@alnair: Wow, sorry dude. Maybe you should accept the fact that not everyone agrees with your views. I like meat. You therefore think I'm a monstrous animal slaughterer or something. But that's just from your point of view, isn't it? As if I'm worse than people who, you know, slaughter baby seals, or rhino's for their precious horns. Am I? I find the thought ridiculous, personally. And not just for the fact of me never having eaten seal or rhino meat in my life. I guess I should feel real guilty for taking pleasure in eating meat, something that about 95% of humanity does on this planet. (rough estimate) I'll also feel sorry for serving meat to my children later on. I'll cower in overwhelming angst. Listen, does the fact that I like eating vegetables too help? Like zuccini? (sp?) Or peas and carrots? I guess I indeed should feel guilty for being an omnivore, who apparently are filthy decadent beings according to you. Just because they like steak. Well, I can only say I've read about far worse inhumanities on this planet. Like rape, murder, world wars, nuclear weapons and such. I think such things are FAR worse than eatinga piece of beef. Just getting some priorities straight here.
Also, I like the fact how in your morbid 'joke', you reduce different races of humans to different kinds of animal meat. I wonder how Chinese people would taste like? Chicken? Come on... That's not even being serious anymore. And what point are you making? That eating meat is bad ba bad and that everyone should follow your enlightened views on which food is morally acceptable? Please stop pointing your finger at me, I will decide myself what to eat. And if me eating meat is like divulging into one or the other sadistic sin in your eyes, so be it. As if it matters. See, this is why I dislike most vegans. They somehow always have to tell the world how to eat properly with a sparkly clean conscious. Be it in a polite manner, like you do, or through curse words and insults. I don't agree with the whole big meat producing industry, I agree it's indeed one of the lesser 'achievements' of humanity...But I think it's still on another degree from wiping a city off the world map through nuclear assaults. Sorry if my view differs from yours. I guess it can't be helped. It's human.
Also, I like the fact how in your morbid 'joke', you reduce different races of humans to different kinds of animal meat. I wonder how Chinese people would taste like? Chicken? Come on... That's not even being serious anymore.
As opposed to what...? Your insightful contributions about your love of pork? What point are you making with that, then? I think you're rather badly misjudging the source of @Alnair's annoyance if you think it is about you being a meat eater in general, rather than specifically your behaviour in this thread. If his ire were aimed at omnivores in general it would clearly include me just as much, which does not appear to be the case.
The way I see it they were discussing vegan diet/recipes/whatever earlier, so why couldn't non-vegans do the same. It's a thread where both views are discussed as per the title, I'd say. It's ridiculous to think I can't share what I enjoy eating because it's meat, but @alnair can because it isn't.
Except that it is a thread/discussion on veganism. Possible vegan recipes and the range of possibilities when following a vegan diet can therefore be quite pertinent. People's meat preference on the other hand, is not. So bringing it up, especially in isolation (as opposed to doing so in the context of making some argument or more general point), is irrelevant at best and rather bad form. Exactly what is it meant to accomplish, other than annoy people who are genuinely trying to discuss the pros and cons of veganism, their experiences with veganism, etc. It's a bit like going into a BG discussion saying BG sucks and you should all play Diablo.
Except that it is a thread/discussion on veganism. Possible vegan recipes and the range of possibilities when following a vegan diet can therefore be quite pertinent. People's meat preference on the other hand, is not. So bringing it up, especially in isolation (as opposed to doing so in the context of making some argument or more general point), is irrelevant at best and rather bad form. Exactly what is it meant to accomplish, other than annoy people who are genuinely trying to discuss the pros and cons of veganism, their experiences with veganism, etc. It's a bit like going into a BG discussion saying BG sucks and you should all play Diablo.
No, this thread is a discussion on veganism vs. non-veganism. In a thread about BG vs. Diablo, it's quite important to also discuss the merits of Diablo, if you will.
The difference being...? You can hardly discuss the merits of something without reference to its negation. Specific meat preferences however are still irrelevant. Veganism is opposed to meat eating in general, after all. Interjecting 'I love bacon'-type comments into discussions of veganism/vegetarianism is usually a sign the author has no real arguments to contribute, which leaves one to wonder why they speak up at all.
One line of thought that I'm not seeing discussed much here, is the argument that concentrating arable land on the production of grains, nuts, fruits, and beans, all of which is to be fed to human beings, as opposed to being fed to animals bred for slaughter to feed the appetite of industrialized humanity's appetite for meat, might actually be able to end world hunger.
The main conflict I see in this thread is between the human attitude of "let's be kind and gentle, and survive while inflicting the minimum amount of suffering in the world" and "grrraaaghrgh, me fierce, top-of-the-food-chain predator, me kill, me eat, me mighty hunter!"
I think that the conflict between humans who love peace, and humans who love domination and power, is more or less eternal, and is not going to find resolution here.
But, to those humans who embrace peace, and empathy, and compassion, and that whole side of the polarity: might not a world that could feed its population through the growth of cereal, nuts, vegetables, fruits, beans, and grain, where no one needs to starve, no matter where they live, be better than a world where half the human population must starve, because their cereal, vegetables, fruits, beans, and grain are being fed to livestock that will be slaughtered in order to feed meat to the other, lucky half of the human population?
The entire conflict in this thread is looking more and more to me like a conflict between the "Haves" and the "Have Nots", although the "Have Nots" don't actually have a voice here, but are being represented by certain sympathetic "Haves".
That argument rather oversimplifies the problem of hunger and starvation, even if we ignore the question to what extent animal feed would be suitable for human consumption. It assumes that there is just too little food in the world to feed everyone in the world, and that the meat and dairy industry plays an important role in that deficit. This seems implausible, at best. To my knowledge, Africa alone has vast quantities of arable land not being used (and a lot more being used inefficiently). Theoretically, the continent could easily feed itself (probably on meat too, for that matter). The problems there are logistic, economical, political, cultural.
People eating (much) less meat won't change that. Suppose they did, and there was more food to go around (or at least, more land not being used for meat and dairy industry): those starving people, how would the food get there? And how would they pay for it? World hunger can certainly be argued to be due to a haves vs have nots conflict (many problem can be, I'd say), but nations going veg won't magically change that.
Also, it's hardly just industrialized nations that eat meat. The vast majority of humanity does, and has for a long time. I expect that most of the people that don't eat meat by choice are actually found among the industrialized humanity whose appetite you criticize.
@Morte50 is right when he says that the problem is not food scarcity, but purchasing power. However, as @belgarathmth points out, no one in the world would have to starve if we didn't feed (especially) that many cereals and beans to cattle. The two aspects are not mutually exclusive, and once again the culprit-in-charge is capitalism:
In most Third World countries exports have boomed while hunger has continued unabated or actually worsened. While soybean exports boomed in Brazil - to feed Japanese and European livestock - hunger spread from one-third to two-thirds of the population. Where the majority of people have been made too poor to buy the food grown on their own country's soil, those who control productive resources will, not surprisingly, orient their production to more lucrative markets abroad. Export crop production squeezes out basic food production.
It basically means that people in some countries are too poor to compete with other countries' demand of crops, which, indeed, is undeniably caused mostly by meat and dairy industries:
Today half of all soybean exports go to China, the country that gave the world the soybean. Soybean meal mixed with grain for animal feed made it possible for Chinese meat consumption to grow to double that in the United States. [...] Where does the 250-million-ton world soybean crop go? One tenth or so is consumed directly as food—tofu, meat substitutes, soy sauce, and other products. Nearly one fifth is extracted as oil, making it a leading table oil. The remainder, roughly 70 percent of the harvest, ends up as soybean meal to be consumed by livestock and poultry.
On a side note, the major issue that makes plant-based food way less resource-intensive than meat, rather than farmable land, is actually water (mis)use -- to the point that it will «force world into vegetarianism», apparently.
Finally, re: «it's hardly just industrialized nations that eat meat», just a quick link-rebuttal
Mmh, just a teeny-tiny tad of self-obsessed, are we? I don't see how I'm supposed to have pointed my finger at you, given that the only time I recently even did as much as tag you was to apologise for the cannibalism joke... whose irony, by the way, has apparently been totally wasted on you anyway:
I like the fact how in your morbid 'joke', you reduce different races of humans to different kinds of animal meat
...so I will state it out flatly: to me, there's no difference in the right not to be eaten, be it according to "race" (if that even existed among humans) or to species, human or non-human alike. Hopefully you should now be able to understand what that joke meant, perceived morbidness aside, and why I made it.
Other than that, I think @Morte50 has already explained very well the reasons for my angry reaction to that specific crosstalk, so I won't waste any more keyboard strokes on the matter.
Like rape, murder, world wars, nuclear weapons and such. I think such things are FAR worse than eatinga piece of beef. Just getting some priorities straight here.
Well, I'd say it was already obvious that our priorities were quite different: I think that murder (in the broader sense of the word) and rape (after all, that's the term used in the dairy industry) should be avoided tout court, while you apparently think so only if the victim is of the same species as you. (And that, as has already been said, is called being a speciesist or, as someone prefers, a carnist.) I guess we could agree about world wars and nuclear weapons, though, but I want to point out that there's no such thing as a scale of bad things, at least not in the sense that the existance of a greater evil justifies committing or allowing a lesser one.
I really don't consider practical debate about an ethical concept so basic as "what is good and right for humans to eat", which even has a side issue to it of "what is most healthy for contemporary humans to eat", to be of less than superlative importance to human concerns.
Ad hominem argumentation, such as "your whole thread is farcical", or "you are all making me want to retch, so please shut up", or "I hate you, you're stupid, and I'm going to enjoy my supper of steak and bacon tonight, nyaah, nyaah", and the like, are arguments that I've only seen in here from carnists.
I haven't seen any of the two or three vegan advocates here ever, even under extreme attack, resort to ad hominem argumentation.
That reinforces my decision to take the arguments of the vegans here very, very seriously. Even though my primary motivation for converting remains, at this time, to test whether my health might improve under a vegan diet, the idea that veganism might also be a solid human theory of ethics also intrigues me, and would be a huge bonus if both the potential health benefits, *and* the ethical benefits, wind up being Truth.
Well, I stopped eating meat on the tenth of August, but continued to eat dairy products for a couple of weeks, so my diet didn't really change too much. Then I cut out the dairy as well. I was sort of worried that I would be craving meat (and dairy) all the time, but to be honest that hasn't really happened. As much as I used to enjoy eating meat, I've also always enjoyed rice, beans, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. About a week or so into October, a friend showed up at my place with some burgers (unaware that I was no longer eating meat), and so I did eat the burger as it was already bought and would have simply been wasted otherwise. The burger didn't make me want to start eating meat again or anything.
Anyway, like I said, I haven't really missed meat and dairy that much, except for convenience reasons as it's very easy to just order something to be delivered or go out to eat (these are usually the primary options when I'm with friends) and restricting myself to a vegan diet complicates both of those things (although I'm sure there are restaurants that I can go to/order from with plenty of vegan options, I just haven't bothered to find them yet). The best unintended outcome is that not eating meat or dairy forces me to eat more natural foods with less preservatives, etc. I would often lean toward convenience and buy frozen foods that can be easily heated up in the microwave or cooked quickly when meat and dairy were options, but there aren't a lot of vegan options at the grocery store that have mile-long ingredient lists with ingredients that I know nothing about. So, eating simpler, fresh foods has been nice and makes me feel healthier in general (which may be as much psychological as physical because I prefer the thought of eating such foods).
I'm happy with the change, I feel good and don't plan on going back to eating meat anytime in the foreseeable future.
It's a good story. I guess everyone has a opinion about meat though. Lol. Farmers have improved the kill method to make it quick so they don't feel anything. Animals will eat animals. People are animals (though we have evolved from our primal instincts) and just a cycle of life.
@Dreadnaught I really encourage you to read the first 8 pages of the discussion. You know what, I beg you to read them (seriously, we've already argued over all the points you make, I wouldn't want to do it again unnecessarily)
@alnair, I'm still sticking with it. It feels a lot healthier for my digestion - I'm eating a lot of lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes, with salt and pepper. I love fresh cucumbers! I found a cheap Catalina French salad dressing that doesn't contain eggs or milk. I also like Boca soy patties, cereal with soy milk, bananas, pears, peaches, and mandarin oranges.
My weight started to go back up because of too much peanut butter, so I 'm trying to cut back on the peanut products. It blows my mind now that anybody thinks you'd get weak or skinny on a vegan diet. It's easy to eat too much and get fat on it, because there's so much good food to eat.
The longer I stay on it, the more distasteful the thought of eating meat becomes. I can see now that meat-eating is a learned, cultural taste, and not necessarily a natural human craving at all. I think societies start to hunt, raise, and consume meat, eggs, and milk out of necessity, when living in a harsh, primitive, or impoverished environment, and that those harsh conditions no longer exist in most of the world.
Meat-eating seems to be very habit forming, so it will be hard to convince people to stop. Keep up the good fight of advocacy, though. You got me to change, and I argued with it pretty hard at first. I feel good about my decision to do this one little thing to make the world a little better. It's a win-win - I don't cause animals to suffer through what I eat, I take fewer resources of water and land, and I get better health in the bargain.
I feel good about my decision to do this one little thing to make the world a little better. It's a win-win - I don't cause animals to suffer through what I eat, I take fewer resources of water and land, and I get better health in the bargain.
@Belgarathmth Good for you! You made a decision, taken a direction and stay on your path! (Although, remember the argument about fewer resources, water, land is still open, you cannot grow cereals on a mountain pasture but goats and sheep will thrive... Better health is absolutely true, and I suppose no animals die (Not sure why a farmer would make his animals suffer, surely fitter, happier animals = increased productivity = more money, but if you are stating 'no animals dying' I will concede)
I can see now that meat-eating is a learned, cultural taste, and not necessarily a natural human craving at all. I think societies start to hunt, raise, and consume meat, eggs, and milk out of necessity, when living in a harsh, primitive, or impoverished environment, and that those harsh conditions no longer exist in most of the world.
Humans crave nothing that they have not first tasted. If a person grows up not eating meat, they will continue into adulthood and not eat meat. Babies should only be given water to drink, starting giving them cola, and water will be forgotten and they will guzzle cola
Meat is a source of protein. A good one. All apes eat meat of somekind. It is not a cultural thing.
But as for health too much meat is bad for you... As soon as some one tells me vegetables and fruit are bad for you... I will be all over this forum again like a rash worrying about @Alnair 's health!
...
And again well done for making a change. Changes are hard to make. If only everyone could make a change for the better.
I've changed my diet to mostly vegan. Cutting cheese out of it turned out to be easy, I changed the cheese on my bread and the little blocks of cheese in the evening for vegan spreads. The organic food store has quite a collection and even the normal supermarket has three varieties. In the evening I put it on crackers.
What I didn't quit is putting milk in my coffee, and though soy milk tastes well in porridge (Brinta), it doesn't taste very well if I drink it pure. For after supper, I started using soy deserts instead of yoghurt, but I found it to be an expensive habit: 0,5 l of soy desert (not even organic) costs me 1,74 euro's, while 1,0 l of organic yoghurt costs 1,14 euro. Plus I always find yoghurt to be an energy-booster with muesli and syrup. So yoghurt is back.
I experienced the same problem with ready-made meals, buying a pizza at the snackbar and eating in restaurants: most vega meals, if there's any vega meals at all, are not vegan for they contain cheese.
A friend of mine (himself a 100% pure vegetarian) said: eating vegetarian is a way of eating, eating veganistic is a way of life. For me, moral living is about damage-reduction. I cannot have zero impact on the environment, as much as I'd like to, but I try to reduce it. My morals are too highly set for 100% to be achievable. Completely living up to my morals would include cutting plastics, cutting anything out of my household that wasn't brought by bike, handcart or public transport. At some point, I should make it easy on myself and declare i've redused my impact as much as I can handle.
Eating only fresh foods is something I don't have the mental energy for, sometimes I just have to make-do with what's around ready-made meals and pizza-wise. I'm a bit jealous of the drive and energy of Alnair, but maybe you focus solely on eating vegan? I guess I'm fighting too many battle at once to excel in one: poverty in the third world, poverty here in Holland, the climate, peak-oil, reducing fossil fuels and of course the rights of health care and support for the mentally ill like me. There's only so much I can handle, going 100% vegan takes too much effort. Though cutting the huge amount of milk and cheese I ate, has had a benificial effect on my mental energy, I seem to get tired a little bit less often. Was worried about energy loss due to lack of vitamine B12, but it didn't matter.
I now explain my diet to other's as mostly vegan.
addendum: maybe food supplements isn't such a good idea after all. I took vitamine B and Calcium, Magnesium and Zinc daily, as I read those minerals are essential for the functioning of your brain and I assumed it helped stave of depression and lack of energy, but after I quit, depression and lack of energy didn't increase, but even lifted somewhat. Without the supplements, I'm a little better at handling life.
TL;DR version:
- eating less cheese, still milk in my coffee, sometimes other dairy products, - my environmental impact reduced, my health improved a bit. - Lacking mental energy to go 100%. - Food supplements didn't fight depression, quiting them made me healthier.
remember the argument about fewer resources, water, land is still open, you cannot grow cereals on a mountain pasture but goats and sheep will thrive...
Well, if all the scientifically-backed articles I've linked this far haven't convinced you yet that a plant-based diet is several orders of magnitude less resource-intensive than any other one that uses «protein factories in reverse» (as animals used for food production are called here, last paragraph)... I guess there's nothing more that I can do.
Except (did you really believe it? :P) point out that human communities living off mountain grazing animals aren't usually considered really thriving...
Not sure why a farmer would make his animals suffer, surely fitter, happier animals = increased productivity = more money
Unfortunately, increased productivity has nothing to do with animals' welfare... except in organic grass-feed beef commercials, I guess.
All apes eat meat of somekind. It is not a cultural thing.
Not true. Of the four species of non-human animals that the definition "great apes" encompasses, two (gorilla and orang-utan) eat "meat" only in the form of a very small quantity of insects, and some populations living in environments rich in fruit not even that. The other two, i.e. the bonobo and the chimpanzee (which by the way are the most similar to humans), have a different take on their omnivorous diet: the bonobos eat mostly fruit with occasional smaller animals; the chimpanzees are more active hunters and «use the meat from these kills as a "social tool" within their community». In fact (source):
While non-plant food sources make up a small proportion of the chimpanzee diet, they are thought to be an even smaller part of a wild bonobo’s diet.
As soon as some one tells me vegetables and fruit are bad for you... I will be all over this forum again like a rash worrying about @Alnair 's health!
Thanks for the concern, but I'm sure there's a reason why THAT has never been heard of (processed carbohydrates, on the other hand, could very well be the death of me, if I don't clamp down on them...)
@Alnair Always there with an enlightened response!
What I meant was. You cannot grow crops everywhere. The amount of arable land is smaller than the amount of land available for pasture. I will get a link to the UN stat site again when I'm off the phone. Let the data talk over what someone writes on a website with its own agenda.
Oh. And the apes still eat meat! Of some kind! You didn't really change the fact.
As for the amount of meat humans would eat if they ran around wild? I don't know. I do know the amount of meat eaten in the western world over the rest shows a big difference. We eat too much meat. It is bad for you, if you eat too much. I did learn that from your links, although the one about the ice cream is still my favourite
though soy milk tastes well in porridge (Brinta), it doesn't taste very well if I drink it pure. For after supper, I started using soy deserts instead of yoghurt, but I found it to be an expensive habit: 0,5 l of soy desert (not even organic) costs me 1,74 euro's, while 1,0 l of organic yoghurt costs 1,14 euro.
Unfortunately that's what happen with niche products In Italy they're even considered "luxury food", so they're subject to a way higher VAT rate, 22% as opposed to the 4% for dairy products. There's a really high variability in vegan "milk" products, both in taste and price, and I've found out there's no direct connection between the two aspects. My favourite brand is 1.19 euro/liter, while the most common one is more expensive and definitely not as good. The most expensive ones can be as high as 2.89 euro/liter, and not all of them are good.
I cannot have zero impact on the environment, as much as I'd like to, but I try to reduce it. My morals are too highly set for 100% to be achievable. Completely living up to my morals would include cutting plastics, cutting anything out of my household that wasn't brought by bike, handcart or public transport. At some point, I should make it easy on myself and declare i've redused my impact as much as I can handle.
I agree with that sentiment, as I've already pointed out. I just think everyone should at least try to do what they can
Eating only fresh foods is something I don't have the mental energy for, sometimes I just have to make-do with what's around ready-made meals and pizza-wise. I'm a bit jealous of the drive and energy of Alnair,
Oh, believe you me: I would love to eat only, or even just mostly, fresh foods; but unfortunately that's not the case. Mainly, I'm just very good at finding vegan stuff be it ready-made meals, ingredients for me or -more frequently, and way more skilfully- my girlfriend to cook, pizza (vegan pizza is really not that strange here), or the plant-based option of the day in the workplace canteen...
but maybe you focus solely on eating vegan?
I wouldn't say so. On one hand, after so many years it comes naturally to me, so I don't really have to "focus" on it. On the other hand, although I do care about other aspects of ethical living (in regards to the environment and other people), I have to admit veganism's the one thing I'm really inflexible and intransigent about. Also, currently most of my days are thankfully busy / regrettably wasted (it really depends on the point of view!) on a job that, although relatively well paid and enjoyable, definitely doesn't agree with the kind of time and energy I used to dedicate to my ideals when I was living a more frugal lifestyle. (I surely hope to be able to turn back sooner or later.)
(If anyone's wondering, the pub I was referring to in that post serves completely vegan foods and drinks, most of them organic, and quite a lot from fair trade. It's been the first one of its kind in Rome; some people say still the only one, although other vegan venues have opened meanwhile. I don't work there anymore -I wasn't cut for it- but my girlfriend does, and it's a lot of work just to barely manage to keep it in business; so I guess it's a good thing that money has never been what drove us to open it.)
I guess I'm fighting too many battle at once to excel in one
I can understand. Well then, following this discussion, you might have been a bit relieved knowing that some of them you are actively fighting also by paying attention to what you consume
Without the supplements, I'm a little better at handling life.
Yeah, I don't care for supplements either. Just keep in mind that you do need to have an intake of B12, either through fortified foods or supplements. (And BTW, even omnivores over 50 should...)
You cannot grow crops everywhere. The amount of arable land is smaller than the amount of land available for pasture. I will get a link to the UN stat site again when I'm off the phone. Let the data talk over what someone writes on a website with its own agenda.
I would very much like to see that kind of data, although I've already pointed out that the lack of farmable land is not the main problem connected with meat production. (Of course, even not considering the ethical problems, I mean.)
Oh. And the apes still eat meat! Of some kind! You didn't really change the fact.
Well, if you want to call insects "meat", sure, the apes still eat meat. Otherwise, the chimpanzees still eat meat And anyway, I was mostly replying to your objection that eating meat is not a cultural thing. Even for the chimpanzees, it is mostly a cultural thing, that's the point. (Yes, we can apply also to non-human animals the term "culture", thanks for asking :P)
I did learn that from your links, although the one about the ice cream is still my favourite
Oh, come on, why did you have to go and make me think about ice cream at this hour of the night when I'm all tucked in and both the gelaterie down the street seem so far?
Comments
The main conflict I see in this thread is between the human attitude of "let's be kind and gentle, and survive while inflicting the minimum amount of suffering in the world" and "grrraaaghrgh, me fierce, top-of-the-food-chain predator, me kill, me eat, me mighty hunter!"
I think that the conflict between humans who love peace, and humans who love domination and power, is more or less eternal, and is not going to find resolution here.
But, to those humans who embrace peace, and empathy, and compassion, and that whole side of the polarity: might not a world that could feed its population through the growth of cereal, nuts, vegetables, fruits, beans, and grain, where no one needs to starve, no matter where they live, be better than a world where half the human population must starve, because their cereal, vegetables, fruits, beans, and grain are being fed to livestock that will be slaughtered in order to feed meat to the other, lucky half of the human population?
The entire conflict in this thread is looking more and more to me like a conflict between the "Haves" and the "Have Nots", although the "Have Nots" don't actually have a voice here, but are being represented by certain sympathetic "Haves".
People eating (much) less meat won't change that. Suppose they did, and there was more food to go around (or at least, more land not being used for meat and dairy industry): those starving people, how would the food get there? And how would they pay for it? World hunger can certainly be argued to be due to a haves vs have nots conflict (many problem can be, I'd say), but nations going veg won't magically change that.
Also, it's hardly just industrialized nations that eat meat. The vast majority of humanity does, and has for a long time. I expect that most of the people that don't eat meat by choice are actually found among the industrialized humanity whose appetite you criticize.
It basically means that people in some countries are too poor to compete with other countries' demand of crops, which, indeed, is undeniably caused mostly by meat and dairy industries: (source).
On a side note, the major issue that makes plant-based food way less resource-intensive than meat, rather than farmable land, is actually water (mis)use -- to the point that it will «force world into vegetarianism», apparently.
Finally, re: «it's hardly just industrialized nations that eat meat», just a quick link-rebuttal
Other than that, I think @Morte50 has already explained very well the reasons for my angry reaction to that specific crosstalk, so I won't waste any more keyboard strokes on the matter. Well, I'd say it was already obvious that our priorities were quite different: I think that murder (in the broader sense of the word) and rape (after all, that's the term used in the dairy industry) should be avoided tout court, while you apparently think so only if the victim is of the same species as you. (And that, as has already been said, is called being a speciesist or, as someone prefers, a carnist.)
I guess we could agree about world wars and nuclear weapons, though, but I want to point out that there's no such thing as a scale of bad things, at least not in the sense that the existance of a greater evil justifies committing or allowing a lesser one.
Ad hominem argumentation, such as "your whole thread is farcical", or "you are all making me want to retch, so please shut up", or "I hate you, you're stupid, and I'm going to enjoy my supper of steak and bacon tonight, nyaah, nyaah", and the like, are arguments that I've only seen in here from carnists.
I haven't seen any of the two or three vegan advocates here ever, even under extreme attack, resort to ad hominem argumentation.
That reinforces my decision to take the arguments of the vegans here very, very seriously. Even though my primary motivation for converting remains, at this time, to test whether my health might improve under a vegan diet, the idea that veganism might also be a solid human theory of ethics also intrigues me, and would be a huge bonus if both the potential health benefits, *and* the ethical benefits, wind up being Truth.
Hey
I was wondering how you guys are doing, alimentation-wise... if you want to share, of course.
(I was also wondering where @Morte50 has been for the last month!)
Well, I stopped eating meat on the tenth of August, but continued to eat dairy products for a couple of weeks, so my diet didn't really change too much. Then I cut out the dairy as well. I was sort of worried that I would be craving meat (and dairy) all the time, but to be honest that hasn't really happened. As much as I used to enjoy eating meat, I've also always enjoyed rice, beans, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. About a week or so into October, a friend showed up at my place with some burgers (unaware that I was no longer eating meat), and so I did eat the burger as it was already bought and would have simply been wasted otherwise. The burger didn't make me want to start eating meat again or anything.
Anyway, like I said, I haven't really missed meat and dairy that much, except for convenience reasons as it's very easy to just order something to be delivered or go out to eat (these are usually the primary options when I'm with friends) and restricting myself to a vegan diet complicates both of those things (although I'm sure there are restaurants that I can go to/order from with plenty of vegan options, I just haven't bothered to find them yet). The best unintended outcome is that not eating meat or dairy forces me to eat more natural foods with less preservatives, etc. I would often lean toward convenience and buy frozen foods that can be easily heated up in the microwave or cooked quickly when meat and dairy were options, but there aren't a lot of vegan options at the grocery store that have mile-long ingredient lists with ingredients that I know nothing about. So, eating simpler, fresh foods has been nice and makes me feel healthier in general (which may be as much psychological as physical because I prefer the thought of eating such foods).
I'm happy with the change, I feel good and don't plan on going back to eating meat anytime in the foreseeable future.
Thanks for the answer
@Dreadnaught
I really encourage you to read the first 8 pages of the discussion. You know what, I beg you to read them
(seriously, we've already argued over all the points you make, I wouldn't want to do it again unnecessarily)
My weight started to go back up because of too much peanut butter, so I 'm trying to cut back on the peanut products. It blows my mind now that anybody thinks you'd get weak or skinny on a vegan diet. It's easy to eat too much and get fat on it, because there's so much good food to eat.
The longer I stay on it, the more distasteful the thought of eating meat becomes. I can see now that meat-eating is a learned, cultural taste, and not necessarily a natural human craving at all. I think societies start to hunt, raise, and consume meat, eggs, and milk out of necessity, when living in a harsh, primitive, or impoverished environment, and that those harsh conditions no longer exist in most of the world.
Meat-eating seems to be very habit forming, so it will be hard to convince people to stop. Keep up the good fight of advocacy, though. You got me to change, and I argued with it pretty hard at first. I feel good about my decision to do this one little thing to make the world a little better. It's a win-win - I don't cause animals to suffer through what I eat, I take fewer resources of water and land, and I get better health in the bargain.
Thanks for sharing! I'm happy to know it's going so well. Kudos also for trying to eat less peanut butter, I couldn't
Meat is a source of protein. A good one. All apes eat meat of somekind. It is not a cultural thing.
But as for health too much meat is bad for you... As soon as some one tells me vegetables and fruit are bad for you... I will be all over this forum again like a rash worrying about @Alnair 's health!
...
And again well done for making a change. Changes are hard to make. If only everyone could make a change for the better.
What I didn't quit is putting milk in my coffee, and though soy milk tastes well in porridge (Brinta), it doesn't taste very well if I drink it pure. For after supper, I started using soy deserts instead of yoghurt, but I found it to be an expensive habit: 0,5 l of soy desert (not even organic) costs me 1,74 euro's, while 1,0 l of organic yoghurt costs 1,14 euro. Plus I always find yoghurt to be an energy-booster with muesli and syrup. So yoghurt is back.
I experienced the same problem with ready-made meals, buying a pizza at the snackbar and eating in restaurants: most vega meals, if there's any vega meals at all, are not vegan for they contain cheese.
A friend of mine (himself a 100% pure vegetarian) said: eating vegetarian is a way of eating, eating veganistic is a way of life. For me, moral living is about damage-reduction. I cannot have zero impact on the environment, as much as I'd like to, but I try to reduce it. My morals are too highly set for 100% to be achievable. Completely living up to my morals would include cutting plastics, cutting anything out of my household that wasn't brought by bike, handcart or public transport. At some point, I should make it easy on myself and declare i've redused my impact as much as I can handle.
Eating only fresh foods is something I don't have the mental energy for, sometimes I just have to make-do with what's around ready-made meals and pizza-wise. I'm a bit jealous of the drive and energy of Alnair, but maybe you focus solely on eating vegan? I guess I'm fighting too many battle at once to excel in one: poverty in the third world, poverty here in Holland, the climate, peak-oil, reducing fossil fuels and of course the rights of health care and support for the mentally ill like me. There's only so much I can handle, going 100% vegan takes too much effort. Though cutting the huge amount of milk and cheese I ate, has had a benificial effect on my mental energy, I seem to get tired a little bit less often. Was worried about energy loss due to lack of vitamine B12, but it didn't matter.
I now explain my diet to other's as mostly vegan.
addendum: maybe food supplements isn't such a good idea after all. I took vitamine B and Calcium, Magnesium and Zinc daily, as I read those minerals are essential for the functioning of your brain and I assumed it helped stave of depression and lack of energy, but after I quit, depression and lack of energy didn't increase, but even lifted somewhat. Without the supplements, I'm a little better at handling life.
TL;DR version:
- eating less cheese, still milk in my coffee, sometimes other dairy products,
- my environmental impact reduced, my health improved a bit.
- Lacking mental energy to go 100%.
- Food supplements didn't fight depression, quiting them made me healthier.
I share a lot of your goals. Maybe I should get my head checked too...
Except (did you really believe it? :P) point out that human communities living off mountain grazing animals aren't usually considered really thriving... Unfortunately, increased productivity has nothing to do with animals' welfare... except in organic grass-feed beef commercials, I guess. Not true. Of the four species of non-human animals that the definition "great apes" encompasses, two (gorilla and orang-utan) eat "meat" only in the form of a very small quantity of insects, and some populations living in environments rich in fruit not even that.
The other two, i.e. the bonobo and the chimpanzee (which by the way are the most similar to humans), have a different take on their omnivorous diet: the bonobos eat mostly fruit with occasional smaller animals; the chimpanzees are more active hunters and «use the meat from these kills as a "social tool" within their community». In fact (source): I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned from the fact that chimpanzees are very aggressive while bonobos «seem to prefer sexual contact over violent confrontation with outsiders». Well, I know which behaviour I would prefer... Thanks for the concern, but I'm sure there's a reason why THAT has never been heard of
(processed carbohydrates, on the other hand, could very well be the death of me, if I don't clamp down on them...)
What I meant was. You cannot grow crops everywhere. The amount of arable land is smaller than the amount of land available for pasture. I will get a link to the UN stat site again when I'm off the phone. Let the data talk over what someone writes on a website with its own agenda.
Oh. And the apes still eat meat! Of some kind! You didn't really change the fact.
As for the amount of meat humans would eat if they ran around wild? I don't know. I do know the amount of meat eaten in the western world over the rest shows a big difference. We eat too much meat. It is bad for you, if you eat too much. I did learn that from your links, although the one about the ice cream is still my favourite
In Italy they're even considered "luxury food", so they're subject to a way higher VAT rate, 22% as opposed to the 4% for dairy products.
There's a really high variability in vegan "milk" products, both in taste and price, and I've found out there's no direct connection between the two aspects. My favourite brand is 1.19 euro/liter, while the most common one is more expensive and definitely not as good. The most expensive ones can be as high as 2.89 euro/liter, and not all of them are good. I agree with that sentiment, as I've already pointed out. I just think everyone should at least try to do what they can
On one hand, after so many years it comes naturally to me, so I don't really have to "focus" on it. On the other hand, although I do care about other aspects of ethical living (in regards to the environment and other people), I have to admit veganism's the one thing I'm really inflexible and intransigent about.
Also, currently most of my days are thankfully busy / regrettably wasted (it really depends on the point of view!) on a job that, although relatively well paid and enjoyable, definitely doesn't agree with the kind of time and energy I used to dedicate to my ideals when I was living a more frugal lifestyle. (I surely hope to be able to turn back sooner or later.)
(If anyone's wondering, the pub I was referring to in that post serves completely vegan foods and drinks, most of them organic, and quite a lot from fair trade. It's been the first one of its kind in Rome; some people say still the only one, although other vegan venues have opened meanwhile. I don't work there anymore -I wasn't cut for it- but my girlfriend does, and it's a lot of work just to barely manage to keep it in business; so I guess it's a good thing that money has never been what drove us to open it.) I can understand. Well then, following this discussion, you might have been a bit relieved knowing that some of them you are actively fighting also by paying attention to what you consume
And funny you should mention the UN... since the UN's Food and Agricolture Organization has been one of the major sources of my points
And anyway, I was mostly replying to your objection that eating meat is not a cultural thing. Even for the chimpanzees, it is mostly a cultural thing, that's the point. (Yes, we can apply also to non-human animals the term "culture", thanks for asking :P) Oh, come on, why did you have to go and make me think about ice cream at this hour of the night when I'm all tucked in and both the gelaterie down the street seem so far?