Starting my first day as a vegan today (this might only last about an hour)

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: Arkitech

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: Arkitech

Originally posted by: doze
Why not just try a balanced diet and eat only at mealtime? Vegan is a bit extreme and basically means you no meat and use no products that are made with animal byproducts.

I'm leaning closer to a vegan eating pattern because I want to avoid dairy products for awhile. My goal is to really try and eat as natural as possible, meaning that I want to consume very little processed foods. Which is why I want to avoid fast foods, soda, candy and other foods similar to those categories.

What does dairy have to do with it? I'm not understanding the correlation between "I want to eat healthy" and "I'm going to be a vegan." I can understand wanting to avoid processed foods (I eat none at home), but that has nothing to do with veganism whatsoever.

You're still failing to understand what it means to be vegan as well.

From what I understand a vegan eats no animal products. This means no cheese, milk, eggs, meat (obviously), etc..

On the other hand vegetarians don't eat any meat but they do consume certain animal products such as dairy.

Those 2 definitions are what appear to be most common from the research I've done. I've seen some deviations in what is or is'nt a true vegan or vegetarian. But for my purposes the definitions I provided are good enough for what I'm trying to acheive.

You can read The Vegan Society for some more information, but as I said you're missing the philisophical component of veganism. This is what veganism is mostly about; it's not about simple dietary restrictions.

Veganism is almost an activist movement, and most vegans shun any animal-derived product, so that includes leather, wool, anything tested on animals, etc.

So, veganism isn't being a vegatarian minus dairy products. A lot of vegetarians avoid dairy as well, but the difference is that vegans tend to concern themselves more with the welfare of the animals than the health benefits/detriment of the dairy products themselves.

Anyway, sorry for being pedantic about it. Good luck with your decisions. It can be tough.

Descarte - I really like you, but your idea of veganism is almost as distorted as Arkitech's. A vegan by definition is someone who eats no animal products of any kind. Anything else is a "bonus".

Just like in religion, there are people at each end of the spectrum and everywhere inbetween. The activists are at one end, while the folks who simply consume no animal products (but nothing else) are at the other. The latter are still vegans though...

 

[AbAbber2k]

Does the OP have a PhD in Anthropology? I only ask because he seems to make a lot of assumptions about the history of the human species. I figured if that were anyone's field of knowledge it'd be that of an Anthropologist. You know... because they study stuff like human evolution, culture, biology and archeology.

Oh... he doesn't have a PhD in Anthropology? I guess that would explain his retarded comparison between humans (omnivores) and carnivorous animals.

STFU, eat your steak (or at least give it to me), and be happy you're at the top of the foodchain.