General Vegetarian FAQ

• Q. What is gelatin? 
• A. Read about it here.
• Q. What is bone char?
• A. Read about it here.
• Q. What is rennet / animal enzymes?
• A. Read about them here.
• Q. Kosher products?
• A. Check them carefully - but kosher isn’t always a bad thing!
• Q. Supplementary vegetarian foods?
• A. Here’s a list of meat alternatives that provide the same benefits you’d otherwise be denied in a vegetarian lifestyle: (for calcium) dairy, leafy greens (spinach), almonds, fortified juices, fortified milk alternatives, sesame seeds, broccoli, fortified soymilk, (for protein) tofu, cottage cheese [up to 14g of protein and 155mg of calcium per serving], beans/nuts/legumes, peanut butter, rice, corn, whole wheat breads/pastas, (for vitamin D) vegetarian-friendly vitamins, sunlight!, (for iron) legumes, broccoli, kale, turnip greens, collards, iron-enriched white bread, pasta, rice, cereals (for vitamin B-12) vegetarian-friendly vitamins, sea plants (like kelp), algaes (like blue-green algae), yeasts (like brewer’s yeast), and fermented plant foods (like tempeh, miso, or tofu).
• Q. What types of vegetarians are there?
• A. Vegan (no animal tissue or biproducts), ovo-vegetarians (eat eggs), lacto-vegetarians (eat dairy), ovo-lacto-vegetarians (eat eggs and dairy), raw vegans (only fresh produce), fruitarians (only fruits, nuts and food gathered without harm to the plant that produced it), Buddhist vegetarians (vegan; also no onions/garlic/scallions/etc), Jain vegetarians (includes dairy, excludes eggs, honey and root vegetables), pescetarians (eat seafood), pollotarians (eat poultry), pollo-pescetarians (eat seafood and poultry).

Personal FAQ

• Q. How long have you been a vegetarian?
• A. Since 1996, so, almost 14 years.
• Q. Are you a vegan?
• A. I do not eat eggs, but I do eat dairy. Coincidentally, I’m allergic to honey. 
• Q. Why are you a vegetarian?
• A. When I was five years old, I had a multiple-procedure surgery which was unrelated to my diet. After that, for some unknown reason, I stopped being able to eat/craving red meat. By the time I was eleven years old, I didn’t want meat of any kind, including seafood. As I’ve come into adulthood, I’ve become enormously more interested in the environmental and political aspects of vegetarianism.
• Q. Are your family vegetarians?
• A. My daughter (born December 24th, 2010) is a vegetarian, and will be until she decides otherwise. My husband has gone back and forth between vegetarianism and a mostly-meat Atkins diet. My parents were not vegetarians, but my mother (who passed away in 2002) didn’t eat red meat.
• Q. Do you support PETA?
• A. One of my “Vegetarian Confessions” was, “Peta isn’t always right. But they mean well.” I stand by that. I think they can be too zealous a lot of the time, which is counterproductive, but they’ve helped a lot of animals and people.

Have questions? Ask!