It used to be stuff for my vaping. It is better than smoking, but still a waste of money. I quit last year though!
Congrats my dude! That nicotine is a hard habit to break and I’m super proud of you for getting out from under it!
I still get cravings. Pretty sure that’ll never go away
One day, I ran out of nicotine, and simply stopped adding it to my liquid instead of buying more. Still vaping, but no nicotine. I did vape for 10 years with (small amounts) of nicotine, though. Started with 25mg, but had been at 3mg for many years now.
But you feel guilty about smoking?
I felt guilty spending all that money to literally go up in smoke, going outside to feed that addiction while my wife was inside with our kid.
Now I felt awkward for even asking. But I never saw it that way.
Literally everything. I hate living under a system where my options are
- repeatedly consume products which cause death and the destruction of our environment
- move out into the woods and live as an isolated hermit
- die
I’m…I’m just so tired.
Amen.
And it’s just so much worse if it’s something I don’t actually need and is on the pricey side… Like, I enjoy those canned Starbucks nitro cold brew drinks. I feel guilty wanting to buy them, I feel guilty about how many I want to put in my cart, and I feel guilty when I drink them.
I’m so fucking sick by it, too.
I don’t have a problem with 2, it’s just not an option without having plenty of money first.
Some of my frequent grocery purchases come in single use plastics. I wish there was another way :(.
Try searching for a “refillery” or refill station near you. They are stores where you bring reusable containers with you to fill with goods. They usually have a limited selection but it’s something and it helps.
I’ve been doing that for things like shampoo and detergents. But unfortunately I’ve got celiacs. All my food HAS to be packaged so that I know it’s safe to eat.
Meat… :( We could all live without, but this damn learned behavior…
Don’t try to eat less meat, try to eat more veggie. I know it’s technically the same but the thought process is different. Before you know it, you had weeks without meat.
I have a lot of asian friends and their meals are always the opposite of typical American meals. It’s a ton of veggies/rice with meat as a ‘topping’ rather than meat being the centerpiece with veggies as sides. I’d love to incorporate that more but I love meat so much…
Have you actually tried making vegetarian meals at home?
I did to some degree. I have some issues with certain fruits and vegetables due to their fructose and alditole composition. So it’s not so easy for me, yet, but I made lasagna with alternative minced meat and oat milk, chili ‘con’ carne with the same minced meat, once with wheat basis, more times with peas. Sushi without fish or meat. But originally and natural vegetarian meals, I guess not really. At least I can’t remember right now.
Start easy, cut out 1 animal you don’t eat too much of and go from there. Once I stopped eating beef, pork and lamb I felt weird about eating chicken, so just stopped altogether! (amongst other reasons)
Good luck on your journey!
That’s a great idea!
Another thing that helped was to hold of ‘recreating’ your favourite dishes by making them veggie/vegan, at least to start with. Since you’ll have just given up meat, you’ll be directly comparing to the meat counterpart.
There are so many amazing veggie and vegan dishes out there, have a go at making some of them first. After all you want to give yourself the best chance possible.
It certainly takes a lot of effort to change your eating behaviour, but I’ve certainly felt a lot better after making the change. Good luck and remember to start small! :)
Great advice overall! Thank you! Hopefully others can make some small changes, too. :) Step by step. But completely stopping on recreating meals is really tough, at least for me.
No worries! Yeah for sure I get that, if it doesn’t work for you then it doesn’t work, just gotta try and make the transition as easy as possible, so knowing what works for you is always the best :)
I did so for greenhouse gases reasons. First I stopped with beef, never enjoyed lamb (poor young thing), and several others. Pork pretty much, too, but sometimes I still eat it, same with chicken. Not at home, there are amazing alternatives for sausage and ‘meat’. But when eating at restaurants, I have issues eating vegan or vegetarian due to some intolerances. And eggs are still a problem for me. But I buy from a source where male hatchlings are not getting shredded.
Same reasons I stopped initially too! I think just being concious about what you’re putting in your body is always a good thing, and if you’re still eating meat / eggs / dairy, knowing where those things come from and how they’re actually harvested is good.
Like you say, sustainably sourced eggs are great! I love eggs so much, always a treat when I get them when we’re out for food!
You could reduce your mince meat consuption by adding TVP/ soy protein crumble in it. This is what some fast food places actually do and people don’t notice the difference unless they hear about it. There are also many vegan proteins in freezer section in many stores. Tofu can be super delicious once you learn how to cook it. I think cooking yummy tofu is sign of good chef.
So far I exchanged minced meat by bought alternatives of peas and wheat. With differing textures and formes and I really enjoy them in my meals. I still need to learn to process and cook more with tofu. What I learned already some months ago, you need to press tofu with some weight for half an hour, potentially freeze it to further reduce their water by open pores, and then cook it in some sauce so that it can absorb the taste. Made sense afterwards, but always wondered how they got their taste. Good advice!
The alternatives we have nowadays are so varied and some are really great at mimicking the flavour and mouth-feel of meat!
I have tried like 5 different vegan meat things now and they ranged from bad (the times they involved cheese, my god vegan cheese sucks) to “ok, but would rather just eat something that is vegan without trying to be fake meat.”
Is there any particular type of product that’s good? Brands will probably only help if you’re also in germany, but maybe fake chicken is just the wrong fake meat to buy.
A lot of them have just as much saturated fat as their meat counterparts, and can be chock-full of inflammatory seed oils. Not exactly ‘healthy.’
Can you get Impossible brand in Germany?
I would argue we shouldn’t live without it, but it does need to be cut back and less glorified. There are soo many alternatives that are healthier, cheaper, better for environment but you should still be able to have a medium rare steak and some chicken wings when you want it.
Am veggie. Agree.
well as of the ethics doing a bad thing once is still having done a bad thing, but I guess sure if you want to decrease animal suffering the fastest realistic way, getting 10 people to reduce their consumption trumps 3 people completely cutting their meat consumption. (yet you’ll still have 10 people exploiting animals for their “products” who should be living without doing just that. vegan btw)
The only thing wrong with your arguement is many don’t believe eating meat is unethical.
You are completely correct that you will get more change getting people to reduce consumption than eliminate it
As a vegetarian, we can all tell that you’re vegan. The disclaimer wasn’t necessary.
This aggressive behavior and labeling isn’t productive if your goal is to persuade people to try something entirely new to them (remove meat from their diet).
Yeah they could have left out the whole judgemental thing about animal suffering and be more encouraging. Instead they chose to be an insufferable, smug and arrogant microaggressor.
Who said anything about animal suffering? I feel like this is more about personal health…
Same! I would like to be vegan but i love a great steak, or burger, or…
nah, meat is great. Just the sourcing of it is not so great. Get your meat from a local butcher where you know where the animal came from.
Or better yet, if you have the space, time and money: get your own livestock.I talked to my vegan son about buying meat from local farms. He got mad at me for wanting to only kill the happy cows.
Wow, your son has a point 😂
the animals don’t care wether their dead corpse is shipped to you from Argentina or from your local butcher that is just such a nice and friendly guy :^) they’d prefer not having their throat slit by anyone at all
They do care about how they lived their lives though. And I’d much rather like an animal which could roam around almost freely and enjoy its short life instead of one locked up in a tiny box in which it can barely move, suffering until its death.
Agreed. Ideally, the animals you eat have only one bad day in their entire life.
You apparently don’t know that most of the time, their throat is not slit to kill them, but rather animals are shot with a pneumatic bolt. Stay with the facts and you sound less aggressive.
-Fast food. It’s so expensive.
-Alcohol. It’s unhealthy, and I use it as a crutch when I’m feeling bad.
-Animal products, due to climate change.
Kombucha taste close enough to alcohol, that sometimes I end up not drinking any at all
Switch to the premade microwave meals, semi healthier. You can get these at the store or even delivered.
For alcohol, I went down the expensive seltzer water/soda route to curve that. I still have wine and a beer, but not much really.
Animal products… You can just reduce, maybe do over meatless day for all the meals. It’s not much, but something.
I’ve had a lot of microwave meals and I can’t say that any one has ever come close to the appeal of fast food. Usually they’re watery vegetables and a microwaved porkchop or something. At least buy a decent frozen pizza.
In the US, we have a service called cook unity (and others) and it’s pretty good. I do know what you mean for other microwave food, which taste close to airplane food.
I can share how to manage meals, even while drunk!
McDonalds. I have food at home and it’s expensive. But damn I get a craving for it
That might be your gut microbiome craving it. You can re-anchor your microbiome with new bacteria but it takes about a week or two.
I start getting cravings for strawberry banana smoothies with spinach now. Or berry smoothies. Costco sells unflavored yogurt and milk in bulk, same wity big bags of frozen berries. It’s typically replaced desserts for me because they are filling. (I also have one of those bullet shaped blenders where the lid becomes a drink cup. I have a few cups so I can just rinse the blades and then throw the cup in the dishwasher. )
I used to have those same cravings, so I know how it feels!
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The link doesn’t work on Connect/msybe my phone, lol.
Starbucks coffee, and even more so, their tea. Just doesn’t seem like a good use of my money, since I can make it at home for a lot less money.
And the one made at home is probably better too. Starbucks coffee kinda sucks, especially at that price point
I felt guilty for buying a fancy coffee machine but it’s probably paid for itself over the last few years.
Energy drinks. I havw an addiction and not in the joke way.
One Rockstar a day for me. Definitely an addiction.
I drink between 8 and 10. Im actually scared and when i dont drink them my chest hurts.
You need to break yourself of that. I was at two a day for a few years and often suffered withdrawals.
How did u do it?
I stock up on those things, they’re damn expensive! But I just think about how I feel when I drink too many, the fact that it is controlling me, not the other way around and reject that. If you drink eight a day, cut back to seven, then six and so on. You’ll get there.
Takeout. I get it a few times a week and always feel a bit guilty about it. I like supporting the local businesses but it’s expensive and the plastic containers aren’t great.
Drugs, probably.
Spent a few k on k alone.
Add up everything over the years and I’m at least 1,000,000 pennies poorer.
More good times than bad but I still feel a bit guilty when I crunch the numbers.
I do feel guilty for the amount of weed i buy. I have a couple of pounds sitting in jars, but can’t resist the next sale on something new.
Cookies… They hate when i eat something else but sometimes i do like some good old fashioned Dino Nuggets.
Ice cream. I’m addicted.
Furniture.
Not the products themselves, but the amount of packaging to throw away every time I buy a new chair or shelving unit that comes wrapped in layers of foam and plastic. Makes me guilty how much waste there is. But buying second hand isn’t always an option.
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Micro-transactions in that one game I play.
I can easily afford it, so it’s not like I’m gambling away my family’s savings or something. However… At $10-20 a pop they aren’t so “micro” anymore. And I know it’s bad that I’m encouraging this predatory tactic. The money probably doesn’t even make it to the developers. But they’re freakin’ ships from Star Trek! I can’t help myself.
