Vegetarians and mock meat!

A fairly interesting topic popped up in a conversation. Somehow, we ended up talking about vegetarianism and eating mock meat. Nerissa's stand was that the main aim of going vegetarian was to save the animals, so eating mock meat doesn't conflict with that. However, Erica thought that going vegetarian AND eating mock meat is like... pretending. If you wanna go vegetarian, you should deny everything meat-like. Her example was, "It's like an alcoholic drinking Jolly Shandy instead."

And Ner's response was: "Jolly Shandy has alcohol what."

Which IS true. But that doesn't make Erica's stand an invalid one; she just happened to use a bad example. Okay, let's first examine how Ner's argument is weak, and then try to reinforce Erica's argument.

Firstly, her point is that going vegetarian is to "save the animals". Ignoring the fact that some go vegetarian for health reasons, they aren't restricted from eating eggs, dairy products such as milk, yoghurt and cheese, and neither do they forsake leather products. Chickens which are meant for egg production have their body clocks screwed up by indoor lighting timed to give them a shorter day, so they will lay more eggs. Milk-producing cows are injected with hormones to keep them in a state of permanent pregnancy, so they will continue lactating. Are animals saved?

I was trying to think of more apt examples, instead of the Jolly Shandy one. A vegetarian eating mock meat is probably more like a nymphomaniac resorting to masturbating instead of bonking people. Nobody is harmed, but despite the switch in activities, the root evil still isn't eliminated. The nymphomaniac still is obsessed with sex, the vegetarian still can't deny his craving for meat.

Or maybe it's like a cigarette addict resorting to nicotine patches. They don't smoke anymore, but they still need that high from nicotine. Vegetarians don't eat meat anymore, but they still like to eat meat, so they develop a shoddy imitation of it. I think mock meat tastes way inferior to genuine meat.

Well. I'll never be vegetarian, that I am sure of. I just made some vegan white chip macadamia nut cookies. They taste like shittttt. Granted, I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I didn't use vegetable oil, I used cooking oil instead. But the oil bottle DID say "the finest blend of vegetable oils"! Palm is a vegetable right? And so are peanuts and soybeans? I also used maple-flavoured golden syrup instead of maple syrup, because genuine maple syrup is like fucking expensive and I only saw it in Marks & Spencer, and I refuse to pay that kind of money. I'm glad I didn't anyway: the cooking oil ruined everything.

I almost wanted to throw the cookies out to the dogs, but my maid said it's a terrible waste, so she'll eat them. Good. I don't want to waste calories eating crap. Urgh. Should have bought canola oil.

I was asking my maid if we had any broccoli at home. Then she said, "Don't have. Only have one vegetable left... *struggles to remember* The green coloured one?"

While I was at the supermarket, I went over to the express queue to make my purchase. This middle-aged lady stood in front of me, with a push-cart that obviously had more than ten items. I looked at her, pointed at the sign above and said: "Does your cart have ten items or less?" She gave me an embarrassed grin and called her daughter over to, you know, split the items. Meh. Couldn't she have at least let me have the satisfaction of seeing her self-righteously asserting that she has less than ten items? In any case I went ahead of her. I will not let illiterate people get in the way of my grocery shopping.