RECENT TOPICS » View all
Your Tax Dollars At Work
Index » 喫茶店 (Koohii Lounge)
Ah, sorry I misunderstood. Everyone's diet is a little different, but the bulk of my calories come from dishes made from grains and legumes, with vegetables and nuts integrated into the dishes usually rather than by themselves. For example, chana masala in a sauce of tomatoes, ginger, peppers, spices, spinach, onions and some vegetable oil will have the majority of the calories coming from the garbanzo beans, then vegetable oil and vegetables in second place. I have an uncontrollable sweet tooth, so I do eat a lot of pastries, cookies, chocolate, icecream, that sort of thing, but it's probably best not to use that as an example 
I'm a fruit addict as well.
Indian cuisine has some of the best veg food around since they have the largest vegetarian food culture in the world. Whenever I'm in a city with no vegan restaurants I just go to an Indian place and I'm set. If you cook check out this site, has super simple and delicious Indian vegetarian recipes.
Post Punk Kitchen is a cool recipe site, too. I made their blueberry oatmeal waffles and roasted butternut alfredo this week and they were pretty orgasmic.
Last edited by Aijin (2012 December 06, 2:37 am)
vileru wrote:
Switching topics, I ordered vegetarian curry last night to the shock of my girlfriend. Immediately, she said it won't taste good and that I should order chicken masala instead. Ever since I arrived in Japan, I've been constantly eating meat.
Vegetarian Indian curries are amazing, though it's hard to find the real thing. I lived in Singapore for 6 months (20-25% Indian) and ate Indian food made for Indians by Indians. I'd go out to lunch with Indian guys and just order whatever they would get and it was almost always delicious, and usually vegetarian. Though they do love their sweet desserts- too sweet for me.
Japanese food does tend to have meat in it- even if it's cut up really fine and hidden 
However, the volume of meat is so much less than a typical American diet, and meat is rarely the main dish. Tons of veg, rice, miso and a small piece of meat (often fish!), or strips of thinly sliced meat. I eat a very Japanese diet (as my wife cooks, and she is Japanese) and just got blood work done at a physical- my doctor was very impressed with my cholesterol levels, white/red blood count, etc. And this from a guy that likes a few beers. We do often have 1 or 2 days a week where we don't have any meat- it's not tough given all the wonderful veg we get in this area.
For those in the Bay Area- check out Oren's Hummus in Palo Alto- fantastic vegetarian/vegen foods. I found in on Yelp as the highest rated restaurant in the area- it inspired us to buy some chickpeas from whole foods and make our own hummus
Us in the Bay Area are really spoiled for awesome veg food. I'm going back to Japan in a couple weeks to see my family for the holidays, and think I might have mini withdrawals. "Vegan" is still a very foreign word in the land of the rising sun Heck, lots of people don't even know what shojin ryouri is.
Japan has the lowest consumption of meat of any industrialized nation, but consumption has skyrocketed since the end of WWII and the Westernization of the Japanese diet. Since 2000 we're seeing a trend of seafood consumption decreasing at the same rate beef/pork/poultry is increasing, so it's pretty clear seafood is just getting replaced. Beef imports to Japan next year are set to rise pretty highly too, and I wouldn't be surprised if before long the Japanese diet is a mirror image of America's.
Yep, we're all speciesists, racists, sexists, and every other -ist to a certain extent, and I'm no exception. It's like the Avenue Q song, "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist."
This morning I was cleaning dishes and accidentally killed an ant. I thought, "Awh" and was a little bummed, but I wasn't scarred for life like I would have if I had put down a dish and crushed a baby dolphin in the process, and saw her twitching on my countertop. Our cultures put different animals in a hierarchy for how much sympathy and care we should have towards them, and even if one rejects that hierarchy, just like any cultural view some fragments will likely always remain.
But as with with racism, sexism, and other isms, speciesism isn't a question of either being one or not, it exists in a spectrum like the others. For racism there's a world of difference between being a KKK member and going out and lynching black people, versus someone who views black people as equal but feels slightly uncomfortable when around them because they grew up in a 100% white neighborhood. For sexism there's a world of difference between someone thinking women are objectively inferior to men, and don't deserve equal legal rights, versus someone who thinks women are equal but because of cultural bias would prefer a male doctor versus a female one because he has subconscious associations that being a doctor is a male career.
Likewise, for speciesism there is a world of difference between viewing all animals as innately inferior, and sentencing hundreds of them to torturous existences and slaughter for your palette versus someone who indirectly kills bugs and small animals in crop fields by eating vegetables. It's all about minimizing the suffering each of us causes. Would I love if animals weren't harmed as a side effect of harvesting crops? Yes! But getting every farm to implement nets, underground wall systems, and whatever else that would require isn't gonna happen anytime soon, and most of us don't have the resources to grow all our own food. So we do what is in our power, and choose compassion over cruelty by eating foods that cause the least amount of suffering and death that we can.
One extreme form of Buddhist diet specifies that eating plants also causes suffering and death, so that the only way to live in complete compassion is to starve oneself to death. And, yeah, living in a bubble and starving to death is the only way to cause 0 animal death in this day and age, but this isn't a question of extremes, it's just a matter of leading a lifestyle that minimizes suffering as best as you can
Aijin wrote:
it's just a matter of leading a lifestyle that minimizes suffering as best as you can
Agreed. I also think that the only people who can protest whaling* are vegetarians and vegans, otherwise you're a hypocrite. Southpark certainly had it right.
I also made the point above because it seemed in direct conflict with the 10 minutes I watched of the video that talked about speciesism. It seemed to be sensationalism that isn't based in reality (unlike your post above).
I try and be conscious of what products I buy and eat- whether they be vegetables, dairy or meat. They damn well better be using the sharpest blades possible when harvesting the lettuce I eat! 
*assuming it's sustainable and not killing protected species- the arguments to stop whaling because of financial reasons or because no one is eating whale is outside of what I'm talking about here
Last edited by captal (2012 December 06, 7:53 pm)
captal wrote:
Japanese food does tend to have meat in it- even if it's cut up really fine and hidden
Do you always eat traditional meals that consist of miso, tsukemono, rice, and fish? Many common home meals are very much meat-centered: curry rice, tonkatsu, donburi, nabe, yakiniku, karaage, sukiyaki, etc. Sure, I always have plenty of vegetables with yakiniku and nabe, but that doesn't change anything about the rather large portions of meat.
vileru wrote:
captal wrote:
Japanese food does tend to have meat in it- even if it's cut up really fine and hidden
Do you always eat traditional meals that consist of miso, tsukemono, rice, and fish? Many common home meals are very much meat-centered: curry rice, tonkatsu, donburi, nabe, yakiniku, karaage, sukiyaki, etc. Sure, I always have plenty of vegetables with yakiniku and nabe, but that doesn't change anything about the rather large portions of meat.
We have curry and stew, but they are usually either vegetarian or don't have much meat in them. The amount of meat in nabe or sukiyaki is still much less than the typical American meal, in my exprience (and are far healthier). Agreed on karaage, given it's friend chicken
I'd estimate the amount of red meat I ate while living in Japan was <1% of what I normally had consumed in America, Chicken maybe 10-20%, Pork 25-30%, Fish 500-1000% and Rice... at least 100x as much.
As for Whale Wars- I've always found it kind of stupid since they are part of the romanticization of Whales. Why aren't they fighting the meat industry back home? Because whales are pretty and interesting, unlike cows and pigs. I bet they are sitting on their ship eating their meat and fish just like everyone else, and thus, hypocrites.
captal wrote:
As for Whale Wars- I've always found it kind of stupid since they are part of the romanticization of Whales. Why aren't they fighting the meat industry back home? Because whales are pretty and interesting, unlike cows and pigs. I bet they are sitting on their ship eating their meat and fish just like everyone else, and thus, hypocrites.
From the Sea Shepherd FAQ:
The Japanese argue that it is hypocritical for Westerners to eat meat and condemn the Japanese for eating whale meat? Do you agree?
Captain Paul Watson: Sea Shepherd ships are vegan ships. We do not serve animal products on board our vessels. We are not hypocritical.
Activism is just like professions; people devote themselves to whatever they feel most strongly about, or to whatever their skill set is best suited for. Someone who becomes vegan after watching the movie "Babe" might feel most passionately about farm animals, whereas someone whose life is spent working out at sea might feel they can make the most change by working for an organization like Sea Shepherd rather than fighting factory farming with Mercy for Animals. Sea Shepherd is famous for the whales, but their mission statement is protection of the ocean's animals as a whole. They have campaigns against the slaughter of sharks, bluefin tuna, and seals as well.
I found this quote by him that I like, about how one can't be a true environmentalist if they are not also a vegetarian/vegan:
You cannot be an environmentalist unless you are a vegan or vegetarian. It’s a total contradiction. It’s willful ignorance on their part. You know, the Sierra Club or Greenpeace dismiss veganism or vegetarianism as an animal rights thing. It’s an environmentalist thing. And in fact, it’s probably the most significant environmental problem on the planet right now.
For instance, Greenpeace had an article like, “You can save the world by singing in the shower.” Some sort of silly thing where you turn off the shower, sing, lather up, and the water you save when you turn off the shower will save the planet. And then you go and have a steak, which takes 3,000 gallons of water to produce one ounce. It’s an incredible waste, and environmentalists don’t take this into account.
The 3,000 gallons of water for an oz of steak is an incorrect statistic, but the real number is still crazy high, and he's spot on with the point he's making, so I can forgive him for the mistake
Aijin wrote:
The 3,000 gallons of water for an oz of steak is an incorrect statistic, but the real number is still crazy high, and he's spot on with the point he's making, so I can forgive him for the mistake
What people don't tell you (or realize) when they quote these statistics (even in the rare instances when they are remotely accurate), is that a large fraction of this "incredible waste" of water comes directly from the sky to grow grass that cows graze on. Then the cows eat the grass, excrete the water, and the water goes back into the sky. If growing plants with precipitation is a waste of water, then I think the rainforests have got some 'splaining to do.
All these statistics really demonstrate to me is that the people who quote them don't understand how the water cycle works.
Last edited by JimmySeal (2012 December 08, 9:21 am)
JimmySeal wrote:
What people don't tell you (or realize) when they quote these statistics (even in the rare instances when they are remotely accurate), is that a large fraction of this "incredible waste" of water comes directly from the sky to grow grass that cows graze on. Then the cows eat the grass, excrete the water, and the water goes back into the sky. If growing plants with precipitation is a waste of water, then I think the rainforests have got some 'splaining to do.
Why are you using grazing systems as the norm for beef production, when it accounts for less than 10% of the world's beef? Soy, corn, and grains fed to animals in high density feedlots, pens, and stalls is what factory farming gives us. Grass is a thing of yesteryear.
Green water (rainwater) does account for a large percentage of water used in animal agriculture, but the issue isn't so simple as to say it gets put back into the water cycle and there are no issues. The simple fact of the matter is that animal agriculture does have an incredible water footprint, and that it is much higher than plant based crops.
Here's a 50 page report by the Institute for Water Education that covers every detail possible for this topic. http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/R … s-Vol1.pdf
When you look at the greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, deforestation, and every other issue of animal agriculture as a whole, it seems crazy to me to not at least lower consumption of meat. You don't have to go vegetarian to lower your footprint on the planet, you just do whatever you can as an individual. Be it one less meal of meat per day, Meatless Monday, or whatever.
Yes, and while we're at it let's eliminate the gaming, film and other entertainment industries, golf courses, luxury cars, water parks, and anything else that's not absolutely necessary for human survival. Because apparently anything that uses anything more than the bare minimum amount of land, resources, or labor in order for people to actually enjoy their lives is wasteful.
Sounds like paradise to me.
You don't have to live "bare minimum," but if we all have the American consumerism mindset, where we can consume as much as we want and waste as much as we want without thinking twice, we're pretty screwed in the long run. Global water crisis is brewing, with already around 3 billion people affected by water scarcity, and with the population and standard of living projected to skyrocket, the issue of water scarcity will only worsen. I mean, come on, a single dairy cow has a larger water footprint than a human, with all our water parks, our swimming pools, and our industries.
I'm not sure I get what you're aiming at with the gaming, film, entertainment, and luxury car comparisons. How are the gaming, film, entertainment, and luxury car industries one of the world's leading sources of environmental damage like animal agriculture is? It's not like Porsche is causing widespread pollution, global warming, and deforestation, but Honda isn't, and you pick between the two or something. The water park bit makes more sense, but once again what's the alternative? Is there a form of water park that uses a fluid that produces just as much fun and is pretty much the same as water, but isn't as wasteful, and as a consumer you get to pick between the two? Nope.
It feels to me like you're thinking a diet without meat would be stripping food of all its pleasure, and that there's no experience to replace it. That you'd be living in a barren wasteland of eating broccoli all day or something. The reality is you can have just as rich, diverse, and delicious of a diet-if not more so-when decreasing your consumption of animal products. It's not a choice between heaven or hell, it's a choice between delicious foods that are horrible for the environment, or delicious foods that are better for the environment. It's a matter of dead flesh between your burger bun, or a patty made of portobella mushrooms and black beans; between icecream made from secreted cow pus, or from coconut milk. It's not that one tastes better than the other, they each have their own unique flavors and deliciousness, and you just pick between which is screwing over the planet more than the other. 
VS 
VS 
VS
Pretty much anything you can eat as an omnivore, you can eat as a vegan/vegetarian. There's nothing really lost.
Last edited by Aijin (2012 December 08, 2:30 pm)