Have you ate enough red meat?

Today I saw something really funny on Facebook, as most people are aware you can post a status and express your thoughts or whatever on Facebook so your friends can see and comment.

One of my friends status was "has been so tired lately...tired and weak and like REALLY tired, what’s wrong with me!??"

The first comment by one or their friends was "have you been eating enough red meat?"

This is so funny it hurts. This is one of the most common perceptions that people have, that you can only get iron from red meat.

Here is a list of food and their iron content:
2 Eggs (100 g): 2 mg
Breakfast cereal (30 g): 2.5 mg
Whole meal bread (60 g - 2 slices): 1.4 mg
Spinach (145 g cooked): 4.4 mg
Lentils/kidney beans (100 g cooked): 2.5 mg
Tofu (100 g): 1.9mg
Sultanas (50 g): 0.9 mg
Dried apricots (50 g): 2.0 mg
Almonds (50 g): 2.1 mg

Now, people think eating some mince will give them iron they need well according to the site I’m pulling figures from beef only contains 4 mg of iron per 100 grams. Therefore according to these results that spinach contains more iron than beef.

I eat vegie burgers from Sanitarium and they are yummy. Per serve (per burger) they contain 3.3mg of iron and per 100 grams they contain 3.5 mg.

I think the backward thinking that you can only get iron from meat is stupid. People who say this are usually either butchers or associated with the murder factory.

Not convienced? Read the information from a trusted article provided by the Australian goverment

Food suitable for a vegetarian...

I moved over to Australia in October 2000 after believing in the "better life" Australia can provide for my future children so I moved over with my parents.

When I was in England I found it extremely easy to shop for vegetarian items. All you had to do is flip the product over and see a big green V that represents that an item is suitable.

When I arrived in Australia on the 16th of October I didn't know how hard it would be for me to be a veggie. The first time I went shopping I was heart broken because a lot of snacks I got in England for veggies didn't exist in Oz.

As the years living here went on I started to find it a lot easier with more vegetarian awareness existed and some companies started to take the English trend of following the big V.

Mind you, it still is hard, I have to read the ingredients to identify with any meat byproducts exist.

See, here in Australia you can actually sell food at food outlets without actually knowing what is in them which makes it hard to eat out.

The other day I found something in the frozen section that seemed yummy. Gnocchi!

So I read the ingredients of the product because it was tomato based and me thinking oh there shouldn't be any meat products in it but their was animal fat in it.

WHY WHY WHY do companies have to do this? Make something that could be suitable for a veggie have an animal by-product in it.

I am hoping the food standards in Australia will start labeling things better.

Even better I brought a vegetarian pizza once and the product contained cheese so I got home and called the company. After 40 minutes on the phone I actually found out the vegetarian pizza had animal rennet in it.

Lucky I got a refund!

If you don't like chicken...

One advert that really does piss me off is that Ingham’s advert “if you don’t like chicken then there’s something wrong with you”. This advert is played all the time and seriously I don’t understand that how an advert could be shown.

This advert is insulting to people who do not eat chicken. Ingham believes that someone who decides to make a choice not to eat chicken is mentally unstable.

I have been a vegetarian, by personal choice since I was 4 after asking my parents where meat comes from.

I find these adverts that seem to represent a feeling that you must eat meat for a balanced diet, thoughts like this are from the stone age.

I love to eat meat alternative products as I believe an animal shouldn’t suffer so we can get fat.

I decided to call the Queensland office of Ingham today around 4 PM and got a security guard. He told me to call during business hours. I thought 4 PM was still considered a business hour considering most office jobs start between 8 am and finish around 6 pm.

The reason why there is something wrong with me because I don’t like chicken is:
1. Cage hens
2. Live transport of chickens
3. Unfit living conditions