Vegetarian vs Yogurt
March 25, 2008 by dinysays
As I was eating my key lime pie-flavored Yoplait yogurt, for some weird reason my eyes were fixed on ’live and active cultures’ on the container. In other words, living organisms. Meaning the Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermaopilus, which convert pasteurized milk to yogurt during fermentation.
Would a vegetarian eat yogurt, then? I pondered. It has a living ‘thing’ in it.
Vegetarianism is, cheating from Wikipedia, the practice of a diet that excludes all animal flesh, including poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacea, and the slaughter-by products. Since I skipped a lot of my Microbiology classes back in high school *ahem* especially the microorganism subject, I don’t quite remember the detail about bacterias. Would a few micrometres in length (in the shape of spheres, rods, or spirals) be considered ‘fleshy’ for Lactobacillus or its cousin, Streptococcus? Does eating something alive or fleshy even though it’s a tiny thing, bother a vegetarian?
Something to keep in mind though, unlike cells of animals, bacteria cells do not contain a nucleus and rarely harbour membrane-bound organelles. In plain English, bacteria does not have chromosomes thus we won’t know if it’s a girl bacteria or a boy bacteria. Not only bacteria lacks of gender identity, it also lacks of proteins and lipids.
So what? We don’t need to call it Miss Lactobacillus or Mr. Streptococcus anyway. I pondered again. No protein or lipids? Even better for the vegetarians. I began to feel confident.
If a tiny living thing doesn’t bother a vegetarian, would the fact that Yoplait contains gelatin -which is made from boiled pig skin, animal bones and hooves- bothered them?
This is the way to approach the yoghurt problem: cool and in a scientific standoffish way.
And with tongue in the cheek of course - which makes it even taste better.
(I love it: it should be in the “Irony” or “Fun” category also I guess)
thanks, colson. i took you up on creating ‘irony’ category. after i wrote the posting, i couldn’t really fit it into my existing categories. and yeah… i think ‘irony’ fits just fine, doesn’t it?
thanks for your time to read it, but i still want to know the answer. would you pass this to your vegetarian friends, if there’s any, please?
I’ve got some. I’m living in a town which is crowded with people who adhere to antroposophy. Poor bastards.
So without any doubt I will offer them yoghurt you described (without telling them about the ingredients in it - yes, I’m a devil in disguise. And moreover it will do them no harm: ignorance breeds happiness).
how strange our eyes pick some words up
did you play “find the word blablablabla” with friends during traffic and make sure that it’s hard to find?
*gak nyambung ya..hehehe*
huahahaha…… for some reasons, this posting really made me laugh!!!
i wonder what this posting would do to some very dogmatic vegans…
@colson: how did it go? the yogurt trick for the poor bastards? did you get them?
@melly: i guess we both have wondering eyes
@mer: glad you find it amusing :p too bad i don’t have friends who neither vegetarian or vegan
Every time you eat something it has living bacteria on it that you ingest. Every time you breathe you inhale living bacteria. I don’t think it bothers vegetarians much then to consume living bacteria in yogurt. Most people have a level of complexity of life they usually don’t go beyond in their consumption, but I don’t imagine there are any out there that go that far (which isn’t possible anyways.) The gelatin is another issue though and there are supposed to be gelatin free yogurts out there.