Lola at the Coffee House

I know what an athletic trainer is Matt but what exactly is a Vegan? My sense of it is that it is a method of drawing attention to the self when all other avenues have been found wanting. But I am quite willing to be persuaded otherwise.

I hadda bump to see WTF spendi had to say.



OY

I became vegan about 4 or 5 years ago. Prior to that I was eating very few whole foods (bachelor lifestyle). I switched to vegan for ethical concerns (animal welfare/environmental). At that point I had done little research into nutrition.
I taught myself to cook. I definitely enjoy food more now than I ever did prior to becoming vegan. After about a year my tastes changed. Occasionally when I eat out a piece of meat or chicken will appear in my food it tastes a bit rancid to me now. Similarly when I was driving to a children's hospital (1 hour each direction) I would sometimes stop at a coffee shop to make my 14.5 hour day a little more bearable. I would order soy, but sometimes received dairy. I couldn't drink it due to the taste.
My girlfriend is more recently vegan, she still craves cheese sometimes. She loves Daiya, and I use a lot of nutritional yeast to add a cheesey flavor to our foods.
I think I mentioned before that I am more of a "meat and potatoes" type of vegan. I eat few salads. I cook very robust meals. Stews and chilis. Pizzas and tacos. I draw on a lot of "ethnic" cuisine especially Mexican, Indian, and Middle Eastern. I use tempeh a lot as the "meat".
Most of my friends are not vegan (surprise surprise), but they request me to make them food, especially when I make chili or curry. As a result I have had to adapt to cooking in larger quantities.

"So, you didn't want to go for the M.D.?" -- Dr. Larry (or Dr. Bob)

so style of prep isnt limiting to you, you still would consider frying or roasting.
They say that, when people become acclimated to a vegetarian diet, they lose the taste responses that are brought out by cooking conditions like the Millard Reaction.

I seriously tried being an ovo lacto vegetarian once when I was working abroad. Instead of embracing the diet, instead I actually acquired a taste for things like "Pop fried" locusts or even "bush meats".

Well Spendi Vegan could mean one of two things. A native from the star Vega (Alpha Lyrae).

-or-
Someone who does not consume/purchase animal products.

I am nowhere near as skilled as you in constructing metaphors, but I will give it a go...
Observations of attention seeking behaviors in others by Spendius are akin to observations of dehumanizing sentiments in patients by behavioral psychologists.

Probably too clinical, and not poetic enough. I'll work on that.

There is a joke that I'm sure you aren't intending to allude to.
How do you know if there is a vegan at your diner party?
....
Don't worry they'll tell you.

Are you inviting me to a dinner party? I'll bring wine.

Is there vegan wine?

I fry and roast often.
I have recently taken to breading and pan frying tempeh for example.
I bread it with a mixture of flours mixed with various spices. Then pan fry.
I do a lot of vegetable roasting as well, peppers, potatoes, onions, sometimes kale.

Oh! Why would a nurse seek to make people healthy? It seems counter-productive to me.

The medical profession has no use for a healthy population. It serves the purpose when the population is in a permanent state of what Ivan Illich called "long-term sub-lethal illness".

Whether the recommendations of the medical profession are designed to produce such a wonderful circumstance is a moot point but it wouldn't surprise me to find that such was the case.

Concoctions designed to ameliorate conditions resulting from rejecting alcohol and nicotine supplied by medical laboratories, prescribed by physicians, dispensed by pharmacists and supervised by nurses, and not a one of them has been tested on the human organism over thousands of years as tobacco and nicotine have.

And they cost a lot more too when the taxes which go to fund the medical profession's lucrative activities are stripped out.

Have you read Medical Nemesis?

I wasn't aware there was non-vegan wine.

I thought about medical school.
There are philosophical differences between medicine and nursing.
Especially over the approach to treatment of disease (reductionist) rather than treatment of persons and families (holistic).
The 8 years of school was also a deterrent. My father was/is lower middle class (my dad with 5 kids, now 8). My mom was a single parent well the below poverty line. My dad barely graduated high school, my mom dropped out of college to raise me. Student loans were a daunting prospect. I was accepted to University of Chicago psych, but changed to something more affordable. I am considering going back to school for a nurse practitioner degree, or a degree in nursing research.

For me vegan is primarily about boycott, a small amount of animal product doesn't trouble me on an ethical level. Isinglass (fish swim bladder derivative) is often used as a clarifying agent in wines (especially white wines).
There is a list actually for those who are greatly concerned with such things.
http://www.barnivore.com/wine
You can check all sorts of boozes.
The information is collected by volunteers who pester booze producers to divulge what is or is not in their products.
I am not greatly troubled by honey either.
I don't go out of my way to buy it, but I am agnostic with regard to whether bees "suffer". Same opinion regarding silk.

polite bump

For sure they will. They do where catering is organised for large numbers. On aircraft carriers for instance. Military bases. Prisons etc.

They are usually provided with a special table where they can bore each other into a stupor requiring medical assistance at some point talking about food in a superior manner as is only right and proper for people who get a special table and who annoy the cooks no end.

The problem as I see it is that the refusal to exploit animals brings one, assuming an appropriate rigour is brought to bear, to a grinding halt.

Where a health motive is in play, and rigour in that regard can easily lead to narcissism which is, as the great Myth teaches, a bit dangerous, the choice of food involved is really no different from any other combination of choices which a person feels is good for him or her.

On taste, it is generally a spice appreciation. All of which, or nearly all, are exotic and thus are suitable for invidious comparisons with less refined persons such as myself.

Thomas has (you probably remember) discussed vegan eating/cooking and its benefits here on a2k, how to make tempeh, etc. Love a duck though, he hasn't to date really followed it, beloved thief of other a2ker's plates and poutine freak that he is.

Correct that to--

So did I. But then I decided didn't like the smell of hospitals, and went to law school instead.

Interesting. Do you kill mosquitoes? (Serious question.)

I haven't read Medical Nemesis.
I suspect that your tirade is an example of preaching to the converted, with me.

I am not an extreme Jain.
I will swat away insects if they attack. I would kill a dog if I had too to prevent it from seriously harming another person or myself. Malaria is still a great concern for many populations. In those places mosquito populations should be controlled.
I have to run soon... my internet is being wonkey... typing on a cell phone.