More Awesome Than You!

It's kind of moot, because I have Awesomemod and can add traits to my veggie sims, but it seems to me that veg/nonveg should be something like a checkbox, rather than taking up a Trait slot. That is, if it doesn't affect other behavior. I should think a Vegetarian sim might be a better cook or exercise more (though that is not always the case in RL). I am glad they added it, as I had to get a hack for it in TS2.

I don't have any evidence of this (no vegetarian sims here), but the ingame text implies that vegetarian have longer lifespans, but will vomit if they eat real meat.

Well, dying from anemia and malnourishment isn't in the game. Sims have either eaten or not eaten, and it doesn't appear to matter whether they ate actual food, or a cardboard box. And yes, vegetarians get "sickened by meat" if they eat meat. As for longer lifespans...meh. I don't really buy that argument. You don't see terribly many vegetarians living to be over 100. Those ranks are occupied by the carnivores. Plus, no support groups.
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/crapola/carnivores.jpg)

What I find hilarious about the vegetarian trait is that in Sims 3, meat grows on plants like a fruit or vegetable, so there's no reason to be a vegetarian.

Whose brilliant idea was that? It's rather shmeat-like. Too bad they didn't add a slaughterhouse instead  :D

Someone gave me the stupid console version of Sims 2, so I tried it out. It had a section in the fridge for 'Harvested Meats'. My first thought was 'cool, a slaughterhouse!', but it turned out the harvested meat category was for the fish you pulled out of your aquarium. Now in Sims 3, harvested meats come from bushes.  ::)

If only we could dismember other sims and plant their organs!

Penis trees? Awesome or DNW? I really don't know.

One may be indecisive on that particular part, but you can bet there would be an immeasurable amount of interest in bushes full of boobies. The pervs.

Imagine the opportunity that would be associated to get the seed.

Well, some vegetarians aren't vegetarians because they want to save animals. Like myself. I just hate the taste of meat and the texture of the fat globules and strings. I still like the flavor. I can't process the real stuff well, anymore, as I found out when I tried some pepperoni on a lark.

Wow, my mind did not immediately go to penis and boob trees! I was thinking of growing sim livers and kidneys, and selling them to the hospital. I guess some people could definitely use a Perfect Quality Penis.

Now I've made my mind. Penis trees = awesome.

I, too, find it difficult to digest larks.

That's true. My vegetarianism is also not based on wanting to save animals from slaughter, but more of a boycott of the practices of meat farms. So I'm also an exception to the generalization I just made.

Regarding Sim vegetarians, mine just hit 90, so I'll let y'all know if she seems to live longer than my non-veggies (eldest was 126 at death).  One thing that it does add is the ability of Sims to have a mean interaction deriding them for their vegetarianism.  This one's ex-husband used to autonomously bring it up when he had the wish to break up with her.

 :D Can vegetarians harass non-vegetarians for their meat eating ways?
I used to have a friend (my college roommate) who called herself a vegetarian, but actually ate fish & poultry. We were at a BBQ where she would hassle the beef burger eaters while she was herself eating turkey burgers.  ::) 

Thank you, you just found my new desktop background.  Win!

Strangely, I'm a lot like this. Most of the things I don't like are because of texture, leaving taste a moot point. What amused me was that you used the term "fat globules", which is the exact reason I give when people ask why I decline things like sausage. Chicken wings, legs, and thighs are nasty because of the veins and slime. Though I'm not a vegetarian because I also dislike most vegetables. They're usually cooked and that means mushy to some degree or another. Fruit is another food group rife with texture troubles. What's up with peaches? It's like chewing a felt ball or biting into a baby head.

Hmm...it's a wonder I haven't starved to death by now.

Mmmmmm   Veins and globules.

Yes, actually, they can. They can also complain about meat at a buffet.

Thanks, phyllis. I'm glad vegetarians don't just have to take teasing from others, they can harass people right back. There is a vegetarian in my extended Sim family (the younger sister of the Sim I'm currently playing). I'll have to play with her a little and see how many people she can piss off at a BBQ.

Peaches and nectarines are evil. Fruit should not be hairy. I can forgive kiwis because you are supposed to peel them. I'll eat almost all other fruit, but tend to avoid squashes (exceptions: pumpkin, spaghetti squash), peppers, and greens should never be cooked. My latest discovery is that small farafel balls make great meatball replacements in spaghetti.

In the game? Silly tree-huggers. The only vegetarian I had is now out of the house. My sims tend to subsist on spaghetti, goopy carbonara, cereal, and autumn salads, so there were never any problems.

You peel kiwis? I just eat the whole thing skin and all. It's really no different than the skin of an apple.

If you peel a kiwi, you get rid of all of the fiber of the thing.  That's why nutritionists say to not peel it.  Personally, the texture of the skin bugs the hell out of me, so I do anyways.

Why the hating on nectarines?  I'm addicted to them right now.  So delicious.  The only sucky part is getting them off the pit.  But I guess, thinking about it, it is a very fleshy fruit.

Ah, so I can harrass my friend's self sim and vice versa! Fun, fun! He hates art, too. I have no idea why we're friends - perhaps we have too good a time
mocking each other.

And nectarines are smooth as a baby's butt, tyvm. Pears have those icky gritty things though *shivers*

Disliking Nectarines has probably got somethign to do with where they get them from. I dislike apples. I will not buy apples. Ditto for banana's. My great uncle was an apple farmer so I know how they should taste. I grew up in the tropics so I know how they should taste.

As for meat I'm also not all that fond of fat, but you can't blame sausages fattyness on meat. I defy anyone to find identifyable meat in the generic sausage. It's all filler and lard.

Here in Kiwiland, we mostly eat kiwifruit* by slicing them in half and scooping the fruit out with a spoon. Skins are not eaten, in fact I've never heard of that before. But then we have so many that you can't even give the bloody things away at the height of the season.

When I was a child, kiwifruit were still called Chinese Gooseberries, so I guess we stole them from somewhere else originally. The marketing geniuses have now decided to call kiwifruit 'Zespri', only no-one in the world knows what the hell they're talking about.

Personally I find kiwifruit too sour to eat, even the gold variety is a little bit sour.

*kiwifruit is what they are called in New Zealand, it's only the rest of the world that calls them 'kiwis'. This is offensive to us as native 'Kiwis'.  :P

Actually, it makes sense vegetarianism could make people live longer, if only for the fact that malnourishment in general seems to extend lifespan.  We know that underfeeding can increase the lifespan of almost all species, all the way down to single-cell yeast.  And just decreasing the availability of essential amino acids like L-tryptophan from the diet of rats can double their lifespan.

Don't look at me...  I've been strictly low-carbing for ten straight years.  Lotsa red meat.

(http://i40.tinypic.com/2zi0eiv.jpg)

...but do you really think EA sat in a room and said, "So I'm thinking that due to the amino acids sims with the vegetarian trait should live longer.  And ghosts!  Wooooo!"

Actually, uh, I'm mocking the idea that vegetarianism is healthier nutrition. 

It bugs me that kids get the "sickened by meat" moodlet from eating the muffins cooked in the toy stove.  What kids make meat muffins?

I figured from the wording.  I was agreeing with you.

I expected vegetarian Sims to get a positive moodlet from eating fruit/veggies straight from their inventories. I was very disappointed.

I have no idea why, but the phrase "meat muffins" is making me giggle like a 12. I think Vegetarianism is just one of those 'flavor traits' that really don't do anything useful, honestly. But when your sims subsist on little more than waffles or pancakes, it's not that big a deal.

That sounds complicated. I eat them simply by cramming them whole into my mouth, swallowing them hole, and then horking out the skin-remains like a hairball.

When I was little I loved to watch this one Discovery Channel special on egg eating snakes.  That's what I'm picturing now.
(http://i43.tinypic.com/2zz2s0h.jpg)

 :D  You better hope the Mrs. never kicks you out...that certainly isn't going to win you any dates.

Agreed. I'm an almost-vegetarian because I find most meaty foods disgusting. Years ago I used to be a vegetarian for ethical reasons, nowadays I do eat some but not much because it mostly turns me off. I'm just generally a picky eater and many non-meat foods are not very appealing, either. I mostly live on dairy and grain products (plus candy).

There is THIS in S3_0333406C_00000000_C91A73DBFF35EECA_AgingManager_0xc91a73dbff35eeca%%+UNKN, but there seems to be nothing said for Vegetarian. Perhaps it was intended to lower the chance further? It's possible that the effect isn't stored in the XML tuning mods. I.E., it might be there, but untunable.

As disgusting as the concept is, that comment cracked me up.

Zazazu said it best:


I can't say I've ever come across an apple with straw-like hair growing out of its skin. Something like that would just prove the evilness of hairy fruits, as it would mean they're trying to breed out the smooth-skins. It could be the first step in a dastardly plan to amass an army of hairy fruit to take over the produce aisle. Next step: world domination! It could happen...

Vegetarians tend to live longer because they tend to have a diet with more fruit, veggies, whole grains, and less fat. They are also generally slimmer than carnivores, for the same reasons.

The problem wouldn't be eating protein, but red meat eaten in large quantities, trans fats ect.

My sister doesn't eat meat or fish, but doesn't like veggies at all, she basically survives on pasta and candy, which I doubt will make her live longer ;).

I'm also someone who doesn't eat meat mainly because I never liked the taste of it, and as another poster said, am also not a fan of industrial farming to say the least.

I think the interactions added regarding the vegetarian Sims are pretty funny. People always like to stereotype vegetarians as annoying preachers whereas my experience is that most people immediately question me and want me to justify why I do not eat meat, as if I am attacking them by choosing to live differently!

I only had one vegetarian Sim and she did live a very long life. She also got a "nauseous" moodlet for hours after she ate a meat sandwich.

I don't care to win dates, and it's my place. Besides, we don't do "kicking people out". Females kill and eat the males. I will not be "kicked out", I will be killed and eaten.

Nonsense. Carnivores are slimmer, easily. How exactly is a fruit or vegetable going to flee from you? Whereas a fat carnivore is going to be a hungry carnivore, because he lacks the agility needed to pursue his prey. Haven't you noticed how the largest animals are either herbivorous, or have essentially herbivorous eating habits (Technically, krill is an animal, but it's not very animate).

That works in theory, but in modern Western countries, at least, most people do not hunt their meat. Sims can fish, but it doesn't exactly require them to be physically fit, either, when they can take a taxi to the nearest puddle and then stand still for hours while fishing. And when steaks grow in trees, they don't need to run after them, either.

Not that vegetarians are necessarily slim, either, sims or otherwise.

Sure, but at that point you're not really eating MEAT anymore, you're eating "processed meat food product", which is to meat what "processed cheese food product" is to cheese.

I have never encountered a hairy nectarine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peach#Nectarines

Nope, here is Aus we usually say the whole thing - well I do anyway. I remember when they were called Chinese Gooseberries too.

Sis? Is that you?


Yup, I get the same thing. Then, if it's an event with food involved, people become preoccupied almost to the point of obsession with finding things I can eat, and pointing them out for me. It's fascinating, and sometimes irritating, though I appreciate the concern involved.

I think even if there isn't an undiscovered effect from this trait, it's cool to have it just as another way to make Sim individuals different. I like the interactions related to it.

Well, hell, you're practically neighbours, just over the ditch an' all.

That is so spot on. I rarely even tell people I'm a vegetarian because of the reaction I get. I've never preached my lifestyle to anyone, but I've gotten a lot of preaching from meat eaters.  I've had people whose only daily vegetable intake was the condiments on their McDonald's burger tell me my diet wasn't balanced enough.

I get the overreaction too. I'm a vegetarian because of, like others, fat globules and weird veins and such, and I don't like the way the meat is produced. I appreciate it's somewhat necessary for society, but choose not to partake in that system. I don't think it's wrong to eat meat, I just choose not to.

Anyway, I eat the fake meats on the market (Quorn, Linda McCartney), no weird unidentifiable bits, just some somewhat tasty protein like substance that hasn't hurt anyone. The amount of preaching I get from meat eaters just because I eat these products! "Why do you do that if you don't like meat?" "It boggles my mind that people eat those when they're vegetarian, why not just eat the real thing?"

Drives me up the wall, there's a guy at work who seems to forget conversations he's had and brings it up every couple of months. I guess my explanation isn't good enough, but hey, they don't really taste like meat and don't have the weird bits, I'm a vegetarian for mostly ethical reasons, it prevents arguments about dinner with my carnivorous boyfriend (he seems happy to put up with the fake meat as a compromise) and why the hell shouldn't veggies eat these products? That's who they're made for!

Ironically, it's harder to survive on candy over here in the UK, what with the lack of ethics belonging to Nestle, and the fact that the majority of Mars products aren't suitable for vegetarians. That leaves Cadbury. Also any jelly sweets the majority of the time have gelatin in. The thing I miss the most being vegetarian is marshmallows of all things.

This is why you quit being one of those ethical ones. I can eat all the marshmallows I want.

There is very very little trans fat in meat.  It occurs mostly in things like margarine and shortening, popular among many vegetarians who shun dairy.

You can get marshmallows made with carageenan instead of gelatin.

Marshmallows are one of those things I won't eat because of the texture. I don't care that they're made of gelatin, I just think they're nasty.

Y'know, the other veggies in this thread were spot-on about meat eaters' defensive reaction. I rarely tell people I'm a vegetarian, don't harangue people about their food choices, and yet all I have to do is mention vegetarian sims, and people feel like they have to mock vegetarians. Eh, maybe it's all those prions they've consumed.

My mother used to tell nosy people that she got her protein from sperm.

Marshmallows are THE most evil "food" in existence.  I would rather eat anything the Bizarre Foods guy does than marshmallows.  Even typing the word makes my stomach turn...

Marshmallows baffle me. I am not entirely sure what they really are. Or how exactly something is "jet-puffed", really.

It's sorcery.  Evil sorcery.

But is it the GOOD kind of evil sorcery, or the BAD kind of evil sorcery?

The BAD.

Marshmallows are an abomination.  Have you made s'mores?  It's like burning tires.

Okay.  I do like smores.  Maybe the fire burns the bad sorcery out of them.

*runs out and buys the stuff to make smores*

What about Lucky Charms? The last thing I knowingly ate with animal in it was Lucky Charms (brought back by a friend since they're "too unhealthy" for the UK). Marshmallow = win. They're good in hot chocolate too, or baked in a cake...

Yeah, I miss em. Though I will admit they are a very strange food, if you could even call them that.

I really don't see the entire problem with animal-eating, really. Protesting the inhumane practices of factory farming doesn't mean you give up meat. It just means you kill it yourself. Try some 100% organic, free-range, all-natural, automotively processed meat.

Of course, why do you think they used to burn witches? ;)


I did once, actually... my grandmother hit a deer with her car, but since she actually has a hunting license, and it was within hunting season, the police let her take it home after they checked it out... Free venison!

Right!  And there we have proof that marshmallows are evil and smores are not. 

Sorry, but not all witches were evil. I find your comment offensive to witches.

I'm sure he meant the evil children's story type and not the wiccan sort.

I find your comment offensive to wiccans.

I agree with that absolutely. I'm a pro-hunting vegetarian. The problem is where I live, the only meat I'd be able to hunt is stray cats and dogs, squirrels and raccoons, and if I were to go up into the hills, coyotes. None of which appeal to me due to my cultural conditioning, so I end up just not eating meat.

Are you claiming that witchcraft is not associated with Wicca?

"When witchcraft is practised as a religion, it is called by the Old English term for witch, Wicca. This term is used to counter all the negative stereotypes that society has given witchcraft. Wicca is primarily a religion that worships nature, and sees all creation as sacred. In fact, all Wiccan holy days follow the cycles of nature and the changes in the seasons. Wicca also worships both a male and female deity, a female Goddess and a male God, who had together created the world and everything in it."

http://www.witchcraft.com.au/




eta: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_(etymology)

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca

Pull your skirt down, Solace, your n00b is showing.

Why because I responded to an offended senator?

Lulz.

snowbawl P&L

*shrug*

Solace, this thread will provide some context:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,12710.0.html

Thank you.   I appreciate it.  I was confused as to why my insinuation that the wiccans who practice witchcraft are good was offensive.

Off to read.

This is part of my reason for vegetarianism to begin with. Somewhere over time I realized that if I could never, ever bring myself to kill a cow or chicken or pig, I had no business at all eating them. It made me feel hypocritical and guilty, so I stopped.

If I'm ever lost in the wilderness and faced with the choice between hunting and starvation, I guess I'll learn if I really have what it takes.

I came up with the same hypocrisy in myself, but instead of becoming vegetarian I took up hunting.  True story.

I used to really like deer. I cried at Bambi, etc. But they've taken over my neighborhood! They're like an evil little gang that decimates my garden and even chased my partner when he was out walking the dog. In the absence of cougars and wolves, it'd be a blessing if someone would come and eat them.

Dagnabbit, I had it confused with apricots. I've recently had a bunch of different types of fruits crammed down my throat. "Just try it, you'll like it!" No. No, I don't like it, and I didn't like it the last time either. The shock and trauma from the torture session has left my brain jumbled, making all fruit look the same. Yeah...that's the ticket...

The Wikka  (http://wikka.moreawesomethanyou.com/Main_Page)- read and learn.
By the way, wikka headlines are way out of date.

Your boyfriend was scared of a deer? A deer? Really? That's like being scared of a fluffy little bunny. Deer are not that smart, and not at all violent. If you want to be scared of a wild animal, be scared of Canadian geese. Those things are bitches. A few years ago, I was living in this suburban apartment complex with two man made lakes. The damn things would chase Soren when I walked him. One time, one of them decided I wasn't allowed in my building and tried to intimidate me away. I was able to intimidate him right back, but then he was alone.

Shit.  And they wanted to arrest me for dynamite fishing!  This is just too unfair.

We have problems in a nearby forest/park every spring. People like to jog in there, but during mating season, the stags get bloody aggressive, and chase people around. Some people even got attacked and got hurt pretty badly. Don't fuck around with anything that has antlers!

At a college I considered going to, part of the tour was to warn us to be very, very scared of deer.  Somebody gets attacked about every year, and that year someone had gotten killed.  It's mostly people who saw Bambi and want to pet the baby; they'd never seen a deer in the wild before.  (A lot of people from countries without the things go to that college.)  The guy who died was trampled by a doe, so you should be scared of anything that has antlers or babies.

I'm also a vegetarian because I'm opposed to fake meats.

Okay, I'll give you horny stags. I didn't even think of those. Where I grew up, for the longest time the majority of the neighborhood was undeveloped and there was a huge corn field buffer in between the developed portion and true woodland. We had deer in the yard all the time. The females and fauns will let you get within a few feet of them. But stags I think I've only seen in the distance. I'm good with animals, and tend to monopolize all the creatures at petting zoos (my one best friend has a picture of me at her house with two deer, three goats, and a bunny crowding my lap at the wild animal park in San Diego), and have actually touched a rhino before and lived to talk about it, but horny creatures with horns are not good cuddlers.

Deer never chase me. They seem to instinctively recognize me as a predator and run away. Damn right, I say. If one of them comes at me, it's going to be nomfodder.

Well, this was five deer, and of course, the dog had to stop in the middle of it all and take a crap, too. I should get more insurance on my partner.

Funny thing.  I eat meat therefore I get plenty of protein, potassium, and a lot of amino acids that aren't in any other food source. When I shop for groceries I'm not looking for food substitutes I'm buying food (whether it be meat, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, etc.).  I rarely see a vegan or vegetarian NOT look for a meat substitute while shopping.  I see products like tofu being advertised for their meat-like qualities and all kinds of weird things like that.  (I have tried tofu and that stuff is darned disgusting.) If a particular style of eating is good for a person, why do they need to be looking for substitutes for the foods they don't eat?  I don't eat much in the line of grains and I don't bother looking for grain substitutes.  I don't eat processed sugar, and I also don't use sugar substitutes.

Re: comment on peaches and nectarines.  Peel the peaches or eat nectarines!  Nectarines are completely smooth skinned.

Buuuuut, wouldn't it be cool if we could have coolness aaaand actual features?

Is that too much to ask? Thus, I say, down with EA's idea of vegematarians. I'll keep my horny baby-makers.

This.  The more I find out about food, the more I'm realizing it doesn't actually matter what you're eating, so long as it's actually food and not some strange chemical walking around pretending to be food.

Also, all the talk about peaches being like baby heads is making me want to chomp on the peaches sitting on my counter.  Mmmm, peaches!  I like fuzzy food; it tickles when you eat it!

On the other hand there is this:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041107084521/http://eesc.orst.edu/agcomwebfile/news/food/vegan.html

I guess the "inhumane practices of factory farming" do extend beyond meat ...

Yeah, well, you're just special. Trust me, I wish I wasn't picky. The past couple years, I've been retrying all the foods I wrote off in childhood to see if I can expand what I can eat. So far, I've added asparagus, capers, and fresh peas. That's about it. Meat is still off the list, excepting fish.

Raw tofu is disgusting. Plain tofu cooked is disgusting. I don't see the point of making yourself eat something like that for the protein. Eat some yummy beans. Eat the Quorn chicken thingies (have you had those? They're the only spicy food I'll take the pain to eat because they are just that good). Eat some falafel. The chickpea is a wonderful thing (current healthy addiction is wheat spaghetti with homemade sauce and tiny falafel balls).

Of course, substitution isn't as hard for me since I love fish. I have to worry more about watching my mercury intake.

I wish I liked fish, because it would be a nice source of protein and some healthy kinds of fat. I like fish in an aquarium but not on my plate, though.

My sims, on the other hand, devote most of their lives to fishing.

You don't know what you're missing. When I was a 6-12 I never really liked the taste of fish. I suppose over the years my taste buds changed and I can enjoy a nice filet of haddock. Shrimp (alone, no cocktail sauce either) is great, too. Salmon steaks with lemon are delicious. When I was a 6 I loved lobster legs. They were probably the only thing I ever ate. Haven't had lobster in a while, though. I don't think I could afford fish due to my budget, unless I got the frozen kind (not fish sticks, but something like "Gorton's" fish filets), but it would be insulting to my taste buds.  

Some of the Gorton's things are good, believe it or not. They'll never be as good as fresh fish, of course, but they aren't bad, IMO.

When you say you rarely see a vegetarian or vegan not looking for a meat substitute, how do you know who is and isn't a vegetarian while shopping? Do you look into people's carts to see if they have meat products? Do you follow around shoppers who don't have meat products to see if they buy tofu or frozen veggie burgers? Why the fuck do you care what other people eat? You are the kind of person some of us were talking about, you see a discussion about vegetarianism in which no one is saying anyone else should give up meat if they don't want, and you come in to tell us why vegetarians are wrong.

Right. And also some non-vegetarians do buy those products too. It does happen. While I am a vegetarian, my mother is very much not one but she loves Morningstar bacon and buys that because she likes her bacon undercooked and is afraid to do it with the real thing so she's fine with having that and does like the taste of it. I also saw a woman in front of my at Trader Joe's once with a whole bunch of meat and dairy products buying Tofutti Cuties (little dairy free ice cream sandwiches made from soy ice cream) so you just never know.

As for the meat substitutes, I like them so what. People are allowed. They're not 'fake foods' they're just processed foods but so are many meat products.

As I said before:


I don't eat them for the protein. I've never once thought "I need more protein, I'd better eat some Quorn". In fact I've never even thought twice about my protein intake. Anyway, I could easily go without the substitutes and live on fruits, veggies and dairy, but why should I when these products exist to add a bit more variety to my diet? I would actually estimate I have some faux meat product 3 days out of the week (usually as part of a healthy home made meal, I don't buy the premade meals), and given 14 lunches and dinners, 3/14 isn't that many.

I wouldn't call many of the meat products on the shelves food either. They're all processed in one way or another depending on how you look at it.

Things only in meat - do they really only exist in meat? I've never been told I'm deficient in anything and as far as I'm aware there are plenty of other places to get the useful nutrients.

I do agree with the part about tofu though, it's disgusting.

It really depends on how you make it and what you do with it. If you just eat it plain, well it really doesn't taste like much it's more a texture and a glob of protein and fat.

I find most people seem to like it fried, particularly when it's put with a sauce or recipe, like with Asian food. You can also cook with it and blend it in recipes where it acts somewhat as a binding agent.

I know in Japan they will basically just take a square of plain tofu, pour some sauce over it, throw some sesame seeds on top and go to town and eat it. For most westerners though that won't work for them.  ;)

Also, in Asia tofu isn't considered a meat substitute per say and it's not an either or situation. There are dishes that have tofu and meat traditionally, like Ma Bo Tofu.

Visit your local Asian supermarket. I'll admit to being spoiled in that regard, we have a huge one about three blocks from my current place and several dinky ones just a bit more south. Asian supermarkets are well known for their sushi-quality fish, and typically are very economical. As a singleton, I prefer to get a big fillet and then cut it into portions. I eat one right away and store the rest in the freezer. Broiled or baked salmon is my main preference, but I also like some general white fish dipped in flour and sauted in lemon and lime sauce with a dash of tequila. Rice and snap peas on the side. Nums.

Crab is only purchased when it's on sale, and then only snow crab. King crab hurts. I don't have one of those cracker things.

I'm so bringing fish for Jimmy to cook tonight. We don't throw my fish, only the inevitable left over hamburgers.

I choose to eat no meat. I don't look at foods as "meat" substitutes. I also do not like soy or tofu as meat alternatives. I eat nuts and beans for protein. I add flaxseed oil to pasta. It gives me omega-3 fatty acids and I like a little oil on my pasta since I don't add butter or cheese. I also like some veggie burgers made by Morning Star, particularly the spicy black bean and the tomato basil ones. I don't eat them because I want a burger. I eat them because someone cut up and mixed the veggies for me and it'll only take me a few minutes to heat them up. If I want them to taste better, I add some chopped raw veggies like squash, cucumber, alvocado, carrots, etc. My husband, a big meat-eater, even asks for veggie burgers once in a while because he likes the way they taste.

To my mind, if a person is vegan, I would imagine that nuts and legumes would be the best source of protein.

I wasn't meaning to slam vegetarians in my above post.  I've been around enough to know that simply put, different people's bodies require different types of food.  I do, however, get very tired of those (most likely not here, just in other places I see) talking about meat substitutes and the like.  I can't help but think if a person isn't going to eat meat, why do they want a meat substitute? :D

We actually have quite a few meatless dishes we've come up with, much of them using black beans.  We are very fond of canned black beans for quick dishes because for one thing, they're cheap, and for another thing they are low-glycemic.  One of my daughter's favorites involves black beans, broccoli, tomato sauce, basil, garlic, romano or parmesan cheese and some other seasonings. It makes a wonderful lunch.  We are all terribly carnivorous around here, though.

I've also found that when it comes to foods, we do tend to acquire tastes for a lot of things we don't like to begin with.  I have also noticed there are times when after years of eating something I suddenly can't stand the taste of it. This happened with zucchini two years ago.  It's no big loss since zucchini is mainly just a bag of water with very little vitamins, but it is irritating because I actually liked the stuff before.

One thing people who are baffled by meat substitutes tend to forget is that meat substitues RARELY, if ever, taste much like the meat they're supposed to be replacing.

I personally don't like hamburger. Dead cow is fine as a slab, but all ground up, not so much. Rather than have to make something entirely different when my family grills up some burgers, I have a soy burger. It tastes nothing like hamburger (nor is the texture even terribly similar), but it isn't half bad with some ketchup and onions on it.

If you've read this thread, you've seen people say they eat things like tofu, seitan or veggie burgers because they like them. Some people who eat meat also eat these 'meat substitutes' because they like them. Get it now? I don't get why you should be 'very tired' of people talking about what they eat, for whatever reason. If you are tired of the conversation around you, go talk to someone else. I'm kind of tired of hearing other people's opinions of what I eat, especially since I'm not trying to get you to eat what I'm eating. Again, why do you care?

Morningstar Farms corn dogs. Seriously, people. Try them. I didn't even like corn dogs when I ate meat 14 years ago. I also love the Morningstar Farms fake bacon, and used to adore Boca's sausage links, but then they changed the formula and renamed them breakfast links. They are no longer good.

Morningstar fudz is yummy, and so is tofu if you cook it right. No, I'm not a vegetarian. I just like variety.

So fix them. It's a Wikka. The entire point of a Wikka is that it's the manual everyone can write because I can't be bothered to write manuals because I AM WORKING.

I had tofu a couple times in Okinawa without knowing what it was. all I can remember was that it was "a little gummy, kinda funny, and pink" it wasn't until years later that I realized what I'd been eating was tofu. I think I finally figured it out when we ordered some pad thai from this pace near my old job in Virginia. It had little strips of stuff with the same texture as the pink stuff from Okinawa but it was brown instead of pink. One of my coworkers informed me it was tofu.

As for the whole vegetarian thing, I like meat. I probably don't have the stomach to actually kill my food, but I did learn how to kill a chicken while i was in the Marines Corps. Doesn't seem all that bad. Someone once showed me this video about how animals are mistreated in industrial farms and I said "Yeah, so? they're food. Mistreating a cow or pig or chicken that you're going to eat is equivalent to mistreating an apple that you are going to eat." The only reason I would ever become a vegetarian is if I somehow lost the taste for meat. There are certain meats I don't like.. mostly fish because of the texture, but the whole ethics thing doesn't appeal to me because I see no ethics when it comes to mistreating food.

Then I declare you food, tasty braincarrier. Your screaming and flailing and begging for mercy might be a little distressing, but... t's too much trouble to knock you out beforehand, anyway, so who cares?

Now c'mere. I'm hungry.

Addressing the original question: My veggie-Sim passed on last night at the age of 111.  She was also athletic, and would work out to the TV or stereo constantly -- I couldn't keep the woman still!  However, I've had Sims live to 125, 109, and 106 without being vegetarian or athletic.  Seems to me veggie-Sims get the same 14% chance of croaking every day beyond 90 that any other Sim does, but it's purelly anecdotal.

You don't think something that's going to be giving up it's life so that you can fill your belly deserves to be treated with respect? I'm not saying don't eat em I'm saying they deserve respect. Unlike apples they do feel pain. 

I thought I was a relatively picky eater, but this thread has made me realize that I'm really not anymore. I eat meat, I eat tofu (even plain and raw), fish is delicious, peaches are awesome... My lack of variety in diet is almost entirely based on laziness rather than pickyness. I can't say I've ever tried a kiwi with the skin, but I think I will, assuming I don't forget between now and the next time I have a kiwi.

I'm one of those strange people who like plain tofu. I didn't like it when I first became a vegetarian, but it's either gotten less rubbery over the years, or my tastes have changed. I've read that it takes eight weeks for your taste buds to adjust to a new diet (I haven't been able to go eight weeks without chocolate though!). I also hated eggplant, mushrooms and tomatoes when I was a kid, and I love them now. I think my mom cooked the hell out things, too. I just remember meat being hard to chew and full of gristly bits. I like seitan a lot, because of the texture. I don't buy the hamburger flavored veggie burgers, because I don't like the taste. I usually stick with something like black bean and garlic.

I should probably go completely vegan, seeing as three of my four grandparents died of heart disease. I bought a cookbook called Vegan Fire and Spice that has mouthwatering recipes, if anyone's interested.

I'm in a Social and Moral Ethics class and we just read a bunch of essays about the morality of eating meat.  One interesting opinion in one of the essays is that with rights comes responsibilities.  Since we cannot hold animals accountable for their actions (aka jail and other punishments), then they do not have rights.  I'm not saying I agree with this, just interesting food for thought.

I grew up as an omnivore and my husband grew up vegetarian. I love many of the canned "fake meat" products from Loma Linda and Worthington as well as the frozen Morningstar Farms stuff. Fri-Chik, Scallops, Tender Bits, Stripples/Morning Star Farms Breakfast Strips, etc. I don't care much for tofu, except from this one chain restaurant in my area. So. Good.

(http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f68/rosenshyne/Lesson293.jpg)


This message only for those vegetarians making this an ethical choice. Those of you choosing based on flavor or texture, carry on.

"Sounds like" screaming isn't necessarily really screaming.
FWIW, my 'ethical choice' isn't about the slaughtering of animals. Animals kill and eat other animals, and humans are no different from the other animals. I don't approve of many of the practices of industrial farming, the way the animals are forced to live before slaughter, so your argument doesn't really blow all ethical vegetarians out of the water.
What I fail to understand is why any mention of vegetarianism, in which no one is trying to convert meat eaters, always brings out people who want to prove vegetarians are wrong. Why the fuck do you care what other people eat? Why does it bother you that someone has made a different lifestyle choice than you?

That is an interesting theory, but what if we apply that to young children, or severely retarded or mentally ill grown-ups, who also may be judged not to be accountable for their actions. Do they not have rights, either, then? Was that discussed in the class? I'm thinking that theory has a giant loophole in it.

I don't remember what the ethicist said in response to that question, but I'm sure there was something.  It's a common response to any issue of animal rights.  I'm at my parents house right now, but when I get back home tonight or tomorrow I'll check the essay and tell you what it says.

Personally, I'm thinking that every philosophical theory is silly right now, because they all seem to have these giant loopholes in them.  Also, it seems like you can make any decision and make it moral just by thinking enough about it.  I prefer the moral egoist approach- if I think it's wrong, it's wrong.  End of story.  Apparently that doesn't work in an academic setting.

I was browsing through my little brother's high school philosophy book recently, but had to put it down pretty fast as I was getting frustrated with what to me seemed like mindless babble, and using an entire paragraph to say something that could have been condensed to one sentence. I don't know, maybe it's just me getting old and cranky  :P.

That's fine. Unfortunately for hungry you, I have the mental capacity to GTFO or otherwise defend myself when something that is hungry and wants to eat me is coming after me. That's why we don't eat things like tigers and bears.. they can defend themselves. I actually watched a show once about how tigers eat people in these little villages in India or somewhere in that area. I actually took great pleasure in finding out that some humans are still on the food chain.

Cows and chickens on the other hand are apparently too dumb to know better than to defend themselves. Granted, the cruel treatment of these poor dumb beasts is a little saddening, I suppose. Snot like they did anything to deserve such treatment that some industrial farmers put them through, but it doesn't tear me up enough to make me want to boycott meat. After all, it's just food.

ETA: Now I'm not saying I condone the mistreatment of foody animals, because I don't. They just taste too damn good for me to care whether their previous owner treated them properly or not. In a hypothetical situation where I had a cow and raised it for the sole purpose of killing and eating it, I would treat it properly, and make sure it was healthy and well fed, partly because I'm just not the type of person to needlessly mistreat an animal, and partly because I want my investment in this cow to have the best payoff in terms of good meat. Since I do not have the means to grow my own food, however, I must simply accept the fact that the industrial farmers out there are mistreating their harvestables. They taste good whether you mistreat them or not.

Actually, one of the primary reasons that tigers are endangered is over hunting by humans. Not for the meat, but for the fur, and for the 'medicinal' properties of its penis. Also just for sport. They aren't really very good at defending themselves against humans with guns. The reason we don't eat animals like tigers is that they don't do all that well in captivity and could not be mass produced the way cows and chickens can.

That'll just make your brains taste better, oh you he-man you.

All your rattling on about how the typical domestic food beast isn't smart enough to defend itself shows very clearly you've not been around a healthy domestic food beast with its dander up. Note that 'lulled into a false sense of security and never saw it coming,' as per factory farming, doesn't count.


Oh, you poor, sad thing. Either you've never had properly raised meat, or your tastebuds are so shot you can't taste the difference.

Uhhh....

SPOILERS AHEAD, DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE A SQUEAMISH PUSSY



  Food animals are pretty darned easy to kill. I have been around healthy domestic food beasts. I have raised (and hand raised some of them) sheep and goats, and I was first in line with the 'liver bowl' while dad was cleaning their carcasses. You know how easy they are to kill? Bowl of grain, walk up behind them with a gun, shoot them in the skull. They do not run away, they die immediately.  For chickens it's more like, chase 'em down, twist their neck and they die quickly, then chop off the head so you can bleed them for a little bit, then peel & eat.  Granted, we never did cows because our fences weren't that great, but we had friends who did and the process was no different, just ended with more meat (and you need a bigger gun).
  These animals were never mistreated, and all of them were organic, small farm raised ones (yes, I was very lucky growing up where I did, tyvm). Now, I do think we have a responsibility to our animals, since they are domestic, they depend on us for food, water, shelter, and protection, and we have the obligation to see they get those things. It's called 'animal husbandry'. Frankly, so-called 'animal rights' groups offend me, because they kind of miss the point, what with the releasing domesticated animals into the wild in unnatural habitats, 'adopting' animals just to kill them so nobody else will force the pooooor little things into SLAVERY!, and abundant hypocrisy. Can't we all just agree that if we've made it into a tame animal, we have to care for it?

Actually, the simple reason we don't eat ANY carnivores is because it is completely uneconomical to produce, and they aren't generally regarded as tasty. Keep in mind that the basic rule is that when you feed an animal something, you'll only get out about 10% of what you feed it. Feeding a tiger, therefore, will transmute 10 units of meat into 1 unit of meat. This is incredibly stupid. Turning 10 units of plantmatter, most of it entirely indigestable anyway, into 1 unit of meat works. Turning 10 units of meat into 1 unit of meat is just stupid. Carnivores simply cannot be farmed for food. This is why you don't see anyone mass-farming cats or dogs as food, even where they will actually eat cats and dogs: It's always an opportunistic activity predicated on the availability of stray cats and dogs.

We do eat carnivorous fish.

Yeah, but fish are typically not domesticated. They are simply harvested from their homes and sent to slaughter.

I don't eat fish though.

Just to note, we were discussing treatment before the killing not the killing part of the process. I don't disagree with the food chain.  

See, this doesn't bother me. Seven of my cousins grew up on a farm/ranch and I visited them a few times when I was little. I saw chickens and pigs get killed for supper. I still ate them. When you are running a moderate farm, though, you're mostly killing for your own supper, plus perhaps providing a bit to a butcher for cash. You're not killing thousands of animals a day via the most automated method possible, which often is not quick.

I saw this special on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel about race horses and how they are sent to slaughter. It still haunts my dreams. There was nothing quick about it. It was horribly cruel. Stringing something up alive after beating it into submission by shooting it somewhere approximately in the region of the skull, over and over, with a machine until you finally hit the right spot...nothing deserves to spend its last few minutes that way. I don't care if they are slated for a table. I don't care if they have the brain the size of a pine nut. You don't treat anything that way.

O.o I can't imagine that would be very cost effective. Bullets are, what, a buck apiece?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse#Process

Well, yeah, that would fall into the 'lulled into a false sense of security and never saw it coming' bit, wouldn't it? It'd be quite a lot harder if they were fighting at the time, which is why people do that--beats the hell out of ending up with casualties when you're trying to get your dinner.

Speaking of carnivorous fish, here's some food for thought:

EPA Guidelines on Mercury in Fish (http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/advice/)

World's Fish Supply will run out by 2048 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/02/AR2006110200913.html)

I know people at the USCG and NOAA, so this isn't hyperbole.

But why would they be fighting? Sheep don't fight, for instance, they run away. Goats would try to lick out the gun barrel in case you left some beer in it, so again, not too difficult. I've never seen a cow attack anyone, though a girl at our county fair had her head stepped on one year because cows are large, clumsy, and stupid. If a chicken is attacking, you grab it by the neck and POW! dinner..... I have no firsthand experience with pigs, so I will grant you that they may be dangerous if cornered.

Well, my cousins decapitated. Or, rather, my grand-uncle did the decapitation and my cousins did the cleaning. But, it's the same basic idea. One hit and they're dead.

Fixed your links. But yeah, this is something you have to watch if you primarily eat fish for protein. If you aren't breeding, 3 servings a week of standard fish should be just fine. Albacore tuna is equivalent to two servings, as are some other ones I can't recall at the moment because they aren't fish I generally have access to or would eat (shark? Hell no.) I prefer salmon and chunk light tuna, with occasional shrimp and white fish. Also, remember that where the fish swims can affect how much mercury it absorbs. Ocean perch has lower mercury than freshwater perch. This is a fair guide. (http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/guide.asp)

There is actually a flash game where you go through the slaughterhouse process.

http://www.addictinggames.com/beefbash.html

They will. Cows can be very protective animals and occasionally downright mean.

Also, pigs will kill you. On one side of my family, they're all farmers and several of them have died from pig related incidents

Sorry, out of valuable thoughts, today. Please have a free related macro instead (cows can be cute).

(http://www.fantasiadomain.com/misc/macros/emocow.jpg)

Google for video:  palin turkey farm 

I'm no supporter of Palin, and I do think she was stupid to not realize she would get flak for doing an interview with a turkey being slaughtered behind her, but I also thought people made way too big of deal about it. They were actually censor blurring out the turkey slaughter when presenting it on the news, and getting all squeamish about it. I try to make a point of not criticizing meat eaters, since I don't want them criticizing me (not that that stops them), but the one thing that really bothers me about most meat eaters is that they do get squeamish about animal slaughter, even when it's as relatively humane as what was going on in that Palin video. Seriously, if you are that grossed out by how the food you eat is produced, how do you still eat it?

My sentiments exactly. If they're that bothered by it, how can they eat it without puking? To me it seems like these people are missing some vital connective synapses or something. I want to slap these types when I meet them. They're the epitome of hypocrisy in this discussion. If you've got any sense at all, either it bothers you, or it doesn't.

I think that's a ridiculous idea.  We can't hold infants accountable for their actions either, but they have a right to be treated with respect and not be tortured.

Now, let's not use infants to support an argument within MATY. Remember the baby barbeque for TS2?  :P

BTW - I completely agree with CheritaChen. Can't kill it? Don't eat it. One of the main reasons I'm vegetarian.

Guns and explosives are cheap. Bullets are about $0.50 each. We're not talking about specialized ammo for accuracy (match grade, subsonic, etc) or for damage per round (hollow points for eg). At point blank, really, any ball of lead works on the head.

Compare price of bullets to say... hmm... stationery. A good pen could cost even more! Used to be that the "The pen is mightier than the sword". Seems today that "A bullet is cheaper than a pen". Mightier than a pen or not, I don't know.

Ah, don't remind me! I live in a city, but do try to get away to the burbs once in a while. The meat sure tastes different, even at fast food restaurants like KFC.

I have some friends who had to do a dissection one morning, then have lunch at a steak house! Heh. Perspectives can change quickly when we look too closely at "what we are made of inside".

Most of us are squeamish about our insides, though we still need to live with our insides.

I read something about 2 key moodlets (in real life): aversion and craving. Supposedly, both are bad. Removing aversion to our insides would allow us to live simpler lives (and not as hypochondriacs). Removing craving to erm, eternal bodily existence, might let us slaughter our foods without getting squeamish (via empathy)?

I once heard someone say: "stand ground/firm and observe/learn, rather than run from one troubled scene to another". Wait, where were we? Ok, I gotta stand my ground, collect my thoughts. Where the hell is my ground? Hmm.

I still want to know this.

I've looked through the GameplayData.package file. Found the nauseous moodlet. But didn't find anything to do with lifespan. The ingame text did put ellipsis ("...") after the "said to live longer lives" thing.

I read something about teeth hollowing out from the inside if we lack meats. It's one (good) thing to have a healthy dose of veggies (to reduce inflamation tendencies?). It's another (bad) thing to miss meats altogether, I think.

About the GameplayData.package, I have a feeling some things are hardcoded. As in, the developers forgot to make them tunable.

Thanks for the info! My mid-life crisis is gonna gimme something else other than Vegetarian.

I have not seen any evidence supporting this. For that matter, it's not firmly supported in real life...and even if it WERE in the game, it would only extend the part of the lifespan you want to see least, anyway, so lose-lose.

I don't understand what you mean by this. Could you elaborate a bit? Simpler how? I don't suffer from aversion to my "insides" but I don't see how it makes my life simpler, or how it would make me less of a hypochondriac.


What?

You pay that much? You're getting ripped off.

I haven't heard anything like that, although lacking things that are present in the meat and bones of your prey can't be good for your skelebrates. As for vegetables, most vegetables are composed nearly entirely of cellulose and are therefore completely indigestable. The only benefit you get from eating them is roughage (even cats consume things for this purpose), and frankly, that is simply not something that is REALLY necessary given the alternative options of simply eating your sensitive documents you don't want anyone to find.

That was a simplistic example for illustrative purposes, that bit about making life simpler and less hypochrondiac-like.

The aversion part... lemme see how to explain it. Ok. If my Sim dies of old age, I can see it in one of 2 ways. I can be pained, wondering when there ever will be a time when a Sim grows up exactly like it did, with all the memories that it accrued.

Or I can just let go, understanding nature for what it is. Everything that has a beginning has an end. And before we all get too emo from this, that's not the end of it! Everything that has an end has a beginning. Energy cannot be destroyed; only converted from one form to another.

If I am averse to old age or death, then I might do stupid things when faced with those parts of nature. I can become irrational.

If I crave old age or death (or living), I could also become stupid.

I love Kung Fu Panda for a cute saying that the wise and lovely Oo Guay (Turtle) quipped. "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, today is a gift and that's why we call it the present". I know, it's an old adage, and it's probably trite by now. But it's still cute.

Hold firm to the present, because it is the only thing we can mould. Anything is possible in the future, as long as we work with the present.

Yeah, my reactions too when I first read it. rosenshyne posted something about plants screaming when killed. I remember reading something about Buddhism forbidding even the killing of plants. But I'm no expert.

I just eat what I eat. Avoid addictions (sugar, salt, anything). And just be at peace as much as I can. Oh, dang that fly! I'm a kill you later! Peacefully. :P

But veggie is the only defence we got against inflammatory tendencies, I think. Just about any ailments has to do with inflammations: old age, allergies, scleroses, etc.

What does the killing of plants have to do with teeth hollowing out from the inside? I'm not following your train of thought. At all.

I was cramming too many posts into one.

Point 1: Killing is killing. The question of the factor of sentience is beyond me. Do plants feel, think? I don't know.

Point 2: It's hard to deny our bodies their natural nutrients. Carnivores like tigers have shorter intestines, so food passes through quickly. Meats carry most nutrients for them. Our intestines are so much longer; meats do turn bad inside, I hear. I'm really no expert at what our bodies need. For now, I just know I need to handle my Hunger, Social, Bladder, and Energy motives. :)

Buddhism does not exist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism

There are many schools that teach different ways.

In general you can say that a "buddhist" would avoid to kill any living.

Some filter water to avoid drinking protozoans, some sweep the floor while walking to avoid stepping on ants.

But you have to respect yourself as well and you have to kill others to survive.

Best is to economize. Reduce consumption to limit the burden on others.

In game terms: I guess (but do not know) that the vegetarian trait is influenting several actions concerning plants. Maybe it influences cooking or growing plants. Some traits are opposite to an other trait. Maybe there is an opposite to the vegetarian as well.

Yeah, you're right. That price is for precision rounds. Typical 9mm's can be $0.10 each or less. Reminds me of what the Joker said in "The Dark Knight". :)

I'm all for doing what you believe in.  But I think ethics needlessly complicates things.  I prefer to look at things in a simple way.

"Are you delicious?"

Humans are omnivores.  I see no reason why (barring health concerns and opinions on taste and texture) we should deny ourselves half of our naturally intended diet.  That being said, I love meat.  I like a lot of fruits.  I'm not into vegetables mostly, but I do love me some potatoes.  A nice, think grilled steak with some Heinz 57 sauce and a baked potato slathered in butter.  Mmmmm...

I never understood the whole being squimish about killing your food thing either.  I should hope that self-preservation would take priority over "I can't kill this.  Its cute and fluffy!".

Well, there are plenty of critters you can eat that aren't cute and fluffy. Chow down on some gator, or a snake.

The page you linked to seems to refute that claim, as do the many, many temples in the Chicago area I've been to, the Buddhists I've met, and the meditation center I used to attend down the block from my old place.

Are you thinking of "Buddha is not God"? That for sure is true, and the propensity of certain sects to see Buddha as one is a bastardization along the lines of the Catholicism of Taoism.

I don't think cows, chickens and pigs are cute and fluffy, really. Cats are cute and fluffy. If it came down to self-preservation, I'd kill and eat my fat loser neighbor (also not cute and fluffy) before I'd kill any of the stray cats in my neighborhood for food.

@Zazazu:
That is an Inside Joke.

Zen Buddhists say: There is no Soul, no Buddha, no God.

But you have to know the context to understand this.

Of course do they believe in things like that but they try to keep their heads off the clouds.

I was refering to "Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices considered by most to be a religion"

There are 8 different wide spread sects, each having different ways of practicing "Bhuddism".

Christians have different sects, too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christians

That is all about it. Please do not be offendet by my language or the use of the word "sects" unless you are wicca...

Often I think too hard about the impact of my decisions (such as whether to eat meat or not) on the environment, on the general amount of suffering in the world, greedy corporate farms, etc., and then my mind boings in the opposite direction, and I think what does any of it matter? Does it really matter that animals die atrociously to bloat overweight fast food eaters, or that 35,000 children starve every day? None of us are getting out of here alive. Maybe the suffering and pain and waste make it all more meaningful.

No offense to Wiccans, of course.

I was going to cut myself after reading that, because the suffering and pain makes my futile life more meaningful, but instead I'm posting a lolcat.
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_b3GHoGMBNpY/SdS2HL2-m3I/AAAAAAAAEEc/blj3Y_3IMoE/s400/lolcat27.jpg)

I wasn't offended. I just thought it was funny, the exact way you stated that with a direct link to a page about Buddhism. I've heard the "There is no Soul, no Buddha, no God." before. Like I said, I've been to a lot of temples. I've read a couple books by Lama Surya Das (master of the ramble, though there are some gems hidden throughout). I've taken college classes on Buddhism, and I used to do guided meditation at a Shambhala center, though that's more Tibetan Buddhism than Zen. Yay Buddhism. Though I did run into this guy while I was freaking out about having to walk on a sheet of ice one winter who gave me a card for one of those Buddha-as-God-with-a-capital-G sects. So not the original message.

(http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/funny-pictures-bunny-is-sad.jpg)

Aww, the bunny is cute and fluffy. Be careful, it's so cute and fluffy, someone might try to eat it.  :P

Well, bunnies have been known to chew through electrical cords - suicidal emo rabbits!

The next time I have a Sim write a novel, I'm calling it Suicidal Emo Rabbits.

Oh, oh, that's tempting me to start a thread for novel titles! *restrains myself*

Speaking of which, I wish the bookstore could sell the ones written by sims. I keep feeding books to the omni plant in order to re-distribute them, but sometimes it just snarfs them up without producing copies.

Yeah, I'd love for them to be able to buy copies of Sim authored books in the store. At least they can read them in the library, which is an improvement on the Sims 2 novels where only one copy existed ever.

Except for Raymundo! makes me miss the bonfire from Uni.  :D

Ah, memories. Fire, evil cow mascots and sprinklers were the best part of Uni.

You know, I think the next novel my Sim writes after Suicidal Emo Rabbits will be called The Agonizing Fiery Death of Raymundo.  :D

Too many character. I forget what the exact limit is, but it's shorter than that.

Okay then, 'DIAF Raymundo' would work for me.

You can have your sims sell their novels to the bookstore, and then the bookstore will sell them, but your sims lose their original copies, in the process, and would have to buy new ones, if you want them to have their own books.

Edit to remove unnecessary word.

I did grow some copies of one of the books with the Omni plant, and sold the copies to the bookstore, but they didn't show up for sale after that :( I didn't know they were at the Library - I hardly ever went there, because it was all the same trash in the bookshelves at home. Time to revisit! I'm hoping townies will mention my sims' books in conversations.

:P Sounds like a scam to me.

My Sims sold a bunch of books to the bookstore, but I can't remember them showing up for sale. Of course, I never look at all the options at the bookstore, I just click on the Music/Fishing/Recipes/Skills tab depending on what I want. I can't be bothered to scroll through all those other books.

Most of the sims I based on RL friends are bookworms, so I do indeed shop for books. But now that they've all written tons, there's no need to buy them anymore. I wish they could have a bookgroup and pass them all around.

You can duplicate books with the omni plant by the science facility (or at home, if you've got them) but there doesn't appear to be a way to give them to friends and family in other lots. This is stupid, because, if anyone is going to want a copy of Johnny's first book, it'll be grandma who lives down the road.