products, dark, leafy green vegetables, and dried fruit are good sources of iron. To help your body absorb non-animal sources of iron, eat foods rich in vitamin C — such as strawberries, citrus fruits, tomatoes, cabbage and broccoli — at the same time you consume iron-containing foods.
B12
Vitamin b12. Your body needs vitamin b12 to produce red blood cells and prevent anemia. This vitamin is found almost exclusively in animal products, including milk, eggs and cheese. You can also get vitamin b12 from some enriched cereals, and fortified soy products.
If you are eating a wide variety of foods then you should do just fine. Variety/balance is the key to any healthy diet. There are many great books and websites to help you transition into vegetarianism
Websites:
http://www.goveg.com/
http://www.vrg.org/
http://vegweb.com/
http://www.vegsoc.org/index.html
Books:
The New Becoming Vegetarian: The Essential Guide To A Healthy Vegetarian Diet
by Vesanto Melina, Brenda Davis
The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health
by T. Colin Campbell
SkinnyBitch by Kim Barnouin and Rory Freedman
Obviously there are many other great books. Try the library or the book store to see which is best for you. The Barnes&Nobel near me has about 4 shelves of veg*n books.
Firstly, meat doesn't give you any nutrients that you cannot easily find elsewhere.
So long as your diet has a variety of fruit, veggies, nuts, cereal etc, you will get all you need.
mayber start by looking at some websites aimed at new veggies, heres one:
http://www.vegsoc.org/newveg/
Edit:
books ?
Just looked on the shelf and we've got about 10 veggie books, to be honest i say you are better popping down to a book shop and browsing. Cook books are quite a personal choice and you'll find every book store sells veggie cookbooks.
I'm not trying to force my beliefs on you but rather just defend what I believe is a generalization. This may be common in mass market slaughterhouses (KFC, or whatever)
But coming from small town Wisconsin, we don't treat our cattle like that. They live on a farm with plenty of food and room to roam. If they have diseases they are treated. When they go to the butcher its clean and quick.
Many humans are cruel to other humans but don't make the generalization that all are bad. Just trying to get the word out that not all meat processing is as bad as you think. Good day.
Animal carcass rots away in your body for 7 days to digest,its not good for you,also that video you saw happens in every factory farm and not just with cows. Tofu,rice/soy protein powder for smoothies,nuts,flax for omegas,beans and rice for complete protein,oatmeal and soymilk,hummus and pita,their are mock cream cheeses and sour cream,yogurt.You'll see that you will discover yummy foods you never knew about.Good luck!
Animals are far more sensitive to smell than humans. Even bovine animals such as cows can smell blood and it does freak them out. Obviously at a slaughterhouse there is a lot of blood. If you knew you were in the cows predicament, you'd fight like hell to get away. That is often what you see happening. It's not a nice business but someone has to do it. If everyone had to visit a slaughterhouse at least once in their lives, many people wouldn't eat meat again.
Meat is one of your basic food groups. Without it, you wouldn't have what you already have now. Your health. The is burgers that are vegetarian burgers, but I wouldn't recommend them.
i am a vegan and so i live on dairy. i have been one since i was five i hate the fact that animals are killed just so we can eat. i mean they're living things 2 u know!!! my parents fed me twice as many veggies and at least 2 servings of fruit each day. drink milk eat cheese and yogurt and you'll do great. good luck! it might not be easy but in the long run it will help the earth.
I know what you mean, I was watching the news and it absolutly depressed me, my husband said to me why did you look at that you know how you get, I'm against cruelty to animals I have always been a strong and firm believer that animals should be treated with respect. I often asked myself that why do we as humans treat the animals so bad and have test on them when there are murderes, rapist and pedafiles out there getting away with it. I've eaten on fish and chicken but I have researching the website because I am truly changinf to vegetarian I will keep you posted
Becoming Vegetarian/Vegan is a great book .
So is The Complete Idiots Guide to becoming Vegan or Vegetarian.
So sorry to hear that watching the video was so traumatic for you. The good news is , your doing something to help animals by not contributing to their deaths. Your doing the right thing ?
tofu nuts and fruits stuff like that
1 peanut butter and jelly sandwich
on wheat bread
(2 tbls peanut butter, 1 tbls jelly,
2 slices of wheat bread)
1 cup carrot sticks
1 cup yogurt
1 apple
ther is always a misconception about the nutrients protiens and vitamins for the non vegers........who said by eating non veg u get all the nutrients in the world>? its very illogical......actually if u start eating a lot vegitables like carrot ,greens,onions,potatoes,so on and hence forth........and drinking milk and may be a egg.........will ensure all of the nutrients u want .........
yo vegos, your brain is the only vegetable round here,
4 real yall got any links to slaughterhouses, faces of D videos are gettin old for me.
Well, read everything you can get your hands on.
Start with Becoming Vegan or Becoming Vegetarian, those are pretty good books. Others my Dr Michael Klaper, John Robbins, Neal Bernard, etc. are good too. Lots of stuff out there.
Get into gardening if you can -- read about the methods of such people like Masanobu Fukuoka. Lots of free or online seed catalogues and seed exchanges etc.
There's a whole world of food out there and most of it is vegan anyway. I've been trying all sorts of different foods for the last 18 years and I keep finding new stuff to try all the time. It's endless. Each year we look in the seed catalogues and find some interesting stuff to grow... even though we already have enough seeds to last a lifetime (always allow some of your plants to go to seed and collect the seed for next year... free seeds!).
Join a local group like EarthSave and meet like-minded people, exchange recipes, go to potlucks and taste things you've never tried or even heard of before etc. Lots of fun.