Some things to know before going vegetarian

Hey everyone! I’m Shrinidhi and as a few of you know, I have been a vegetarian all my life. If (for some reason) you don’t know what vegetarianism is, it is the practice of refraining from consuming any products which involve harming animals. In other words, vegetarians don’t eat meat, chicken, seafood and / or eggs.

Being a vegetarian, I am constantly asked questions like

1. How do you ‘live without chicken’?
2. Have you never tasted meat in your life?
3. Do you eat only vegetables everyday?
4. What about seafood?
5. If you don’t eat meat, where do you get your protein from?
6. Don’t you ever feel like eating meat?
7. Are you ‘allowed’ to eat eggs ?
8. How do you know what Is vegetarian and what isn’t?
9. Is there any difference between vegans and vegetarians?
10. Is it true that vegetarians ‘fart more’ than non vegetarians?

So here are the answers to these questions so I won’t have to repeat huge stories to different people over and over again:

1) I have never tasted chicken. I don’t even like it’s odor and chicken isn’t air or water (without which I can’t live). That’s how I ‘live without chicken’.

2) Nope I haven’t. This is a personal question and the answer may vary.

3) If you call all dairy products, rice, bread, corn and other crops, fruits as ‘vegetables’, then YES.

4) vegetarians do eat Algae and Seaweed but not fish.

5) Meat is not the only source of protein. There are many other high protein foods like Soya bean , Quinoa, legumes etc... that are vegetarian. In fact, Soya bean has a much higher amount of protein than meat.

6) No, because I don’t know what it tastes like, I don’t like how it smells and eating a dead animal doesn’t sound great to me.

7) There are no rules to vegetarianism. People can eat what they like and there is noted like being ‘allowed’ to eat something. Vegetarians are broadly classified into Ovovegetarians , Lactovegetarians and vegans. A lot of vegetarians do eat eggs.

8) If any food is obtained by the slaughter of an animal the food is non vegetarian. Otherwise all other foods are vegetarian. A lot of times, we vegetarians have to keep checking the ingredients of various items we buy at grocery stores and restaurants.

9) There is one basic difference between vegetarians and vegans. I.e. vegans only consume plant - based foods. They don’t even consume dairy products like milk and cheese and use alternatives like ground cashews and water while vegetarians eat these items.

10) Yes apparently. A lot of roughage goes into the intestines of vegetarians so we fart more. However, meat eaters’ farts smell more due to digestion of more complex nutrients.

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