Tea Lovers who are also Vegetarian!
I’m not a full vegetarian, I guess if I wanted to be technical, I would be considered a pescatarian (essentially a vegetarian who’s diet also consists of seafood). I’ve been going at it for about a year and a half roughly.
There were a few things that led me to being a pescatarian, but I’d say the main two reasons would be 1.) Health: I was never too good on trying to be healthy, and I wanted to change that. And this is a lot healthier than eating all those meats and everything with saturated fats and things that weren’t good for me. And 2.) I just couldn’t give up sushi. I love sushi so much, I just don’t think I could go without eating it on a regular basis. haha.
Oh, and here is an interesting article I read not too long ago that all other vegetarians should take a look at….. Try and make sure that whenever you buy soy products that it is organic soy.
http://www.nerve.com/scanner/2010/04/19/bad-news-for-health-nuts-deadly-neurotoxins-found-in-veggie-burgers
Great information. Guess I will have to clean out my freezer some.
yeah, i went and looked in mine after reading this and NONE of the morningstar products that I had in there were made with organic soy. So, i’m like, whatever, i don’t wanna throw this stuff away, i’ll finish off the 6 burgers that I have and just make sure i only buy organic from now on…
in case you want more info, that link also links you to a PDF with more info on hexane and has a big list of companies that use it and companies that don’t. I was kinda sad to see yve’s and amy’s kitchen on there…
Thanks for the great information. I will do the same. Finish up what I have and then buy organic going forward. A bummer indeed.
I believe it’s best in general to stick with whole soy foods, e.g., miso, tofu and edamame, and avoid highly processed soy. I used to practically live on Boca Burgers, but no more!
Thanks Garrett, this is a really informative report. I didn’t see a scorecard for the various companies, though
but if one is vegan, one could never have tea with milk, and the two are just made for each other. it’s not the same having tea with soy milk or almond milk, what self respecting, proper english tea person would have tea without real milk??
i recommend hazelnut flavored and sweetened non-diary creamers. they’re really good. and you get the hazelnut as an added bonus. nothing like a flavorful squirt of artificial to make my day!
I use some soy creamer (silk brand) and don’t notice any difference.
I agree, Kristin. I’m not a vegan, but I still prefer soy milk, and it is delicious in my tea. Almond milk is great too. I haven’t tried soy creamer – I would imagine that would be very tasty, especially in chai.
Same here. Though I’m not a vegan, I love soy milk (especially vanilla-flavored). My mom is lactose intolerant, so I just got used to drinking it since we always had it in the house. I was surprised to find that I like it a lot better than dairy milk!
I’m not Vegan but I don’t drink Milk to ‘drink it’ – I prefer Almond Milk over Soy or regular Milk…3X the Calcium of reg milk! BUT…I don’t drink milk/milk alts in my tea…plain jane tea drinker here! :P
I was quite intrigued by your “3x the calcuim of reg milk” comment so I checked the brand I drink, Smart Balance. The lactose free version (they don’t have soy) has 35%DV of calcuim and the regular fat free has 40%. I wonder how other brands of of lactose free milk compare…
oh hi cofftea! i have now officially become a flavored tea convert! why, just last week, i went and bought every flavored tea out there. my goal is to replicate the range of natural food flavors that one finds in a regular diet and replace the real thing with the flavored tea equivalent.
so, for example, if i am craving eggs over easy for breakfast with bacon and sausage and lots of melted cheese, i would first have the egg flavored tea, followed by the bacon and sausage flavored tea and then the cheese flavored tea.
so so good! i love it! it’s so fantastic, i could cry.
Chiming in here! I was a vegetarian for four years, but I’m now pescetarian — I started eating fish/seafood about a year ago to make the move to Japan a little easier on myself.
Yo,
Vegetarian for 7.5 years,
tea drinker for 2.5 of those.
I wouldn’t say it was a health-conscious connection, though.
Turned vegetarian in the sixth grade for ethical sake, got into tea purely out of curiosity. To be honest, despite a load of research over the years, I’m still shaky on the health benefits of different teas.
I agree JMKauftheil. I mean yes, tea does have amazing health benefits, but I think they’re pretty much all the same no matter what (true) tea you drink. Although, I’m hoping and praying Pu Erh has the detoxifying and cholesterol lowering qualities they say it does. I don’t seem to find a lot of sources that say that about the other typs of tea.
Meat eater here – red meat. But I’d be interested in hearing what the favorite tea of vegetarians is. My guess would be green tea!
rooibos, oolong, and herbal for me. Green tea gives me migraines.
Pretty much anything! Depends on my mood, actually. Not fond of tarty, fruity herbals or Medicine-E Herbals…but minty Herbals – YES! I start almost every day with a Black or Black Flavored but then progress to all the other types as well! LOL
I’m not a vegetarian, but I do not care for red meat (except for hamburger)… but I quite enjoy ManTeas’ Smoky Bacon- although I can only have one cup at at time. Explain that lol:)
Anything really. I’d have to say though, I’m usually quite fond of rooibos, oolongs, and green teas…
Interesting – why do you say green tea? I guess if I had to come up with a color to represent vegetarians, I might pick green. :)
I like lots of varieties of tea, but my favorites are black teas (with or without flavors), and herbal teas. I like green tea, but I usually only drink it when I drink tea mid-day, which is somewhat sporadically. I prefer black tea with breakfast, and herbal or maybe a flavored decaf black in the evening.
I’m vegetarian. I don’t bother to count years, since there were years I ate poultry and fish when I was younger and a teen. Probably at least a decade of being veggie.
I’m a pseudo-vegetarian, as I still consume chicken & seafood. But I cut red meat from the diet 14 years ago, so I suppose that counts for something ;)
Forgive me if someone finds this insulting as that is NOT my intention, but for anyone interested, I read somewhere (in The Ultimate Tea Diet by Mark Ukra possibly), that there are cancer causing agents that form when read meat is cooked, but as they only form on the exterior of the meat, they can be avioded by coating the meat in a tea rub. I absolutely respect one’s decision to be vegetarian/vegan for whatever reason you have, but I thought it was interesting enough to mention.
While I respect your decision to eat meat, but I’m a bit perplexed as to why you chose to post this tip about preparing meat in a thread about being vegetarian? Perhaps it would find a better audience in the “Cooking with tea” thread?
Because some vegeterians or people that just abstain from red meat do so because of these cancer causing agents and I though people would be interested to know that there’s a way to block those agents- especially with tea, even if they still choose to abstain from it.
The “cancer causing agents” is the charred meat on the outside of cooked meat. The char is technically carcinogenic, but so are toast, grilled veggies, and all sorts of food that is mildly burnt/toasted/grilled/cooked. If you covered the red meat with a tea rub, the tea would get charred (although I believe the meat would, too, to an extent); and consuming that crust would be consuming the same amount of carcinogens. This is just a case of science being twisted and misrepresented to sell a product (in this case, tea rubs and a diet book).
I was pescatarian, leaning toward full time vegetarianism before going to Africa for a year and a half. Deep bush type stuff. I was having trouble giving up sushi. Africa did me in, but I’ve gradually been leaning back toward pescatarianism as first red meat was removed from my diet and now I’m down to chicken just about once a week. I don’t generally do things cold turkey as I founda gradual phase out tends to agree with my body better.
Update: In another note, the tea master I met in Taiwan, and several others since then have told me that in order to more fully appreciate tea’s flavours, aromas and chi it is best to be vegetarian as meat tends to dull our tastebuds and other senses and tends to interfere with the energy flow in our bodies. Just thought that was an interesting factoid!
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