Vegetarians get a lot more respect than they used to. Back in the day, they had to put up with snickers and comments about eating rabbit food. Nowadays, lots of people are hopping on the vegetarian bandwagon.
It can be pretty confusing to suss out good information about whether vegetarianism is supposed to be good or you or not. You can browse through Netflix on any given day and see tons of documentaries with competing viewpoints, both claiming that the other is way off base.
The folks behind the popular Forks Over Knives espouse vegetarianism with an almost evangelical fervor. While The Perfect Human Diet is all about meat. Food, Inc. goes into the raw food movement. Then comes the Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead camp, championing juicing. The whole thing starts to look like a melee fight scene from an Anchorman movie.
In the end, it really seems to boil down to what works for you. Can you pound down meat like a real-life Ron Swanson and still have good cholesterol levels? More power to you. Can you eat uncooked veggies all the time and still power through your day with energy and vitality? Then that may be your path.
Ted Nugent used to say that he ate the rabbit and Tommy Shaw ate the rabbit food. #damnyankees #vegetarianism
— David Noble (@HeadlineBasher) April 24, 2014
Then there is the vegan way. The difference between “vegetarian” and “vegan”? Vegans are more specific about not eating dairy and eggs, therefore eliminating all animal products from their diet, not just meat.
“The standard diet of a meat-eater is blood, flesh, veins, muscles, tendons, cow secretions, hen periods and bee vomit. And once a year during a certain holiday in November, meat-eaters use the hollowed-out rectum of a dead bird as a pressure cooker for stuffing. And people think vegans are weird because we eat tofu?” – vegan bodybuilder Robert Cheeke
Vegetarians often have to put up with people asking the same questions all the time. For example, “You’re a vegetarian? Then where do you get your protein? Humans need protein to survive!”
Nobody cares about your protein until they find out you're a vegetarian
— sludgey (@LlPSTICK) April 24, 2014
Vegetarians respond that vegetables have protein. In fact, there is more protein in quinoa than there is in steak.
Doesn't it seem strange…that nearly EVERYTHING that you eat that is meat, to get your protein….is a vegetarian that eats NO meat…
— Don Capriccioso (@DonCapriccioso) April 24, 2014
What about flavor? Is being a vegetarian just eating salad all the time? Don’t vegetarians end up just eating all the things that most people had to be forced to eat as kids?
Turning vegetarian is jummy! pic.twitter.com/Q8doLO4vul
— Carlos Duarte (@duarteoceans) April 24, 2014
But perhaps the greatest challenge to the otherwise-attractive idea of trying out vegetarianism is this:
Bacon doesn't count when you're a vegetarian just like wine doesn't count when you're an alcoholic
— Hyper Harper (@Harpers_Halo) April 22, 2014
Image via YouTube
