soy depends on who you ask. in all honesty i felt great when i was on soy milk, really strong. I went on it originally as i have sa slight alergy to cows milk - i.e it gives me sinus.

Its your decision to make on soy, some swear by it some hate it. My mother, whos deeply into all this as well's argument is that yes, soy may be not the best, but people consume a lot of things that are probably not up to scratch long term either. Especially somthing like aspartame which is found in most diet drinks.

the main spin on soy seems to be that un fermented soy = bad. this includes tofu, soy milk etc. fermented soy is tempeh i think? you would have to check. read the facts and make a decision that you feel comfortable with.

Do some research and make up your own mind, but be warned its one area that really polarises people. I still consume a little, by virtue of a sustagen that i have for morning tea. Apparantly the risks are higher for females.

As for meat substitues, run, as far away asyou can from Sanitarium chicken schnitzel substitues. thats one nasty meal. cosistency and taste wise.

there are osme great things that you can get just in the local supermarket. in the cold food section near the cheese you will find a lot of patties and things like that. theres some fresh looking one there that are great. cant remember the brand tho.

Thylos tips are great, ill take some of them on myself :)

like sustagen? (i think that is how its spelt) Or weight gain 4000? ;) I can handle them Practically every milk drink I have is milo so something like that would be great for me instead of soy.

EDIT: instead of making heaps of posts Ive got a few questions:
1) What is the soy argument. it seems complicated, but atm Im keeping away.
2) B12 never heard of this vitamin. Im guessing its found in meat so what is it found in for vegos? Ok just googled it. It says it is found in eggs and milk, this right? If it is im fine

i belive this to be true for half the soy argument. the iother half apparantly lies in its origins as a source of stock feed. according to folklore, after a while animals became sterile, most of this was apparntly pointed at soy and somthing to do with phyto eastrgones ( dont ask me im a network nerd!) As a result it was apparantly targeted at vegetarians as a meat substitue.

I've never bothered to look online for info, Kotter. Occasionally I have a look at some crap Nev has posted, but that's only really just to have a bit of a chuckle. :p I also never take suppliments. If you eat well, you don't have to.

Some of the beyondveg articles are cool. I'm reading one about evolutionary diets and how people compare our diets to what Chimps eat and think we should eat the same....more often which ignores just how many insects Chimps eat!

I can see the ad campaigns now for Kruchy Kockroach!

As for the soy thing, I don't have as much as I used to. Maybe 50g every second or third day? I have no idea. I have organic soy milk on my home-mix muesli every morning, and maybe some bits in stir-fries - that's about it. Tempeh is delish, especially on toast with some pan fried mushrooms and drizzled with Kecap Manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce).
I've heard about the pseudo-estrogens sh¡t, but they attribute that to certain plasics leaching into the water system too. Do I care? Nope. Eat well, don't be scared of fat, and if you're not cycling your guts out, don't eat too many carbs or you'll become a fatty boombah.

That's about the extent of my philosophy.

Some of you might be interested in some relevant literature by a bloke called Ross Horne - a Qantas pilot that stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest.
Lots of dietary stuff in there, probably a bit like what Joe Friel's on about with his Paleo stuff.
There's online copies of his books but I've never been able to sit in front of the pooter fer that long without wanting to shove pencils in my eyes.

The Health Revolution

Health and Survival in the 21st Century

Interesting stuff...

Geez. The last 2 pages of the crap this lot are posting's enough to drive one to do some werk. :(

I'm eating a T-Bone for tea. :)

[Edit] I should mention, for good Friday, I made meself a pickled capsicum, fresh tomato, herbed fetta (does this along with the motz preclude it being vego?), and shallot pizza. Home made tomato sauce from matoes out of the garden and base of course. Was the nicest pizza I've had in my life, and much to my surprise I didn't miss it not having any meat product on it for a second.

Maybe I've got a crazy hippy in me trying to get out. :p

Geez, nothing like the 'vego' word to get discussion going. :lol: I'm happy to eat whatever is on the menu that takes my fancy - sometimes sans dead animal, other times with.

Nice work on the receeps too, Tiger. Might have to try a couple. I find nachos and dahl go well with beer. mmmbeer :beer: mmmmnachos

yeah thanks guys. Decided I will give vego a go. Probably start on the weekend. Just got to get a little organised and do some more reading. But you guys have put me on the right path.

Pumpkin is a good vegy!
Pummy Risotto :)
Pummy curry :)
Roasted Pummy :)
Pummy soup :)

Did I miss why you are becoming a vegy? Havnt you seen Sam Neils ads? ;)
FWIW, my brother is a vegy, but all he eats is copy meat products - vegy bacon, sausages etc. weird!

Once got caught in an argument with the chef at our canteen in Belgium.
I got the last steak and was laughing at my mate who got stuck with salad...

I wasnt laughing when I couldnt convince the crazy muppet-esque chef to cook it at least medium and he handed me the bloody (i.e. still beating) portion of meat :(

I did exactly the same thing, Kotter. After I graduated Uni, I decided to move out of home and become veggie. My Mum bought me a New Internationalist cookbook with recipes from all over the world which had great recipes that I had a lot of fun cooking, including a weird sweet potato and orange dessert from Malawi which I won't forget in a hurry!

You just have to think a bit different and do everything in moderation. Society is designed for you to act and eat in a certain way, and the more you deviate from that the more difficult things can be. The biggest barrier to changing lifestyle is society, so if you love food and enjoy experimenting with cooking, you'll have no probs.

Geez, there's some heavy stuff out there. I'm reading some articles from http://www.soilandhealth.org/index.html at the moment.

Remind me to buy an LCD sometime soon *squint*

good deal on LCD Dell 24" widescreen if you want it.

like thisNew Int. Vego cook book

+1
While I was home, my folks made me eat their way (bloody Germans) As soon as I left, I did things my way and pretty much never touched meat until the last 6 months or so. (20 years of vego)

Not to me it doesn't - I ain't no vegan - I love dairy mmmcheese!
It's just meat/fish that I don't like.

hey guys, koffee got ripped off today. better get over there http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=188991 and give her a hug.

Okayyy.....I'm starting to really get paranoid now. I'm afraid that if I keep reading, I'll start agreeing that AIDS is not a virus, that the medical system is actually designed to kill us, and all manner of other heresy.

Bah, who am I kidding. I kinda knew this already. :rolleyes:

That NI cookbook looks similar to the one I have. The one I've got has nutritional stuff in the front which is useful.

On the monitor front, I'm a Mac guy, so there's no way in hell I'd be caught buying anything with 'Dell' on it. This on the other hand? Yes please > http://www.apple.com/au/displays/

Why are some of you crazy suckers called vegans anyway? I thought Vegan's were little blue fellas from Vega?

You mean they aren't?? Sh¡t, maybe Lesbians aren't creatures from Lesbia either!

Not to be seen pluggin dell. The widescreen panels are really good. Probably better than the apple ones, cost less (23" apple $2099, 24" Dell anywhere around $1500) and look as good. (I know thats heresy)

Other dell stuff is absolute crap though

Macs are just Dell's by another name in a different colour now anyway. That it's the best thing that could have happened to Apple is another point. ;)

vegans dont have any animal based products at all, so no cheese milk, eggs etc. ouch.

then you go walking round newtown, go to the vego / vegan eatery and see an army of people wearing leather doc martens. kinda funny, jsut like all the anti globalisation protestors that went into Maccas in the city after thier protests a couple of years ago.

btw, i wear docs so that makes my a hypocrite as well :P

You don't really need the dates :D

If we're not supoosed to eat meat, how come it tastes so good :p

well it depends why you are doing it. If it because you reckon the health benefits are worth it, a more efficient way to produve food than no. If you are vego because you are thinking of the animals than you a hypocrite.

Just curious, but what is your reason for going vegetarian?

A couple of points (and I am in no way trying to dissuade you from a vegetarian diet) Vit B12 is essential for making red blood cells, unfortunately, humans do not have the ability to manufacture this vitamin. Fortunately, we normally have substantial internal reserves so a dietary lack of Vitamin B12 can take a year or two to show up. The best food source is shellfish like oysters, mussels and scallops (which provide something like 5-6 times the average daily requirement), liver is the next best source. Plants do not make it onto the list in any way shape or form unless you eat raw mushrooms that haven't been washed coz then you pick up the B12 made by the bacteria in the growth medium. However, some processed foods (cereals spring to mind) are fortified with B12 so you do have some alternatives if you choose a meat free diet.

You also need to mix your grains and pulses appropriately to make sure you get all the essential amino acids in your diet - amino acids are necessary for protein synthesis and a couple of other things in the body. The body can make most of them but the essential amino acids are the ones the human body cannot make. Getting the grains and pulses thing right takes a bit of work and thought so you should make some effort to become knowledgable if you want a HEALTHY vegetarian diet. Of course, you can always be lazy and have an unhealthy vego diet and then make up for the lack of nutrition by swallowing bucketloads of supplements, but that kind of defeats the purpose a little, methinks.

A good cookbook for vegetarian stuff is "Fresh Ways With Vegetarian Cooking" part of the Healthy Home Cooking series published by Time-Life books - don't know if it is still in print, I bought my copy in Dymocks several years ago. Also, Indian cookbooks are a good source of vego recipes.

BTW, I am not vegetarian, but non-meat dishes form the primary focus of my diet - I eat red meat maybe once every two months or so and fish almost weekly. That said, I am about to pull a home-made terrine out of the freezer which will take the two of us about 4 meals to finish so that will substantially skew my meat eating average. :)

what is this wind up the vegos day? (note: Im not vego yet and it will be at least 6months before I call myself one)

Dont get me wrong a good steak/roast/meat pizza is great I just wanna try something different. Chicken is overrated though. Too many steroids and crap pumped into them.
Soy is also bad for GM as well. One reason why Im gonna go for the sustagen over soy. No labeling in Aus makes it hard to keep away from that stuff.

Shouldn't we be talking about bikes? I just wanted a few pointers not start a few pages of discussion of diffferent types of diets.

Yum, steak & salad for dins? :rolleyes: