Health
EP282 Vegan Or Vegetarian? | Global View
In this episode of EnglishPod, hosts Marco and Catherine explore the differences between being vegan and vegetarian, discussing dietary choices and the challenges faced by individuals following these ...
EP282 Vegan Or Vegetarian? | Global View
Health •
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Interactive Transcript
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Hello everyone and welcome to EnglishPod. My name is Marco. My name is Catherine and today
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we're talking about eating food and certain foods that people don't eat. That's right.
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So today we have special diets. We're going to talk all about being a vegetarian or a vegan
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and we're going to explain all these words when we come back. So now let's just listen
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to the dialogue.
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Hey Julie, do you want to go grab some to eat?
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Sure. What do you feel like having?
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I really feel like having a big juicy steak.
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Oh, okay. I don't eat meat but that's fine. I'm sure wherever we're going they will
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have other options, right?
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I didn't know you were a vegetarian.
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I'm not. I'm a vegan.
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Oh what?
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A vegan. I don't eat or use any animal based products. I don't wear leather, eat eggs, drink
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milk or anything that comes from an animal. I used to be a pescatarian before which basically
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means you don't eat meat but still have fish and seafood.
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Wow, that's interesting. It must be tough.
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It's a bit difficult to find vegetarian friendly restaurants sometimes but since more and
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more people are vegetarians or vegans nowadays it's getting a bit less difficult.
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All right, we're back. So now probably a lot of you have an idea of what it means to be
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a vegetarian but let's take a look at that word and many more on language takeaway.
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Language takeaway.
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So a vegetarian is a noun. I am a vegetarian.
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Vegetarian is a noun to person. You say I am a vegetarian. He is a vegetarian.
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And in this case a vegetarian person does not eat meat. So no chicken, no beef, none of that stuff.
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That's right. So as you can see it has the prefix vegetable. So that's what they just eat
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vegetables.
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And it's a little bit hard to say what vegans don't all... sorry. It's a little bit hard to say what all
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vegetarians do or don't eat because some people have different rules. That's right.
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Some people eat eggs, some people don't. But there is something that is a little bit different
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from a vegetarian. It's called a vegan and this person has many, many rules about what
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he can or cannot eat.
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Right. So if vegetarian basically does not eat meat, a vegan as we saw in our dialogue
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doesn't wear leather for example, doesn't wear leather shoes or a jacket or use or eat
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anything that comes from an animal. That's right. So no eggs, right? No foods that might have any
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animal products in them. So vegans often try to find foods at the grocery store that come from
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natural products that are not animal based. And so there has to be a symbol on the back of the
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box or the jar that says it is vegan. That's right. So in that case they don't drink milk,
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they don't eat eggs, nothing that you can think of that comes from an animal. But on the other
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hand, this person used to be a pescatarian. So this is another type of person that has a special
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diet, very much like a vegetarian. A pescatarian is a person who is a vegetarian but who also eats fish.
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And so maybe I'm a pescatarian because I don't consider fish to be animals. Okay. So I don't eat
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lamb. I don't eat chicken, but I do eat fish. I'm a pescatarian. All right. So a vegetarian does
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not eat fish or any type of meat the same as a vegan, but a pescatarian does eat maybe shrimp
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and fish and any type of animal from the sea. Okay. And well, that brings us up to our next word.
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A pescatarian will eat seafood. Sea food is a word we use to describe animals that come from
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the sea. So not just fish. Also, like you said, shrimp and lobster. You could even think of
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really delicious food like a seafood pasta or seafood salad octopus, things like that. Okay. So
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you got clams, you have oysters, anything that comes from the sea is considered seafood. Right.
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That's right. And our last word in language takeaway is an adjective. We heard at the end of the
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dialogue. Our character said, it must be tough. Right. Okay. Now tough is an interesting word because
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in English, it has a few different meanings, but what was the meaning of the word tough in today's
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dialogue? In today's dialogue, when the person said it must be tough, it's basically saying it
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must be difficult. It must be difficult to be a vegetarian. Right. So it's a hard situation.
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You could also say, oh man, this homework is really tough. That means it's hard. It's difficult.
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All right. Great. So we've taken a look at a lot of keywords there. What, when you take a break,
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listen to our dialogue again and we'll be back in a bit.
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Hey, Julie. Do you want to go grab some of the meat? Sure. What do you feel like having?
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I really feel like having a big juicy steak. Oh, okay. I don't eat meat, but that's fine. I'm sure
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wherever we're going, they will have other options, right? I didn't know you were a vegetarian.
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I'm not. I'm a vegan. Oh, what? A vegan. I don't eat or use any animal-based products. I don't
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wear leather, eat eggs, drink milk, or anything that comes from an animal. I used to be a pescatarian
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before, which basically means you don't eat meat, but still have fish and seafood. Wow, that's
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interesting. It must be tough. It's a bit difficult to find vegetarian-friendly restaurants sometimes,
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but since more and more people are vegetarians or vegans nowadays, it's getting a bit less difficult.
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All right. Now we've prepared three phrases for you. Let's take a look at those now on Fluency
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Builder. Fluency Builder. So it's a very interesting and very, very common phrase at the beginning
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of today's dialogue that we use all the time in English. This is to grab something to eat.
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The character says, hey, Julie, you want to go grab something to eat? So taking that as a phrase,
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we are inviting someone to go eat something. That's right. So I could say, hey, do you want to go
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eat something? Or I could say, hey, do you want to go grab something to eat? Okay. And the verb
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grab is to take or to hold in your hand. So you want to go grab something to eat is basically that.
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Right. But don't be confused because grabbing normally means holding with your hand, but to grab
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something to eat generally just means, hey, would you like to go eat something with me? Okay.
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And of course, we want to go grab something to eat. And the guy says, I really feel like having
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a big juicy steak. So we feel like having a steak. This is very spoken English. So remember,
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when you're talking to your friends, this is okay. But maybe if you're writing something, it's not
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as good. But I feel like a steak means I want to eat a steak. It means it doesn't mean you are a steak.
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No, I don't feel like a steak like a piece of meat. But I do want to eat a piece of, like, I do want to
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eat a steak. And so I feel like having or I feel like a steak. These are both acceptable in spoken
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English. So you basically feel like doing something or you feel like eating something. For example,
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if we're going to have dinner, you can say, I feel like having Italian food. Yeah, I don't feel
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like having Italian food tonight. I feel like having Mexican food. And they also feel like watching
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a movie. Exactly. So great ways of using feel like and then a verb like having or watching a movie.
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Now getting back to the vegetarian, the vegan aspect of our dialogue, we saw that the girl explained
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how she doesn't eat or use any animal based products. So this, these three words, animal based
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products. So product is basically anything that will be sold or bought. Animal based is a way to
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describe a product. So some products have animal animal products in them. Right. So for example,
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my shoes are an animal based product because they are leather and leather comes from cows, which are
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animals. So you're basically saying that they have something from an animal. They are made up of
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that something that comes from an animal like leather shoes. Exactly. And it's not just shoes. It's
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also shampoo or some of the foods that you eat like in jars and cans. And so it's important if
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you're a vegan to look on the side of the can or the side of the box and see, is this an animal
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based product? Are there animal products in this? Right. Right. Okay. A lot of interesting things
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in this dialogue today. Why don't we listen to it one last time and boy you back.
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Hey, Julie. Do you want to go grab some to eat? Sure. What do you feel like having?
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I really feel like having a big juicy steak. Oh, okay. I don't eat meat, but that's fine. I'm sure
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wherever we're going, they will have other options, right? I didn't know you were a vegetarian.
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I'm not. I'm a vegan. Oh, what? A vegan. I don't eat or use any animal based products. I don't
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wear leather, eat eggs, drink milk or anything that comes from an animal. I used to be a pescatarian
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before, which basically means you don't eat meat, but still have fish and seafood. Wow, that's
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interesting. It must be tough. It's a bit difficult to find vegetarian friendly restaurants sometimes,
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but since more and more people are vegetarians or vegans nowadays, it's getting a bit less difficult.
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All right. So talking about vegan vegetarians, pescatarians, it seems like these diets or these
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lifestyles are more and more popular, but as we son the dialogue, it can be a little bit difficult,
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especially in maybe in countries where it's not so popular to have these diets. Definitely.
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I think that in places where you can find vegan and vegetarian products very easily, being a vegetarian
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becomes much more easy because you have more options. Right. But if you're living in a country where
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it's very hard to eat a meal without having meat, then you might just eat potatoes every day.
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Right. We'll get very, very difficult and very boring. Well, that's one of the main arguments or
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the main concerns with people is that even though you can argue that you can get all the vitamins
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or many of the vitamins and minerals from nuts and from vegetables, it's still not healthy to
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completely exclude from your diet, maybe sources of proteins like meat or eggs or dairy products.
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That's right. And so in America, for example, it's very easy to find supplements. You can take
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vitamins like calcium and you can have pills that will give you some protein and you can find all
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sorts of exotic vegetables that will help you supplement your diet. But in a place like
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trying to, for example, I think it can be a lot harder to find those products and to find those
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supplements. And so being a vegan, especially or a vegetarian poses a lot more challenges.
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Especially I think with what you mentioned that products are usually labeled, where they tell you
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if they have any animal-based products in there. Whereas in other countries, it's probably not labeled
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and it's a little bit, even things like getting the fat-free things are a little bit more difficult
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in other countries like, for example, China. That's right. So we would like to know, are there many
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vegans or vegetarians in your country? And if there are, do you think it's hard for them to buy
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food? Why why not? Let us know our website is englispod.com. All right. We'll see you guys there. Bye.