A.G. Sulzeberger is having meat issues. Specifically, being vegetarian in the midwest. I have nothing against being vegetarian OR midwestern, but the article itself is as whiny and self-indulgent as they come. Focus: When have you complained about something, only to realize it was your own fault? Alt-focus: Dietary issues while traveling. Couldn't find good brisket in India? Anxious for tasty Pho in London? Unable to google carrots + Kansas City?
September 2010, I started getting pain in my hands and decreased grip strength. Stopped going to the gym and started trying to figure shit out with doctors. Eventually figured shit out about March 2011, did some incidental exercise - but never got back to the gym. 2 visits all year. Decided after the holidays that I needed to get back to structured exercise since shit has changed and incidental exercise is way down. Put a few pounds back on. Have been doing baseline assessments and figuring out what my 1 rep maxes are this week. Jesus fuck I hurt. I've been whining like a bitch all week. Keep remembering that it's entirely my own fucking fault. For a while I was on a gluten free diet. My Mum has actual Celiac's disease (not the gluten sensitivity hippy shit, full blown auto immune dysfunction) and when I had some gut problems - doctors thought maybe I did too. I did a round the world trip while trying to eat Gluten free. 3 months, 7 countries, etc. Fuck that noise. Gluten free airplane food is worse than fucking hospital food. Got food poisoning from it on the flight from London to Thailand. Fuck that noise. Only upside was that in Australia - lots of shit gets floated in wheat as a preservative - in the US, corn flour is a lot more common. I lost track of how much awesome shit I hadn't been able to eat for a year, I was fine to eat giant plates of in the states. It was fucking fantastic.
I have nothing against the idea of being a vegetarian, and if they didn't try to force their inane beliefs on others, or rationalize their nonsense, I wouldn't despise them. The last time I was with two vegetarians it went like this: Idiot1: "You know, I've been doing some research and I recently found that human teeth are not at all similar to the teeth of any other omnivores. When you compare our teeth to those of a badger, they are almost nothing alike. Our teeth are actually more similar to cows, proving we are naturally herbivores." Me: "Gee, in your research, did you ever considering looking at a closer relative. Chimpanzees maybe?" Idiot1: "Chimpanzees only eat meat as 0.5% of their diet. They are herbivores. People eat meat because it is a product. Did you know that we digest meat almost 400% less efficiently than we do vegetables?" Me: Your facts are awesome. [Long explanation on the role meat played in our evolution I'm too lazy to write here, including our state as hunter gatherers, and the fact that our closest relative to ever exist, the neanderthal had a diet that almost exclusively consisted of meat]. Idiot2: How do you know? Were you there? You like meat because it's marketed to you as a product, and you just eat it up." Then he smiled at his stupid pun. Then they did a high five. TL;DR Fuck vegetarians. At least the guy in the article isn't full of shit. If we wants to force suffering upon himself that's his business.
Sigh. This is why as a vegetarian, other vegetarians(mostly vegans) piss me off. I don't care what others eat, it doesn't bother me. And the douche in that article. Why did you go to a steakhouse to find something to eat as a vegetarian and complain you only got a baked potato? What the fuck did you expect them to have, a tofu and soy platter. What I have found is you can go into any restaurant and tell them you are a vegetarian. They will have something for you to eat.
I made friends with some vegans by mistake a while ago and I've been forced to revise my opinion. Lots of vegan's suck, but they'd suck no matter what they eat. Good people stay good people even if they make stupid diet choices. Two of my vegan friends have have a kid who isn't allowed to be Vegan until he's 15 because he shouldn't just blindly make that choice because they did, they bring their own food when they come out so they don't have to inconvenience others, and they don't tell people why they have their own food unless directly asked. And they don't go into their reasons for being Vegan beyond that his mother was vegan for religious reasons and he does it to make her happy, and she can't be bothered cooking separate adult meals - it's enough pain in the ass making different food for the kid. Knowing them pretty well - I know they've got ethical reasons and hippie health opinions - but they know that no one cares so they go out of their way to not have the discussion. My other vegan friend is slightly less prepared about bringing her own food, but also doesn't really give a fuck and is happy to just skip lunch or dinner and get something later if wherever we're eating doesn't have anything. And doesn't make a production of it like some Vegan's. She really doesn't give a shit. She also has the entirely sensible attitude of being completely ok with buying animal hide products second hand, if they were made before she decided to become vegan. Her thing is all about the business practices of the animal farming industry and she doesn't want to contribute to it. Doesn't care if other people do, and as long as she isn't contributing to their business - doesn't actually care. If we go fishing and catch fish, she's fine to eat that. She's part of lobbies to change business practices and shit - but does it all from home/online and is all about letter writing - not trying to sell her views to her friends. People who can't keep their shit to themselves and need to make everyone else involved in their diet or lifestyle can all go fuck themselves though. I will sympathize occasionally with hippies though. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen a hippie friend order the salad labelled vegetarian on the menu, have it come out with bacon or anchovies or something, and then have to argue with the wait staff when they send it back. If you're going to label it vegetarian on the menu - don't fucking serve it with bacon.
This, totally this. I hate going to places with friends and they think about skipping a restaurant they want to eat at because of me. I insist that we go and will eat whatever I can.
Focus: 17 - 21yr old AlmostGaunt: "Women are untrustworthy whores with silly, trivial interests. Why can't I meet and befriend any awesome ones?" I can laugh at myself now, but that selection bias cost me, and is still costing me, more than I like to think about. Alt focus: Actually, I eat consistently great food when I travel. It's when I'm at home that I have problems. Perth, Australia, is where watered down Westernized cuisines come to die. Good Mexican? Hahaha. Good Vietnamese? Epic lulz, white boy. Edible Chinese? Not on your life. Anything remotely exotic, e.g., Nepalese, Moroccan, Iranian etc? What'samatter you pretentious hippie fuck, you think you're better'n'us? Eat your generic pasta and suck a dick. Which reminds me: if anyone has a good Pho recipe, I will trade you many rep points.
I went to a really hippie university. One of the things that comes with being a hippie is not being able to shut up about your beliefs and your choices to others, and vegans were the worst if they were hippie vegans. However, I knew some people who went vegan to look sensitive for the hippie chicks, and they gained weight like nothing else because all they ate were potatoes and pasta. My favorite was a hippie girl I knew who went on the raw diet and gained about 45 pounds in 3 months because she was eating tons of fruit, avocado, and nuts.
Could you elaborate on this, because this is exactly how I feel about women to a fucking "T." You hit the nail on the head on that one, but how could thay be considered your fault? IMO they have done nothing to change that opinion of themselves, so how did you change, just become more complacent to the bullshit? And how had this costed you anything, even now?
If you are a vegan you are an asshole. If you are protesting THE OMG UNETHICAL TREATMENT OF CHICKENS by not eating eggs, you could probably have done better by voting with your wallet and purchasing eggs from a free-run farm or similar. It's not an embryo. It was never fertilized to begin with. And if you aren't protesting the unethical treatment of animals what the hell are you protesting? We can't take anything from animals ever anyway... because why? and how is it any different to take from a plant if you're going to view something so extremely? Vegetarianism, okay I can get that - you don't want an animal dead, evolution be damned I can at least understand this perspective even if I don't agree with it. But again, if you can't eat your tofurkey because it might have been nudged by my burger for a split second, you are again an asshole* - the animal is already dead, the likelyhood of crosscontamination is both small and irrelevant because it's already a dead animal. There's no Vegan Police who's going to judge you when you die who's going to say 'Oh shit son, you had a nanolitre of burger grease, you don't get to go to Veggie Heaven'. * discounting religious objections.
Ahem. Focus: When have you complained about something, only to realize it was your own fault? MANY, MANY times. Fuck. Too many to put up here. Example: Complaining about my chair I broke, mostly because these chairs are only tested for +/- 165 lbs. and I'm closer to 230 lbs. I've looked and there's simply no chairs for anyone who weighs above 165 lbs. here. Ridiculous. Alt-focus: Dietary issues while traveling. Couldn't find good brisket in India? Anxious for tasty Pho in London? Unable to google carrots + Kansas City? Braai'ed / barbequed meat. Everywhere I go on holiday, people offer me this. I cannot eat it - smoked meat (i.e. meat cooked in or around some form of smoke) is guaranteed to make me nauseous and, more often than not, I become a puke fountain - hence why I don't eat bacon.
I'm not AG, but my guess is that he means that the group of women that you interact with and the attitudes and behaviors that they display are largely predicated on or influenced by choice of venue and your own behavior. By saying "bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks" rather than "Perhaps I should reconsider where/how I am meeting women and how my half of our interaction is going," he didn't meet any awesome women.
I am born and raised in Kansas City, which is where the restaurants referenced in the article are located. I have been to all three many times. Golden Ox - Old school steakhouse. You can find better steaks in KC, but the atmosphere there is pretty cool Stroud's - Pan fried chicken restaurant. Really good chicken. Down home country cooking type place Bryant's - World famous BBQ. It's not my favorite BBQ but it is good. I have no idea why a vegetarian would go to any of these places and expect a good vegetarian meal. If I want a good hamburger, I don't go to a Chinese restaurant. BBQ is almost all beef and pork, and even the sides (like baked beans) have meat in them. I'm not a vegetarian, so I have no idea how difficult it might be to find good vegetarian options. But I do know that going to steakhouses and BBQ places is a bad idea.
He went because he's a snobbish asshole from the east coast who was just looking for the shallowist of pretexts possible to justify looking down his nose at midwestern cuisine/culture/lifestyle/whatever.
I'm not calling you out or anything but exchanges like this floor me because I'm around vegans/vegitarians all the time and I've never been party to a conversation like this. Honest question: Did these blowhards happen to be white, upper-middle class college aged individuals? I ask because when I think of all the stories I've read about conversations like these the one thing they seem to have in common is that the vegans where all a bunch of know-it-all college kids, which completely explains the attitude more than their dietary choices. Either that or neo-hippies. But neo-hippies suck regardless of any of their other attributes.
Focus: When have you complained about something, only to realize it was your own fault? Alt-focus: Dietary issues while traveling. Couldn't find good brisket in India? Anxious for tasty Pho in London? Unable to google carrots + Kansas City?[/quote] Whenever I visit friends in family in the Northeast they want to eat Mexican food. I go with an open mind because maybe they've found a diamond in the rough. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, and it'll be decent. Nope. It always sucks. Salsa should not = cold tomato paste. I complain to myself, but really, what do I expect?
I don't blame you for thinking that sounds far fetched, but as bad as it is, there's worse out there. Also, with a little google fu you can find vegetarianssaying similar things. Granted he's more eloquent than those two, and actually has a thought process, but he's still a nut job. To answer your question, yeah they were kids I met at college. I don't know if they were middle/upper/lower class/whatever. I'll admit, I do have a bias when it comes to this topic. My dad was plant manager for a meat company overseas, among other various positions he held in the industry throughout his career. Still, when I hear something like that I think I have an excuse. If you follow the story in the first link the vegans have a defense. I can't help, but feel disturbed when I read it though.