On 07/06/2011 9:50 PM, Christopher M. wrote:

>> Most of them are salt city, and none of them tastes anything like an
>> actual burger.
>
> I guess most vegetarians wouldn't want to buy something that tastes like
> meat. But others love that Tofurky stuff.

My nephew and his wife are vegetarians and are always pushing their
stryroburgers and plastic wieners saying that they taste just like meat.
Then eat meat. I don't have a problem with good vegetarian food. There
are lots of Indian dishes using lentils and other high protein
vegetables with spicy flavour. I do have a problem with avoiding meat
for some sort of political reason and then looking for manufactured
products that are made to look and taste like meat.

Dave Smith > wrote in
. com:

> I don't have a problem with good vegetarian food. There
> are lots of Indian dishes using lentils and other high protein
> vegetables with spicy flavour. I do have a problem with
> avoiding meat for some sort of political reason and then
> looking for manufactured products that are made to look and
> taste like meat.

Exactly.

--

I read about an [Inuk] hunter who asked the local missionary
priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to
hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know."
"Then why," asked the [Inuk], "did you tell me?"

Annie Dillard

Dave Smith wrote:
>
> My nephew and his wife are vegetarians and are always pushing their
> stryroburgers and plastic wieners saying that they taste just like meat.
> Then eat meat. I don't have a problem with good vegetarian food. There
> are lots of Indian dishes using lentils and other high protein
> vegetables with spicy flavour. I do have a problem with avoiding meat
> for some sort of political reason and then looking for manufactured
> products that are made to look and taste like meat.

It's a tacit admission that meat tastes better. Too bad they're not
foodies like us folks who have had vegitarian meals so good they amaze.

I'm happy to support folks who go vegitarian for religious, moral or
political reasons. Service to a higher cause, good on them for it.
What I'm not happy to support is folks who claim that going vegitarian
is more healthy and that's why they decided to do it. And it seems
like those are the folks who eat bota burgers and such. Going
vegitarian is not healthier. It's healthier than eating nothing but
MacDonalds maybe, but not healthier than eating real food.

Humans are omnivores. We can be healthy on a well planned all meat
diet or on a well planned vegan diet. Can as in possible to do but I
have little interest in eating seal eyeballs to complete an all meat
diet or fresh and smelly pond scum to complete the B12 in a vegan
diet. But as omnivores it is easy to be healthy on a plan that
contains sizable fractions of meat and veggies plus an assortment of
non-core foods. That's right, real food.

Veggie burger. I like those. On the plate is today's assorted steamed
veggies and a burger. There ya go.

Doug Freyburger > wrote in
:

> Going vegitarian is not
> healthier. It's healthier than eating nothing but MacDonalds
> maybe, but not healthier than eating real food.

Actually, for an adult human, the eating of meat is not required.
Vegan perhaps pushes the envelope but ovo-lacto vegetarian is fine
if one takes care to balance the meals.

FWIW, Weight Watchers was pushing Bota burgers a while back with
the advert that it tasted like meat. When I pointed out that
vegetarians were not looking for things that tasted like meat, all
all I got was a blank stare, about the same one as I got when I
asked about miso soup (they had no idea wehat it was). I did see
some Bota burgers in stores (not any more, but I don't look for
them) but never bought them.

--

I read about an [Inuk] hunter who asked the local missionary
priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to
hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know."
"Then why," asked the [Inuk], "did you tell me?"

Annie Dillard

truth is that the key here is two fold, "real" food not processed to the
point of being void of nutrition, and finding what is best for an
individual's body... given my preferences i would eat the catagory "meat"
only very occasionally, and beef lamb or pork rarely... in order to stay
healthy i need to eat red meat at least twice a week, not even a big
porrtion three or four oz, but if i skip it i don't feel well, Lee
"Doug Freyburger" > wrote in message
...
> Dave Smith wrote:
>>
>> My nephew and his wife are vegetarians and are always pushing their
>> stryroburgers and plastic wieners saying that they taste just like meat.
>> Then eat meat. I don't have a problem with good vegetarian food. There
>> are lots of Indian dishes using lentils and other high protein
>> vegetables with spicy flavour. I do have a problem with avoiding meat
>> for some sort of political reason and then looking for manufactured
>> products that are made to look and taste like meat.
>
> It's a tacit admission that meat tastes better. Too bad they're not
> foodies like us folks who have had vegitarian meals so good they amaze.
>
> I'm happy to support folks who go vegitarian for religious, moral or
> political reasons. Service to a higher cause, good on them for it.
> What I'm not happy to support is folks who claim that going vegitarian
> is more healthy and that's why they decided to do it. And it seems
> like those are the folks who eat bota burgers and such. Going
> vegitarian is not healthier. It's healthier than eating nothing but
> MacDonalds maybe, but not healthier than eating real food.
>
> Humans are omnivores. We can be healthy on a well planned all meat
> diet or on a well planned vegan diet. Can as in possible to do but I
> have little interest in eating seal eyeballs to complete an all meat
> diet or fresh and smelly pond scum to complete the B12 in a vegan
> diet. But as omnivores it is easy to be healthy on a plan that
> contains sizable fractions of meat and veggies plus an assortment of
> non-core foods. That's right, real food.
>
> Veggie burger. I like those. On the plate is today's assorted steamed
> veggies and a burger. There ya go.

On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:57:44 -0500, Omelet >
wrote:

>Meat is the only "natural" source of Vitamin B-12 which is mandatory for
>your body to make red blood cells. Without it, you will become anemic.
>Slower for men, a lot faster for women due to monthly blood loss.
>
>"Nutritional yeast" is another source of B-12 but after taking a good,
>long look at that stuff, it appears to be fortified with B-12 so that's
>hardly vegan after all. <g>

For B12 sources, here are some and their values:
From: http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitaminb12/#h3

Food, type, amount, Micrograms per/severing, Percentage of B12 needed
per/day

Liver, beef, braised, 1 slice, 48.0, 800%
Clams, cooked, breaded and fried, 3 ounces, 34.2, 570%
Breakfast cereals, fortified with 100% of the DV for vitamin B12, 1
serving, 6.0, 100%
Trout, rainbow, wild, cooked, 3 ounces, 5.4, 90%
Salmon, sockeye, cooked, 3 ounces, 4.9, 80%
Trout, rainbow, farmed, cooked, 3 ounces, 4.2, 50%
Beef, top sirloin, broiled, 3 ounces, 2.4, 40%
Cheeseburger, double patty and bun, 1 sandwich, 1.9, 30%
Breakfast cereals, fortified with 25% of the DV for vitamin B12, 1
serving, 1.5, 25%
Yogurt, plain, 1 cup, 1.4, 25%
Haddock, cooked, 3 ounces, 1.2, 20%
Tuna, white, 3 ounces, 1.0, 15%
Milk, 1 cup, 0.9, 15%
Cheese, Swiss, 1 ounce, 0.9, 15%
Beef taco, 1 taco, 0.8, 13%
Ham, cured, roasted, 3 ounces, 0.6, 10%
Egg, large, 1 whole, 0.6, 10%
Chicken, roasted, ½ breast, 0.3, 6%


Here's a short, but interesting article from the Mayo Clinic on B12:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vit...ent-vitaminb12


And another page of B12 facts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12

Michel Boucher wrote:
> Doug Freyburger > wrote:
>
>> Going vegitarian is not healthier.
>
> Actually, for an adult human, the eating of meat is not required.

"Not required" does not imply "healthier". Exactly. Eating meat makes
a nutritious diet easier and that means a healthy meat-free diet is more
work. It can be done. Do it without a specific plan and it's less
healthy.

> Vegan perhaps pushes the envelope but ovo-lacto vegetarian is fine
> if one takes care to balance the meals.

Lacto-ovo vegetarian is healthy with a bit of attention for the same
reason Atkins Induction is healthy with a bit of attention. Neither
pushes to an extreme that requires careful planning to be healthy.

> FWIW, Weight Watchers was pushing Bota burgers a while back with
> the advert that it tasted like meat. When I pointed out that
> vegetarians were not looking for things that tasted like meat, all
> all I got was a blank stare ...

It's like going to atheists and pointing out there are other approaches
than monotheism. They have no idea what you're talking about. It's
beyond their kenn.

Omelet wrote:
>
> Meat is the only "natural" source of Vitamin B-12 which is mandatory for
> your body to make red blood cells. Without it, you will become anemic.
> Slower for men, a lot faster for women due to monthly blood loss.
>
> "Nutritional yeast" is another source of B-12 but after taking a good,
> long look at that stuff, it appears to be fortified with B-12 so that's
> hardly vegan after all. <g>

Spirulina seems to be the vegan choice for B-12.

Doug Freyburger wrote:
>
> Omelet wrote:
> >
> > Meat is the only "natural" source of Vitamin B-12 which is mandatory for
> > your body to make red blood cells. Without it, you will become anemic.
> > Slower for men, a lot faster for women due to monthly blood loss.
> >
> > "Nutritional yeast" is another source of B-12 but after taking a good,
> > long look at that stuff, it appears to be fortified with B-12 so that's
> > hardly vegan after all. <g>
>
> Spirulina seems to be the vegan choice for B-12.

That's not a good source.

Quoting from "Vitamin B-12: Plant Sources, Requirements,
and Assay" by Victor Herbert, _American_Journal_of_
_Clinical_Nutrition_, 1988, volume 48, page 857:

"Vitamin B-12 is of singular interest in any discussion
of vegetarian diets because this vitamin is not found
in plant foods as are other vitamins. Confusion about
what sources may yield vitamin B-12 to strict vegetarians
has arisen because the standard US Pharmacopeia (USP)
assay for vitamin B-12 does not assay only vitamin B-12.
In the USP method the content of vitamin B-12 of any given
food is determined by making a water extract of that food
and feeding the extract to a bacterium (_Lactobacillus_
_leichmannii_). The quantity of vitamin B-12 is
determined by the amount of bacterial growth. The problem
is that what is active vitamin B-12 for bacteria is not
necessarily active vitamin B-12 for humans. Many of the
papers in the literature give values of vitamin B-12 in
food that are false because as much as 80% of the activity
by this method is due to inactive analogues of vitamin
B-12."

"We studied several types of tempeh, including Original
Soy Tempeh, a _Rhizobus_oligosporus_ culture with a label
claim of 160% of the US RDA for vitamin B-12 per 4 oz.
Using the differential radioassay we found there was
practically no vitamin B-12 in it."

"We also studied most of the spirulinas sold in health
food stores as sources of vitamin B-12; there is
practically no vitamin B-12 in them. The so-called
vitamin B-12 is almost exclusively analogues of vitamin
B-12 and we have extracted the two largest peaks of
analogues and they actually block vitamin B-12 metabolism.
We suspect that people taking spirulina as a source
of vitamin B-12 may get vitamin B-12 deficiency quicker
because the analogues in the product block human
mammalian cell metabolism in culture and we suspect
they will also do this in the living human. Remember
that the label claim of vitamin B-12 is actually a
claim of corrinoid content, not vitamin B-12 content."

On Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:19:48 -0500 in rec.food.cooking, Michel
Boucher > wrote,
>Doug Freyburger > wrote in
:
>
>> Going vegitarian is not
>> healthier. It's healthier than eating nothing but MacDonalds
>> maybe, but not healthier than eating real food.
>
>Actually, for an adult human, the eating of meat is not required.

Were you unable to read the part where Doug wrote:
"Humans are omnivores. We can be healthy on a well planned all meat
diet or on a well planned vegan diet."

On Thu, 9 Jun 2011 18:42:53 +0000 (UTC) in rec.food.cooking, Doug
Freyburger > wrote,
>Lacto-ovo vegetarian is healthy with a bit of attention for the same
>reason Atkins Induction is healthy with a bit of attention. Neither
>pushes to an extreme that requires careful planning to be healthy.

But then, lacto-ovo vegetarian is not actually vegetarian, it's
adjective-modified vegetarian.

On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 12:36:12 -0800 in rec.food.cooking, Mark Thorson
> wrote,
>Quoting from "Vitamin B-12: Plant Sources, Requirements,
>and Assay" by Victor Herbert, _American_Journal_of_
>_Clinical_Nutrition_, 1988, volume 48, page 857:

Very interesting; thanks.

On 2011-06-10, Doug Freyburger > wrote:

> Semantic details. Vegan is a different word and therefore not
> vegetarian.

What about moro vegans? Vegetarians so mentally hosed they don't know
what they're against. Pretty much the majority. :|

nb