Veggie "Sins"

It's been 5 months (ish) since I fully committed to vegetarianism, and I'm quite proud of how well I've done, I've not really had any slip ups, or moments of lack of will power and I can safely say that apart from the occassional craving for smoked samon and steak canadian (which is a total surprise, if anything I thought I'd miss chicken!) I've not missed meat.  And I think that is due to it being a gradual process, in the early days I never ruled out ordering meat at a restaurant, and eventually I didn't even think about it.

However...I have do have a few "sins"...

Rose Wine
Oh how I love a nice glass of rose.  But due to manufacturers putting crap like fish bladders etc (often to bring down production costs), and the methods by which wine is refined means unless it says it is vegetarian on the label, it often isn't.  Which is annoying, why the hell would you expect/want animal products to be in a drink? It's not like I've looked at a fish's swim bladder and thought "well, that would make a nice tipple"!

I've managed to find a wine in ASDA (ASDA's own brand Lambrusco Rose) which is vegetarian- is £2.28, 3 units per bottle (so if you wanted you could drink the whole bottle without guilt/hangover plus it's probably low calorie) and actually tastes quite nice- it's quite light and quite 'pop-like'. BUT whenever I go out, I just can't resist a glass of rose, even if in the back of my mind I know that it's probably not veggie, but it taste sooo good!

Shoes
OK, so I own leather shoes from my meat-eating days- I'm NOT getting rid of them the way I see it is that they have already been bought and to get rid of them would be wasteful. But I am trying to make sure that any new shoes I buy aren't made of leather.

HOWEVER, a few months ago, I was looking for some new sandals to take on holiday, now I did spot some on the Vegetarian Shoes website but I spent so long dithering on whether to buy them (they're not cheap, and then there is the added postage cost) that they sold out.  I couldn't find anything else I liked (why are vegan shoes SO ugly?) and when I did find any I liked they were always too expensive (I'm going to wear them for about one week a year!).  Then I saw some Regatta sandals that were nice, not too expensive and looked comfy AND it said they were made out of Nuback NOT leather, so I ordered them.  By the time I had googled what exactely Nuback was, it was too late and I couldn't figure out on the website how to cancel the order! But OMG they are comfy!

Thai Curries
I love curry, and I find it frustrating having to check for the presence of fish sauce in Thai curry pastes.  However, when The Boy discovered that ASDA now do a Thai Massaman paste (I had it once at Rice, it was AMAZEBALLS but it's impossible to find a pre-made paste, never mind a veggie one) that has fish sauce in, I chose to IGNORE this fact and eat the otherwise veggie curry anyway!

Also there was the Thai red curry I ate at a pub, it seemed like the kind of place that the chef would be unaware that Thai curry pastes contain fish sauce. Despite thinking this, I decided that the pub claiming the curry was veggie was enough- so I ate it and it was amazing!

To be honest, I don't feel too guilty about these "sins", I'm good the rest of the time, and so what if there a few things in life I'm finding hard to give up? I see vegetarianism as a belief, people have that belief for different reasons, just like religious beliefs people have different interpretations.  Some Christians choose not to have sex before marriage, some do- they still class themselves as Christians.  I'm vegetarian, sometimes I eat the odd bit of fish product that's hidden within an otherwise vegetarian product, or I accidently buy non-vegan shoes, lifes too short to get hung up about little things.  If anything, I'm not worried about being judged by vegetarians about these things, more by non-vegetarians who use things like this to point out that it's "impossible" to be vegetarian and so, why bother? 

It would be interesting to hear what "sins" other vegetarian readers have committed, and do you feel guilty about them?