Vegetarians ( and Vegans ) Thread!!!

[redhen]

Good job!!

I still cant figure out how to link a BYC thread to an open thread like this..

Everytime i try it just links back to BYC home page..

Anyways.. thanks, Kevin!

 

[HEChicken]

kuntrygirl, may I suggest you read a book by an author called Michael Pollan called "In Defence of Food"? It is not a book for vegetarians exactly, but it is a very interesting and easy read. Instead of proposing a particular diet, like "no carbs" or whatever, he talks about the role of food in our society (and that of other societies around the world), and how our health relates to what we eat. Towards the end of the book, he provides a set of guidelines for choosing foods, that I found very easy to both follow and remember (so I don't have to take the book with me to the store). For example: "never eat something your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize". In other words, the foods today have become so overprocessed that they would unrecognizable to our great-grandparents, who ate much simpler, far less processed foods. Another guideline is "don't purchase foods that have more than 5 ingredients". An example of this: oatmeal. You can buy a canister of oatmeal that contains just one ingredient: oats. Or you can buy a box of single servings of flavored oatmeal that contains a whole paragraph of ingredients - flavorings and sugar and things you can't even pronounce.

Essentially, by following the guidelines he lists, you will be eating better than the average person - you will be eating foods that are less processed, more wholesome and better for you. And, if you ALSO want to investigate vegetarianism, you can still do that following his guidelines (which is what I've been doing for the past few years).

 

[kuntrygirl]

Quote:
Great info! Sounds like I would thoroughly enjoy the book.

I like the statement about not buying anything that has more than 5 ingredients.

I will look for this book at my local library in the morning.

Thank you for the information. Much appreciated.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

Sounds yummy. We don't have too many grocery stores that carry a lot of the items listed. I will have to try a Whole Foods Store or an organic store.

Hey Kuntry, the stores/sources we mainly use are:

Sunflower Market (hippie, yet somehow cheaper than any other store due to their sale rotations. You can often get blackberries for 88 cents instead of the regular 2 to 5 dollars around here). We do most of our every day produce shopping here, and our yogurt shopping here. This is a local chain, I think. For Noosa yogurt, this is their webpage:
http://www.noosayoghurt.com/contact-us/contact-us/
They have a locator for their product, and you can also contact them. That said, a similar product may be able to be found or made at home.

Generic India market/gas station, and a separate Japanese market. Anywhere there is a sizable ethnic group, you can usually find a grocer hidden somewhere. We can get hard to find Indian spices from the gas station for a fraction of the price we get in other stores. We always seek these stores out for the variety and price. One example is that a huge bag of bay leaves cost us $1.50 there. At the grocery stores, a small spice bottle with a few leaves cots 3 dollars!! Sometimes the sign names will not be in English, and no one in the store will speak English. The price rings up in dollars though, so it has never been an issue buying anything. There are lots of Mexican markets and a South African market in our area too.

Tony Caputos
We're lucky to have this here. Their website doesn't have a full listing by any means for browsing and finding similar items elsewhere unfortunately. We get a lot of our cheeses from here.

Farmer's Market. I love the one we have! We have grown to know a lot of the vendors there, and have access to some of them year round. Our mushrooms come from one of the vendors who has everything from chanterelles and morels to...things I can't pronounce. He is a really nice guy too, and often will give free samples to repeat customers of any new 'shrooms he has, or anything a customer isn't sure if they'll like or not and wants to try. It doesn't matter the price of the mushroom. Many people here are also active in mushroom hunting. There are local clubs or college classes available in many areas, from urban to rural.

Honey is shipped in huge jars by my parents. They live near a family who has amazing honey. Maple syrup we buy in bulk online. You can get a ton of really good food online for cheaper than in the stores, even counting shipping.

Field Roast has a website:
http://www.fieldroast.com/where-to-buy

We have a local Goat Dairy that has an honor system store stand where you can pick up raw goat milk, goat milk, and goat milk products. You sign a waiver for each raw milk purchase, and leave it and any money in a lock box. We also have a local food co-op that delivers our weekly supply of cow milk and other products and produce. Some people have started co-ops in their local areas if they did not exist there already.

The only area my husband and I have lived in together than had...no selection was an area in Virginia. Large factory farm area, so no local farmers to hook up with, no farmer's market, no ethnic grocers, no sources for healthy anything (the produce was always rotten through too at the one grocery store they had...I even found an onion that was fine on the outside, but completely black and moldy on the inside). Tons of fast food though. XD We weren't aware of how to order food online back then, or we may have had a bit of an easier time of it. I did not enjoy living in that area at all.

But yeah, these are some of the places we poke around and look for. We like stores that sell things like nuts in bulk. We've been able to eat a lot healthier but spend less than at the major grocery stores using these shops and groups. Our area does however, have a much denser food selection than most places we have been to. That said, it is an urban area and harder to raise one's own food.​

 

[yankeedoodle300]

Quote:
WHAT????? IVE ALWAYS HEARD ITS KINDA LIKE GELETAIN???????? I think it can be from Plant AND Animal Based..........

So what do you mean?

 

[yankeedoodle300]

What Do You Vegetarians Think about chewing gum with glycerin and geletain????

I Know that ALL Wrigleys Gum Has Plant Based Glycerin....But what about the others??

 

[P-Funk]

Bored out of my gourd. I cant leave the house because of Montezuma's revenge. Plus there's a broken nose and swimmers ear. Surfing accident. Big time. Some vacation eh? At least I'm still here to entertain all my BYC buddies with witty remarks.

 

[Mattemma]

Looked up the anticaking agent in my sea salt listed as E 535 and it was http://aboutcyanide.com/sodium-ferrocyanide/

I think I will use it on the driveway despite its safety.

Ethnic stores are fun to shop at. I have bought some interesting items.Lots of vegetarian choices too.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Quote:
Hey Kuntry, the stores/sources we mainly use are:

Sunflower Market (hippie, yet somehow cheaper than any other store due to their sale rotations. You can often get blackberries for 88 cents instead of the regular 2 to 5 dollars around here). We do most of our every day produce shopping here, and our yogurt shopping here. This is a local chain, I think. For Noosa yogurt, this is their webpage:
http://www.noosayoghurt.com/contact-us/contact-us/
They have a locator for their product, and you can also contact them. That said, a similar product may be able to be found or made at home.

Generic India market/gas station, and a separate Japanese market. Anywhere there is a sizable ethnic group, you can usually find a grocer hidden somewhere. We can get hard to find Indian spices from the gas station for a fraction of the price we get in other stores. We always seek these stores out for the variety and price. One example is that a huge bag of bay leaves cost us $1.50 there. At the grocery stores, a small spice bottle with a few leaves cots 3 dollars!! Sometimes the sign names will not be in English, and no one in the store will speak English. The price rings up in dollars though, so it has never been an issue buying anything. There are lots of Mexican markets and a South African market in our area too.

Tony Caputos
We're lucky to have this here. Their website doesn't have a full listing by any means for browsing and finding similar items elsewhere unfortunately. We get a lot of our cheeses from here.

Farmer's Market. I love the one we have! We have grown to know a lot of the vendors there, and have access to some of them year round. Our mushrooms come from one of the vendors who has everything from chanterelles and morels to...things I can't pronounce. He is a really nice guy too, and often will give free samples to repeat customers of any new 'shrooms he has, or anything a customer isn't sure if they'll like or not and wants to try. It doesn't matter the price of the mushroom. Many people here are also active in mushroom hunting. There are local clubs or college classes available in many areas, from urban to rural.

Honey is shipped in huge jars by my parents. They live near a family who has amazing honey. Maple syrup we buy in bulk online. You can get a ton of really good food online for cheaper than in the stores, even counting shipping.

Field Roast has a website:
http://www.fieldroast.com/where-to-buy

We have a local Goat Dairy that has an honor system store stand where you can pick up raw goat milk, goat milk, and goat milk products. You sign a waiver for each raw milk purchase, and leave it and any money in a lock box. We also have a local food co-op that delivers our weekly supply of cow milk and other products and produce. Some people have started co-ops in their local areas if they did not exist there already.

The only area my husband and I have lived in together than had...no selection was an area in Virginia. Large factory farm area, so no local farmers to hook up with, no farmer's market, no ethnic grocers, no sources for healthy anything (the produce was always rotten through too at the one grocery store they had...I even found an onion that was fine on the outside, but completely black and moldy on the inside). Tons of fast food though. XD We weren't aware of how to order food online back then, or we may have had a bit of an easier time of it. I did not enjoy living in that area at all.

But yeah, these are some of the places we poke around and look for. We like stores that sell things like nuts in bulk. We've been able to eat a lot healthier but spend less than at the major grocery stores using these shops and groups. Our area does however, have a much denser food selection than most places we have been to. That said, it is an urban area and harder to raise one's own food.

Great info. I think I will seek out and shop at some of the other stores/markets that I don't normally shop. Sounds like a Saturday outing for me.

 

[Mountain Man Jim]

Quote:
WHAT????? IVE ALWAYS HEARD ITS KINDA LIKE GELETAIN???????? I think it can be from Plant AND Animal Based..........

So what do you mean?

I'm assuming that you are avoiding glycerin because it may come animals which is true for geletain. Glycerin is often made from vegtable oil, for instance, it's a by-product of making biodiesel.

Jim