Ask HN: Have you gone vegan or vegetarian?

The attacks I'm referring to are the misuse of the term "murder", calling a couple hundred million folks "sociopaths," and the implication (which has some truth, no doubt) that those eating the meat are responsible for the mistreatment of animals and are causing their pain.

I'm sure you can think of dozens of examples where people who are a cog in a machine are not exactly on-board with the whole thing, yet feel powerless to stop it.

Diet is not something that everyone feels they can change on a whim. If it were, I suppose we wouldn't have an obesity crisis, and perhaps more people would join you as vegans, too.

The cultural pressure to eat meat is also a big factor, just as you have mentioned in your response here. Not just to be normal, but maybe to avoid hurting mom's feelings when she makes your childhood-favorite lasagna or something.

People use the same argument for eating meat (it tastes good) as they do for getting morbidly obese. Nobody wants to be morbidly obese or impose those kinds of health problems on themselves, so perhaps you need to understand that the issue is deeper than just "I do or don't want to hurt animals." It certainly is with obesity.

I grew up on a farm in Northern California, so there really wasn't the option for a "faceless" meat. I decided when I was 15 that I wanted to try to be vegetarian, I quit cold turkey and have been vegetarian or vegan ever since. I'm 40 now.

My advice:

- Learn to cook. You'll want to eat unprocessed foods that come from good sources. Don't worry about how much protein you're getting. There is no need to supplement with protein shakes or fake meats. Amino acids are plentiful in all whole foods except fruits. Nuts, peas, beans and whole grains are all rich with protein. If you're eating whole foods you shouldn't really have to worry about it.

For example, why buy isolated whey protein when you could purchase ricotta (made from whey) or pea protein when you can have split pea soup. The whole food will be more nutritious and hell of lot cheaper to make. On that note, purchase an electric pressure cooker, an immersion blender and some basic cooking utensils if you don't already have them.

- Learn how to ferment foods. A lot of grains, legumes and vegetables have mild amounts of phytotoxins that are removed during the fermentation process. Sourdough breads, yoghurt, kefir, kimchee, sauerkraut, etc. are all great sources of vitamins, minerals and umami flavors that are not in the "fresh" sources.

- If you decide to be ovo-lacto vegetarian, find a good local farm for eggs or dairy (local for milk, not so necessarily local for cheese). You'll be saving a lot by not buying meat, so make sure you're purchasing ethically raised chicken eggs. Eggs are great foodstuff. Chickens are also easy to raise yourself if you want to feel closer to your food.

- Don't evangelize. Over the years your reasons will change. Answer peoples questions when they ask (and they will), but don't push YOUR personal decision on others.

- Have fun with it!

How many of those plants are farmed to feed the animals that are then being killed? I couldn't easily find data on this, but this massive inefficiency is part of what makes veganism more environmentally sustainable when done right.

I'm always very fascinated by people's rationale and I enjoy reading these threads. Thank you for posting. My own journey took me in the opposite direction: I eat nothing but meat and other animal-derived products such as cheese and eggs (but not milk). I have made this decision after reading The Fat of the Land by Vilhjalmur Stefansson [1] and Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes [2]. I consciously decided the most important dietary principle, for me, is to never trigger a strong insulin response. I have been zero carb (and therefore zero fiber) for about a year now.

I have since then thrown in intermittent fasting as well. I fast 22 hours a day, work out at the end of the day, and then go home and eat 1kg of steak/lamb. I think intermittent fasting is worth adding to any diet, vegan or otherwise.

[1] Book was printed in 1956, so copyright may have expired. There's PDFs online. Here's a link to Stefansson's Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson

[2] Non-affiliate: https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259