[PetSounds]

Hi all, I am a fairly new vegetarian (since Jan.)

I have never really eaten red meat in my whole life, and so that was easy to give up.

After driving cross-country, I got horrible food poisoning from undercooked chicken. I threw up and had diarrhea for 10 days straight and couldn't really eat chicken again after that.

I recently had soup that had a chicken base and I was unaware of it.

Once again I had diarrhea for an entire day. Has this happened to any of you?

I'm just curious.

 

[SummerSn0ws]

Has this happened, you mean has a non vegetarian item sneaked its way into my body? Yup. I know I ate breath mints that had gelatin in them, and didn't know till later that they did. And a sushi chef who knew I was veg asked me if I ate cheese, then gave me a roll with crab in it (and I didn't realize it until after I bit into it). He apologized for that. I'm sure there's a bazillion times where I ate something improper without knowing it, and I'm sure it will happen again. I don't worry about it though, and just do the best I can.

 

[Maire Ciara]

My friend had been vegetarian for several years. For some reason, she decided to go back to being omni.

Her first omni meal was a sandwich heavy on the meat. Within 5 minutes she was in the bathroom. Her stomach just couldn't handle the heaviness of the meat. It's normal from what I hear.

I've always gotten sick after eating pork or beef.

 

[SonicIggy]

I haven't had anything big slip it's way into my food yet, but during my first week of vegetarianism I ate a salad with Caesar dressing. As it turns out Caesar dressing contains anchovies, who knew. Kind of made me paranoid about reading labels, which in turn has saved me a few times.

 

[ketivnilloc]

my first week as a vegetarian, i got pizza from school. it looked like normal cheese pizza. it wasn't. it was barbeque chicken pizza. yeah....total surprise, since my school only serves cheese. i was really mad when it happened though

 

[Lani]

Yea mostly the accidents happen when I trust restaurants to cook my food. Like when I go to my favorite thai place and be sure to tell them to give me a veggie spring roll and instead get one stuffed with crab meat. Grrrrr Or getting soup from somewhere and asking them 3 times if it's vegetarian and they say yes only to find it has bacon in it or made with chicken stock *sigh* And yes after only being veg*n for 4 months, eating just a few spoons of that soup had me in the bathroom being sick

Probably moreso in my head though than stomach but still. Sucks. I tend not to eat out too much anymore.

 

[meatless]

I haven't had any "accidents" with meat, but I'm pretty sure starbucks used cow's milk in my soy latte a couple weeks ago. After drinking it I had horrid stomach cramps for about an hour. It was intensely painful. I haven't knowingly consumed cow's milk products in nearly two years and I consume soy nearly daily, so I'm guessing they screwed up my order.

 

[Eclipse]

I honestly don't know how anyone avoids this issue. I am under the impression it happens to everyone eventually whether they are aware of it or not.

 

[evilvegan]

Yah, my mom bought be a microwavable bowl of hot and sour soup, and after I ate it, I finally read the label and it had lots of icky animal parts in it. That was a bad night. Wasn't on purpose though.

These things happen to a lot of vegheads.

 

[cftwo]

I haven't been sick from accidentally eating meat, but I have found out later that things had meat in them.

My "rules":

1) ALWAYS read the labels, even when I'm at friends' houses

2) Soups are always suspect in restaurants - unless it's a vegetarian restaurant, I simply don't order them

We all learn these things the hard way - you have to learn to forgive yourself and learn from your mistakes.

 

[meatless]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Another time we used a couple packages of Vegan Supreme marshmallows.... they were made by a vegan company and marketed as 100% vegan. About a week later the story broke that their vegan "gelatin" provider had lied and was actually selling the company regular gelatin and saying it was vegan. I was pretty disgusted, but i didn't feel guilty or anything... why would I?

Really though, you'd think you can't go wrong buying a vegan product from a vegan company, but apparently you can!

 

[Obladiblada]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cftwo

2) Soups are always suspect in restaurants

Yeah, I learned that one the hard way. I ordered minestrone soup, thinking that it was always vegetarian, since I'd never had it any other way. When I got it I thought it looked suspiciously like there was some meat broth in there, but took a sip anyway, and yup, it was cooked in chicken broth.

Oops!

 

[Goofy]

How can you tell meat broth from vegetarian by looking?

 

[SummerSn0ws]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goofy

How can you tell meat broth from vegetarian by looking?

By looking, I don't think you can. I know I can't.

 

[Keelin]

Sometimes you can tell by smell/colour if it's a very brothy soup.. but mostly you can't. You really have to ask. (Plus a lot of bouillon cubes that are 'chicken' or 'beef' are actually vegan, so even if you're sure it's animal-based it could not be.)

 

[Obladiblada]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goofy

How can you tell meat broth from vegetarian by looking?

Vegetarian minestrone soup is usually red, but this soup was more clear, yellowish, hence my suspicion. But, no you can't tell for sure just by looking, that's why I still took a sip.

 

[Jessica Alana]

Quote:

Originally Posted by meatless

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Another time we used a couple packages of Vegan Supreme marshmallows.... they were made by a vegan company and marketed as 100% vegan. About a week later the story broke that their vegan "gelatin" provider had lied and was actually selling the company regular gelatin and saying it was vegan. I was pretty disgusted, but i didn't feel guilty or anything... why would I?

Really though, you'd think you can't go wrong buying a vegan product from a vegan company, but apparently you can!

I used to love those. They were $5-$6 a bag (plus shipping), too. I was SO pissed when that news got out. Aside from finding out I'd been eating animal parts all that time (I bought a lot of them,) I was pissed i'd been paying that much when all I was doing was pretty much eating jet-puffed.

 

[ratmom]

I remember a few years ago I had a cold and hubby bought some so called vegetarian boullion, the same stuff we always buy. I never realized after I was eating it a few times that it was chicken and mislabeled, I was so mad. I never noticed, because I couldn't taste too good at the time LOL. I complained to the company and they sent me free coupons for it. I always read labels though and never go to restaurants I haven't been to one in probably 5 years or more.

 

[Kimber]

This kinda stuff used to happen to me a lot.

Now I'm overly conscious about labels and inspecting my food before I eat it.

Once, I had rice that was steamed in chicken stock at a dinner party...ick.

I've eaten a lot of things containing gelatin on accident, too. :/

Also, when I was younger, my mom told me to try her salad, so she fed me a bite. I was completely unaware that it contained small bacon bits, so I said, "Ew...this tastes weird." I then realized it had bacon and I spit it out all over the place. Not the most polite thing to do, heh.

 

[kpickell]

Argh, I accidentally bought the wrong flavor of Hamburger Helper!!! I like Hamburger Helper because it's quick and easy. Most of the flavors are vegetarian, but there are a couple that aren't, and I just realized I bought one of the non-vegetarian ones.

I realized this as I was cooking it because it didn't look like any ones I've tried before, the sauce was white while I was expecting it to be brown, so I reread the ingredients and sure enough on my second rereading of the ingredients I notice "beef fat". I always read the ingredients every time I buy them, but somehow I missed that. Now I'm not sure whether to throw this batch away, eat it, or feed it to the dogs, because it's done cooking now. Ugh, that makes me mad.