A better protest than going vegetarian

[Abedeus]

Oh don't be so sensitive, they're doing it for your own good. Meat is delicious and they just want to share it with you. You can go to meat heaven too, but you have to let Bacon Christ into your heart.

Like, specifically, you have to let him clog up your aorta.

This is my favorite quote of the entire thread, (so far). You seem like a very intelligent person. Now I wish I had something equally clever and humorous to add myself, but sadly I lack any strong feelings one way or the other. So I'll simply add: Kudos.

We are, in theory, hunters - our direct ancestors hunted animals, cooked and ate their meat. No scavenging unless dire circumstances emerged

I have to wonder what you mean here. Humans were scavengers before they ever were hunters. Even the most basic (and incredible) form of hunting, Persistence Hunting, still required a spear. We were scavengers for so long in fact that fresh red meat actually tastes bad to us even today. Which is why butchers will age meat on a hook anywhere from 3 days to three weeks. And I don't think our ancestors would have passed on a corpse if they found one, even after hunting came into common practice. If you just meant we're capable of more than scavenging that I understand.

Our first meat-eating ancestors were scavengers. Scavengers don't hunt, they eat what other animals leave. Hunters hunt fresh meat. That's the basic difference...

Oh, and why didn't they hunt? No actual society, where some members hunt, others cook and some guards the people. And tools not sharp enough to kill.

 

[idodo35]

I hear all the time that people are vegetarians because they are protesting cruel factory farming and similar practices.

well some people turn vegi because they dont like the idea of harming animals to something like food i have a friend who is vegan (meaning she doesnt eat anything that came from animals including eggs milk honny etc
she says that the human body is not a predators body we can infact live (and even be healthier) without meat and outher products from animals since we have the tecnology to make replacements for those things there is no reason (in her opinion) for any of us to eat meat...
(and now im going to a bbq lol) (seriosly thou i am going to a bbq in like 10 mins XD)

 

[Ghengis John]

Our first meat-eating ancestors were scavengers. Scavengers don't hunt, they eat what other animals leave. Hunters hunt fresh meat. That's the basic difference...

We kept right on scavenging as modern humans. Archeologists will tell you that at one time there were only two animals that could crack open a large bone to get at the marrow inside. Hyenas, and Humans. The proof that we were scavenging is all over the bones. For that matter there are plenty of animals who will hunt AND scavenge. the fore mentioned hyenas might come to mind. Even a lion will scavenge a corpse. I don't know who told you it was mutually exclusive, especially in an opportunistic species like ours.

For that matter what's with this emphasis on "fresh meat"?

 

[Brutal Peanut]

I buy free-range organic red meats for my Husband. He chose the brand when we were shopping because buying it supports ranchers like his step-dad, and doesn't want to eat anything else. He claims he can tell the difference. He used to live and work on a cattle ranch in Montana. He says the cows they raise are nearly wild. They just wonder around the massive property and are never kept inside a building. Not very social, not even close to domesticated. Their meat is supposedly exceptionally delicious. They are the kind of people who eat red meat every day. I agree with it.

However, I don't eat much red meat AT ALL - and when I tried some recently, it churned my stomach. Not because of the texture, but because of the smell. If you haven't eaten red meat in a long time then you get a burger, it has a certain smell to it. It just smelled like blood to me. But that is mostly just the smell I get from burgers. Maybe it was just because it was a fast-food burger? I rarely eat fast-food. I tend to eat pink Alaskan salmon, 'dolphin-free' tuna, (both canned) and baked or grilled chicken. All 'organic' or 'free-ranged'. But only once or twice a week, so I'm not paying out the ass for it on daily or weekly basis. I'm technically a omnivore, but mostly just eat greens, nuts, fruits and vegetables (I also grow my own), and of course vegetables mashed up and formed into a patty shape for easy sandwich-like nomification.

My husband laughs at me, calls me a hippie. Asks if I am going to start hugging trees and dancing under the moonlight with tambourines or something - and then graduate to blowing up animal research labs. He thinks he is so witty. Well, I guess that's what a young woman from Southern California gets for marrying a rancher from nowhere-cowpie, Montana. =D

 

[Abedeus]

Our first meat-eating ancestors were scavengers. Scavengers don't hunt, they eat what other animals leave. Hunters hunt fresh meat. That's the basic difference...

We kept right on scavenging as modern humans. Archeologists will tell you that at one time there were only two animals that could crack open a large bone to get at the marrow inside. Hyenas, and Humans. The proof that we were scavenging is all over the bones. For that matter there are plenty of animals who will hunt AND scavenge. the fore mentioned hyenas might come to mind. Even a lion will scavenge a corpse. I don't know who told you it was mutually exclusive, especially in an opportunistic species like ours.

For that matter what's with this emphasis on "fresh meat"?

Except SCAVENGER means he primarily SCAVENGES. If someone has spears, bows and fire, he HUNTS. He resorts to SCAVENGING only when he can't hunt anything good. Fresh meat always tastes better and you usually have more of it - scavenging is scrap food.

Also, emphasis on fresh meat because you can't hunt dead meat. That's called scavenging.

About hyenas - they can hunt. But they are too cowardly to do it, unless they outnumber the prey or it's weak, old or very young. That's why they are considered the dead-eaters, because they don't hunt like lions or crocodiles.

 

[Ghengis John]

Fresh meat always tastes better and you usually have more of it - scavenging is scrap food.

Wow. That would be why the most expensive steaks are the ones that have been aged the longest right? Because the fresher meat is the better it tastes? Have you ever actually eaten something that was just killed? I mean a mammal. Most people actually think that they taste terrible. You seem to think it's some matter of pride though with your fixation on scavenging's inferiority so I doubt you're going to listen to reason. I dunno, maybe you're a hunter yourself, it kinda seems like you take pride in the fact that your ancestors hunted. In any event I doubt this will go anywhere productive. Sufficed to say it was never my intention to wind up in an argument I only wanted a clarification of what you meant and I understand clearly enough where you were coming from now.

 

[Sacman]

Seppuku...

I dunno... supporting reform in the meat industry is a good idea... or maybe just going kosher that works too...<.<

 

[Fanta Grape]

I'm a vegan and that's my train of thought. But unfortunately there's a few problems with this.

1. For a lot of people, it just isn't available to them in their regional area.
2. They might not have the time or effort to verify or look for these products.
3. Miscellaneous foods might have these poor quality meat/animal products that would go against it.
4. Helping one part of the industry might make the rest of the industry stronger.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

And yet, inexplicably, wouldn't do the same thing to members of motorbike gangs wearing black leather...

Of course, there will always be vocal minorities who enjoy trolling others for their beliefs while never questioning their own. The best response is simply to agree to disagree.

...although I'll admit, some people are just zealots who frankly need to be mocked.

I will mock PETA, once the motorbike gang pound them in to a fine paste for ruining their clothing.

 

[KindlySpastic]

That has nothing to do with your parents, but everything with you being a human being. Being a vegetarian is very unhealthy.

And before we get a very predictable defensive response (casually dismissing meat as unnecessary is actually one of the things that agrevate me about typical vegetarian attitudes): Yes, this is true. Someone who doesn't consume any of the essential nutrients found in meat will quickly develop Anemia, mostly from iron deficiency, because meat is quite simply the only real source of that, and the meat-based variation is also much easier to absorb.

While it is true that vegetarians might need up to double the dietary intake of iron to sustain a sufficient hemoglobin level, it's by no means impossible to avoid Anemia as a vegetarian.

On the general topic: I would think that going vegetarian and buying free range meat would have about the same effect on factory farming. Less demand -> less supply.

 

[Harlief]

Meat and potatoes! >: | LIKE A REAL MAN! ... Even though I'm not a man....... XD Yes, omnivore was probably what I was looking for... my bad.

Meat and potatoes? FUCK YEAH!

That's cool, the more we learn the better off we are

 

[Hagi]

As a side note. I don't think anyone in this thread is a carnivore, well unless their diet consists of meat and nothing but meat. (i.e. no dairy, no bread, no rice/pasta/other starchy foods.)

Carnivores don't actually eat purely meat. They derive their nutrients purely from animal sources, but a rather vital part of their diet are the partly digested nutrients found in the stomachs of their prey, especially for younger carnivores.

Dairy is actually a prime example of a carnivorous food, it comes purely from an animal source.

OT: I totally agree. When handled with respect and care it's actually quite beneficent for animals to be eaten by humans. The animal species that are doing best in this world are those that we eat.

 

[BelfastSpartan]

I'm 24 and just recently started eating a vegetarian diet. (2 months)
My wife has been a vegetarian for 14 years.
(No I didn't go vegetarian because of her....inb4 whipped)

I loved meat, was never bothered with the farming thing or how they were killed then one day I was just surfing about the internet and came across this video:
!WARNING VERY GRAPHIC!
http://www.chooseveg.com/animal-cruelty.asp

After that and seeing how the animals are treated and killed put me off.
It put me in 2 minds.
1: Do as you suggest and find an animal 'friendly' farm and buy their produce.
2: Not eat any meat as whether they are treated like royalty or like shit at the end of the day they still die.

I'm not a pretentious asshole who thinks everyone should not eat meat, I don't force it on anyone!
I made the decision myself that I'd rather not support an industry that's kills a living animal just for me to eat.

Back to your point though, I think the way farms are now is down to consumers and supermarkets striving for cheaper prices, which of course leads to a reduced level of care....you pay for what you get. If you want to eat £1 steak, costs have to be cut somewhere...from the housing, treatment and food fed to the cow. All of these then reduce the quality but most people are happy/oblivious to the fact they are buying meat that was fed food pumped full of drugs/shite just to make it 'meatier'.

But hey to each their own....we do live in the western world and are free to make to make our own choices.

 

[manic_depressive13]

The issue I have is more to do with unecessary slaughter. You can spew out as much crap as you like about "humane" and "ethical" sources of meat, but at the end of the day you're killing things with the sole justification of "because we like the taste".

There's an absurd amount of antagonism towards vegans and vegetarians. People love to proudly proclaim that for every animal we don't eat, they'll eat two, and how delicious various cuts of animal are. What is it about not wanting things to die that so offends people? Do they think that they're "stronger" than vegetarians because they have managed to "overcome" the moral issue? I've eaten meat for most of my life. It isn't difficult. You haven't reached some sort of stage of enlightenment by being apathetic to slaughter.

I don't have to eat meat, so I don't. It probably doesn't make a difference, but it's the only thing I'm in any position to do. The end.

 

[Beliyal]

Now, I am careful and I still eat fish and eggs for example, they are good for some things that I do not get from meat (eggs for vitamin B12 for example).

Did you know fish contains over 70.000 different toxins and harmfull substances?
And it contains so much of that, that to stay within the European Union safe limits for ingestion of toxins, once an adult man has eaten a fish, he must not eat anything else for an entire week. Unless it's certain kinds of fat fish (praised for omega 3), in which case you'll always take in more toxins than is allowed.
Pregnant women can never eat fish of any kind if they wish to stay within the set safe limits for not damaging the foetus.

Also did you know fish, as a whole, is likely to be extinct within a few decades at the rate fishing is going currently, making fish the most eco-destructive type of food? Actually this mass extinction, and the subsequent collapse of ocean ecologies and the climate of earth, makes fishing to be likely the single largest threat to the survival of mankind.

No, fish from fishfarms isn't any better either. The vast majority of fish there are carnivorous fish, fed with ocean fish.

Sorry, a bit late reply, I went to sleep.

While I heard that there are certain hazards in eating fish (and eating anything, really; there were more than a few meat-related and vegetable-related outbreaks of diseases), I've never heard of anyone having medical problems from it and I live in the area where fish is lunch basically every second day. I've honestly never heard of "once an adult man has eaten a fish, he must not eat anything else for an entire week." that. I'll look into it. However, you can't ignore the benefits of such diets; areas where people eat a lot of fish (Mediterranean, Japan) are usually the healthiest areas where people live longer (various other factors included though, it's not solely because of fish). I don't know about the other parts of the world, but fish is a really important part of the diet of all people that live here and I've never heard of anyone getting ill because of it (not from the past either, as seafood was literally what fed the Mediterranean, since the prehistory). It could also be adaptation; depending on the place people live, they adapt to the local flora and fauna (the Inuit people have diets that consist mostly of meat because they live in the area where cultivation of plants is impossible and a lot of protein and fat are necessary to sustain the body temperature in such climate. Anyone else who tried such diet without centuries of adaptation would not be really healthy from it).

Extinction is a problem for pretty much anything these days, isn't it? We'll run out of oil, gas, drinking water, arable land, fish and so on (if we continue the industries at this rate). As I've said in all previous posts, the problem is exaggerating. I do not oppose the eating of meat or killing of animals; that's just how life works. However, factory farming, big industries and huge demands are the real problem; the eco-systems don't have enough time to recover naturally. Fishing is just one problem amongst the many and I am aware that it exists. But just as there are animal-friendly farms and slaughterhouses, there are the same things for fish; specifically, where I live, fish is not farmed aggressively, but is being caught directly from the wild at reasonable rates. Nothing is thrown away and all fish that gets caught is used in one way or another. Sometimes, there are no fish in stores because simply there wasn't any to catch because the weather was not suitable for fishing or because it isn't the season for certain fish. Also, a lot of people go fishing on their own and feed their families with what little they caught that day (they go fishing, catch some of it and go home, no need to catch huge amounts for nothing).

There are a lot of problems with how we treat the world around us and it's not only exclusive to "evil slaughterhouses"; it happens in the fish industry, in milk industry, cheese industry and so on. I am careful with what I buy, but not all people have the luxury to do so. However, education and promoting the humane solutions for animal farming are helping and will be helping in the future. I see no reason for the "meat eaters" and vegetarians to be two separate parties that need to fight each other; most ideas that vegetarians promote would benefit humanity in terms of healthier food (meat included) and more care for the environment, just as most ideas that meat eaters also promote, such as varied diets that can help in terms of health. There will always be people that just prefer one or the other, though. Also, there are people who are allergic to meat and people (like me) who just didn't find any benefit in meat. Various types of lifestyles, areas where we live, culture, tradition; it's all important when considering diets. If my health starts getting worse, I'll consider going back, although I'd rather just take pills, but for now, everything is actually better than it was before. It it remains like this, I'll be happy. If it gets worse, I'll have to admit that it wasn't really beneficial (although, the diet I had before wasn't either).

 

[greenarchist]

The silliest argument I ever got into with a vegetarian was when they said "if all the food in the world ran out, would you eat another person".

When given the choice between starvation or eating another human being then it's quite a high possibility I will be having fried Bob for supper.

Anywhoo

I care very little about what other people eat I just really wish other folk would stop ramming their beliefs, morals and customs down other peoples throats.

I was vegan for about twelve years, for environmental reasons:
Feedlots are environmental disasters; ther are literally lakes of shit around or nearby most of them. Not even taking into account the
antibiotic issue.
And the land used to grow feed grade corn could be used to grow food that humans could eat directly, instead of filtering it through a cow first.

There's more, but anyway:
During the inevitable discussions about my dietary choices I had with my friends at the time I came to the conclusion that the best way to help the environment via dietary choices would be to hunt and eat meat eating humans(as long as they were not raised for food ;p)
Second best is veganism

 

[ctalons]

The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?" ~Jeremy Bentham

Small, big, farm, factory...you're still causing suffering and an necessary death. Shorten a life, no matter how, and your stealing life.

If people live without eating animals, then why then is it necessary?
Your enjoyment is not worth their suffering and loss.

 

[JamesStone]

The silliest argument I ever got into with a vegetarian was when they said "if all the food in the world ran out, would you eat another person".

When given the choice between starvation or eating another human being then it's quite a high possibility I will be having fried Bob for supper.

Anywhoo

I care very little about what other people eat I just really wish other folk would stop ramming their beliefs, morals and customs down other peoples throats.

I was vegan for about twelve years, for environmental reasons:
Feedlots are environmental disasters; ther are literally lakes of shit around or nearby most of them. Not even taking into account the
antibiotic issue.
And the land used to grow feed grade corn could be used to grow food that humans could eat directly, instead of filtering it through a cow first.

There's more, but anyway:
During the inevitable discussions about my dietary choices I had with my friends at the time I came to the conclusion that the best way to help the environment via dietary choices would be to hunt and eat meat eating humans(as long as they were not raised for food ;p)
Second best is veganism

Why are you quoting me? I only answered the guy. I didn´t even express an opinion. Shouldn´t you quote him instead? (Not being agressive, just curious)

 

[KindlySpastic]

No, just if you have no muscles whatsoever, do no physical work, or happen to be a woman, who occasionally have a period.

If you however happen to not be a lucky rich male kid who's unemployed or in a desk job, you will develop anemia, because for instance iron from meat is absorbed many times faster than those from nuts, and other environmentally destructive alternatives to iron consumption.

Strangely enough, I happen to have quite a lot of muscle, do a lot of running, biking and hiking and still manage to keep within the average of male hemoglobin level. And this, I might add, is without using any kind of supplements. Hell, I donate blood as often as I can as well.

It's easier to utilize the iron from meat but the difference is not so large that a healthy vegetarian diet is impossible to acheive for a physically active person.

Also, are we getting a bit hostile here or is it just me?