Are you a diabetic vegetarian?

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I agree with both of you. Diet is a very personal choice for everyone and hits at the core identity of everyone. My husband and I were both required to eat meat as children and stopped as soon as we could make our own choices. Because of this, we don’t want our children to have the same experience. From the time they could understand the concept (pre-schoolish) we told them what the difference was and that they were free to try it if they wanted to. Both of us are very clear that we didn’t stop eating meat because it tastes bad! To this point, neither of the girls have tried meat yet. I’m sure the day will come. Our only stipulation is that we won’t buy it to cook at home. They are free to order it when we go out or when they are at school/at a friends house. We’ve also cautioned them to eat a little bit at first, since their bodies have never had it before.

I will confess that I get on my soapbox every once in awhile. But mainly when people who eat the Standard American Diet are preaching at me. In our household we eat a much wider variety of fruits, vegetables and grains than the majority of meat eating families. It is a conscious choice that we make and we are lucky enough to live in a city that supports this variety.

One thing that we don’t do in our house is use pretend words for animal flesh. We don’t use “beef” or “pork”, we say dead cow or dead pig, dead bird for chicken or turkey. Unlike many people, I had the benefit of seeing a calf raised for slaughter and saw it slaughtered and butchered on my grandfather’s farm. As a child it was my job to catch the chickens after my grandmother had chopped off the heads with a hatchet and then to pluck out the pin feathers after dunking in the boiling water. My girls won’t see that for a few years yet, if ever and I want them to know what it is. Animal flesh isn’t a package in a grocery store. Our choice is for health and compassion and kindness. Everyone has to make this choice for themselves.

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Ok… thanks everyone for your input. I didn’t mean to start a debate. But it probably can be helpful for others with questions to read through everyones opinion here. I was just looking for a substitute for certain dinner meats that has balanced protein, fat, and carbs. I think I got some very helpful ideas from most of you. I’m surprised that you guys told me fake meat isn’t that healthy. I never would have assumed that.

I also think it is not good to tell other people how to make decisions in life UNLESS they are asking for input (like myself). We all live different and have different needs and desires whether they are justified or not. If we were all exactly the same the world would be very boring.

Can you imagine if I posted a topic called “who are you voting for?” Yikes! Drama overload this week. But really, thanks everyone for the very HELPFUL ideas! I think this topic is loaded with great information.

:slight_smile:

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Thanks, Courtney. The “food issue” really gets people going. I, like everyone, feels the need to defend my choices. Our big thing is nutrition, and we have plenty of it!

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bsc, I think we can absolutely find common ground on the whole foods issue. We really limit our intake of processed food. We eat a lot of whole grains, in the actual grain form, in addition to pastas and bread. We try not to add too much oil or “sauce” to our vegetables and eat them raw as well as cooked. We also eat our fruits whole, and not processed. We add beans to soups and eat them whole with Mexican and Indian dishes.

I’ve read a few of the “rebuttals” to The China Study findings and quite frankly, they sound like sour grapes. The experiences, real-life outocmes and writings of Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. McDougall, for me, far outweigh the current recommendations in the general cardiac community.

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Gerri is 100% correct on the science: glycerol, the backbone of triglycerides, are the only substrate for gluconeogenesis and thus the only direct contribution of fat to bg. The slowed absorption is the larger factor (and can be a very important one in managing bg rises) unless the food is very high in trigs or highly processed with native glycerol.

It may seem like an needless distinction in the context of this conversation because a challenge to managing bg is a challenge to managing bg, but a lot of people come in through Google so these seemingly minor points become very important when making dietary and/or bolusing alterations.

I’m also not judging anyone. Everyone is free to chose the diet that suits them and their family as long as its safe and that doesn’t seem to be an issue here. Judging others is a needless source of acrimony like we see too often around here (think T1/T2)…

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It wasn’t aimed at you Gerri. I do agree with you. I know you are very knowledgable on such things.

My point was that everyone should eat what does well for THEIR OWN blood sugars. If for some reason, the girls see that too much fat sends their BG too high than they should avoid too much. Why this happens for them we dont know. I just don’t know why everyone is giving them such a hard time.

You have said you can’t eat pasta or beans for that matter - they send you too high - so obviously you avoid them. The same with the girls and too much fat so they keep their fat low. This seems like the sensible thing to do.

I just don’t know why everyone is getting so bent out of shape like they are “fat starved” or something. D. Bahr said they eat all kind of natural fats and the dr. has checked them out so they are OK. This a concept I run into all the time when non-vegs have an opinion about the veg diet - they think we are nutritionally devoid and starving. It is ridiculous.

I just leads me to believe that they are getting picked on because they are veg. Since I have been a veg so long, I can tell when people are about to start in on the diet. I am an old hat at people telling me how I should eat - lots of time people do it because the whole idea of a different diet scares them. I get really tired of it because I never tell people how to eat or live their lives. I follow the same practice on here - I expect people to give me the same courtesy.
Sorry if people don’t agree with my lifestyle but if people pick on my about me I am defintely going to defend myself.

None of this is aimed at you Gerri. I know you are definately one of the more tolerant people on this site since you used to be veg and i appreciate that.

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Do you call broccoli “dead plants?” Your last paragraph completely undermined the rest of your argument.

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Thanks guys for helping me defending our diet choices. I think it is sad that the ‘norm’ diet (which in America is mostly supersized McD’s and other horrible fast foods choices) is seen as OK to feed your children because it is what the “majority” eats but anything else, people have a heart attack! Like there is something wrong with eating healthy and different!



My parents fed me a pretty processed diet and my mom still makes the same exact meals for my dad and brother. It is all boxed stuff like Hamburger Helper etc.



It is kind of like that with ethnic families too I would imagine - if you are the only Indian kid in the school and your mom makes you traditional Indian food in your lunch pale and the other kids are eating P&B sandwiches, you will get pick on because you are different. It is no different for us Vegetarians.



Funny how people look at vegetarian as we don’t get enough nutrition. I have never had any major health issues in my life until this year with D - and I do not believe this has anything to do with my veg diet (in fact i am positive it does not). Maybe I wasn’t all the best veg eater since I had no one to help me with the diet at the beginning but I certainity never had any nutritional problems. I am NOT starving! :slight_smile: I don’t know why people don’t see that.

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Yes, we do talk about dead plants. Specifically, plants that have seeds that can be put into the ground to make new plants, and plants that die once the vegetable is picked for eating. We also talk about plants that have been made seedless through breeding and modification (yes, we still eat those). We talk about the impact of eating anything that isn’t grown close to our house and why it is important for us to eat seasonal vegetables and fruits.

I want my children to be educated about where food comes from and why we make the choices that we do. Their grandparents aren’t veg, so we talk about that too. I would rather that they have a well rounded understanding of food than indoctrinate them into a certain way of being. They have to make their own choices, but they need to know the pros and cons before making a choice. There aren’t any one-sided discussions in our house.

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I know that Mikey thinks that he bit off more than he could chew with this post (pun intended), but it is a great illustration of what happens when the status quo is questioned.

My sense is that the majority of posters to this thread “seem” like they make very healthy choices for veggies, grains and beans. They also happen to eat meat. The common theme is to stay away from heavily processed food and get back to the source foods. I like that philosophy, which will get Mikey where he wants to be.

Veg*ism, like any other diet, can be as unhealthy as the Standard American Diet. There are so many unhealthy vegan frozen dinners out there now that it is scary. I’m thankful that my husband and I both love to cook and experiment and that our girls like to, as well.

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Hi Liz,

You have good points. I do agree with you. But as a veg, I will explain something from my experiences of being a 20 year veg.

Yes, there are lots of people who are OK with a veg diet now. It is becoming more excepted these days and more “mainstream” (as for lack of a better word). And I know you are one of the tolerant ones who do not mind it. :slight_smile:

The area I grew up in veg was unheard of (even though I grew up in a big city) - I didn’t even know what a vegetarian was until I found out about it myself and researched it. And when I decided I want to do it, boy, did I get hell for it! Well, parents were quite about it and didn’t say much. I was 21 at this point and I never ate with them since I worked and went to school wasn’t home for dinner so I didn’t actually tell them (mostly because of the trouble I knew I would get) but they figured it out “You are not eating any meat any more”. Of course a got a bit of a lecture but my parents know that I do what I want and they may not be able to talk me out of it. I had most of the problems from my friends - some were Ok with it - the others just wanted to make me feel inferior and I think it was because they were uncomfortable with it because it limited the things we did together (although this was just their viewpoint I didn’t see it that way as I took care of it myself and never put the burden on any of them).

Anyhow, it is a longer story but just let me say that I have NEVER forced my diet on anyone and I never teased my friends or family for eating meat. I was the one who got teased because of my diet. Yes, there are some pretty preachy veg*ns out there as same as there are some preachy religious types. Everyone wants you to go over to their side. This is one of the reason I never did this - I don’t want people to expect me to live my lives the way they do so what right have I to expect the same of them? If people were curious about my diet, I would explain it to them - they want to know what i eat etc, etc. I am happy to answer questions for an eternity if necessary. Yet sometimes during those question answering sessions, they would get all preachy on me! (You are unhealthy with no meat, etc etc) Ok, well, not really fair on me because I never got preachy on them - but than I often wonder if they were only asking me questions because they were just waiting to start in with the preaching you know.

So, anyhow, this is what us veg*ns deal with. Even to this day, I sometimes get heck over it but no whether near as much as I did before. I definately have more tolerance for it now. It still gets tiring defending to people who ‘just don’t agree with it’ - so, ok, you don’t agree with it, you have said it and now, please keep quite about it because you aren’t going to change me back (not saying this to you Liz just this is what I would say to these people). Everyone wants everyone else to be like them because people are uncomfortable with the unknown and the different.

Regarding your cow story. Yes, well, I do understand where that lady is coming from. This is a stand that lots of vegs will take because most people do not kill their own dinners (meat dinners at is) and honestly alot of meat eaters that I have talked to said if they had to kill it themselves, they probably wouldn’t be able to handle it. That is why we have factory farms - they are so horrible and impersonal because most people don’t have the nerve to kill something for their food like they did in the pioneer days. People do not see where their foods come from nowadays and lots don’t know what actually happens and how that meat gets on their plate. I think that was what the woman was getting at - work for your food. That if one is going to eat meat, they should be able to kill it themselves and unfortunately, lots of people can’t do that part of the process. I think if people had to kill their own meat there would be alot more vegetarians in the world. In principle, I agree with this but I don’t waste energy doing this sort of thing - making people feel bad about their diets (even though people do it to me all the time). That is not a way to foster respect for my diet choices or make people receptive to this diet.

The whole “our household, our rules” in the house definately applied to my childhood. My parents forced me to go to church. I was forced to eat green beans even though I threw them up everytime I ate them. The same can go for meat eating too. Although most kids are forced into eating vegetables now because they never eat any because they don’t like them because they don’t taste like Burger King.

Ha! that reminds too. Before I became a veg, I thought the cows I ate died of old age and instead of putting them in cow graveyards they made them into hamburgers so as not to waste the meat. But I thought the cows lived nice peaceful lives munching on grass and when they naturally died, than they became meat. That could not be farther from truth I found out.

Just keep in mind that not ALL veg*ns are like that and not all households are militant on these things. I have met several veg families who let the children make their own choices on their diet but they do not buy their kids meat. If I had kids I would raise them veg and no meat in my house, but they can do what they want outside of the house esp. when they get older and have formed their own beliefs. Households also get militant about alot of other things beside diet that children are forced into.

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And I do feel for you. You should not have to justify your diet to anyone!