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Actually, the human anatomy suggests that we are more adapted to be vegetarians, or in other words, 'herbivores'. We are equipped with molars, which are actually meant for grinding and chewing plant matter, and our digestive tract is more similar to that of herbivores. So biologically, homo sapiens are supposed to be vegetarians, but for some unknown reasons along the evolution line, meat started coming into their diets.
Also, meat has been linked with the rising number of cases of those with cholesterol problems, heart problems, deep-vein thrombosis, obesity, so on and so forth, due to the traces of fat that is naturally present in the meat.
Yes, the fact that potatoes can be fried and eaten in the form of potato chip, fries, etc., does contribute slightly to the health problems now, but the 'impact' of such food tend to be more subtle than that brought about by the consumption, especially over-consumption of meat.
We are equipped with molars, which are actually meant for grinding and chewing plant matter, and our digestive tract is more similar to that of herbivores. So biologically, homo sapiens are supposed to be vegetarians,
We are also equipped with canines and incisors, which are adapted to tearing and rending meat.
So biologically, homo sapiens are supposed to be vegetarians, but for some unknown reasons along the evolution line, meat started coming into their diets.
Meat was instrumental in the evolution of the species. It was impossible to sustain a large brain without consuming meat.
Also, meat has been linked with the rising number of cases of those with cholesterol problems, heart problems, deep-vein thrombosis, obesity, so on and so forth, due to the traces of fat that is naturally present in the meat.
That is untrue. Meat is actually very healthy, if eaten in appropriate amounts. Obesity is caused by overconsumption, most heart problems are induced by the oils meats are cooked in, not the meat.
Yes, the fact that potatoes can be fried and eaten in the form of potato chip, fries, etc., does contribute slightly to the health problems now
It actually contributes massively.
but the 'impact' of such food tend to be more subtle than that brought about by the consumption, especially over-consumption of meat.
Over-consumption of anything is by definition bad for you.
Because of the cholesterol and saturated fat in the meat is bad for... there is no denying that.
For the moral argument. The meat industry is known for it's horrid conditions for raising animals for meat... we're subjecting living creatures to pain for pretty close to frivolous causes
You should check out the film Food Inc. it is like a modern day The Jungle, really shows how disturbing the food industry is. Still isn't going to stop me from eating burgers though ;)
If you don't want a lot of fat in your meat, then get better cuts with less fat on it. I have seen Food Inc, but it's not going to make me stop eating meat.
Because of the cholesterol and saturated fat in the meat is bad for... there is no denying that.
That depends on how it is prepared, the cut of meat, the type of animal, etc.
Also, it can be a good thing depending upon type of civilisation, hunter-gatherers for example would benefit from the extra fat. But in our civilisation it isn't beneficial.
For the moral argument. The meat industry is known for it's horrid conditions for raising animals for meat... we're subjecting living creatures to pain for pretty close to frivolous causes
This is a highly variable argument, however. Because some of the animals process pain closer to stimuli response on one end of the spectrum to emotional pain on the other end. There are also very different conditions between farms and industries, including slaughter methods.
I think the argument you are making is one against industrial meat production, not against meat eating.
I guess it all does depend on what kind of meat you eat I'll give you that... but still most cuts of meat do have unhealthy components.
I'm just stating what the benefits of Vegetarianism are and why it is a better eating habit... on a health based issue and on a moral based one because there are still the moral arguments
These don't stand for everybody I'll admit that, but they do stand for me
I'm just stating what the benefits of Vegetarianism are and why it is a better eating habit... on a health based issue and on a moral based one because there are still the moral arguments
That's fine, but there's still one important thing: we're omnivores, so even making a moral case and health case, you would need to argue how we're supposed to be able to transition into a diet we're not evolved for.
Just because we're capable of eating meat doesn't mean we're "supposed" to. In the caveman days, when food was hard to come by, yes, meat consumption may have been necessary for survival. But that time is long gone.
One can be completely healthy without ever eating meat. It's not even hard to do so. See the links in my main argument for proof.
Just because we're capable of eating meat doesn't mean we're "supposed" to. In the caveman days, when food was hard to come by, yes, meat consumption may have been necessary for survival. But that time is long gone.
I wasn't making the argument that we are supposed to eat meat. That implies we were ordained for the purpose. I am stating that meat is part of our dietary profile. In other words, a diet without meat is harder to balance for our bodies because we developed under an environment where it wasn't necessary. To use an analogy, one can take a fish from the sea and raise it in a basin of water, but in that case you have to account for the pH, specific gravity of the water, light, temperature and so on where the native environment already takes care of that.
One can be completely healthy without ever eating meat. It's not even hard to do so. See the links in my main argument for proof.
I never said you couldn't, just that it's more difficult. You must also realise that the vegetarian (vegan) lifestyle cuts out animal products which make superior-tasting foods (again, either exceptionally difficult to recreate without animal products, or impossible due to food chemistry).
A minor topic nobody raised was that the animals we keep as pets are carnivores, meaning that they can't switch to vegan diets at all. They're evolved to be dependant upon meat.
Vegetarian and vegan are not the same thing. Vegetarians don't eat meat, but they may eat animal products such as milk or eggs. Vegans are more extreme - they avoid anything that requires the exploitation of animals.
That just isn't true. Show me some research that supports that claim. Here's a comprehensive review that demonstrates the opposite:
That review demonstrates the health between vegetarians and nonvegetarians. In the study, I saw nothing specifying the diet habits of the nonvegetarians. They instead focused on things like smoking, eating fish instead of beef, etc. The vegetarians were selected from avenues which would have a higher chance of them being good dieters.
As for living as a vegetarian, you have to eat products with care to them not having meat, and you have to take care with regards to your amino acid intake and vitamin intake. Arguing this point with me is like arguing that living Kosher isn't more difficult than eating anything. A restrictive diet will always take more care.
Vegetarian and vegan are not the same thing. Vegetarians don't eat meat, but they may eat animal products such as milk or eggs. Vegans are more extreme - they avoid anything that requires the exploitation of animals.
I know the difference, I was trying to include both in my sentence.
"The vegetarians were selected from avenues which would have a higher chance of them being good dieters."
What are you talking about? The first sentence of the abstract states that they controlled for that: "...compare the death rates from common diseases of vegetarians with those of nonvegetarians with similar lifestyles".
"you have to eat products with care to them not having meat"
Only if you want to be strict about it. Even a slight effort is better than no effort at all. Killing one animal isn't as bad as killing ten.
"and you have to take care with regards to your amino acid intake and vitamin intake"
It's not hard at all. Dairy products contain full amino acids. So does soy. There are many combinations of non-meat products which give you full amino acids: beans and tortillas, peanut butter sandwich, macaroni and cheese, just to name a few examples. You should be eating a variety of foods anyway.
What are you talking about? The first sentence of the abstract states that they controlled for that: "...compare the death rates from common diseases of vegetarians with those of nonvegetarians with similar lifestyles".
You're taking that too literally. What it meant was similar lifestyles with regards to variables to measured like smoking. No where in the study did it mention whether they matched people based upon heath-consciousness or diet-carefulness.
Only if you want to be strict about it. Even a slight effort is better than no effort at all. Killing one animal isn't as bad as killing ten.
Remember that we're talking about effort here. A restrictive diet by default takes more effort because you must abstain from something.
It's not hard at all. Dairy products contain full amino acids. So does soy. There are many combinations of non-meat products which give you full amino acids: beans and tortillas, peanut butter sandwich, macaroni and cheese, just to name a few examples. You should be eating a variety of foods anyway.
Remember, you're abstaining from animal products. Soy can cause hypothyroidism, and there are a significant number of people allergic to it. Beans are a good meal, but lack Methionine in good quantities. Most pastas, flours and such are pure carbohydrates with little nutrition to them.
Well, soy is a pretty damn useful plant. From soy products we get the necessary protein that we would normally get from meat.
That's true. It has a PDCAAS score of 0.91 which is very high. However it is also one of the types of foods that people are more commonly allergic to, and we must also remember that it cannot substitute the flavours and textures of a number of foods we are accustomed to eating.
soy is also one of the types of foods that people are more commonly allergic to
Yeah, if you're allergic to a food, then don't eat it, it's a no brainer. Soy isn't the only protein rich plant. There's also peanut butter and most dairy products such as cheese and things.
Yeah, if you're allergic to a food, then don't eat it, it's a no brainer. Soy isn't the only protein rich plant. There's also peanut butter and most dairy products such as cheese and things.
Vegetarians can't eat cheese. Also soy can cause hypothyroidism.
No, you're talking about vegans. Vegans don't eat cheese. Vegetarians on the other hand are a little different as they do eat animal products other than meat.
Also soy can cause hypothyroidism.
So can pregnancy, radiation treatments to the neck area (if you needed to treat cancer), for the rest you can Google it. The major risk factors are if you're over 50 years old or female. Consuming soy never gave me no hypo-nuthin'.
The meats we consume are the results of animal husbandry, which our bodies are not accustomed to. (speaking from an evolutionary perspective of human genetics)
Plants, those that have not been genetically modified by humans from 1950-current, are better for our nutritional needs and have far greater health benefits.
There is much evidence linking the eating of "greens" to providing 90%+ the nutrients we need to provide a healthy living structure. I would argue that meats that do not come from the result of animal husbandry, also known as wild, have far more benefit. Furthermore, if these meats come from an environment that has the least amount of contaminants it would be the most beneficial- as your body would not require the energy to detoxify as well as any possible genetic change that could result in later in disease.
*Vegetarianism is different than being Vegan.
I'm more inclined to practice a 80-20 or 70-30 type diet whereas the first number is the percent of plant based consumption and the later is animal based in your diet.
The meats we consume are the results of animal husbandry, which our bodies are not accustomed to. (speaking from an evolutionary perspective of human genetics)
It doesn't work that way. Agriculture and animal husbandry have been under development for over ten thousand years. The changes have been gradual, and the relationship could be described as mutualistic. Even if we dropped modern cultivars and breeds upon humans from ten thousand years ago, the differences would lean towards protein and fat productivity, rather than completely new compounds which couldn't be metabolised.
Plants, those that have not been genetically modified by humans from 1950-current, are better for our nutritional needs and have far greater health benefits.
I'm going to assume that you never really studied genetics, and general biology at the college levels. I can't imagine why an educated person would make such a blanket statement which is so demonstrably untrue.
Besides the obvious fact that organisms have been swapping genes between each other for millions of years (Horizontal gene transfer), and that agriculture is based on the selection of novel mutations and shaping of alleles, one only needs to look at inventions such as Golden Rice to see how easily genetic engineering can enhance the nutrition of foods. Even if present agricultural crops only share the same nutrition as non-GE heirloom varieties, one could still blame the widespread mistrust fostered by the green movement for discouraging novel GE foods.
There is much evidence linking the eating of "greens" to providing 90%+ the nutrients we need to provide a healthy living structure. I would argue that meats that do not come from the result of animal husbandry, also known as wild, have far more benefit. Furthermore, if these meats come from an environment that has the least amount of contaminants it would be the most beneficial- as your body would not require the energy to detoxify as well as any possible genetic change that could result in later in disease.
The last ten thousand years of human society suggests differently. In other words, agriculture, and animal husbandry have enabled us to leave hunter-gatherer lifestyles, and evolve into much healthier, longer-lived lives due to more plentiful food, better variety, and other factors.
Its not healthier. You usually lack alot of protein which is majorily contributed by meat. Protein is vital for cell production and if you dont have this, you can become quite week and you lack the formation of tissue cells which will eventually turn into muscle.
As for the morals of eating animals I do have to agree with you on the attrocities commited by a few un-nameable abattoirs, however the whole concept of eating animals has been a foundation of human suplementation for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years!
There are other forms of protein besides that which comes from animal flesh.
Sure, it's been around forever...but so has war.. does that mean war is better than peace... just because something is a tradition that doesn't mean it is good?
By that I would assume you would give me a plausible reason as to why eating meet is as bad a shooting someone on the battlefield.
Care to elaborate? Also I don’t understand why your using a COMPLETLEY separate point to justify your statement. War and eating meat are to vividly separate things so don’t try and sensationalize your argument.
Also other forms of protein from plant material are no way near as neutrituoius as meat. There are so many vegetarians I know who have iron deficiencies and as a result have to take capsules to keep up there fanatisized fad.
I just used war as an example of why traditions are not necessarily good. It's just an analogy...
Protein from plants is the same as protein from meat... go figure... there aren't a lot of types of protein out there. Yeah...they just need to take Iron capsules... I don't see anything wrong with that.
Yes meat does have protein but so do many other types of foods. And when i say mean, I mean MANY. Even some sodas have small amounts of protein. Plus, too much protein will turn to fat. Too much fat then equals obesity. And obesity as we all know often results in an early death.
All vegetarians who have not eaten for three weeks because their lands have been ravaged by fire, drought, or frost will soon eat the flesh of the herbivore or die. Albeit, the omnivores living among them will be the last to die because they are not fixated upon a false paradigm of eating PREFERENCES.
Eating is about survival and living, it is not about orthodoxy and paradigms. And when men by choice prefer to eat “only certain foods to the exclusion of others” they have precluded their survival in many conditions.
The omnivore though will always eat to survive and will always, in all conditions, out-live vegetarian ideologues.
(Only vegetarians reduce eating to morals. Most people eat to live. Perhaps vegetarians are ignorant of the fact that their diet is possible because of their meat-eating brethren.)
But in the civilized world, being vegetarian is easy, healthy, and morally correct. Let's not cling to barbaric traditions for no good reason.
Oh please, not the tired "moral argument" for veganism/vegetarianism. Forgetting the fact that many of the animals we eat aren't capable of suffering on the same level that we do (piscine animals are mostly instinctual, with not many exceptions, insects and molluscs are basically just ganglia attached to a body except for cephalopods), our domestication of animals for meat, eggs, and milk has kept them alive as a species (because as we all know, many ancestors of the modern domesticated animals are endangered or extinct now), and finally the harvesting of fields for grains, cereals and legumes kills all sorts of animals which live in those plants.
There are actually good reasons to be vegetarian: it can be a healthier diet, it can be more affordable, and if you are only able to get your meat from a factory farm which treats its livestock poorly, it can be merciful to those cows, pigs and chickens but don't make the argument that killing animals is inherently immoral.
I actually agree that killing the dumbest of animals like fish and bugs is probably no big deal. I left that out to keep things simple.
I think killing more intelligent animals like chickens is probably not ok. Cows and pigs are well across the line.
I also agree that eating non-factory farmed meat is much less of an issue.
"our domestication of animals for meat, eggs, and milk has kept them alive as a species"
This is a bogus argument. We could preserve species without slaughtering them.
The suffering we inflict upon animals is the primary issue here. Ethics are based on the maximization of happiness and the minimization of suffering. Inflicting pain on a sentient being without adequate justification is wrong. End of story.
"the harvesting of fields for grains, cereals and legumes kills all sorts of animals"
This is a legitimate point.
This guy did some research on the issue and concluded that replacing chicken and pork with grass-fed beef would result in the least amount of harm:
Of course, most beef isn't grass fed, but is instead fed with harvested grains, so we run into the same problem there. And also, agricultural practices could be improved significantly from a moral standpoint if they took minimization of harm into account.
I actually agree that killing the dumbest of animals like fish and bugs is probably no big deal. I left that out to keep things simple.
I see. There's a bonus point for you in realising that insects are animals too, most people seem oblivious to that.
I think killing more intelligent animals like chickens is probably not ok. Cows and pigs are well across the line.
Why do you condemn their killing? I agree that intelligent animals shouldn't suffer but there are ways used in the butchering process to kill without inflicting a prolonged death.
I also agree that eating non-factory farmed meat is much less of an issue.
Then shouldn't you be framing this discussion as vegetarianism against factory farming? Or, vegetarianism and home farming against factory farming?
This is a bogus argument. We could preserve species without slaughtering them.
We can, but our culture demonstrates that this is only a recently acquired trait. Instead we tend to best preserve that which we find useful. If it wasn't for pets, meats, farming, and gardens we probably would have removed thousands more species from the Earth.
This is also in line with evolution. Animals in nature will farm other animals or use other animals and form a relationship. Some ants do this with fungi, flowers do this with bees, we do this with agriculture.
The suffering we inflict upon animals is the primary issue here. Ethics are based on the maximization of happiness and the minimization of suffering. Inflicting pain on a sentient being without adequate justification is wrong. End of story.
Alright, I see the heart of your argument. You're favouring a departure from a society that survives into a society which seeks to be magnanimous towards other kinds. I suggest you frame this issue from a evolutionary standpoint instead of a moral or ethical one. At the moment we can afford to be generous to other species but remember that life itself is a struggle, and always will be, for resources. You should take from it a respect for the ephemeral nature of life and indeed species in this struggle, and that life always changes so that eventually we will be on the other side of this argument again having to kill for survival. In other words, this shouldn't be about minimising pain and suffering, because pain and suffering exist and always will. This should be about preventing needless suffering, like what you find in a slaughterhouse when a live animal is beaten, or in a packed pen where chickens fight each other, or worse when cows trample each other.
Of course, most beef isn't grass fed, but is instead fed with harvested grains, so we run into the same problem there. And also, agricultural practices could be improved significantly from a moral standpoint if they took minimization of harm into account.
I can only speak as a person who has lived with horses my entire life on a small farm, that feeding these animals grass only is not good for the animal. They need supplements of alfalfa, and grains in order to build up weight. I don't know whether this applies to cows, but it probably does otherwise farmers would have used only grass because it's more cost-effective.
Well, it's really a technical point. If we accept that the suffering of intelligent animals is bad, then we must conclude that any butchering method short of euthanasia is going to be at least slightly wrong from an ethical perspective.
"Then shouldn't you be framing this discussion as vegetarianism against factory farming?"
I am to an extent. But there are reasons for avoiding meat that don't have to do with factory farming, such as the health benefits.
"Instead we tend to best preserve that which we find useful."
Still a bogus argument. Why is preserving species inherently good?
"This is also in line with evolution."
Specious appeal to nature.
"At the moment we can afford to be generous to other species but remember that life itself is a struggle, and always will be, for resources."
You're right! The bovine uprising could come at any moment! Killing may be justified when it's required for survival, but civilization has developed well beyond that point.
"this shouldn't be about minimising pain and suffering, because pain and suffering exist and always will"
The fact that something will always exist does not imply it should not be minimized.
"They need supplements of alfalfa, and grains in order to build up weight."
I see. Well, maybe grass-fed beef wouldn't be the best way to go. I don't know, figuring the technicalities behind the minimization of harm would take a lot of work. My central point is that we should use that principle in guiding our decisions.
Well, it's really a technical point. If we accept that the suffering of intelligent animals is bad, then we must conclude that any butchering method short of euthanasia is going to be at least slightly wrong from an ethical perspective.
I have read about studies where kashrut and halal (ritual) killing methods afflict minimal pain to the animal.
The above is an English translation of a 1978 German study (Deutsche Tieraerztliche Wochenschrift volume 85 (1978), pages 62-66).
I am to an extent. But there are reasons for avoiding meat that don't have to do with factory farming, such as the health benefits.
Avoiding meat doesn't have health benefits inherently, dietary planning does. You're eating a very carefully selected diet, while normal consumers do not. This is what cases the discrepancy.
Still a bogus argument. Why is preserving species inherently good?
I never said it was good. I implied it was desirable. The reasoning should be simple to infer: preserving genepools to work from and use is more desirable than losing them.
Specious appeal to nature.
I suggest that you deepen your knowledge. It's should be embarrassing when an argument you make is seen as paper thin by your rivals. For example, calling my use of evolution to provide insight into how the animal and plant kingdoms build relationships with each other is not an appeal to nature, but instead a call to recognise that we are not unique in farming, and that we should recognise that farming is an effective way to build dependency and thus a requirement to sustain more organisms than just ourselves in nature.
An appeal to nature is if I said "animals farm, nature farms, that's why it is good." An appeal to nature is a plea that what is natural is inherently good. Learn the different between that and using nature to provide insight or context.
The fact that something will always exist does not imply it should not be minimized.
Pain and suffering are a part of life, just like death, and disease. In terms of a cost to benefit ratio in minimising them, you have a sort of graph where two asymptotes intersect but are in opposite directions. In other words, there will always be a point when the cost to minimise pain far outweighs the benefits achieved from it. Hitting a perfect equilibrium is also undesirable because in a business you need to have some sort of return on your investment.
But what you should really be focusing your attention on is the fact that to live is to experience hardship. We shouldn't have the mindset where pain is bad, and an anaesthetised life is desirable. Pain and hardship punctuates our existence. Animals accept this too, probably better than us. Which still gets us back to what I said earlier: we should eliminate UNNECESSARY pain, like that caused by abusive owners.
Minimal pain is still pain, is it not? Also, I seriously doubt things go so smoothly every time. If animals are viewed as not deserving of ethical treatment, abuses are going to be common.
"Avoiding meat doesn't have health benefits inherently"
It does, it makes you less likely to suffer from heart disease. I'll leave this to the other thread.
"preserving genepools to work from and use"
I'm sure we have ample genetic stock of every farm animal in several databases. Therefore it is not necessary to continue breeding them for this highly dubious purpose.
"calling my use of evolution to provide insight into how the animal and plant kingdoms build relationships with each other"
Ok, I didn't read your point carefully and assumed you were making the tired old argument that animals kill therefore people should kill. Upon rereading I see you were actually saying that we have a symbiotic relationship with the animals we slaughter. Ok, but that doesn't change the fact that inflicting pain is bad. Again, we could preserve genetic stock without breeding and killing.
"there will always be a point when the cost to minimise pain far outweighs the benefits achieved from it"
I agree. However, society is far from the point of negative returns. As things are now, we could achieve much benefit at minimal expense.
"We shouldn't have the mindset where pain is bad, and an anaesthetised life is desirable."
I think you're giving an absurdly simplistic answer to a very difficult philisophical question. Maybe people need a certain amount suffering to feel fufilled, maybe a pain-free life would be more satisfying. It's not at all clear. I for one think I would like to live a long happy life with as little suffering as possible. Of course you are free to punch yourself in the nuts repeatedly if you think that's what life is all about.
"we should eliminate UNNECESSARY pain, like that caused by abusive owners."
I agree. I would argue that all the suffering we inflict on animals with regard to their use as food is unnecessary.
Minimal pain is still pain, is it not? Also, I seriously doubt things go so smoothly every time. If animals are viewed as not deserving of ethical treatment, abuses are going to be common.
Your argument here is fairly tenuous, I'd suggest reading the link I provided to see why.
It does, it makes you less likely to suffer from heart disease. I'll leave this to the other thread.
Meat doesn't cause heart problems, it's a matter of good diet. Soy contains certain compounds which reduce cardiovascular problems. Therefore it isn't so much a problem due to eating meat, but abstaining from foods like soy.
Ok, I didn't read your point carefully and assumed you were making the tired old argument that animals kill therefore people should kill. Upon rereading I see you were actually saying that we have a symbiotic relationship with the animals we slaughter. Ok, but that doesn't change the fact that inflicting pain is bad. Again, we could preserve genetic stock without breeding and killing.
I do not believe that inflicting pain is inherently bad. I believe that meaningless pain is a bad thing. Much pain actually serves a purpose.
However, to address your point in particular, farming cattle, poultry, pigs and so on is a largely humane practice when performed on a small level. There is room for improvement (for example, chickens deserve more empathy but somehow they do not provoke it in humans as much as mammals do), but if you have ever lived in a farming state, and you would have probably noticed that in small farms the cows are given ample room, and in general conditions are better because the owners gain nothing from abusing their animals.
I agree. However, society is far from the point of negative returns. As things are now, we could achieve much benefit at minimal expense.
I can't comment upon this without you elaborating upon what you think needs to be done.
I think you're giving an absurdly simplistic answer to a very difficult philisophical question. Maybe people need a certain amount suffering to feel fufilled, maybe a pain-free life would be more satisfying. It's not at all clear. I for one think I would like to live a long happy life with as little suffering as possible. Of course you are free to punch yourself in the nuts repeatedly if you think that's what life is all about.
It's complicated to you probably because you see pain as an inconvenience instead of a tool to learn by, and an indicator if something is wrong. On a personal level pain keeps us from laying in one pose or on one body part too long, it indicates a possible health problem, and causes us to avoid dangerous things. On a local level it causes us to learn from our mistakes with others, and to appreciate what we have when it is gone. It gives pause to our lives when they are too regular and full of forgettable memories, maybe a better way to explain it is that a tragedy in our life makes us appreciate good moments instead of merely expecting them. On the global level pain keeps us from acting in a purely detached, callous and manipulative manner towards our neighbour states because it allows us to empathise with their plights. It also motivates revolutions and change in those states so that they don't stay in their bad situations forever.
Living in a pain-free life is merely existing, watching a show unfold before you, expecting the next episode. Almost everything in life requires some dialectic in order to give a deeper context. Good means little without evil, happiness is just existence unless you know sadness, lawfulness doesn't mean much without lawlessness, and so on.
I agree. I would argue that all the suffering we inflict on animals with regard to their use as food is unnecessary.
That's too broad a statement for me to argue with directly.
Are you arguing that the pain that is inflicted upon them as they exist in open pens is unnecessary? The pain they suffer from each other and from simply existing, as they wouldn't exist unless they were being used? Is it unnecessary pain when they go hungry from a diet which prevents overfeeding? When they are worked for exercise, and being whipped, is that unnecessary?
"I'd suggest reading the link I provided to see why."
Ok, it's hypothetically true that animals can be raised in good conditions and killed humanely. That would be ok. I doubt things work so picturesquely in the real world, but I will admit it's theoretically possible.
"Meat doesn't cause heart problems"
What are you basing that on? You seem to be just throwing out guesses without any supporting evidence. It's well established that saturated fat and cholesteral cause heart problems, and meat has lots of both. Just put two and two together.
"it isn't so much a problem due to eating meat, but abstaining from foods like soy."
This is like saying, "The problem isn't playing with knives, the problem is abstaining from band-aids." If you don't cut yourself in the first place, you won't need a band-aid. If you don't eat meat, you won't have a problem that needs to be fixed.
"Much pain actually serves a purpose."
Something can serve a purpose while still being bad. A lesser evil may be necessary in some cases to prevent a greater evil. This does not change the fact that, overall, evil should be minimized.
"I can't comment upon this without you elaborating upon what you think needs to be done."
Individuals choosing to abstain from factory farmed and high-fat meats would clearly be a good first step. Beyond that I would call for a tax on high-fat meats and animal welfare laws which prevent the abuses seen in factory farms. Beyond that, abstaining from all meat except fish seems to me like a good idea, although I will admit this question is considerably less clear.
"an indicator if something is wrong"
Obviously pain is an important indicator. When I talk about eliminating pain, I'm talking about eliminating the things that cause pain, not suggesting we anesthetize ourselves.
"Living in a pain-free life is merely existing"
Living a pain-full life is also "merely existing".
"happiness is just existence unless you know sadness"
Not true. You seem to be forgetting that most of the time people feel neutral. Both happiness and sadness have meaning relative to our neutral state.
Ok, it's hypothetically true that animals can be raised in good conditions and killed humanely. That would be ok. I doubt things work so picturesquely in the real world, but I will admit it's theoretically possible.
It's not hypothetical. I suggest you try living in a farming community, or small town with nearby farms.
What are you basing that on? You seem to be just throwing out guesses without any supporting evidence. It's well established that saturated fat and cholesteral cause heart problems, and meat has lots of both. Just put two and two together.
Saturated fat is a type of lipid which is shared in many food sources. It is a form of energy storage, because breaking the hydrogen bonds in a lipid chain releases biochemical energy. Cholesterol is a steroid which is a critical component used in cellular membranes. Both of these compounds are common among foods, not just meat. Heart disease is caused by elevated levels of saturated fats. It's the same with cholesterol.
In other words, when you have a cursory understanding of these foods and their role in health, I will grant that it can easily appear that meat simply leads to heart disease. However when you break these foods down into their constituent parts the argument is less meaningful.
This is like saying, "The problem isn't playing with knives, the problem is abstaining from band-aids." If you don't cut yourself in the first place, you won't need a band-aid. If you don't eat meat, you won't have a problem that needs to be fixed.
You need to have a more balanced image of the body. It's a very complicated pool of chain reactions, input and output. Eating meat provides a very dense amount of energy, this is why it is so easy to over-eat it and hurt your health. Like any high-energy food source, in the past they were difficult to come by, often with the trade off being energy lost in the pursuit. In our modern culture this is no longer the case, one can eat high-energy foods very easily, they are everywhere. Soybeans contain phytoestrogens which may reduce cholesterol levels, which is surmised as the cause of its positive effects for cardiovascular health, if this is the case it would mean that one should include this form of protein in their diet for better health. It isn't a strong argument for not eating meat, however.
Basically, your argument for not eating meat, due to heart disease, is comparable to advocating the avoidance of carbohydrates because they can cause insulin resistance, leading to diabetes. The issue isn't eating meat, or carbohydrates, you simply need a more balanced diet.
Individuals choosing to abstain from factory farmed and high-fat meats would clearly be a good first step. Beyond that I would call for a tax on high-fat meats and animal welfare laws which prevent the abuses seen in factory farms. Beyond that, abstaining from all meat except fish seems to me like a good idea, although I will admit this question is considerably less clear.
I actually agree with you on your points regarding abstaining from factory farmed meats, and animal welfare laws preventing the abuses in factory farms (I would consider the lack of space per animal, and poor hygiene among these abuses).
However, taxing high-fat meats isn't the duty of government. Laws don't exist to coerce people into choosing healthy food choices. More explicitly, such a tax is imposing your values and tastes upon others, which isn't the duty of law.
Obviously pain is an important indicator. When I talk about eliminating pain, I'm talking about eliminating the things that cause pain, not suggesting we anesthetize ourselves.
There is a clear disharmony in our values here. What exactly do you consider unnecessary pain?
Living a pain-full life is also "merely existing".
I agree, but my argument wasn't about living in only one or the other, but about respecting that pain is a necessary part of life that often cannot be avoid, and in many cases ought not be avoided.
Not true. You seem to be forgetting that most of the time people feel neutral. Both happiness and sadness have meaning relative to our neutral state.
I think you mean we have periods of disinterest, ennui, boredom, and apathy. I was making the argument that if we could only feel happiness it would be merely existing without sadness (or even neutral as you called it, which is a mixture of the aforementioned feelings). I was making an argument for why we need to have a rich measure of experiences rather than just striving for happiness.
Yes it is. In the real world, you always run into problems now and then. What if the stunning fails for some reason? What if the bolt pistol fails to kill? Even if you have failure rates of just 1%, when you kill millions of animals a year, you're going to have a lot of pain being dealt out. What levels of distress does the animal feel as it is being herded and restrained for slaughter? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know that I can keep things simple and avoid a lot of tricky moral questions simply by avoiding meat.
"Saturated fat... choloesteral..."
"restrict the intake of saturated fatty acids to less than 10% of daily energy intake...If populations are consuming less than 10%, they should not increase that level of intake."
"Laws don't exist to coerce people into choosing healthy food choices."
Says who? Society decides what our laws are. Also I wouldn't call a tax "coercion", as people could still by meat relatively easily albeit at a slightly higher price. It would be more like nudging people in the right direction.
"imposing your values and tastes upon others"
1) "Suffering is bad" is not a personal value, it's a universal truth.
2) Their hospital bills increase my healthcare costs.
Now, as for pain...
1) Negative feelings are inherently bad.
2) Pain is a kind of negative feeling, therefore pain is bad.
3) Pain let's us know when something is wrong.
4) Knowing something is wrong allows us to avoid a greater amount of negative feelings.
5) Therefore pain is less bad than not knowing something is wrong.
Do you see? It is important that we know when something is wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that pain should be minimized -- that the causes of pain should be eliminated as much as possible. In other words, the ability to experience pain is necessary, but pain itself is not. We need smoke alarms; we don't need fire.
"I think you mean we have periods of disinterest, ennui, boredom, and apathy."
No, most of the time I don't feel those negative emotions. Most of the time I simply feel "content." When I think of happiness I think of brief spikes like that time a girl I liked smiled at me, or I heard a funny joke. When I think of unhappiness I think of lying in bed alone at night. The majority of my existence lies between these two extremes. I did not by any means need to spend many nights alone to be able to enjoy nights spent with another.
Yes it is. In the real world, you always run into problems now and then. What if the stunning fails for some reason? What if the bolt pistol fails to kill? Even if you have failure rates of just 1%, when you kill millions of animals a year, you're going to have a lot of pain being dealt out. What levels of distress does the animal feel as it is being herded and restrained for slaughter? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know that I can keep things simple and avoid a lot of tricky moral questions simply by avoiding meat.
You're forgetting that I live around this, and have been for over a decade. Small farms and agricultural communities are not as rushed as cities are. These types of rituals are taken care of properly often as a matter of pride.
However the crux of your argument rests on the assumption that you need a perfect solution that works every time. This is a perfect solution fallacy, and you should just accept that you can't have a perfect device or method, that there are tradeoffs, and that a failure rate of 1% is actually a good thing. It's better than 10%, or 50%.
If you can't make tricky moral decisions and prefer not to think about them, maybe you're on the wrong kind of debate. The point of this kind of debate is to open that can of worms and look at it rationally, everyone who commits to a position in real ought to have looked into this moral problem from the outset. I personally find it an easy decision. Life is give and take, benefits and pitfalls. I don't live under the delusion that a perfect way to eat ought to exist, I accept that things die to sustain me, and I accept that where I live happens to have a higher quality of life for these animals.
That seems to me to say, "the less saturated fat, the better."
We can get everything we need from foods low in saturated fat. So why bother monitoring our intake? Again, we can keep things simple by avoiding meat.
No, it says that you shouldn't eat past 10% for optimal health. You're reading into it due to your ignorance of how metabolism works. Saturated fat is a high energy source, and eating more than 10% is typically bad because your body won't use all of it, it will instead use the carbohydrates.
Not quite, because a certain amount of carbohydrates are needed for a healthy diet, whereas zero meat is needed for a healthy diet.
What is meat? Cholesterol, proteins, and lipids. Just like most types of high-energy foods. Your body requires all of these things for energy and metabolism, regardless of whether you get them from meat or nuts and legumes.
Carbohydrates are a simple energy source, essentially a chain of sugars. Again, we need this for energy.
Says who? Society decides what our laws are. Also I wouldn't call a tax "coercion", as people could still by meat relatively easily albeit at a slightly higher price. It would be more like nudging people in the right direction.
Nudging is a form of coercion, it's just a matter of degrees. You're forcing people to live the way you think they ought to live, when it isn't your business to do so.
This type of subject is very irritating on a personal level because people like you seem to think that a good society requires the government to operate as a parent or guardian, nudging everyone to conform to an increasingly long list of rules and regulations. Government exists to mediate the relationships between people and political agencies. Government is essentially the lubricant to keep relationships between people of different backgrounds working under a common rule set. It isn't your nanny.
1) "Suffering is bad" is not a personal value, it's a universal truth.
2) Their hospital bills increase my healthcare costs.
Which are both irrelevant to the discussion. Being a citizen of a free society means that you need to learn to respect what it means. It means you make allowances for all the different lifestyles and morals of people, agreeing to a common ethic. You show a supreme disrespect for the type of society you live in by expecting it to be a tool for which you can enforce your lifestyle upon everyone.
1) Negative feelings are inherently bad.
2) Pain is a kind of negative feeling, therefore pain is bad.
3) Pain let's us know when something is wrong.
4) Knowing something is wrong allows us to avoid a greater amount of negative feelings.
5) Therefore pain is less bad than not knowing something is wrong.
Assuming that negative feelings are inherently bad is contentious. For example, anger can motivate justice, jealousy can motivate self-improvement, sadness can motivate a change of lifestyle.
Pain can't be described as inherently bad either, as it motivates us to take different actions, it reminds us when we're sick, and it keeps us from straining our bodies. These are all good things. I believe you're conflating undesirability with badness. Pain is undesirable, that is why it can be good.
We need smoke alarms; we don't need fire.
Except, to extend your metaphor, if we removed fire we wouldn't have a valuable tool for life.
In other words, without pain we wouldn't have one of the great motivators in our lives. Where would we be if we couldn't experience hardships on a personal level? What would we become if suffering became only a topic of discussion? Soft? Detached? Unprepared for difficulty?
The majority of my existence lies between these two extremes. I did not by any means need to spend many nights along to be able to enjoy nights spent with another.
I wasn't considering those listed emotions as particularly negative, but if you insist; I would like to point out that those nights spent alone make the night spent with someone meaningful, rather than casual and normal. Likewise, years spent together with someone at night, make nights spent with no one all the more painful. Either way you look at it, one causes the other to become noteworthy.
Even if perfection is infeasible, we should still try to get as close to perfection as we can. Avoiding meat altogether avoids the inevitable accidents that occur when butchering animals. It is closer to perfection from an ethical perspective.
"If you can't make tricky moral decisions..."
I can make decisions, I just acknowledge that I am taking a best guess in some cases. The universe is too complex for us to know for sure what the best course of action is in any situation. The best we can do is make approximations and educated guesses.
"No, it says that you shouldn't eat past 10% for optimal health."
Did you not see this sentence: "If populations are consuming less than 10%, they should not increase that level of intake." In other words, "If you're consuming 5%, don't increase." "If you're consuming 0%, don't increase." I don't see how you can read that in any other way than "Less is better."
Here's another study that I believe says the same thing:
"Our findings suggest that replacing saturated and trans unsaturated fats with unhydrogenated monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats is more effective in preventing coronary heart disease in women than reducing overall fat intake."
I don't know why saturated fat causes heart disease, and I'm not sure the exact chain of causation has been conclusively proven. As this site says: "The full story about saturated fat and heart disease is very complex and much of it remains a mystery." However, the fact that we don't fully understand the process doesn't change the data: saturated fat leads to heart disease.
"You're forcing people to live the way you think they ought to live, when it isn't your business to do so."
First, you're using hyperbolic language to make my suggestion sound more extreme than it actually is. When you use the term "force" in such a broad sense, anything that influences others to take a desired action could be seen as "forcing" them. Does that mean we do away with traffic lights?
Second, I'm nudging people toward behaving ethically. Ethics are based on logical principles and have nothing to do with my personal values.
"government to operate as a parent or guardian, nudging everyone to conform to an increasingly long list of rules and regulations"
As long as those rules serve the common good, then what's the problem? I see the value in personal liberty, but I also see value in laying down rules that promote the well being of society. There are many areas where self-interest just doesn't work. Government has an important role to play in those situations. I think the soft paternalistic approach is a good compromise.
"you need to learn to respect..."
Your constant patronizing is getting old.
"It means you make allowances for all the different lifestyles and morals of people, agreeing to a common ethic."
Exactly, this debate is about what that ethic should entail.
"For example, anger can motivate justice, jealousy can motivate self-improvement, sadness can motivate a change of lifestyle."
Those all follow the same logic as pain. They are bad things who's badness is outweighed by the good to which they can lead. They are a means to an end, not the end in themselves.
"to extend your metaphor, if we removed fire we wouldn't have a valuable tool for life."
That's not extending the metaphor, that's breaking it. I was referring to the uncontrolled inferno found in a burning house, which serves no useful purpose. Let me be more explicit: We want to have the ability to respond to negative circumstances in a productive manner; but we do not want those negative circumstances themselves.
"without pain we wouldn't have one of the great motivators in our lives"
Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that pain is bad. Again, bad things can be desirable when they lead to a net benefit. The suffering involved in the slaughter of animals does not yield such benefits.
"one causes the other to become noteworthy"
I think this is just wishful thinking. We try to rationalize suffering that we cannot avoid to make ourselves feel better. But in any case, given the option, I think the vast majority of people would choose to avoid suffering in all cases.
Even if perfection is infeasible, we should still try to get as close to perfection as we can. Avoiding meat altogether avoids the inevitable accidents that occur when butchering animals. It is closer to perfection from an ethical perspective.
You see, this is why you aren't learning, and remain ignorant on some of the finer points of farming. You ignore people who know better than you, while simultaneously trying to rationalise a perfect solution fallacy. Why don't you just be honest with yourself and everyone else and admit that your choice to abstain from meat is based upon a personal preference, you felt uneasy eating mammals and birds and that is the heart of your position. In other words your position is based on a feeling, an emotional choice, with rational justification coming after the fact.
I can make decisions, I just acknowledge that I am taking a best guess in some cases. The universe is too complex for us to know for sure what the best course of action is in any situation. The best we can do is make approximations and educated guesses.
You're still defending a position where you apparently wish to avoid responsibility for these choices. Your argument reflects a lack of desire to commit to choices which may involve pain but with high gains. In other words you don't appear to be fully detached from these sorts of rational choices.
Did you not see this sentence: "If populations are consuming less than 10%, they should not increase that level of intake." In other words, "If you're consuming 5%, don't increase." "If you're consuming 0%, don't increase." I don't see how you can read that in any other way than "Less is better."
Because I don't think of foods as distinct types but instead as related proteins, lipids, sugars and steroids. Besides that, the following supports my original contention:
In developing countries, however, where energy intake for some population groups may be inadequate, energy expenditure is high and body fat stores are low (BMI <18.5 kg/m2). The amount and quality of fat supply has to be considered keeping in mind the need to meet energy requirements. Specific sources of saturated fat, such as coconut and palm oil, provide low-cost energy and may be an important source of energy for the poor.
I don't know why saturated fat causes heart disease, and I'm not sure the exact chain of causation has been conclusively proven. As this site says: "The full story about saturated fat and heart disease is very complex and much of it remains a mystery." However, the fact that we don't fully understand the process doesn't change the data: saturated fat leads to heart disease.
The study indicates a rising chance of heart disease with a rising level of saturated fat. I suggest that you bear in mind that without the relationship fully ascertained, we do not know if the behaviour of saturated fats on the body is due to phenotypes common among the population, relationships between the saturated fats and other foods in the person's diet, and so forth. You are also missing the bigger picture that a large portion of people in the developing world use saturated fats as part of their energy source without ill effect. This is also supported by the sources you use, which specify a gradually rising risk if heart disease, as well as a note that people in developing nations have a metabolism geared towards using fats rather than storing them.
First, you're using hyperbolic language to make my suggestion sound more extreme than it actually is. When you use the term "force" in such a broad sense, anything that influences others to take a desired action could be seen as "forcing" them. Does that mean we do away with traffic lights?
You're taking refuge in a reductio ad absurdum argument. Come back to this point with a proper rebuttal.
Second, I'm nudging people toward behaving ethically. Ethics are based on logical principles and have nothing to do with my personal values.
I don't care how you try to rationalise away your need to force your values on others. It doesn't change the fact of the matter.
As long as those rules serve the common good, then what's the problem? I see the value in personal liberty, but I also see value in laying down rules that promote the well being of society. There are many areas where self-interest just doesn't work. Government has an important role to play in those situations. I think the soft paternalistic approach is a good compromise.
It's actually really simple to figure out: you can't force people to be moral or good towards each other or animals. How people treat each other in their daily lives is shaped by culture, not government. If you can't distinguish the two then I suggest you try experiencing more of the world, live among different governments and cultures and pay attention to how the most restrictive and regulated governments don't follow with the most compassionate or well-aimed citizens.
But really, it's even simpler than that. Everyone has an idea what the common good is. There are probably hundreds of different ideologies based around some perceived notion of what a common good is, and how to achieve it. Your attempts to justify meddling with other people's affairs for the common good is really about pushing your view of the common good upon others with different ideas about how best to achieve it.
This really says to me that you're simply young and inexperienced. You probably live amongst a group of people who share values very similar to your own, and you just haven't paid attention to the views of others. You lack experience with diversity of viewpoints.
Your constant patronizing is getting old.
It wouldn't be old if you were less arrogant and learned from others.
Exactly, this debate is about what that ethic should entail.
No, with you this is about creating an ethic which is not common to anyone except your group. A common ethic implies values shared by everyone, or at least values that everyone can agree upon.
That's not extending the metaphor, that's breaking it. I was referring to the uncontrolled inferno found in a burning house, which serves no useful purpose. Let me be more explicit: We want to have the ability to respond to negative circumstances in a productive manner; but we do not want those negative circumstances themselves.
To which I already explained that I believe you conflate undesirability, which pain and hardship always are, with badness. Pain and hardship are undesirable but necessary. Pain is undesirable for obvious reasons but it helps us survive. Hardship is undesirable but it builds our character.
I think this is just wishful thinking. We try to rationalize suffering that we cannot avoid to make ourselves feel better. But in any case, given the option, I think the vast majority of people would choose to avoid suffering in all cases.
Which would lead to a society of soft, ineffectual people who have no appreciation for the fragile nature of life.
If you don't understand why I'm reluctant to accept unsourced claims from an anonymous stranger, then I'm afraid that says more about you than it does about me.
"rationalise a perfect solution fallacy"
I am not arguing that avoiding meat is perfect, just that it is better.
"your position is based on a feeling, an emotional choice, with rational justification coming after the fact"
It doesn't matter where the rationale comes from so long as that rationale is logically founded.
"abstain from meat is based upon a personal preference"
It's not a personal preference. I would prefer to eat meat. Mostly because it's easier to follow the crowd than to think for oneself. Seriously, do you think I enjoy taking shit from sneering mobs with a near religious commitment to the consumption of meat? I don't. I avoid meat simply because in my judgment it is the logically consistent thing to do.
"I don't think of foods as distinct types but instead as related proteins, lipids, sugars and steroids"
Ok, yes, when you break it down enough all food is simply combinations of molecules... but do you not agree that these particular arrangements of molecules have been shown to lead to heart disease (even if we don't know how exactly)?
"people in the developing world use saturated fats as part of their energy source without ill effect"
I have not seen that statement anywhere. Perhaps the harm from saturated fat is simply less than the harm from starvation.
"bear in mind that without the relationship fully ascertained..."
Right, but do you agree that a causative relationship between saturated fat and heart disease is at least a reasonable possibility?
"reductio ad absurdum argument"
Reductio ad absurdum is not a fallacy. I'm asking you to draw a line. When do you think force is appropriate? Why? If you want to fast-forward a bit, whatever your answer is, I'm going to continue asking 'why?', until you're left with the basic principles of utilitarianism. From that foundation I will assert the utility of democratic government and coercive laws.
"you can't force people to be moral or good towards each other or animals"
You absolutely can. You simply pass laws which disincent people from immoral behavior.
"How people treat each other in their daily lives is shaped by culture, not government"
It's shaped by both. When one is tempted to commit murder, both the cultural values and legal incentives will factor into whether or not they actually go through with it.
"the most restrictive and regulated governments don't follow with the most compassionate or well-aimed citizens"
More anecdotes. Come back to this point with a proper rebuttal.
"Everyone has an idea what the common good is."
But not all of those ideas are logically founded.
"There are probably hundreds of different ideologies based around some perceived notion of what a common good is, and how to achieve it."
And we should attempt to select the best one.
"pushing your view of the common good"
Again, it's not about my personal view, it's about the logically inescapable fact that sentient beings have evolved to experience certain things in positive ways and certain things in negative ways.
"A common ethic implies values shared by everyone, or at least values that everyone can agree upon."
And I'm saying everyone should be able to agree on this value. Because it is founded on clear logical principles.
"Pain and hardship are undesirable but necessary."
Not all pain and hardship are necessary. I'm arguing that the suffering we inflict upon animals, for instance, is unnecessary.
If you don't understand why I'm reluctant to accept unsourced claims from an anonymous stranger, then I'm afraid that says more about you than it does about me.
I've had to continuously correct you on minor points concerning basic farming and butchering practices. It's clear that I know what I'm talking about because I even referenced a translated article. My corrections were not audacious or incredible in their nature, but reflect something you could learn if you bothered to live amongst the people who are at the centre of your controversy. Your hyper-scepticism is a cover for not wishing to concede fault. It's the same as demanding sources when a botanist tells you to bring your Avacado tree indoors on cold (freezing) nights.
I am not arguing that avoiding meat is perfect, just that it is better.
That's not what a perfect solution fallacy is. A perfect solution fallacy is abandoning meat because a butchering method cannot be found that is painless every time, under all circumstances.
It doesn't matter where the rationale comes from so long as that rationale is logically founded.
Of course it does. If your rationale comes from an emotional choice, then it means that any logic that follows is based upon a conclusion rather than being agnostic until a conclusion is reached. It means that your logic and reasoning is an attempt to cover for your emotional decision.
It's not a personal preference. I would prefer to eat meat. Mostly because it's easier to follow the crowd than to think for oneself. Seriously, do you think I enjoy taking shit from sneering mobs with a near religious commitment to the consumption of meat? I don't. I avoid meat simply because in my judgment it is the logically consistent thing to do.
Now you're projecting your inadequacies upon your adversaries. If you chose to eat a vegetable and grain based diet, that is your preference. You felt it was better somehow. You then proceeded to justify it afterwards with health reasons, and of course the moral decision of pain. It didn't have to happen in that order. Maybe you saw an animal butchered and felt empathy, and everything else followed from that. Maybe you are getting older, and decided on a new years resolution that you would eat healthier, and it followed from what you read in pop health magazines that vegetarian living is easier to build a healthy lifestyle upon. The point is, you have a preference, and now you must justify that preference to yourself. That you seem motivated to push this choice upon others by suggesting and supporting the idea of food taxes makes me think that you need laws like these as a form of approval from society for your dietary choice.
This entire debate has shown that vegetarianism is far from a logically consistent choice. For two main reasons, the first and most obvious being that animals die painfully in the fields where your grains, cereals and vegetables are harvested which undermines the argument of least pain; the second is that logic rests upon premises in order to be sound, and those premises can change to reflect perspectives, for example leading to a perfectly logical conclusion that eating meat, and indeed suffering is the order of life, one could also lead to a logical conclusion that minimising pain is about placating your conscience and so any thoughts about the animals which die in the process of harvesting are best left forgotten because there are no alternatives that can compete on the same level of productivity.
Ok, yes, when you break it down enough all food is simply combinations of molecules... but do you not agree that these particular arrangements of molecules have been shown to lead to heart disease (even if we don't know how exactly)?
I never said that they didn't. I said that there are different metabolisms which cope better with this problem. I also forgot to point out that plants have saturated fats, particularly nuts, but also certain fruits. It is also the case that certain meats have less of these fats than others, turkey for example has none when you eat the breast.
Right, but do you agree that a causative relationship between saturated fat and heart disease is at least a reasonable possibility?
I did not say that that it was an unreasonable possibility, I said that we don't know enough yet to work out the exact causal relationship, which I think is important, because there could be a genetic disposition which makes a segment of the population vulnerable, for example.
Reductio ad absurdum is not a fallacy. I'm asking you to draw a line. When do you think force is appropriate? Why? If you want to fast-forward a bit, whatever your answer is, I'm going to continue asking 'why?', until you're left with the basic principles of utilitarianism. From that foundation I will assert the utility of democratic government and coercive laws.
Your usage of it is fallacious. It's the same as when a person complains "That law against criticising the government is unfair!" and your usage of the reductio ad absurdum argument would be "Would you rather it didn't exist? What next, people can start praising other governments? Then people can start to choose whether to follow their government. Then anarchy. Where does it end?"
In other words, your usage of reductio ad absurdum is a form of distraction from the actual point being debated. I'm not debating about utilitarianism, nor am I debating about government and its coercive laws. I'm debating your need to penalise others financially because they don't have a diet like yours. I'm debating the lack of respect that your behaviour shows for other people's freedom of choice by trying to force them into what you approve of as a diet, with refusal to comply leading to wasted money. A free society is based upon compromises, one of the important compromises is that no one ideology or person's lifestyle is the government standard, instead people are expected to lend respect to each other's different lifestyles insofar as not making it their mission to stomp it out, illegalise it, or threaten it. Respect doesn't mean you must approve of how your neighbour lives, it just means you accept that they have as much right to live the way they want as you do, without entitlement.
You absolutely can. You simply pass laws which disincent people from immoral behavior.
Please re-read the argument. I didn't say you couldn't force people to follow regulations. I said that you cannot force people to be moral through law, nor can you make people act good towards animals. Good denotes a characterisation of empathy. You can't make people empathise and concern themselves with the welfare of animals, using law.
It's shaped by both. When one is tempted to commit murder, both the cultural values and legal incentives will factor into whether or not they actually go through with it.
Which underscores your inability to separate the two. Government serves to enforce laws which are agreed upon by the culture, and serve to compromise in contentious issues. Government serves as an uninvested mediator through courts. Government can provide a safety net for its citizens.
Culture shapes people's values, mores, traditions, music, and so on. Culture provides the soul to a community. Government provides the boundaries.
When people decide to commit a crime, they are concerned about the consequences that will befall them in their community. They also consider how to evade government consequences.
More anecdotes. Come back to this point with a proper rebuttal.
It seems to be a common means of avoiding the need to admit wrongness on your part. You find it easier to bluff being sceptical than admitting error or conceding a point.
But not all of those ideas are logically founded.
You really don't know what logic is, do you? Logic is simply a means of arriving at a sound conclusion based upon assumed premises. There can be a thousand proposed ways of aiming for the common good, all logical, but also all wrong, because each has a wrong premise.
For example, Islam's means of achieving the common good is building a society ruled by a caliphate, and sharia law. Their idea is completely logical, if god exists and if Muhammad was the final prophet.
However this is besides the point. In our society a person's viewpoint isn't measured by logic or rationality, it's simply allowed to exist as an opinion with everyone else's. Your viewpoint is not the most logical, it's not even the most rational, it is simply one of many, and you somehow expect entitlement.
And we should attempt to select the best one.
Which isn't how society works. Ideas aren't mandated by government, they win support for their persuasive power or merit, among people who listen, of their own consent.
Again, it's not about my personal view, it's about the logically inescapable fact that sentient beings have evolved to experience certain things in positive ways and certain things in negative ways.
Of course it's about your personal view. You are the one who has it. You obviously don't think it will win by merit alone, that's why you're advertising a desire to force it upon people. Everything else is "fluff" including your ad hoc justification you just gave, because it's only one perspective that is logically inescapable. To put it bluntly, your viewpoint and its "logic" is just one of many equally valid and equally inescapable perspectives on how we should live our lives. You need to learn to acknowledge this and work from it.
And I'm saying everyone should be able to agree on this value. Because it is founded on clear logical principles.
So is meat-eating. So is cannibalism. All sorts of values can be justified logically. That's why logic isn't the only standard upon which we measure values.
Not all pain and hardship are necessary. I'm arguing that the suffering we inflict upon animals, for instance, is unnecessary.
You just now reached the conclusion which I suggested several conversations back:
Pain is an inescapable (and in some cases necessary) part of life, so we should try to eliminate unnecessary pain that is inflicted upon animals, like abuse and beatings.
"It's clear that I know what I'm talking about because I even referenced a translated article."
If referencing an article makes one an expert, then I am an expert in a great many fields.
"Now you're projecting your inadequacies..."
This whole paragraph is nothing more than bitter ad-hominem.
"animals die painfully in the fields where your grains, cereals and vegetables are harvested which undermines the argument of least pain"
It doesn't completely undermine it, because it's not clear which scenario leads to the least pain. I have agreed, however, that it calls vegetarianism into question. Again, my argument, and yours, is that we should minimize unnecessary pain. If grass fed cows could do that, then we should have laws that promote the consumption of grass fed cows. If a purely vegetarian diet does that, then we should tax meat.
"logic rests upon premises"
Yes, and as you say, if the premises are invalid, the logic is unfounded.
"certain meats have less of these fats than others"
Ok, so from a health perspective, certain meats are ok. We agree that meats high in saturated fat are a bad idea. Meats low in saturated fat, such as turkey breast, would be fine were it not for the moral question.
"I'm debating your need to penalise others financially because they don't have a diet like yours."
For the millionth time, I don't want to penalize others for not sharing my values. I want to penalize others for logically sound health and ethical reasons. Please refrain from abusing this strawman any further.
"A free society is based upon compromises..."
You ducked my question over when the use of force is appropriate. I believe this is because you cannot give a satisfactory answer given your extreme anti-compulsory views.
I agree that a free society should be based on compromises. That's why I'm not calling for the police to throw people in jail for consuming fatty meats. A moderate tax is a compromise.
"I didn't say you couldn't force people to follow regulations. I said that you cannot force people to be moral through law..."
If you can force people to follow regulations and those regulations enforce moral behavior, then clearly you can force people to be moral through law.
"You can't make people empathise and concern themselves with the welfare of animals, using law."
You can't make a serial killer empathize and concern themselves with the welfare of humans, using law. But we should legally disincent them from killing just the same.
"your inability"
Is it really necessary to be such a condescending jerk?
"Government serves..."
You have said nothing in these three paragraphs that I disagree with. I also don't see any refutation of the idea that both culture and legal incentives shape behavior. The central question of whether it is ok to disincent people from taking a particular course of action is not addressed.
"...bluff being sceptical..."
Skepticism is important. I'm not bluffing it. I'm simply asking you to provide reliable sources when you make statements of fact. Why does that upset you?
"Logic is simply a means of arriving at a sound conclusion based upon assumed premises."
Ok, so let me rephrase, "not all of those ideas are logically founded on valid premises." Happy now? Or would like to engage in further semantic quibbling?
"if god exists and if Muhammad was the final prophet"
Right, and those are invalid premises.
"In our society a person's viewpoint isn't measured by logic or rationality, it's simply allowed to exist as an opinion with everyone else's."
That's true, but I'm arguing that viewpoints should be measured by rationality.
"Your viewpoint is not the most logical..."
I'm arguing that it is.
"they win support for their persuasive power or merit..."
Right, which is why I am arguing with you here.
"your viewpoint and its "logic" is just one of many equally valid and equally inescapable perspectives"
That's not true. Give me one equally valid and equally inescapable perspective.
"So is meat-eating."
It depends on the circumstances at which one arrives at that meat. But it isn't vegetariansim I was defending there, but rather the idea of promoting the overall welfare.
If referencing an article makes one an expert, then I am an expert in a great many fields.
Which is something I never said. You need to read more carefully.
I'll give you a quick run-through of our discussion on this point:
You said, paraphrased: "Butchering animals is needlessly cruel to the animal."
I said, paraphrased: "It depends on the type of butchering method. Kashrut and Halal rituals are less painful."
You said, paraphrased: "Minimal pain is still pain. Regardless."
I said, paraphrased: "Read the report."
You said, paraphrased: "Well it won't be painless every time, slip-ups, etc. occur."
I said, paraphrased: "In small farms this is less likely to occur, farmers take pride in their work and are not so overburdened with production. I live in this type of area."
You said, paraphrased: "I'm not listening to anecdotes."
...
Your entire position was tenuous and yet you clung onto that position in the face of someone who knows better, having lived in a country town, owned livestock, etc. Yet you refuse to concede that you may be wrong, instead you dismiss it as anecdotal.
This whole paragraph is nothing more than bitter ad-hominem.
You really need to reread the list of fallacies. This is at least the third time that you've misidentified a fallacy.
Eating as a vegan or vegetarian is not thinking for yourself, neither is meat-eating retained religiously. However if you wish to talk zeal, people who spray paint "vegan power," after breaking into a complex and freeing animals are pretty zealous. So are people who toss paint upon people to support their cause. So was Adolf Hitler, a vegetarian and leader of one of the most zealous armies ever. The point is, don't make this into an issue it isn't.
I suggest you re-read the paragraph. You have a habit of skimming over things without reading the points.
It doesn't completely undermine it, because it's not clear which scenario leads to the least pain. I have agreed, however, that it calls vegetarianism into question. Again, my argument, and yours, is that we should minimize unnecessary pain. If grass fed cows could do that, then we should have laws that promote the consumption of grass fed cows. If a purely vegetarian diet does that, then we should tax meat.
I talked with a woman who raised all sorts of livestock, especially horses, for almost fifty years. She agreed with me that you can't raise cattle on grass only if you want to use them for beef. It's also clear that Halal and Kashrut butchering methods cause the least pain to animals which are used for meat. Since your argument is about minimising pain, and harvesting fields causes it catastrophically, then it ends your position there. Unless you wish to eat grass, or you wish to have your own garden, or you wish to advocate the replacement of harvesters with human gatherers. At this point it doesn't matter whether vegetarianism or a normal diet causes more pain to field animals, because either way it is a lot of pain, to the point of dwarfing your concern for cows, sheep, pigs, etc.
I'm not even going to legitimise your suggestion of taxing meat. It's absurd and speaks volumes for your simplistic thinking with regards to shaping society.
Ok, so from a health perspective, certain meats are ok. We agree that meats high in saturated fat are a bad idea. Meats low in saturated fat, such as turkey breast, would be fine were it not for the moral question.
I tend to empathise less for turkeys, from what I've seen they aren't as smart as chickens.
For the millionth time, I don't want to penalize others for not sharing my values. I want to penalize others for logically sound health and ethical reasons. Please refrain from abusing this strawman any further.
That you think taxing people to force them to eat right is your value. That you think it is very important to eat healthily is your value. The amount of importance you place on physical pain is your value. Learn to distinguish your values from the rest of society's values. I shouldn't have to explain this to you. It should be obvious that taxing people so that they eat in a manner congruent with your tastes is the same as imposing your values, because if they shared your values they would be eating a similar diet in the first place.
You ducked my question over when the use of force is appropriate. I believe this is because you cannot give a satisfactory answer given your extreme anti-compulsory views.
I believe I answered you thusly:
I'm not debating about utilitarianism, nor am I debating about government and its coercive laws. I'm debating your need to penalise others financially because they don't have a diet like yours. I'm debating the lack of respect that your behaviour shows for other people's freedom of choice by trying to force them into what you approve of as a diet, with refusal to comply leading to wasted money.
I'm not debating about the use of force in general, either. Try to keep on topic. These are separate debate issues which are very complicated and serve to only distract from the main topic.
I agree that a free society should be based on compromises. That's why I'm not calling for the police to throw people in jail for consuming fatty meats. A moderate tax is a compromise.
No it isn't. A compromise is dealing with other people's dieting practices. This is why we don't have a fat tax/candy tax/and so on. How people eat is their decision.
If you can force people to follow regulations and those regulations enforce moral behavior, then clearly you can force people to be moral through law.
Regulations don't enforce moral behaviour. They free people from the process of decision making, so that they need only to look at a book. You're an atheist, right? What exactly have you learned by watching fundamentalists and their capacity for complicated moral choices?
You can't make a serial killer empathize and concern themselves with the welfare of humans, using law. But we should legally disincent them from killing just the same.
Which is the point. Laws don't build empathy or morality in a society. Instead, laws burden already empathetic and moral people, and can make them even avoid the business if it is too cumbersome. Laws should exist to punish bad behaviour. There is a difference.
Is it really necessary to be such a condescending jerk?
Sometimes, when people are arrogant and need a verbal slap.
You have said nothing in these three paragraphs that I disagree with. I also don't see any refutation of the idea that both culture and legal incentives shape behavior. The central question of whether it is ok to disincent people from taking a particular course of action is not addressed.
I thought I implied that the superior course of action is to work socially, not legally. Working legally would only make a culture which disapproves of your views either avoid enforcing the law, or evade the law, or both.
Skepticism is important. I'm not bluffing it. I'm simply asking you to provide reliable sources when you make statements of fact. Why does that upset you?
It's not scepticism when it is common knowledge that is being denied in an attempt to avoid conceding a point. It's neither an anecdote to bring up common knowledge.
China. North Korea. Saudi Arabia. Look them up, everyone knows about how regulated their citizens are, it's also common knowledge how their citizens aren't morally superior.
That's true, but I'm arguing that viewpoints should be measured by rationality.
Which is besides the point of the discussion, and a topic for a different debate.
I'm arguing that it is.
If your view was the most logical, you could state your premises, your major and minor points, and follow through with vegetarianism. You'd then support your premises with unassailable evidence, and we'd be through. As it stands, you made an ambiguous case for health (because the true relationship between saturated fats and heart disease is unknown, and not all meats are high in it, and not all fruits are free of it). You made a shaky case for morality (because not everyone even agrees that pain should be minimised, because eating a vegetarian diet causes pain). A most logical argument should be better than this.
That's not true. Give me one equally valid and equally inescapable perspective.
Okay, here's three:
Premise: Unnecessary pain is bad.
Premise: Eating meat causes pain.
Premise: Eating vegetables from farms which use harvesters causes pain.
Causing unnecessary pain is undesirable
Eating anything but plant-life which comes from a home garden (or manually collected farm) causes unnecessary pain
Ergo we must only eat from home gardens or manually collected farms (to do less is undesirable)
Ok, look. We agree that we should minimize unnecessary pain. Does vegetarianism do that? Maybe, maybe not. Tractors kill a lot of animals. Would humane butchering practices be the best way to reduce pain? Maybe. What if we attempted to minimize harm in our crop-growing practices? Could we avoid a greater amount of pain in that case? Maybe. I see no clear answers here. Arriving at a satisfactory answer would require careful study. This is what I was getting at when I dismissed your claim that butchering animals is ok because some people you have met try to minimize pain.
"You have a habit of skimming over things without reading the points."
You are eager to assign blame to me, but do not consider that you yourself might deserve some. Reading your writing is like staring into the sun -- painful -- I can only do it through squinted eyes. If you cut out the bile, and edit non-essential statements from your arguments, it would make it a lot easier for me to glean your key points.
"She agreed with me that you can't raise cattle on grass only if you want to use them for beef."
Well if that's true, then the grain you feed the cows has to come from the same processes that would have been used to produce grain for humans, and a greater amount will be required due to the inefficiency inherent in indirect consumption. So she has made a good case for vegetarianism.
"it doesn't matter whether vegetarianism or a normal diet causes more pain to field animals, because either way it is a lot of pain"
Without any actual numbers, that's just a guess. Maybe growing, feeding, and butchering animals causes a million units of pain, while growing crops only causes a hundred thousand. In both cases there's a lot of pain, but we see an order of magnitude improvement in the latter.
"That you think taxing people to force them to..."
Those values you list follow logically from the utilitarian foundation. In short, they are correct. If taxing high-fat meat increases the overall level of well-being, then we should tax high-fat meat. It's as simple as that.
"I'm not debating about the use of force in general, either."
Well seeing as how the ideas of utilitarianism and justified force are essential to my argument for taxing high-fat meat, I don't see how we can debate the issue without establishing their soundness.
"A compromise is dealing with other people's dieting practices."
According to the dictionary, a compromise is "a settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions". I think a moderate tax on high-fat meats fits this definition.
"Regulations don't enforce moral behaviour."
I don't understand how you can deny this obvious truth. It's a simple fact that some people would murder others if they could get away with it. The reason they don't is legal disincentives. If law is nothing more than a guide to decision making, why is there a need to punish those who don't follow it? No, the purpose of law is to keep society from arriving at the vastly sub-optimal local maxima that results from people naively serving their self-interest.
"Laws should exist to punish bad behaviour."
It seems to me you are directly contradicting yourself here. But I agree with this point. Yet I would add that if the consumption of high-fat meat causes a decline in the overall level of happiness, then the consumption of high-fat meat is bad behavior.
"when people are arrogant and need a verbal slap."
I think you are mistaking persistent disagreement for arrogance. I think you're lashing out in childish anger.
"the superior course of action is to work socially, not legally"
Working socially has its limits due to the fact that what is in one's own self-interest often conflicts with the greater good.
"China. North Korea. Saudi Arabia...common knowledge how their citizens aren't morally superior."
I think you give too much respect to "common knowledge." Common knowledge is often flawed. Are people in China really more regulated than the United States? Are those regulations as well enforced? How does the people's income level factor into this? How about the culture? How do we even measure morality? No, these are all very difficult questions, requiring careful study. Your claims amount to argument by hand-waving.
"...follow through with vegetarianism"
I wasn't arguing for vegetarianism there. As I have stated multiple times, the point about animals killed during harvest muddles the issue sufficiently to prevent any clear conclusions on that topic. I was arguing about whether it is ok for government to compel people to serve the common good, as part of the argument about the taxation of high-fat meats.
You are eager to assign blame to me, but do not consider that you yourself might deserve some. Reading your writing is like staring into the sun -- painful -- I can only do it through squinted eyes. If you cut out the bile, and edit non-essential statements from your arguments, it would make it a lot easier for me to glean your key points.
I see no point debating someone who doesn't have the attention span or dedication to read a full body of text.
Ok, look. We agree that we should minimize unnecessary pain. Does vegetarianism do that? Maybe, maybe not. Tractors kill a lot of animals. Would humane butchering practices be the best way to reduce pain? Maybe. What if we attempted to minimize harm in our crop-growing practices? Could we avoid a greater amount of pain in that case? Maybe. I see no clear answers here. Arriving at a satisfactory answer would require careful study. This is what I was getting at when I dismissed your claim that butchering animals is ok because some people you have met try to minimize pain.
I am satisfied that I made you admit that vegetarianism isn't as clear a decision as you seemed to think three weeks ago.
This is a no brainer. I'm just gonna dump a bunch of links from earlier debates...
I do feel the need to criticise the following however:
I think you give too much respect to "common knowledge." Common knowledge is often flawed. Are people in China really more regulated than the United States? Are those regulations as well enforced? How does the people's income level factor into this? How about the culture? How do we even measure morality? No, these are all very difficult questions, requiring careful study. Your claims amount to argument by hand-waving.
Please take some time to study the social systems, and basis of law in those three countries I mentioned so that you can see how absurd it is to ask a question like Are people in China really more regulated than the United States? otherwise I'll assume that your understanding of world politics is below even the cursory level that the average American has.
Are you suggesting banning non-vegetarianism in favor of vegetarianism because of health reasons? There are a myriad of reasons to ban something due to health reasons, but it doesn't mean that you actually do it.
Banning meat would be a bad thing. What will happen to all those workers that get paid to do what they do. Considering how big the Meat industries and franchises are, banning meat would worsen the debt America already has.
This argument is as stupid as saying banning war will put all those people in the weapons industry out of a job! They can find other things to do, surely...
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Btw, no body is arguing that meat eating should be banned. We're simply saying Vegetarianism is better.
Those people would just get other jobs. If we want to create jobs we can just tax people the money they would've spent on meat and use it to stimulate the economy.
Are you kidding me? Do you know how many people don't have jobs right now? That's 9.7% of the population which is around 29,971,448 people. If meat was banned, the job market will be flooded with more people that need a job. The unemployment rate is constantly rising, slowly but surely. America cannot afford to ban meat.
And that tax idea, you do know that the money that would be spent on meat would then be spent on more vegetables so more taxes would mean pissing off A LOT of people.
Plus, do you know how many people love meat? Do you also know how many people love and exercise their 2nd Amendment right. Banning meat is like banning alcohol. Prohibition failed so banning meat will also fail. MISERABLY.
Why don't we pay people to dig holes and fill them in again?
Because that's not useful work.
But let's say there was a whole industry dedicated to digging holes and filling them in. And then somebody comes along and says, "This is bullshit, why are people getting payed to do this?" And then all the hole diggers say, "STFU! There ain't no jobs!"
That's the same situation here. Don't you see? Paying people to do unproductive or harmful work is just a twisted form of welfare. If people need welfare, then we should just give them welfare. If we want to create more jobs then the economy can support, the way to do that is to tax and spend. Any economist will tell you that.
"Prohibition failed so banning meat will also fail."
Banning it outright may not work, but there are other ways to discourage consumption. Taxing it, for example; or raising awareness about the consequences of consumption. Like we do with cigarettes now. We could create a bunch of jobs by legalizing cigarettes. Does that mean we should do so?
I don't see why you're getting your panties in a wad over this, though. All I was doing in my initial argument was laying down the evidence that vegetarianism is a good idea. Then some jackass randomly decides I must be calling for a government ban on meat and suddenly I'm debating some rabid idiot on some irrelevant tangent. Bah. Thanks for the downvotes though! Good to know the one argument here that actually cites some sources is buried where no one will see it.
Digging holes and filling them up isn't useless. That's called construction. If a house with a basement is going to be built, a hole has to be dug. If some property is too uneven with holes, you fill them and level it for use. You ask one of those hole diggers and hole fillers that their job is stupid, they probably would say, "Yeah but I'm being paid and that's all that matters." They are working for a living and isn't that productive?
Taxing and spending? If the government tries to tax too much, people tend to think, "Will I be able to pay them?" That is the fear that grips America. Will I have enough money for the taxes, the loans for the car, the house. Taxing and spending would put America in between a rock and a hard place. Theories are only theories. They don't always work the way they are written.
I agree that America has to raise awareness that eating too much meat is unhealthy considering how being fat raises a lot of medical dangers. And that means more has to be spent for something that could be avoided. But overall, meat has been with Humanity for a long time and always will be. It just tastes too good to resist.
I also don't understand why you have to call me a jackass. So I emphasized on some parts of my argument and you though that I was being offensive. This website was made for debate. Not name calling.
Being a vegan is the better choice, as far as health goes. As meat can come packed with disease and is packed with lots of fats. You can get everything your body needs from plants, even though us as humans are omnivores the better path to take is vegetarianism. But I don't have the heart to give up steak.
If I wasn’t so lazy, it should have read: "Being a vegan is the better choice,
if the vegan choice is viable.”
I failed to indicate by punctuation I was appending Wolfman’s assertion. It was a lazy attempt to establish premises of an argument that the vegan position is both conditional and temporary. And thusly there are conditions when it is the viable choice and there are times when it is not. Therefore let us not ignore the conditions that effect our choices of food in order to survive because of an ideology; for living and surviving are not ideals, but men have reduced the fundamental of eating, to survive, to a mere ideal. (Sorry if you read that last sentence more than once.)
You might enjoy the following evidences in support of our view.
1) If a person is toothless, a Vegan diet is the better choice for the same.
2) If a person cannot properly cook meat, the Vegan choice is better for the same.
3) If a person cannot properly digest meat, the…
4) If a person lives in Arctic regions, animals and fish are the only viable food sources for most of the year. (This is an abbreviated assertion.)
5) If a man or woman cares to feed and nourish a family from one growing season to the next, the same will include meat as a part of a successful strategy to that end. Furthermore, neither will starve their family because of idealism.
Lastly, I’m a vegan for one meal, and omnivore for the next.
LOL, how many veggie only meals must one eat in order to call oneself a Vegan, and how many violations of that ideology are allowable before one can no longer refer to oneself as a vegan?
Either they are a Vegan or they or not. And if a Vegan, as a matter of survival, eats meat, the same has evidenced that Veganism is purely conditional ideology. And consequently there is no universal truth to the claim of Vegan superiority.
Explanation:
No Vegan will choose to die by starvation because of the Vegan ideology. And like as I am a Vegan for one meal and an omnivore for the next, the only difference in comparison betwixt me and them is only a matter of how many Vegan meals we eat before we eat meat. So yes, vegans are omnivores. It’s a quantitative ideology not an objective quality.
Why is it better? What types of diseases come from consuming meats? And what types of meats? What types of fats are these meats packed with? How are these meats bad for our health?
What makes Vegan the best choice? What makes Vegetarianism the best choice? Did you know there is a difference?
It's not necessarily that consuming animals is unhealthy. It is the amount you eat and the origin of the meat. How was this meat prepared? Was the animal wild or husbanded by humans? What types of foods did this animal consume during its lifetime? What environmental toxins were in its habitat? What effects do the hormones and medicines introduced have on the animal itself and in turn how does that affect those that consume it?
I could go on and on. My point is you don't have to give up your steak, but you should know where it comes from and balance how much you eat. This will help you take stress off your bodies functions to maintain homeostasis and will result in a long and healthy life.
This will help you take stress off your bodies functions to maintain homeostasis and will result in a long and healthy life
How will this take stress off you when you're worried about a million and 1 things that could make your meat consumption a bad experience (chemicals, toxins, habitat, method of butchery, method of cooking, preservatives, hormones...).
Health - All necessary nutrients are available in plant matter so meat is not necessary.
Our bodies are not evolved for a purely herbaceous diet and consequently a vegan diet is very difficult to balance properly so that you don't suffer from diseases brought on my malnourishment.
Ok, why don't you tell that to the vegan Chinese Shaolin monks when their weak & diseased bodies reduce your healthy meat-eating ass to a pulp :) I'd actually like to see that more than anything. Would probably pay to see it too :)
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More people are suffering from diseases born of eating meat than those born of a vegan diet.
His ideal body weight is 214 pounds, or 97.3 kilograms.
His daily protein intake requirement is 43.8 grams to 77.8 grams.
At the max level of 77.8g he can achieve it by eating about 300 grams of meat or the same amount of pumpkin seeds, peanut butter or most dairy products like cheese... Eating a variety is not only much better for you, it's less boring as well!
Supporting Evidence:
Protein foods
(www.indoorclimbing.com)
I am Mercy,I visited your page today and i really want to have some personal words with you. We may be friends because it will help us to know ourself better.Send me a mail on([email protected]) and i will send you my photo.
I could go on and on. My point is you don't have to give up your steak, but you should know where it comes from and balance how much you eat. This will help you take stress off your bodies functions to maintain homeostasis and will result in a long and healthy life.
Being a vegetarian doesn't get you anything except that u miss the vital proteins that you otherwise get from meat.Vegetarian food is equally fattier like a non-veg food if not eaten properly.Add regular fried potatoes,cheese ,butter and other milk products to your diet and you are screwed equally like a big meat eater.
On the other hand,Non-Veg diet is bad too if you don't know what you are eating.Sticking to just White Meat (Chicken & Sea food) is the safest bet and you get only the good things from them and not the excess cholesterol which you otherwise get from Red Meat.I eat only white meat and I feel very lite after my meal with out a heavy digestion course that includes items rich in saturated fat like cheese and red meat.
Go white meat and you get the best nutrients on earth.
Go veggie and you miss a lot of nutrients.This is very much true.There is a survey that says 80% of those who have aided eye vision are vegetarians.This is because of deficiency of good quality Vitamin A.Though carrots have Vitamin A ,not many vegetarians care to eat them.Fishes are a very good source of Vitamin A.They are also good for your heart (Omega 3 Fatty Acids).
Fact : Japanese live for almost 95 years -> They are non-veggies by a higher degree.
Reason : They eat lots of white meat ,mostly sea food.Their staple dish Sushi (raw meat and rice) is supposed to increase the life span for some weird reason.
Who cares for the poor animals if you get something good out of them for you and your family ? I would actually be happy to kill a few fishes to save the eyes of me and my family.That is nature.Why God kept those rare nutrients in animals which you don't get from plants ? Think abt it and u ll realize that u r fighting for nothing...Go n have meat.Enjoy the short life...
we, by the intestinal structure, are designed to be herbivores. we have a intestinal structure which is large. where as carnivores have a small intestinal structure. when meat, in the human digestive system, undergoes repetitive digestion with the acids of digestion, it releases malignant toxins which are harmful for our body and which causes cancers and liver malfunctioning.
I am not sure what side to enter this comment on really. I am not a vegetarian and, worse still, I am a hunter. Every year I kill a deer, at least, and often a deer and a moose. I feel terrible about the pain and death but I do have a big and happy family and I like the idea that they are being sustained with antibiotic-free meat. And, I confess, that I like to think of myself as a provider in these shaky times.
I have lived in the north long enough to realize that nothing in the woods - no deer, no moose, no wolf, no muskrat - lives to a happy old age or dies a pleasant death. When creatures age, they are tormented and die terrible deaths - natural predators do not share our sensibilities. My bullets are true - I have, after years of hunting, never killed anything gratuitiously or irresponsibly. Still, I do feel that, somehow, we should be evolving away from administering death this way. But, there is no easy answer for this - we are six and a half billion strong now - there is no room for everything to survive anymore.
All animals have feelings, emotions and etc., so I am sure that humanity should NOT use animals for food, clothes and other needs. Animals are not meant to be our food, they must be equal in rights. I said humanity because some people are too hard-nosed to say that meat do not give us happiness or good health. I am vegetarian and I am happy. I am happy to save lives of innocent animals which are more humane that people are.
Moral - It's sadistic to kill and eat an animal when you don't need to. Being an omnivore is the same as being able to do both good and bad. Just because you can also do bad, doesn't mean you should do bad.
So killing plants is any better? You still end up killing life regardless. You also end up taking space whether it be by cattle farming or crop farming that would otherwise be an ecosystem for those animals that you claim to cherish, so either way they die despite your "moral" choice.
And did it ever occur to you that some cultures cannot afford to grow healthy food or do not live in a place that is too hot or cold to produce crops and therefor must turn to meat?
You also end up taking space whether it be by cattle farming or crop farming
True, but it'll be less destructive no? A plantation is almost natural to the space it occupies, whereas a pig farm would be lotsa pigs in a space with lotsa infrastructure to support it...
some cultures cannot afford to grow healthy food or do not live in a place that is too hot or cold to produce crops and therefor must turn to meat?
We should give those poor souls our vegetables in exchange for their nice smiles :)
If it's not a choice, then fine. But if vegetarianism is a choice, shouldn't it be taken if it's better?
Moral - It's sadistic to kill and eat an animal when you don't need to. Being an omnivore is the same as being able to do both good and bad. Just because you can also do bad, doesn't mean you should do bad.
False analogy. Being an omnivore means that our bodies depend on certain proteins to be healthy, and these proteins come from meat and plant life.
So our protein requirements presents us with the choice of killing animals or consuming plants... Why kill animals when you don't have to? Why do bad when you don't have to?
Actually, he wasn't a vegetarian, he just reduced his meat consumption.
But your point is well taken. By the way, he also had a moustache and wore a hat quite often. So people who have those traits are also evil, just like Hitler!
Preservation - It's the farming of animals for meat that harms other species in the wild. The farms take over their natural habitats, they are culled to protect the farm animals. The bottom line: we're losing more species then we can preserve through farming.
Preservation - It's the farming of animals for meat that harms other species in the wild. The farms take over their natural habitats, they are culled to protect the farm animals. The bottom line: we're losing more species then we can preserve through farming.
This is an argument for improving efficiency, not vegetarianism.
You cannot improve efficiency with animal farming over crop farming. Unless you can get animals to photosynthesize.
It helps if you follow the chain of arguments to get a proper context. I never once said that farming animals was more efficient than farming crops. You can however improve efficiency of animal farming so that it isn't as wasteful, for example by having your crops located closer to the animals, using the animals to fertilise the drops, and if you choose a land that isn't developed from forests that threaten indigenous life.
From a biological standpoint we are not herbivores, meat is an evolved part of our diet.
From a moral standpoint, many of the organisms we eat are probably not intelligent enough to realise that they are in a farm.
From a conservation standpoint, most meat animals are domesticated for this purpose, meaning that if we stopped eating meat, or using animal products, those animal species would become endangered or even extinct, and some of them like the cow have outlived their ancestors so it would mean losing an important piece of genetic stock. In this respect farms are actually keeping the species alive at the organism's cost.
From an ecological standpoint, hands down meat is less efficient to produce than grain (and thus harder on the environment).
No they are not healthier! They get fatigued easily, are not very strong at all and their endurance tends to lack. If you look at any athlete; see what their diet consists of... Seriously
Talk to the vegan monks who practice martial arts about endurance and strength... see if you can out do them in anything physical... endurance and strength is as much about training as it is about eating a balanced diet. This balanced diet can be vegan.
Just because we can consume meat doesn't mean we must.
The fact that we CAN consume meat is an evolved trait. It means we are more adaptable. But that's not the argument I'm making. There isn't a moral argument against eating meat which holds under rational scrutiny. You eat grains, fine, but you kill animals to produce those grains (pesticides kill all sorts of insects, some of them poison fish, rodents live in grain fields, and so on. These are all animals.). So at best a moral argument can serve to change the industry (because in this case the industry is only exacerbating this practice) but it is still not an argument to abstain from meat. It's just an argument to not use industrial ranching.
Vegetarians are healthier than non-vegetarians. That fact is indisputable.
You don't really understand the basis of your argument, is what you're telling me. Eating only vegetables doesn't make you healthier. The reason that vegetarians may as a demographic be considered healthier is due to diet planning. It isn't the vegetables, but when you practice a lifestyle that requires more effort and is consequently scrutinised more, your diet should be healthier because you're not eating useless calories and fats and sugars that accompany a typical modern diet.
Most of the animals we kill are intelligent enough to experience pain and suffering, and that's the important thing.
Do you realise that we are the only organisms even arguing this point? It's kind of funny when you think about it because life is a struggle. The bacteria in your colon would consume you right now if they could get past your defences. The insects around you would have no restraint from eating your flesh. That we have come to this apex where we can relax from hunting and reflect at last upon the cruelty of life that is in our survival, it is almost like eating our tails.
A cow that is butchered humanely doesn't suffer. They are given open pastures, same as sheep, and horses. They aren't suffering. Chickens tend to suffer because there is less incentive in many farms to raise them in open land. Pigs may suffer most of all because they don't seem to be thought of as needing all the land that the others get. However, yours is an argument against crowded farming, and painful death. It isn't an argument against eating meat.
As for conservation, ever heard of a zoo? Or a wildlife sanctuary? There are better ways to preserve species.
I've heard it estimated that there are twenty billion chickens on Earth. We have over a billion cows. Tell me about a wildlife sanctuary, or zoo which has been able to proliferate a species so well. Farming gives us a use for these animals, and so we keep their numbers far from ever dwindling.
You eat grains, fine, but you kill animals to produce those grains
And you kill many many more animals by eating meat because those animals are usually raised on years and years of feeding them grain. So when we apply that same examination to a meat eating diet, it shows it does even more harm and suffering comparatively. Organic food and better farming practices help cut down on that kind of suffering caused by farming. Also, ranching isn't an alternative as we have that to thank for the killing off or wholesale slaughter of wild species (typically wolves, coyotes and other preditors).
but when you practice a lifestyle that requires more effort and is consequently scrutinised more
Studies have taken that into account. Their are probable just as many lazy vegetarians (drinking soda and eating Cheetos) as their are lazy meat eaters. Regardless of what you think, scientist (more specifically the American Dietetic Association) are in consensus that a vegetarian diet reduces the health risk of cancer, heart attack, and other nasty thinks likely to kill you.
reflect at last upon the cruelty of life that is in our survival, it is almost like eating our tails.
Hu wa? Having empathy and reflecting on the suffering of other intelligent life forums (or being vegetarian) doesn't cramp my lifestyle in the smallest bit. In fact it opened my mind to new food I had never tried before. It may have been true in the past but current modern day civilization owes little to nothing to the exploitation of animals. Just about every animal product, now a days, can be replaced with something else that usually does the job just as good if not better.
A cow that is butchered humanely doesn't suffer.
Evidence shows otherwise. 95% of meat comes from factory farms and in the bottom-line comes first, mostly unregulated, cut throat industry of butchering pounds per second.. abuses and mistakes happen all too often. Something uncovered on a regular interval by undercover investigations.
I've heard it estimated that there are twenty billion chickens on Earth. We have over a billion cows.
At the expense of billions of lives of suffering, wildlife, the rain-forest, our health, wasted resources, etc....
And you kill many many more animals by eating meat because those animals are usually raised on years and years of feeding them grain. So when we apply that same examination to a meat eating diet, it shows it does even more harm and suffering comparatively. Organic food and better farming practices help cut down on that kind of suffering caused by farming. Also, ranching isn't an alternative as we have that to thank for the killing off or wholesale slaughter of wild species (typically wolves, coyotes and other preditors).
When you eat meat, you're not making an argument that killing animals is bad, nor are you making a lifestyle choice that necessarily concerns itself with minimising suffering. You simply accept it, or ignore it.
Vegetarians on the other hand do care about suffering as their moral argument for their lifestyle choice. It doesn't matter whether you're eating organic foods or whatever, if you eat grains or vegetables which are field harvested, you're supporting the slaughter of millions of animals annually. This defeats the moral argument for vegetarianism.
Studies have taken that into account. Their are probable just as many lazy vegetarians (drinking soda and eating Cheetos) as their are lazy meat eaters. Regardless of what you think, scientist (more specifically the American Dietetic Association) are in consensus that a vegetarian diet reduces the health risk of cancer, heart attack, and other nasty thinks likely to kill you.
All I'm reading from you is "no chemical mechanism given for X disease, no major chemical difference between meats and vegetables when digested, no reason to suspect that meat causes X disease."
The proteins, sugars, steroids and lipids in meat and vegetables are chemically similar. There are specialised lipids in certain cases (certain saturated fats for example), but without a mechanism given you're not writing a cogent argument. You're only inviting speculation.
Evidence shows otherwise. 95% of meat comes from factory farms and in the bottom-line comes first, mostly unregulated, cut throat industry of butchering pounds per second.. abuses and mistakes happen all too often. Something uncovered on a regular interval by undercover investigations.
Experiments for the objectification of pain and consciousness during conventional (captive bolt stunning) and religiously mandated (“ritual cutting”) slaughter procedures for sheep and calves.
This is about meat-eating not factory farming.
At the expense of billions of lives of suffering, wildlife, the rain-forest, our health, wasted resources, etc....
That sounds like a very hollow victory.
It still works as a method of preserving a species. When a use is found for them, they will be preserved. I was stating facts.
1. Well thank goodness it is us who decide why we are vegetarian as apposed to you and other meat eaters, otherwise we would not have made the progress we have. It's not about being perfect, it's about reducing harm, and going vegetarian is one of the best steps you can take (outside of going vegan).
2. Its not speculation. Again Ill just refer you to the ADA.
3. How is that study relevant? Factory farming is a direct result of eating meat.
1. Well thank goodness it is us who decide why we are vegetarian as apposed to you and other meat eaters, otherwise we would not have made the progress we have. It's not about being perfect, it's about reducing harm, and going vegetarian is one of the best steps you can take (outside of going vegan).
"Reducing harm" is a selfish motive born out of the guilty conscience that comes from self-denial. Unless you are an autotroph or chemotroph you need to consume other life forms to survive.
2. Its not speculation. Again Ill just refer you to the ADA.
Read my statement more clearly: there is no causal mechanism elucidated yet for the role saturated fat plays in heart disease. Therefore it invites speculation to use only statistics.
3. How is that study relevant? Factory farming is a direct result of eating meat.
It demonstrates that killing animals need not be painful to the animal.
Factory farming comes from industrialisation and mass production.
Vegetarianism is nothing more then a fad movement for self-righteous pricks who think that they are somehow in better standing because they choose to kill plants rather then animals.
They claim to be all for the animals and yet their food they get comes from a farm that most likely used to be a habitat for animals.
I can understand what you are saying consider the fact that there are vegetarians that simply call us omnivours "Evil". Some are self-righteous prick but there are those that just simply do not want to eat meat.
In order for life to continue, the life of another must be sacrificed. Perhaps the way the animals are kill and treated can be dabated but other than that, lets just leave it at that.
The difference is one has a brain and one doesn't. And that's a large difference. It's the dividing line between dealing with something that can think and feel and perceive and something that can't.
I am still however an omnivore and not planning on changing. The really critical ethical dividing line is the posession of sapience, not the possession of perception, and I'm evolved for meat in my diet. Vegetarianism does however have it's compelling arguments. Beyond the purely personal health issues, which are ambiguous despite what many people think, there's the question of large scale resource allocation. You can feed a lot of people on the land you use to graze a few cattle that will only feed a much smaller number of people. If I thought there was any reasonable chance of those resources actually being used to distibute food to where it was needed in the world I'd consider the switch to vegetarianism worth the sacrifice of, well, being vegetarian.
Since that is not the current reality however and we're already producing a large amount of waste food that nobody will redistributre because the people who need it can't pay for it... I'm eating my burger for lunch.
Well, the conception that plants don't feel pain is simply false. Common sense says if something is living, then it probably feels pain.
"Each root apex harbors a unit of nervous system of plants. The number of root apices in the plant body is high and all brain-units are interconnected via vascular strands (plant nerves) with their polarly-transported auxin (plant neurotransmitter), to form a serial (parallel) nervous system of plants. The computational and informational capacity of this nervous system based on interconnected parallel units is predicted to be higher than that of the diffuse nervous system of lower animals, or the central nervous system of higher animals/humans." [1] A German Study
It is expensive to feed livestock, and at times, there is a large misuse of resource allocation in the nation and the world, yet farmers who raise livestock and own property has the right to raise livestock, and in do so, they have the right to to sell it as a product as well as farmers who plant vegetables and fruits.
First... please don't appeal to "common sense" when discussing complex technical scientific issues. Generally, relying on "common sense" when doing so is a bad idea. "Common sense" would never lead us to an understanding of wave/particle duality for example.
Second, even if we did insist on appyling "common sense" to this particular question then it would most certainly not tell us that "living = feels pain". The possession of a nervous system doesn't mean that something feels, in the sense that it consciously perceives sensations. It might experience autonomic reactions to stimuli but that's not the same thing.
And instead of just linking to the study that is at the bottom of the Wiki Answers entry you copied, did you consider reading it? You will not find the words "feel" or "pain" anywhere in it. Someone just saw the word "brain" and "plant" in the same article and decided that meant plants have brains and therefore feel pain and posted it as an answer on the Wiki. In reality, if you actually read the study, it says nothing of the kind. It's just drawing analogies to describe some nervous system structures they're studying by referring to some of their processes as "brain-like" functions.
First, if you want to maintain that you just happened to post the full word for word answer from wiki answers to the question "How can a plant feel pain without a nervous system?"... AND the link to the page that summarizes the study that was posted on Wiki answers... but NOT the link to the actual study (which the answer on Wikii answer also coincidentally neglected to include)... yeah, you go ahead and do that.
Second, I didn't say you said they have a brain. I said the people who thought this study showed that plants feel pain thought it.
Third, yes... I know the study dealt with nervous systems of plants. Which is probably why I said this:
It's just drawing analogies to describe some nervous system structures they're studying by referring to some of their processes as "brain-like" functions.
Well, the conception that plants don't feel pain is simply false. Common sense says if something is living, then it probably feels pain.
Plants have a simple ion transfer system resembling a basic nervous system, but they have no executive control. For plants the system works more like a telegraph line than a neural network. For one thing they have no analogue of neurons.
I also have no agenda. I didn't come to you, YOU came to ME.
I couldn't care less if you never eat meat for the rest of your life, but clearly you think everyone should give it up. otherwise, why start talking to me in the first place?
If you think I should be a vegetarian, tell me why. Otherwise you're just wasting your time talking to me as I'm not going to assume your arguments, only an idiot would agree to that and quite frankly you're not important enough to me for me to bother looking through things you've written in the past just to spend even more time explaining to you why there's no need to give up eating meat. ;)
People have eaten meat since the dawn of man at first just for food then because it tasted good and now we eat it for the health benifits and also why should we stray away from our original source of food and but we should also eat some vegetables and fruits to control our nutrition levels but no meat at all thats just not right
With the benefit of modern nutritional science, we've now discovered something we did not know thousands of years ago: We will be just as healthy (if not more) if we don't eat meats...
I don't quite understand why people argue healthier or not. Humans and our ancestors have been eating meat for thousands of years. The argument of healthier or not does not play an important role of life or death. We found our own way to survive and adapt to our surrounds through the eating of plants and meats. If we can survive for our entire life through the consumption of plants and meats, we can suvive the rest of our lives in a happy and enjoyable way eating plants AND animals
This is basically the argument I was making in some of my other replies. We have the capacity to eat meat and enjoy it, and we know how to live healthily, so we should take advantage of that knowledge and our body's ability to process meat and vegetables, and enjoy both.
I don't quite understand why people argue healthier or not
Where have you been the last 10 years?
The argument of healthier or not does not play an important role of life or death
You're right, it doesn't. But we're no longer the hunter gatherer tribesmen and tribeswomen thousands of years ago. Most of us are not in any danger of starvation any more. So the argument of healthier is about living longer and being able to function better.
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Bottom line, if we have evolved to be able to eat both, it means we can choose. Vegetarianism is better in so many ways as have already been mentioned.
It is expensive to feed livestock, and at times, there is a large misuse of resource allocation in the nation and the world, yet farmers who raise livestock and own property has the right to raise livestock, and in do so, they have the right to to sell it as a product as well as farmers who plant vegetables and fruits.
Why does an animal need to be 'for' anything? Does every species on earth need to be able to provide some kind of benefit to humans in order to live here?
Are you suggesting that every species on earth that mankind doesn't use for survival should not be here?
Evolution did not produce such an astounding diversity on earth for the consumption of one species. Yes, we have the ability to make it that way if we want, and certainly we should take responsible advantage of things that we need to survive and progress. But there is such a thing as life that doesn't exist just for humans to use up.
At first, I thought you were avoiding my question because your reply does not even being to answer it. But I thought about it for awhile and now I think I might understand what you are trying to say. Are you implying that:
1. Only species that are directly useful to us become endangered, and then it is only through hunting?
2. The WWF is able to save every endangered species?
3. If a species is not useful to man, it is left untouched?
1. Only species that are directly useful to us become endangered, and then it is only through hunting?
2. The WWF is able to save every endangered species?
3. If a species is not useful to man, it is left untouched?
I think what he was saying was that pigs and other meat animals exist because we use them, and if we ceased to use them, they would stop being raised and eventually enter extinction because they have no natural environment.
The average American lives an average of 80 years. If you're going to die anyways, you may as well eat your fill of corndogs and steak. I hear heaven is severely lacking in good meat.
be nonvegetarians are so lucky that we can eat both veg and non veg actually in the world populion we non vegetrians are leading if we wont eat non veg or kill animals on earth animals will be more and there would be no place to humans to live they tell us cruel but they will also kill plants if we tell like that they will tell that it will grow agian but they will carrots ground nuts and many more vegetables witch grow underground one thing i want to tell that WE NON VEGETRIANS RRRRRRRRRRROCK!u guys tell any but in fornt of nonveg teast u r veg is nathing .thank you bye good luck nonvegetrains u gana lose vegetrians nanananana
I will never be a vegetarian. As I hate the taste of most vegatables and fruit. My diet is nearly completely composed of animal products. I am well aware of factory farms, and I do disagree with their inhumane treatment though.
.Its all about balance and the eco system and survival.Humankind couldn't have survived or evolved had they not been meat eaters.Pre-historic man was pre-dominantly a hunter . Cultivation was necessary as an alternate food supply for survival. Now Lets take the cow for eg. it was in it mutual benefit for the species to survive to be allowed to be eaten,its has helped the survival of the species. Also if everyone were just Vegetarians,there's always a high demand for milk , the cow gives milk but for her to continually provide milk she has to have more calves.If ones doesn't eat them there would be a population explosion. Do most Vegetarians not use Leather products?? or any product that is made from animal extract. If they do thats hypocritical. Coz the animal is only slaughtered for their skin so one could own a piece of fancy leather!!. By consuming the meat of the animal the death of the animal is not in vain and every part of it is being utilized in one form or the other. Man has definitely abused hes power and have resorted in unethical practices and i am not debating that.
If you were in a Jungle in Africa or something, and a lion saw you (this lion is very hungry) Do you think that the lion would think " Omg poor little human, I'm hungry but i feel bad for it so i'm going to go eat grass instead" OR do you think it would think "Yum. Theres a human, I'm hungry let me go eat it"
If you think it would spare you then your seriously stupid.
If you know that it would eat you then why should you have to spare its life, when it would be more than willing to savage you in one bite?
Its the food chain, some animals eat us and we eat some animals. Thats how the world works, its not immoral to eat meat.
I agree that animals should be killed differently but the world will never be perfect
and someone else also said, if its wrong to kill an animal why is it right to kill a plant? Not eating meat doesnt do anything, no animal gets saved if you decide to eat tofu instead of chicken. That chicken is still dead either way, animals will still be killed whether you decide to eat meat or not, so i dont see the point? You might as well eat it cause its already dead anyways. I understand people who just dont like meat or dont feel comfortable eating it because its their choice.
but those who think that eating meat is wrong and immoral are truly mentally challenged.
Vegetarians are those people who do not eat meat while non vegetarians are those who include meat in their diets.
The following essay will explain the benefits of being a non vegetarian over a vegetarian.
The first aspect to consider is the issue of nutrition. Eating meat comes with numerous health benefits that cannot be derived from any vegetarian meal. To start with, meat contains high quality proteins with all the essential amino acids. Proteins are very useful in body building and thus persons relying only on plant foods for proteins are more vulnerable to retarded growth and a weak body than a non vegetarian. A well cooked chicken provides amino acids that protects from common influenza and enhances a person's immune system against common ailments and allergies.
Meat contains creatinine which is necessary for building the body muscle mass for locomotion and other physical practices. Most vegetarian infants exhibit stunted growth (Brown, 2008).
Iron which is a crucial mineral in hemoglobin formation and the consequent blood level sustenance especially for menstruating women is present in huge quantities in red meat than from any plant source. Animal liver for instance, contains 6000 mcgm per every 100 grams as opposed to 325 mcgm per every 100 grams of carrots. Bone marrow and soup is also a very rich source of iron as compared to green vegetables. Vegetarians are more likely to suffer from iron-deficiency anemia due to a low iron level.
The phosphorus content found in cereals and legumes is normally in the form of phytic acid. This means this kind of phosphorus has to be hydrolyzed first before it can be absorbed into the body. On the contrary, the phosphorus found in meats is easily absorbed in body tissues indicating that non vegetarians are more likely to have the desirable levels of phosphorus in the body than vegetarians.
Meat also contains high levels of vitamin B12 which is absent in plant foods. Deficiency of vitamin B12 may lead to Macrocytic Anemia in infants of vegetarian mothers.
Strict vegetarians face the risk of nutritional deficiencies such as riboflavin, zinc, iron, calcium and essential amino acids like lysine and methionine. Vegetarian children face the risk of energy deficiency in calories (Brown, 2008).
Fish, milk and milk products are very rich in calcium which is important for ensuring strong bones and teeth. Children lacking meat in their diets normally have problems in teeth formation and their bones are weak often resulting to frequent fractures and limb deformations and rickets due to lack of vitamin D. The calcium quantities in plant foods are minute and unreliable when it comes to proper bone and teeth formation. Osteoporosis may result due to calcium deficiency and cause bone demineralization .
Some fish types such as tuna and salmon contains omega 3 acids which are very useful in mental health and general physical health. Omega 3 acids also have good anti-cancer properties.
Fish also contains vitamin A well known for its ability to boost human memory and thus intelligence. Children fed with fish supplements are found to perform better academically than those who depend entirely on plants for their food. The nutrients concentration in meat is high as compared to that in plant foods and hence little quantity of food is required in non vegetarian diets than in the vegetarian ones. This has the advantage of reducing the cases of food shortages if all people would adopt the concept of having meat as part of their diets and the resultant savings on food would be channeled to other financial needs.
The good thing with non vegetarians is that they consume both plant foods as well as meat thus it is easier for them to attain a balanced diet than those who cannot eat meat. Patients who eat meat are found to recover more quickly than those who don't since meat helps to speed up the repair of damaged body cells and formation of new cells.
In the west Vegetarians face a higher rate of lack of food choices since restaurants still do not provide a wide range of vegetarian foods and preparing the food separately may be time consuming and expensive. Also a person is more likely to miss vegetarian food options when they drop at a friend's house for dinner. On the contrary, a non vegetarian cannot suffer such food option limitations since they can feast on both plant foods as well as meat. Outside India ,Vegetarians will have more hard times eating out with friends since it is much easier to arrange meals for everyone in the group rather than making separate meals for people who don't eat meat. A non vegetarian will find it uncomfortable to eat from the same table with people eating meat which is not the case with a non vegetarian who can eat any kind of food on the table (Brown, 2008).
Ecological issue is another aspect to consider when thinking of the benefits of being a non vegetarian. Man makes part of the ecological food web that is responsible for balancing the natural occurrence of living things; animals and plants. If all people were to stop eating meat from animals, the population of herbivores would drastically increase resulting to lack of pasture and fodder for the domestic animals due to over competition. This would in turn result to starvation of the livestock and their eventual death. This explains the essence of man having to include animal meat in their diet to maintain a balance on the number of herbivores feeding on plants at any given time. Animal products such as skins, hides, fur and bones are useful in production of leather items, clothing and adhesives. This implies that having meat as part of the human diet comes with other benefits of the by products. It is ironic that people are against non vegetarian practices yet they are quick to use leather products obtained after these animals are slaughtered.
Most of the religious beliefs that make people not to eat meat are based on the belief of reincarnation. Most Asian religious groups that do not eat meat believe that when a person dies, they reincarnate in form of an animal. This makes them believe that eating meat would mean eating their ancestors or those who have just died. The truth about this belief is very questionable since their mythical theory cannot explain why the animal population is still low in comparison to the number of people who have died. Animals are born and develop just like humans do and never do they emerge from reincarnation as alleged.
In a biblical point of view, God created man and gave them dominion over all animals. He did bless the animals for human consumption and hence eating meat should not be considered as sin. The Quran also allows its followers to have meat as part of their food. Animals cannot be fully personified to possess "human rights" of not being killed for human consumptions. Owing to the above benefits associated with eating meat, it is therefore more logical and beneficial for all people to become non vegetarians, and assume the full benefits that come with the consumption of meat.
Advantages of Non-Vegetarian foods are:
• Non-vegetarian foods are rich in protein of high biological value and in Vit B complex, especially B12 which is not available in plant foods.
• Fish, especially the small varieties are a rich source of calcium.
• Egg-white is good source of protein and easily digested.
There are many way to get B12. The average human only requires 4 mcg of B12 per day. I can get this from a bowl of cherrios. Last I checked, cherrios are not made of meat.
