smonster, are you having any symptoms other than the tummy ache? Headache, fever, dizziness, or anything else?

eta: On the leave front, it IS because you are that fucking awesome. Was there any doubt?

I used to be much better at cooking semi-vegetarian at home (for health and carbon footprint reasons) and then we had a kid and it turns out that cooking meatcentric meals is really really easy. You can just stick a whole chicken in the oven with no peeling or chopping or anything! So eventually I had to join a CSA to save myself from malnutrition.

Growing up with one sister vegetarian and half my family lactose intolerant meant we always had at least a couple vegan dishes on the table. And even now that I'm cooking for omnivores, I really like having a few dishes without bacon fat or heavy cream, just to cleanse the palate.

My family was really supportive when I went semi-vegetarian. It helped that I still ate a bit of fish when I wasn't in my own home. After eight years I went back to meat eating, but I found so many delicious meat free meals that I'll frequently go inadvertently vegetarian.

I'm glad your trip leave got approved, smonster. Hope the stomach settles down soon.

I've just spent three months being a pescetarian cooking for an omnivore. A lot of the time I'd just make two main courses and share the sides. We managed pretty well.

Trudy, are you back in New York?

No, a few weeks to go.

I toyed with a trip to the Keys before I leave, but now I think I just want to get home.

If a vegan or vegetarian makes you feel guilty about eating dead animals, you really shouldn't be doing it.

I get not eating meat. I just don't get not eating BACON. That makes no sense.

I'd have an admittedly hard time going vegan. I love dairy.

I could go vegetarian and have at times inadvertently. Except there is ALWAYS a bacon clause. Always.

Weirdly, it was watching my diet more closely that got me cooking and eating more meat. But it's a personal choice and I think everyone should get to make it on their own.

If a vegan or vegetarian makes you feel guilty about eating dead animals, you really shouldn't be doing it.

I've only felt guilty when a meatavore made me feel really bad about dinner after they explained the yummy meat was rabbit. I was young and had been outside playing with the rabbits just before dinner.

I come from a cold culture with an even colder mother who killed animals on a daily basis. I figured from way back that if I wasn't mentally prepared to kill it myself, I shouldn't be eating it. Which is why I avoided eating lobster for a long time--killing them freaked me out.

But that's my personal line. I sure wouldn't want to kill all my own meat. But I can't even grow my own herbs, so I'm not about to become self-sustaining any time soon.

Having grown up in farm country, it always makes me blink when people get upset by thinking that their food was once an animal. It's their right to be upset, of course, but the ones who try to make me feel guilty for eating one of God's creatures generally get roundly mocked by me. Don't quibble with me about my chicken and sausage, and I won't go into my spiel about subsistence farming and herding and how tricky it can be to get good veggies and meat substitutes in the veldt and the Arctic.