Vegan Thread - Give peas a chance

I've got my head around the "enjoy eating meat" thing - I can enjoy lots of food, but there's no reason why I have to support animal suffering in order to do so. Again, I have a choice. I've gone without it for a while and just substituted it for something else I enjoy. It's not difficult. Mindset change I guess.

I eat lots of veggies, fruit, pulses, tofu, grains etc. try and eat much less meat, only buy high-quality, organic etc.
However, I eat plenty of fish though so I'm nowhere near veggie.
Fuck going vegan, no chocolate, no yoghurt, no cheese, no fucking joy.

mothercruncher

You just haven't met the right chickens.

I think I could quite easily cut out pig from my diet first as it's my least favourite. Beef would be the most difficult I think. I do love a hot chunk of cow now and again.

Quite like this thread though as it's started me thinking and I think I might do a wee push of cutting down on a lot of stuff.

Ahh the old Quorn mince in the bolognese trick.
The amount of times I've been preached to by veggies that you can't tell the difference from real mince when its cooked in a chilli or bolognese. Guess what you can! 

I did a full on Veggie BBQ this year for some of our veggie mates and I will say Beyond burgers are genuinely tasty when grilled on a bbq and stuck in a bun with cheese, lettuce, onion and burger sauce.

I definitely notice the difference with Quorn mince but I can get past that. Not sure I'd serve it to people without telling them though.

Because some people are just dicks.

I don't eat much meat anymore, mostly only when I'm eating out. I also don't use meat substitutes, because, frankly, they are way overpriced. I'm not paying near meat prices for what's just a bunch of prepared plants. Can do that myself.

That's a point - I don't buy the marketed vegetarian stuff as it invariably costs a bomb. But I cook a lot, so I just get the ingredients I want and most of the time nowadays, there's no meat, just other stuff. That way, it's pretty much cheaper than anything.

That amount of food would last me over a week!

You can grow those vegetables on your windowsill/garden too.

I was having this very discussion the other day with Mrs Hermit, and I'd argue that we do pay enough, we're just buying the wrong sort and from the wrong places. There is a butcher we go to that we usually end up spending around £100 in (we don't go very often) on assorted meat and offal and on the surface his prices are ridiculously expensive. He wants nearly £8 for a chicken for example while we're used to getting chickens 3 for £10 from Asda, most of his other stuff is around double supermarket prices as well. It happened to be the chicken that we were talking about at the time which is why it's the price I can remember. Anyway, the point is it tastes like a chicken that costs £8 as opposed to the chicken flavoured cardboard you get from the supermarket, and the diced steak is just on another level (Harrods vs Happy Shopper kind of level), it's just ridiculous.

TLDR: If you pay supermarket prices you're probably paying the right amount for the shit you're buying, pay the proper prices at a proper butchers and it will cost a lot more, but still be the right price.

Still TLDR: Don't buy meat from supermarket.

Yeah, you can buy cheaper veggie burgers than Beyond or Moving Mountains and still get a decent 'meaty' burger. The Quorn quarterpounders are alright and cost pennies in the endless multibuys and the Linda McCartney mozzarella burgers are nice too, and always on offer for a quid.

I'm not going to argue Beyond aren't the best but they're pricey and massively processed, if that bothers you. I don't think their price is out of whack to if you treated yourself to best-quality Waitrose beefburgers though.

And has been said, a lot of people are going to be in for a shock anyway when the price of meat goes up as we have been the cheapest, artificially, for years in Western Europe.

Ah, yes, I see. Very true from a quality standpoint - but that expensive quality meat will still be subsidised and would otherwise cost even more. 

I personally thing we should pay a big tax on meat because it's so harmful to the planet (even with all the problems that brings with equality etc - it's a blunt instrument that would work). But even if you don't agree with that, it surely still seems odd that meat products are actually made cheaper than they would otherwise be by subsidies. 

Organic/free range meat is normally better for animal welfare and, arguably, taste, but is no better for land use, water use or carbon impact.

It's one of the things that stopped me cutting down for a while. I'd pick up some and my brain would automatically say, "get a meat one" - the subconscious link because of the shape is there.

I think I'm going through a mid life crisis with a lot of things these days, not just meat