Goodreads Vegetarians and Vegans discussion

Welcome to the group!

If you feel so inclined, take a moment to introduce yourself - you can answer the questions below, make up your own, or just babble for a bit, whatever floats your boat. :-)

~ Where are you from?
~ How long have you been veg*?
~ What is your favorite food?

I'll get things started of course... :-P

I'm from the Midwest U.S., living in Seattle now. It rains a lot, but I like it here a lot; it's a very veg friendly city (part of why I moved here!)

I've been vegetarian for 29 years, vegan for the last dozen of them.

My favorite food, well, in terms of food that I love but I can't eat every day, I'd say fried zucchini. Favorite in terms of what I choose to eat most often... I love to eat persian cucumbers with edamame hummus, and some wasabi almonds on top. That's a pretty frequent lunch for me!

Hi Im costa Rican. Im vegan two months ago. my favorite food is pizza, vegan pizza of course.

Hi,

I'm Jeffrey, executive director of Jewish Vegetarians of North America.

That means I'm a veg*n advocate who feels strongly that abusing and killing animals for food is immoral.

I'm also a member of the Pittsburgh Vegan Meetup Book Club.

Looking forward to seeing where this group goes.

Hello i am Sotiris. I am creative photographer and i love cooking. I was raw foodist for 3 years. Try to have a look at our new book 30 Ways to eat tomato. Any comments, reviews and likes would be much appreciated. Is 100% tried, tested with authentic colorful images. Have fun and many thanks! http://www.amazon.com/30-Ways-Eat-Tom...

Hi! My name is Sydney and I'm from Texas.
I've been a vegetarian for almost 5 years, I started when I was 13.
My favorite for is spinach-ricotta tart.

Welcome to the group everyone!

Hello!

I'm Ryan.
I'm from Seattle.
I've been vegetarian for nearly 16 years.
My favorite vegetarian food is fried seitan and gravy.

Yum!

Have you had the "chicken fried steak" at the Wayward?

Gertie wrote: "Yum!

Have you had the "chicken fried steak" at the Wayward?"

I have not been to Wayward since they were last in Greenwood. I'll have to check out their new digs, though.

Hi Everyone, I just discovered this group and am happy to be here. My name is Ruth Hawe and I've been a vegan activist for more than 40 years. I have a vegan daughter who's partner of 10 years is also vegan, so I am very blessed. I got the inspiration to write a novel with a vegan heroine in it and seeded with all the major reasons why we live a cruelty free life. My dream is for the book to fall into the hands of the general public who like reading novels but who turn their eyes away from the horrors we all immerse ourselves in as ethical compassionate eaters. I know that self promotion is generally frowned upon, but as my book was written for the billions of suffering factory farmed animals I feel emboldened to post about it here. I will happily give an ebook copy to anybody who is willing to review and help promote it for this reason. Many thanks for being veg*n and bright blessings from me xxx
Holy Cow

Welcome to the group Ruth!

Hello all, my name is Lisa and I have just discovered Goodreads and this group. I have been vegetarian for 23 years and abolitionist vegan for the last 6 years. I am an American living in the UK since 1990. I live with my non-vegan husband and vegetarian daughter and I have met almost all of my vegan friends online. Ruth, I would love to read and review your book!

Hi Lisa, I only just joined too :) America is so beautiful, I lived in Florida in the 80's for 2 years, and have spent several months in Washington State and California more recently. I love to travel, and my dream is to be invited to do book signings/talks in all my favourite places!

How lovely! I lived in San Francisco during the mid-eighties, but then moved back to my home city of Boston for a few more years before finally emigrating to the UK. I've got a brother in Florida but I've never been there myself.

Lisa wrote: "Hello all, my name is Lisa and I have just discovered Goodreads and this group. I have been vegetarian for 23 years and abolitionist vegan for the last 6 years. I am an American living in the UK si..."

I have never heard the phrase "abolitionist vegan" before, can you tell us more?

hey everyone!

representing portland, oregon here! as some would call the vegan paradise.

i've been vegan for 3 years now.

i used to hate it growing because my ate it with everything but now i can't ever get enough rice.

Hi Gertie, "Abolitionist" veganism is the recognition of the moral right of all animals not to be used as a resource. Abolitionists view using animals for the purposes of pleasure, amusement or convenience (which is almost exclusively what all animal use consists of) as unnecessary and therefore we reject it entirely. This approach to veganism was developed by Gary L Francione in a number of books on animal rights and most recently in a great little book called Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals. It aims to demonstrate to the reader that if you believe that animals should not have to experience unnecessary suffering from humans, that you already have adopted an ethical position that should include veganism as the moral baseline. It's a quick read compared to Francione's other titles and I highly recommend it. You can read more about abolitionist veganism on his website, http://www.abolitionistapproach.com or at http://abolitionistvegansociety.org

Thanks Lisa. So I imagine that many folks who are vegan for ethical reasons probably already fall under this description.

It seems like they would, but there is a distinction between abolitionist vegans and other vegans in that abolitionist vegans promote veganism as the moral baseline as opposed to getting involved in 'single issue campaigns' like petitions for bigger cages or humane slaughter, etc.; short term 'fixes' that only perpetuates animal use by making people feel less guilt about using them. It's a matter of animal rights as opposed to animal welfare. Abolitionists would like to see an end to animal use as the moral imperative; the same as those who historically stood up and denounced human slavery as wrong, rather than campaigning for less beatings.

I'm sorry; it was not my intention to hijack this thread. :)

Oh no worries!

Hey there! I'm an animal lover a mother and a wife and stay at home mother and a vegetarian for off and on for 10 years but am not turning back! I live in alabama but am from chicAgo. I love pizza!

Hey Rachel, welcome to the group! :-)

Thank you! :) glad to be here!

Hi Everybody!

I'm from British Columbia, Canada. I live in the Vancouver area. I've been a vegetarian since the summer of 2008. I'm eating more and more strictly vegan food though. My favorite food... that's tough. I really love fruit, especially peaches and watermelon. I also consume a huge amount of tea, so that has to be a favorite as well. My main hobbies are reading (obviously or I wouldn't be on this website) and crocheting. I'm slowly working at knitting too.

Welcome to the group!

What kind of tea do you like best? I'm an oolong fan myself.

I haven't met a tea I didn't like. I'm not hard to please. I've always especially loved Morrocan mint green teas. At the moment I seem to be drinking a lot of herbal tea, particularly red tea chai.

Hi everyone! I'm Kendall, also from Seattle WA. I've been vegan for just over 8 years and going strong. I love it! New to Goodreads, and really enjoying it so far. I'm a wedding and portrait photographer and I love to read autobiographies and fiction. My favorite food is tied between tofu and kale, though I do love a good bowl of pasta too!

Hey Kendall, welcome! What area of Seattle are you in? (I'm in Ballard.)

Hi Gertie, thanks for the warm welcome! I should have said Seattle area- lived in Greenwood and Sunset Hill for quite awhile but currently residing in North Everett. Miss being in the Ballard area, really loved it there!

From the Los Angeles area, been a vegetarian since 1986. Don't eat anything that has a face or has babies. :) Being Italian, and cheese being a cultural staple, veganism isn't for me... besides, that means ice cream would hafta go, too... I gave up chocolate for eight years, and my husband's comment was "You'll never get those years back." ;)

You should try some of the new vegan ice creams that are out now though, so good! "Cheese" has improved much though still not quite amazing, but man is Coconut Bliss gooood. Giving up chocolate, how painful!

Gael, I really respect you as a longtime vegetarian. You've been eating compassionately for a lot longer than I have.

I hope you won't mind if I point out that dairy cows have babies, and those babies are torn away from them, so that the milk meant for the calf can be captured by the farmer for sale. This severing of the mother-baby relationship is incredibly cruel.

I love cheese and ice cream, too, but I can live with vegan versions and a cleaner conscience.

Jeffrey wrote: "I hope you won't mind if I point out that dairy cows have babies, and those ba..."

Even more ugly, veal is a byproduct of the dairy industry, so sad. :-(
I knew I wanted to go vegan for a while but needed a gross out factor to help me switch (reading about pus in milk did it), but every time I learn more about the industry I breathe a sigh of relief I already made the switch. Hmm, should I make a new topic?

Okay new thread! A place to talk about going vegan, the hows and whys...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Hey all. I'm from a smallish country town outside of Columbus, Oh. I live with my fiancee and we love living in the country. Neither of us are huge fans of cities.

I've always loved all animals. Once I opened my eyes to all the cruelty I couldn't believe I didn't know it sooner. My fiancée and I have been strict vegetarian, still had the occasional cheese item, till this year where we decided we didn't want to dork around anymore and decided to go completely vegan. I'm really excited about this choice and I'm very eager to get to know more people who understand the importance of not supporting the cruelty anymore.

Favorite food is a tough one. I'm a big fan of Thai, Indian, and Chinese food. My go to easy food is steamed broccoli though. I don't think I could ever get tired of that.

What town Alexis? I grew up in Chillicothe.:-)

Gertie wrote: "What town Alexis? I grew up in Chillicothe.:-)"

That's awesome. We were actually looking at possibly moving to that area when we are ready to sell our current house.

Right now we are in Marysville. It is a pretty nice town and there is a farm sanctuary less then 10 minutes away from our house called Sunrise Sanctuary. We went to there Thanksgiving for the Turkey's even this year and it was a blast. They also have a huge rescue cow called Wesley. He is about 2500 lbs currently but still is just a big loving baby. It is like the great big dogs who still think they are lap dogs. Every year at the Thanksgiving for the Turkeys he gets a cup of cider and loves it. It is so fun to watch him go nuts over that cider haha

Haha that's funny he likes cider! That's cool to live near a sanctuary, do you ever volunteer there? I bet that would be satisfying (and fun).

I just found out about it actually this year and with school and work I'm not able to right now. I've already talked to the owner though and will be volunteering over the summer. I am really excited for that. :)

I'm Vegan for 32 months, and during this time I was 90+% raw vegan and I love Raw Foods!

More information about me in this interview:
http://jonnyfreesh.com/articles/vegan...

All the best,
Moein

I'm Kelsey and I'm originally from South Dakota now living in South Carolina. I went pescatarian after touring a pig slaughterhouse with a high school ag class in 2002 and made the transition to vegan New Year 2009. I'm an attorney by trade. My favorite foods are Mac and Cheez, tofu red curry and cake.

Congrats on the transition!

I am going to try a new Mac and Cheez (Yease) recipe this weekend, I swear I have made a dozen variations of it. It is almost always good though - it's mac and "cheese"! What is your favorite version/recipe?

Our favorite is vegan yum yum's roux based recipe. I always add green peas and a crumbled Field Roast chipotle sausage

Hi everybody!
I'm Laurie from Winter Garden, Florida (west of Orlando)
I've been 100% vegetarian and 97% vegan for almost three years. I cook only vegan but I'm vegetarian when I go out if there's no vegan option. I gave up beef and pork six years ago when I read an article that said pigs' brains were equivalent to a three year old child and the only difference is that they couldn't talk. It was an easy transition for me and I really love the challenge.
My favorite foods are pasta with pesto and also broccoli and I love a good stir-fry. I like everything as long as there are no animals or animal products. :-)

I heard the word "chegan" for the first time last week, which is what your 97% made me thinm of. Anyone else ever heard that term? I don't know if it applies to vegetarian stuff like cheese or just anyone not vegan (meat). My brother is a chegan I guess, he'll eat a wee bit of cheese, especially after a beer or two. :-P

Laurie - I just made my first pesto this week! Toasted pine nuts, nutritional yeast and 1/3 radish greens 2/3 Basil - what's your go-to pesto?

Pesto is cool because there are so kany ways to make it. I like to make "Poor Man's Pesto" with almonds, basil & parsley, and a ton of garlic. (Plus olive oil and salt of course. No fake parmesan because it doesn't make it any yummier.) My brother makes a good one with sun dried tomatoes.

Gertie I like that word "chegan" because cheese is about the only thing I "cheat" with. Thank goodness for Daiya!

Kelsey, this is a link to my goto pesto because I've never been crazy about pine nuts or nutritional yeast. Sometimes I add green onions if the garlic isn't strong enough. I like it garlicky and lemony. Hummus too, :-)

http://vegetarian.about.com/od/sauces...

Welcome Chelle!

I liked the comment "upped my game" - I think we veg folks do often explore foods a little more on average, don't we? I don't know how many years it would have taken me to get around to trying tofu if I wasn't veg - probably wouldn't have tried it 15 years ago.