"content expert" on mundane vegetarianism here

[khrysso]

If you ever find yourself including a vegetarian character in a story and want a reality-check on how real-life non-gourmet vegetarians eat and think, please feel welcome to hit me up. I've been all over the vegetarian gamut during the last 15 years: nearly vegan, ovolacto, lacto. Now I'm ovolactopesco (eggs, dairy, and swimming creatures), but as

Comments

[longlongwaytogo]

welcome. :)
One of my vegetarian friends seems to eat absolutely horribly.

[khrysso]

Yup. Nobody said that vegetarians requires commitment to good nutrition. Veg*anism /= health-nuthood. There's *lots* of meatless junk food out there!

[longlongwaytogo]

Yeah. It just surprises people a lot. So it'd be good to have people in fiction eating equally badly. But instead they're eating all sorts of fancy stuff. My friend is vegetarian, allergic to nuts, and hates mushrooms. She seems to live mainly on potatoes, and cheese related things. :P And junk.

[khrysso]

Maybe you could look up recipes for raw-foodists if you want something that seems somehow exotic. Or maybe for fruitarians...

[torainfor]

Oooh, I have a whole fleet of vegetarians. My premise is that all waste products on the ship (space) are re-used, and the poo from meat-eating creatures is harder to process so, on board, everyone's a vegetarian.

Yes? No? Maybe so?

[khrysso]

I'd say yes, it is a reasonable conclusion that animal-free digestive waste (even from humans) is less complicated to compost than digestive waste that includes animal flesh.

["Clinical" content warning: ] An interesting piece of information on this topic that I think we often don't think about is that digestive waste includes more than just what we just ate. We were all taught in biology class that our cells are always replicating and dying, but I don't remember ever being told how those dead cells leave our body. Hence, even people who fast for long periods of time might have to do #2 from time to time: even though their stomachs may be shut down, their intestines still have maintenance work to do every day.

[End "clinical" content.]

So yeah, I think that your premise definitely asks you to consider these factors, and that the lines on which your thinking has developed could be very relevant to the unfolding of your story.

[torainfor]

Thanks!

[sublunarfields]

I haven't introduced myself yet, but this might be a good time. I'm a vegan and have been for several years, so I would probably be able to answer most of your questions about a vegan diet, if anyone's interested.

[sageharper]

Hi :)
I've been vegetarian for just shy of five years now, one of my better life choices. Good to know there are others around here.

Where abouts you? Guessing that'll add a diffrent slant on things (I'm in England).

[khrysso]

I invite you to view my profile. The answer to your question is easy to find in it...