r/Vegetarianism

So ive cut out all meat from my diet, but only sometimes still eat canned tuna.
Does that not make me vegetarian anymore? or how does that work? like fish isnt meat, but its a dead animal nonetheless.

FYI i do not eat any other type of fish since i REALLY dont like the taste/texture/everything

Hi! (22F) I have been strictly vegetarian for a couple of years now, and recently have been considering introducing a bit of fish in my diet. I got a diagnosis of anemia this year, and have been struggling with eating enough protein to achieve my goals in the gym, on top of other minor health issues. On top of that, I’m Argentinian, and a lot of outings are around food (specially asado) and every time I have a social event wth friends or family I have to comprise for a salad or something equally unappetizing. A lot of places here have barely any vegetarian options so maybe introducing fish might be better. I also think I miss the taste of fish a bit? Although I get kind of queasy thinking about it.

I’m also struggling because I don’t think any of this reasons are strong enough to make myself eat fish again. I don’t have big morals for vegetarianism but I am too emphatic sometimes, and it makes me feel bad to consume animals. I also know it has an environmental impact.

Can I get some advice from someone who has been a vegetarian for longer?

Pt. I did have iron and b12 supplements, although I’ve been told they are not the best to have.
Also! I’m not anemic anymore, but I don’t want to get it again.

As the title goes, my brother’s girlfriend is a vegetarian. Animal biproducts like cheese and whatnot seem to be ok. Anyway, I cook a lot but I don’t want to resort to simply salads or frozen impossible meat when she comes over. Any suggestions?

I've only been vegetarian for not even a full week and the chicken in my moms salad smelled not edible. It hasn't been that long so it shouldn't be the new diet, should I see a doctor?

I want to ask for other vegetarians advice who use to be vegan. I tried asking in another community but the post was removed for some reason. And I don’t really want to ask it in the vegan or exvegan subreddit because I know I won’t get the advice I’m looking for. I’m hoping the advice here might be a bit more moderate and unbiased.

Long story short, I’ve been vegan for 6 years and vegetarian for a number of years before that. Recently I’ve been feeling so disillusioned with it. So I’ve considered going back to being mostly vegetarian. But I also feel immense waves of guilt knowing what animals go through in agriculture and labs. I feel stuck between hating the way I’m living right now but also hating the idea of contributing to animal suffering.

Has anyone else ever gone from vegan to vegetarian and how did you deal with the feelings around it?

Personally I would like to transition more and more to veganism especially since its only becoming easier as time goes on. I have been vegetarian for 7 months now and want to eat less dairy products.

Going vegetarian was super easy but cutting the rest out is definitely a lot harder for me. I was wondering how many of yall are pretty set in only being vegetarian and how many would like to consume less and less of the other animal products.

I am not vegan nor vegetarian *yet* but a few months ago that was such a bizarre concept to me, I could never imagine having no meat in my diet and would always say that "humans are omnivores!" And I very rarely even ate vegetables since I didn't like them. However it's been weeks since I added more plants to my diet for my skin recovery, at first I couldn't get enough of leafy and potato salads, now I eat carrots like they're candy. Even though I still eat meat, I don't crave for it anymore which is shocking and I ate siiiignificantly less than I did before I started this diet. I did not even notice I was eating less and less meat. Even my cravings for added sugars have decreased and don't reach for chocolate in the fridge as much.

I think the reason why I didn't like veggies before is because I did not like how they're cooked but now since I have more control on how I eat my veggies they are so much more enjoyable now!! I really enjoy them in salad, pan fried, or soup form and can totally see myself having my diet consisting mostly of plants but idk if i could ever completely cut out meat, dairy, or eggs since I still don't complete my daily protein intake even until now 😅. But who knows! I'm 17, maybe in the future I'll find a way when I'm fully independent

I cant right now because I'm in high school, my parents buy the groceries and me being vegetarian would be a huge inconvenience to them. But I'm planning for one day when I go to college(except for eggs because a few of my friends have some pet chickens on their farm n just give away the eggs sometimes) mostly doing this for ethical reasons.

my only question is how would I go about it? How do I reduce my meat consumption. Are there vegan versions of Cheddar Cheese, sushi, chicken or those pepperoni stick things? What vegan foods would you recommend and how do you tell what foods are vegan? Would I count as vegetarian if I'm vegetarian except for dairy?

I have so many questions, if you could give resources or tell me about your experience id be super happy!

I have only been vegetarian for a couple of months, so advice and opinions would be appreciated!

I went vegetarian for ethical reasons, but I am definitely not perfect. Since I started the change, I have avoided all meat and byproducts (RIP Pop-Tarts), but recently I ate a standard marshmallow. I did consciously recognize that it has gelatin, but desire superseded that, and I ate it anyway. I don't necessarily feel guilty, but I feel like I should. Does that negate my efforts?

The second "issue" is vegan guilt. I have learned about the dairy industry through social media, so I am fully aware of it. Going fully vegan doesn't feel realistic for me right now due to picky eating and many other factors. I feel somewhat guilty for "not doing enough," so any thoughts on that area would be appreciated.

I never ate a lot of meat pre-vegetarian

Hi guys my friend and I were arguing whether eggs are vegetarian or non vegetarian. Can anyone tell me what they are

So, yesterday my dad told me that because I don’t like my food touching any meat, I’m being “a little dramatic” so, am I being dramatic or am I not?

What advice would lifelong or experienced vegetarians give to a complete beginner? I'm just starting out and only recently learned that daily multivitamins are a good idea. Also, I’m not a big fan of vegetables, so I would particularly love any recommendations for delicious, beginner-friendly recipes that hide or omit them. Thanks in advance!

I've met plenty of vegetarians who refuse to eat at places that serve non-veg. But has anyone ever met a non-vegetarian who said, "Nah, they cook veg here too, I'm not eating here"? 😂

Hi all,

I created this website: thecostofbeef.org to promote awareness of the environmental and ethical impacts of beef consumption.

Would love some feedback from you, as this is an issue that is dear to me.

Site doesn't collect any data or information. I hope this isn't against the rules.

1714 CET: Pushed an update to add a more visual representation

I've only been a vegetarian about... 9 months? I have had slip ups of course, I'm doing my best. Also I have been super annoyed with how often vegetarian food is unavailable (especially now living in Texas), people being like "how do you not eat meat it's so good blah blah blah", feeling cravings for things I used to love, etc.. Today I was just kind of done with life and I ordered Uber Eats and they gave me the wrong order 🫠 I decided to get a refund and because we don't really have any food (we need to go grocery shopping) I was like fine I'll just eat it. I ate the meat and was surprised that I didn't feel a huge satisfaction or euphoria. I actually was kind of off put by it. The texture and the ethics of it made me a bit sick. When I started, I knew I loved meat and it would be hard to stop eating it, especially with everyone around me eating it to often (and I'm a college student with depression so it's hard for me to have the time to cook anything). I'm just very proud of myself for adapting to not eating meat and now knowing that I'm not missing out on anything.

So yeah, just if anyone's new or questioning if they'll be able to do it, you definitely can and you can eventually tune out what everyone else is saying and live the way you feel is morally right.

i (22f) have been vegetarian since i was 12, it will have been a decade in september. i think of the moment i became vegetarian as my first truly conscious moment—it was the first real decision i made in my life, and has been fundamental to the development of my ethical code over the past ten years. no one i knew was vegetarian when i made the swap, and i faced a lot of pushback from my family. i am very proud of the child i was who was so committed to this moral stance that she was able to push through such scrutiny.

when i was 16, i travelled with my family to peru, and we stayed by the pacific in the atacama desert, where they obviously cannot grow produce and clean fresh water is scarce. i ate fish on that trip, because i had little other option. i felt guilty about it, but understood that i was travelling according to my family’s itinerary, and that the fish i ate was probably as ethical as it could be. after that, i didn’t break my vegetarianism for another six years. until today.

i am travelling alone through asia—i went to vietnam, china, korea, and now japan, and to this point, i have struggled, but managed to not compromise on my vegetarianism, even though it has been a challenge, especially in rural china. today is the last day of my trip, and i am in tokyo. i went to a tempura restaurant i’d been recommended in koenji, a little hole in the wall place with a big line outside. after waiting half an hour, they ushered me in, at which point i realized it was a fixed menu which included fish. i speak no japanese and no one there spoke any english. it a sort of split second decision, i decided i would stay—justified it as a cultural/culinary experience on my last day, which weighed very little in the grand scheme of the last ten years of my life. i decided i would eat and enjoy.

the forty-five minutes which followed were torturous. while i ate, i was subsumed in such a huge wave of guilt, feeling selfish and cruel and small that i had decided to do this. i figured it was better to eat what was placed in front of me, instead of letting them cook it and waste it. i can’t tell you what was worse, the pieces which i choked down holding back gags because of the fleshy-ness of the texture, or the pieces which i enjoyed, that joy provoking in me such a haze of shame. towards the end, as they served a fried ball of many little shrimp, which looked to me like a lovecraftian horror, all of these little bodies fused together, i couldn’t take it any more and stopped eating.

i paid and left, and now i feel so ill—i’m not sure if it’s because my body doesn’t know how to process fish after so long, or if it’s because of how bad i feel. i imagine probably a combination. i wish i had given up my place, found some other lunch spot. there is no worse feeling than knowing i could do something so morally repulsive, so against my hard fought code just because of convenience and pleasure.

it made me feel also very aware of my own contradictions which, because of cognitive dissonance, i look past. how was this lunch meaningfully different than the fact that i’d gone shoe shopping the day before and nearly purchased a pair of leather/suede sneakers? the fact that i willingly eat eggs and cheese and drink dairy milk in my coffee if oat/soy isn’t available? i make poor ethical choices all of the time, we all do, but to have crossed this line today made me feel much more acutely aware of my shortcomings. i love being vegetarian, but it is a fundamentally flawed (or incomplete rather?) ethics, i think, because of the places it stops short of actually opting out of these terrible and cruel industries.

i don’t know why i’m posting this, i think just to get it off my chest! i think probably i will go vegan after this experience, but i worry that i don’t have the resolve i did as a child to make an inconvenient decision like that and stick to it, even though i have far more agency now than i did at 12. what i can say for sure is that i will remember the feeling of meat in my mouth forever, i think i will be haunted by that sensation, and i will never let myself replicate that experience again. there is no justification great enough for me.

Hi everybody!!

I’m facing a big dilemma in my life right now. I really want to adopt a dog, but here’s the thing: I became vegetarian mainly because I am against animal cruelty, so I don’t support the meat industry. However, if I adopt a dog, I will definitely want to give them the best life, which means feeding them high-quality products...

I'm hitting a wall right now regarding where my morals are pulling me. If I feed my dog meat, I'll feel a bit like I'm contradicting myself.

EDIT: As for the dairy and egg industry, I'm fully aware of it and I try to limit myself as much as possible (I don't drink milk and limit my consumption of eggs as much as possible). I'm getting my eggs from a local farm where I see how the chickens are living and it responds to my criteria. Even if it does, im trying to fully cut eggs eventually. The problem I have is that im addicted to cheese to a point where I can't stop eating it ahah. Im looking for ways to limits myself in other products but I draw the line at cheese its just so important for me to eat cheese... I'm fully open to any recommendations tho if you have any :))

Thank you for your helppp :)

Whats your favorite resturant hacks for living in rural or conservative areas ?

Personally I've gotten used to a braums salad burger hahah