So... I Just Became a Vegetarian

[FlyAwayAutumn]

A more natural lifestyle is not to just flat out stop eating meat. From what I understand (and I don't pay attention to this kind of thing very much) people are usually vegetarians because they're "Humanitarians" so if you're not a "Humanitarian" you can still eat meat just don't eat it all the damn time and have a more balanced diet.

There I'm done talking about "Nutrition" now I feel all dirty. I'm gonna go talk about sex or some other thing.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

..... Right.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

meh .... morality ... about eating meat?

Surely what people mean to say is morality over their own nature. There's 6.1 or something billion people on the planet ... which means you have to feed 6.1 or something billion mouths each day.

Surely any moral argument should take on the principal that people shouldn't starve because someone says eating meat is amoral (or worse IMmoral)?

Sure sure, I've seen cows get the bolt to the head, and it ain't pretty ....

I've also seen kids dying from malnutrition (well technically, diseases onset from malnutrition).....

I can tell you which I found more depressing without a qualm in the world.

I will illustrate a dilemma.... I eat non-battery eggs ... just to appease my conscience, but that's because I can AFFORD to do so ... but should a poor person be forced to pay more for free range eggs when they have trouble feeding their kids?

Humans > other animals.

Sure I'd wish for a day where Humanity's need to consume so much biological matter reduces because of steady depopulation ... but that's not likely to happen until there's a major ecological collapse/major conflict/etc.

You're always going to have poor people, and rich people, and as such we rich people (assuming the people posting here own the pcs they are using to write these comments, and actually have more than 300 bucks in their accounts ... living outside a Rentier state ... with a roof over their heads) shouldn't pass judgement so quickly on matters which are in place that feed us and the world.

Vegetarianism isn't cheap as people put forward ... as such because it isn't as cheap or efficient as people make it out to be .... then it's not a case of morality when it comes to the aspect of feeding World Populations.

That's how I see it anyways ... that being said ... I am a big fan of the aspect of the categorical imperative, Kant's Deontology and Mill's Utilitarianism is awesome.

Modern cows and sheep wouldn't be alive if Humans didn't take care of them ...

To sheep and cows ... we are like Gods .... therefore must act accordingly! Their existence is solely dictated by our divine will of our ultimately necessary subsistence ... as all Gods must live on a diet of death from their subjects.

Personally I do not understand why morality even plays a part in this discussion to be frank...

 

[Turbowombat]

This is a huge fallacy. A hypothetical person with perfect information about the health outcomes of a hypothetical diet that has every possible dietary option available to him would be healthier than a vegetarian with the same options, but restricted?

The fact of the matter is that they hypothetical person on which your argument is based doesn't exist. No one has all dietary options available to him. Most people don't even take advantage of the outer ranges of options that are available. There's no point making claims about the dietary benefits of eating kangaroo meat to someone living in Minnesota, or about the positives and negatives of kava consumption to someone living in Stockholm.

Likewise, within a distinctly limited, finite number of options, there is every possibility that some of those options may be detrmiental, and even poisonous. And suggesting that a broader spectrum that includes the poisonous is more beneficial is farcical in the face of it.

A typical American of modest financial means has a quite limited typical diet. They most likely eat chicken, beef, and pork, and possibly fish and lamb. They consume maybe thirty different fruits and vegetables, an incredibly miniscule number when compared to the variety of edible species on the planet. And their consumption is limited to what conventional farming methods produce; they most likely don't subsist on organics. It is within this subset that it is appropriate to make judgements on diet, not some nonexistant mathematical abstract.

Are there healthy meat-eaters out there? Of course. There are reputed to be plains peoples who live entirely on red meat and milk, and they have incredibly low rates of heart disease, just to confound certain branches of dietary thinking. But these peoples hunt their food, and their game lives on its natural diet- a far cry from the convenience-wrapped, feedlot-raised product of industrial agriculture. Chiding someone for choosing vegetarianism within their available choices makes as much sense as chiding them for not going out to hunt wild cattle on the plains.

How did this become complicated. An omnivore can, without trouble, construct any and all diets that a vegetarian can construct. were the two to have a competition, the safe choice from the omnivore's standpoint would be to copy the vegetarian exactly and replace one peanut with a gram of meat containing the exact same amount of protein,there is no fallacy, only logic. This cannot be done in reverse, a vegetarian cannot construct every diet that an omnivore has access to. so until you can argue that a vegetarian is healthier than someone else who is on the exact same diet (which is impossible) I don't see your argument. It's not a mathematical abstract, its a universal constant. Adding possibilities always increases positive returns provided the outcome of the possibilities is chosen to maximize returns. and in the very worst case scenario adding possibilities never ever reduces maximized returns because any lesser choice is ignored.

To illustrate, if I have two bags of mixed red and blue marbels and I'm told to draw from them fifty blue marbels and place them on the tabel, and I'm told that I'm allowed to look in the bag before drawing, it doesn't matter whether I'm restricted to only drawing from one bag or both, I'm still going to look and choose fifty blue marbels and ignore the red ones. Adding a second bag of marbels adds good and bad possibilities but it is impossible that the addition of any number of bags will make the task more difficult because if I so chose, I can ignore them. It is math and logic, there is no normative subjective judgement anywhere in this premise. How, given complete information and the ability to chose your diet, can a person who restricts their choices ever construct a superior diet to someone whose available options include all the same choices as the other person and then some? How can adding more bags of marbels possibly force me to choose a red one where I otherwise wouldn't?

 

[Callate]

-snip-

Because you're also assuming perfect knowledge and an equivalency that does not exist except in a thought experiment. There is no one gram of meat that is in every way superior to one peanut. The meat and the peanut will contain different balances of fat, protein, carbohydrates, etc. that will be metabolized in different ways. Some elements of the meat may be superior, and some inferior. The presence of the choice means that the eater is more likely to make an inferior choice- in as much as one can be judged the "inferior choice". The absence of perfect information as to all the attributes of one consumable over another makes the inferior choice more likely, even taking aside all matters of convenience, taste, and cost that don't exist within a pure hypothetical- which is the real question facing the real person.

Hypothetically, an informed omnivore can mimic the vegetarian diet where it is advantageous and choose otherwise when it is disadvantageous. Realistically, even an "informed" omnivore will at least occasionally make choices within the diet that are nutritionally disadvantageous for any number of reasons, not least of which being that the knowledge to construct a "perfect" diet does not exist and that foods don't tend to conform absolutely to better-or-worse but have differing nutritional qualities, many of which aren't immediately apparent. Removing options does not automatically confer an inferior income, mathematically or otherwise. And if you're drawing marbles blindly, you can only draw a red one if it's there.

To continue to torture the metaphor, vegetarianism makes a judgement that certain things are red marbles and removes the possibility of their selection. One can argue whether or not that removal is appropriate within a stated goal; whether the quality has been appropriately ascribed to a certain marble. But there's nothing to inherently guarantee that a wider selection leads to a more positive outcome in all cases.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Because you're also assuming perfect knowledge and an equivalency that does not exist except in a thought experiment. There is no one gram of meat that is in every way superior to one peanut. The meat and the peanut will contain different balances of fat, protein, carbohydrates, etc. that will be metabolized in different ways. Some elements of the meat may be superior, and some inferior. The presence of the choice means that the eater is more likely to make an inferior choice- in as much as one can be judged the "inferior choice". The absence of perfect information as to all the attributes of one consumable over another makes the inferior choice more likely, even taking aside all matters of convenience, taste, and cost that don't exist within a pure hypothetical- which is the real question facing the real person.

Hypothetically, an informed omnivore can mimic the vegetarian diet where it is advantageous and choose otherwise when it is disadvantageous. Realistically, even an "informed" omnivore will at least occasionally make choices within the diet that are nutritionally disadvantageous for any number of reasons, not least of which being that the knowledge to construct a "perfect" diet does not exist and that foods don't tend to conform absolutely to better-or-worse but have differing nutritional qualities, many of which aren't immediately apparent. Removing options does not automatically confer an inferior income, mathematically or otherwise. And if you're drawing marbles blindly, you can only draw a red one if it's there.

To continue to torture the metaphor, vegetarianism makes a judgement that certain things are red marbles and removes the possibility of their selection. One can argue whether or not that removal is appropriate within a stated goal; whether the quality has been appropriately ascribed to a certain marble. But there's nothing to inherently guarantee that a wider selection leads to a more positive outcome in all cases.

Bloody hell, just accept that the more varied one's diet can be, the greater the possibility of a more efficient eating regime.

Certainly having MORE choice is better than having FEWER choices. On that basis alone what Turbo is saying is right.

Surely the fact that humans *are* omnivores by nature, that they developed as omnivores, that we have CUSPIDS to TEAR FLESH should represent that humans should occupy a wide diversity of food types ...

Stop being so thickheaded.

Greater choice = greater diversity = Greater possibility of maximising dietary efficiency.

 

[Callate]

-snip-

I refuse to pretend that "logical" analyses whose logic does not carry over into the real world are convincing. And I really don't see why you think insults would increase the strength of your claim.

Having more choices is sometimes better than having fewer choices. I do not argue the absolute superiority of a vegetarian diet over an omnivorous one, and never have. But within the realm of conventional foods, there are compelling arguments to be made that a vegetarian diet has advantages over a omnivorous one, and I haven't read anything to the contrary. In return for having to take greater care not to have a deficit in iron and protein, a vegetarian typically consumes a far greater amount of micronutrients, gets much more of their fat allotment from omega-3 fats, avoids bad cholesterol, and significantly lessens their exposure to chemical pesticide, synthetic hormone, and antibiotic residues. (Yes, pesticides exist on conventional crops, but they're far easier to remove than the residues in an animal that's eaten pesticide-treated feed for most of its life cycle.) Though there have been some unfortunate exposures in conventional produce, it also usually lessens the chance of exposure to e.coli, salmonella, and lysteria.

And as I've said, most conventional eaters only eat about thirty different fruits and vegetables. Why does "eating a more varied diet"- if that's the real objective- have to mean eating meat? Certainly there is far more room for expansion even within the conventionally grown fruits and vegetables than there is within the narrow range of conventionally grown livestock.

And, yes, we have canines for tearing meat. We also have adaptions that make us store fat, adaptions which make unhealthy obesity incredibly common. We have a taste for sweet things that was fantastic when we gathered fruit but leads to all manner of health problems in the age of processed sweeteners. We have immune responses that were useful to our ancestors, yet are the cause of countless deaths. Saying "we evolved this way" is an incredibly poor argument for presuming the design of the body trumps the intervention of the mind.

 

[Turbowombat]

First off, congratulations, for the purpose of this thread and with respect to the OP I admit I have lost the argument, despite the support of PaulH and the fact that my point still stands and is entirely true. To summarize your argument I'll just use the facepalm that all scientists are familiar with: In theory, practice and theory are the same, but in practice they aren't.

The practical truth is that an omnivore has more options and the theoretical capacity to always construct a superior diet to that of a vegetarian, but it will take extra effort (if one chooses to sift through multiple bags of marbels) and in practice the percentage of omnivores who are willing to put in the effort to obtian perfect information (which is theoretically possible but practically improbable) is lower than the percentage of vegetarians who maintain a healthier diet without any additional work of any sort.

I therefore amend my argument to the following: for any health concious diet a vegetarian can construct, you could derive the same health benefits without becoming a vegetarian. This argument only works provided I make no implication as to the amount of extra effort one would have to put in or speculate as to the odds of their success at the attempt given current informational standards.

Aside to the OP: I don't get you; there are two major reasons to become a vegetarian: meat is murder, or the implied health benefits, and you claim not to be doing this for either reason despite that you expressly say you like meat and are doing this for the health benefits in your original post. Whatever your point was when you told me I was wrong to point out the theoretical counter to your reasoning regarding health, is lost to abstraction and obscurity. It's like that guy at a party who's on cocain who presses you against a wall and tells you you just don't understand what they're talking about no matter how much you say "no really, I get it." good luck with your thread. As for my argument; /thread

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

-snip-

I refuse to pretend that "logical" analyses whose logic does not carry over into the real world are convincing. And I really don't see why you think insults would increase the strength of your claim.

Having more choices is sometimes better than having fewer choices. I do not argue the absolute superiority of a vegetarian diet over an omnivorous one, and never have. But within the realm of conventional foods, there are compelling arguments to be made that a vegetarian diet has advantages over a omnivorous one, and I haven't read anything to the contrary. In return for having to take greater care not to have a deficit in iron and protein, a vegetarian typically consumes a far greater amount of micronutrients, gets much more of their fat allotment from omega-3 fats, avoids bad cholesterol, and significantly lessens their exposure to chemical pesticide, synthetic hormone, and antibiotic residues. (Yes, pesticides exist on conventional crops, but they're far easier to remove than the residues in an animal that's eaten pesticide-treated feed for most of its life cycle.) Though there have been some unfortunate exposures in conventional produce, it also usually lessens the chance of exposure to e.coli, salmonella, and lysteria.

And as I've said, most conventional eaters only eat about thirty different fruits and vegetables. Why does "eating a more varied diet"- if that's the real objective- have to mean eating meat? Certainly there is far more room for expansion even within the conventionally grown fruits and vegetables than there is within the narrow range of conventionally grown livestock.

And, yes, we have canines for tearing meat. We also have adaptions that make us store fat, adaptions which make unhealthy obesity incredibly common. We have a taste for sweet things that was fantastic when we gathered fruit but leads to all manner of health problems in the age of processed sweeteners. We have immune responses that were useful to our ancestors, yet are the cause of countless deaths. Saying "we evolved this way" is an incredibly poor argument for presuming the design of the body trumps the intervention of the mind.

Okay, lets take the real world .... supermarkets .... now lets assume you're a person who realises that benefits of homecooked meal. I can buy the same veggies that a vegetarian can buy, and I can have just the same variety in various metas, cuts of meat, seafood, etc.

Therefore if I were to take the real world market of the supermarket as the basis of one's dietary access ... then that would mean that my variety of food intake = more than a vegetarian.

It matters not the situation, nor the real world place you choose to select, an omnivore's diet is going to be more varied.

You argumenty seems to stem from an ideal that omnivores don't take care of thesmselves but I posit that the dietary supplements taken by vegetarians tend to outweigh the dietary supplements necessary for an omnivore that will spend just as much time sortig out their diet as a vegetarian.

If you can accept that meat/poultry/seafood have benefits, then you must also agree that they represent a useful source of goodness.

If you accept that premise, then you must also accept the hypothetical ... that the accessibility to meats, poultry and fish help benefit a person's diet.

Your argument is not unlike 'What the Tortoise said to Achilles' (Lewis Carroll) ... surely you understand what logic and deduction is?

Premise A: Fish, meat, and poultry have nutritional properties not found in the same quantities in other food groups
Premise B: Vegetables + grains have nutritional properties not found in the same quantity as non plant food groups.
Hypthetical (Z): That a mix of the two should minimise dietary consumption, or maximise the efficiency of one's eating.

ABZ ...

being thickheaded is being thickheaded. As represented by the tortoise that continues to add premises before accepting the hypothetical.

Sure the tortoise is 'right' in that you can continue to create premises 'If A and B is true, so must C', 'If A, B, and C are true, so must D' ... but there comes a point when one must eventually accept the hypothesis. Possibly not through the art of deductive logic, but atleast an acceptance that the hypothesis exists and stands to test by the first two premises.

And we *need* a little fat in our diet ... which lean red meat accomodates WELL ... fatty acids in lean red meat reduce the risk of heart disease and fish oil improves heart function, so surely a combination of BOTH would be REALLY good as you get older and older.

Your argument stems on the fact that omnivores ALL TEND TO BE LAZY ... surely the same can be said of ANY PERSON ... vegetarian or no ... which is evident in how vegetarians take dietary supplements.

I will posit that an omnivorous diet is far superior, simply because in an ideal concumption situation, we have the same access as vegetarians, only MORE access to stuff like lean red meat, and fish.

http://www.csiro.au/resources/The-facts-on-eating-red-meat.html#1

Anyways, the basis of my argument is efficiency. What is the most efficient? What will cost the less, what will take the less time, what is best for the body? Surely if it is more efficient to eat red meat and fish, then surely it is superior.

if it takes an artist to create a masterpiece in half the tyime, using half the materials, at half teh cost, as it takes another artist to create the same level of masterpiece ... then surely the former artist is superior to the latter artist.

(Oh, and I haven't got anything to say about pesticides and hormones ... personally I think it's a crock ... as the CSIRO and other scientific/regulatory bodies regularly monitor our induistries to make sure that the product we eat and ship overseas is of prime quality. I'm more worried what they do to veggies and grains then I am cattle ... atleast old-style animal husbandry that lent itself to the creation of cattle is less scary than GM foods .... and atleast fish are safe )

 

[Callate]

Okay, lets take the real world .... supermarkets .... now lets assume you're a person who realises that benefits of homecooked meal. I can buy the same veggies that a vegetarian can buy, and I can have just the same variety in various metas, cuts of meat, seafood, etc.

Therefore if I were to take the real world market of the supermarket as the basis of one's dietary access ... then that would mean that my variety of food intake = more than a vegetarian.

It matters not the situation, nor the real world place you choose to select, an omnivore's diet is going to be more varied.

The only guarantee inherent to the idea of being an omnivore is the consumption of both meat and vegetable matter. There is no guarantee that an omnivore's diet will be more varied than a vegetarian's; only that it will contain both meat and plants.

Even assuming the omnivore is quite selective, there is still a limit to the quantity of calories an individual is going to consume in a day. While meat is- without question- an excellent source of some forms of nutrition, its presence displaces other things the eater could be consuming.

Your argument seems to stem from an ideal that omnivores don't take care of thesmselves but I posit that the dietary supplements taken by vegetarians tend to outweigh the dietary supplements necessary for an omnivore that will spend just as much time sortig out their diet as a vegetarian.

Overall, there are things in an omnivore's diet that are not in a vegetarian's diet. Some of these things are good: it's much easier to get b-vitamins; iron is more readily digestable. Some of these things are not: much higher concentrations of omega-6 fatty acids (which have been implicated in heart disease and stroke when out of balance with omega-3s); a possible increase in some forms of cancer, and (in America, at least) a significantly higher chance of contracting foodborne illness.

It is arguable that a vegetarian maintaining a nutritionally balanced diet puts a similar amount of work into doing so as an omnivore attempting to maintain a healthy diet. What does not follow is that the omnivore's diet is superior.

If you can accept that meat/poultry/seafood have benefits, then you must also agree that they represent a useful source of goodness.

If you accept that premise, then you must also accept the hypothetical ... that the accessibility to meats, poultry and fish help benefit a person's diet.

Your argument is not unlike 'What the Tortoise said to Achilles' (Lewis Carroll) ... surely you understand what logic and deduction is?

I do; I'm rather tired of the presumption that they translate into accepting absolutes that don't exist. That fish is a source of omega-3 doesn't mean that walnuts are not, nor does it change that many fish are contaminated with mercury. That beef is a good source of iron doesn't mean that spinach is not, nor that grain-raised beef is high in saturated fat. There are benefits and detriments to both vegetarian and omnivorous diets, and what is ridiculous is this notion that some x=y equation inherently and consistently proves one's superiority to the other.

Your argument stems on the fact that omnivores ALL TEND TO BE LAZY ... surely the same can be said of ANY PERSON ... vegetarian or no ... which is evident in how vegetarians take dietary supplements.

No... My argument is that even the most careful omnivore (or, more to the point, one as careful as a nutritionally aware vegetarian) is displacing one set of benefits and risks for another.

One could argue that omnivorism by its nature lends itself to being "lazy" far more easily than vegetarianism. The risks of an injudicious vegetarian diet mostly out themselves in what one might call the middle-term: anemia, muscular breakdown, etc., which will become evident after someone has been on such a diet for weeks or months (and hopefully be corrected.) "Injudicious" omnivorism, by contrast, won't necessarily show such signs as long as someone is genuinely consuming a variety of plant and animal foods. But they may suffer from food poisoning immediately, or a heart attack or stroke much down the line. Risks that strike out of the blue or much further down the line are easier to ignore.

Anyways, the basis of my argument is efficiency. What is the most efficient? What will cost the less, what will take the less time, what is best for the body? Surely if it is more efficient to eat red meat and fish, then surely it is superior.

But it isn't necessarily more efficient. Most of the nutrition that comes from consuming animals comes from the plants they eat. There's a reason many cultures have taboos against eating carnivores. They're more likely to pass on diseases... And they're far less nutritious.

For iron, protein, and b-vitamins, meat does well. For almost every other vitamin, green and orange plants provide superior nutrition.

As for costs... The prices of both industrial meat and industrial produce are artificial. Without significant subsidies, neither would exist in its present form. They strip the soil, drain and poison water supplies, and promote illnesses in crops, herds, and quite possibly people. But feed animals tend to be the bigger problem, and their relative inefficency is part of that problem. Depending on how one calculates, between two and six pounds of grain goes into making one pound of beef.

if it takes an artist to create a masterpiece in half the tyime, using half the materials, at half teh cost, as it takes another artist to create the same level of masterpiece ... then surely the former artist is superior to the latter artist.

The phrase "caveat emptor" comes to mind. If it takes one artist half the time, half the materials, and half the cost... Look for cut corners.

Which is really what it comes down to.

I'm not saying that it isn't possible to be a very healthy omnivore. What I am saying is that even an "idealized" omnivore accepts certain detriments and risks as well as benefits to their diet. Just as a vegetarian, even an "idealized" vegetarian, also accepts certain detrminets, risks, and benefits- but largely a different set. Not superior or inferior. Different.

The farther away you get from that ideal- when you get into the way people actually eat, the more glaring the risks and detriments of an omnivore's menu become, while vegetarians will usually either find their way around their diet's particular risks or detriments- or return to being omnivores.

(Oh, and I haven't got anything to say about pesticides and hormones ... personally I think it's a crock ... as the CSIRO and other scientific/regulatory bodies regularly monitor our induistries to make sure that the product we eat and ship overseas is of prime quality. I'm more worried what they do to veggies and grains then I am cattle ... atleast old-style animal husbandry that lent itself to the creation of cattle is less scary than GM foods .... and atleast fish are safe )

"Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) delivers solutions for agribusiness, energy and transport..." ...Sounds rather like the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture.)

It's wise to read the words of any body simultaneously responsible for oversight and promotion of an industry with a grain of salt. Particularly when one of those functions tends to lead to financial gain and the other to financial loss.

And I'm sorry to say that Australia seems to warn against mercury in several species of fish, just like everyone else.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

-Snip

Oh please ... unless you actually grow your own food (ALL your own food) you cannot bring food safety into this ... nor can you say that omnivorous diets are more 'lazy by nature'. Unless you're a farmer, fat chance you won't grow all the food you will subsist upon so laziness (beyond dietary choice) isn't even an aspect.

As for mercury poisoning ... are you kidding? The fish we get is situated farther away from industrial pollutants than agricultural assets (whether it be cattle or vegetable/grain production).

And 'stripping the soil'? Production of grain and vegetables do this moreso than just running cattle. Atleast running cattle you don't have to clear cut ... that being said chances are you probably will also do so, but you CAN run cattle even with a tree cover exceeding 15%-20% of land ....

Vegetable and grain production requires a COMPLETE clearing of land.

Surely as you mention that an incorrect vegetarian diet can be immediately harmful whereas the effects of poor animal fat control can take years to produce severe symptoms ... possibly because the human body can tolerate a heavy meat diet far better than a poor vegetarian diet?

And I agree ... most of the goodness a stock of cattle will produce will be from what was fed to it up until slaughter, but because the animal changes the substance that it eats, converts it, and creates it into new protein chains ... that is what is missing in vegetarian diets.

Oil (as in that unrefined black stuff which is worth more than gold now) is just old plant life ... doesn't mean if I shove leaves into my fuel tank it will go. No ... oil works because it's stewed by geological activity and converted into something new ...

And the number one thing we're forgetting is enjoyment. What point is there of a diet you hate? I went veg for 3-4 days because a girlfriend was hung up on it ... and I started having to fry up some tassie salmon when she wasn't around ... with a bit of feta ... on some saltine crackers .... *drools*

Point is ... boom ... fish was there. Cost me 26/kilo ... great for you, taste wonderful, will cater to 90% of people who see it and is sure to be the hit at the party.

Overall ... maybe a squeeze of lemon and a bit of coriander, you have a healthy, nutritious, simple dish. When it comes to ecological concerns, it's a better alternative then a whole bunch of veggies too when you take the whole clear cutting, pesticide use and overt amount of fertiliser which destroys river systems.

Inuit tribesmen have subsisted on a zero plant based diet ... whereas Humanity has only developed the means to sustain vegetarian diets with the onset of highly developed agricultural designs.

Nature lends itself to survival, not laziness. Which is why the extinction of super predators in higher animals is far harder to find in comparison to the extinction of herbivores.

Meat is like ... concentrated plant life over years of growth. Changed and altered through chemical processes to create something that is PACKED with nutrients. It's not a question of why animals started preying on eachother, it's a question why so many more didn't (possibly because it was unsustainable, but I digress).

It's not hard to be a healthy omnivore ... it's just that the number of omnivores exceeds vegetarians .... I believe if you were to equal the number you'd find just as many unhealthy vegetarians as you would unhealthy omnivores ...

Add into the equation that there is a super concentration of unhealthy omnivorous foodstuffs out there then there is quintessentially unhealthy vegetarian foodstuffs (for example, Hungry Jacks)...

Surely in a vegetarian only world, there'd also be a hungry jacks- style vegetarian fast food that would be killing us just as much as it's real world counterpart.

And the NO.1 reason why vegetarianism isn't the way .... Hitler ... he's like ... mega taboo and no matter how many omnivorous bastards you'll find throughout history he'll still be top dog. (yes, I'm joking)

Oh ... most important thing to note ... that if you were to reduce world population to only 50 million ... get rid of all agriculture (including cattle) ... a vegetarian diet wouldn't work ... if you're talking about a diet that consisted solely on what you could forage (naturally) as well as game ...? Vegetarianism would be a quick way to get you killed.

If we're talking about purely natural lifestyle ... omnivorous diets would be the *only way* ... as you wouldn't have your precious walnuts .... certainly not in the quantity you'd need... but you will always have game.

 

[Helios_(DEL)]

A more natural lifestyle is not to just flat out stop eating meat. From what I understand (and I don't pay attention to this kind of thing very much) people are usually vegetarians because they're "Humanitarians" so if you're not a "Humanitarian" you can still eat meat just don't eat it all the damn time and have a more balanced diet.

There I'm done talking about "Nutrition" now I feel all dirty. I'm gonna go talk about sex or some other thing.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

..... Right.

i laughed at your comment did i do somthing wrong?

 

[FlyAwayAutumn]

A more natural lifestyle is not to just flat out stop eating meat. From what I understand (and I don't pay attention to this kind of thing very much) people are usually vegetarians because they're "Humanitarians" so if you're not a "Humanitarian" you can still eat meat just don't eat it all the damn time and have a more balanced diet.

There I'm done talking about "Nutrition" now I feel all dirty. I'm gonna go talk about sex or some other thing.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

..... Right.

i laughed at your comment did i do somthing wrong?

Don't worry about it, it's just how I acknowledge things.

 

[Callate]

Oh please ... unless you actually grow your own food (ALL your own food) you cannot bring food safety into this ... nor can you say that omnivorous diets are more 'lazy by nature'. Unless you're a farmer, fat chance you won't grow all the food you will subsist upon so laziness (beyond dietary choice) isn't even an aspect.

I say "One could argue that omnivorism by its nature lends itself to being 'lazy' far more easily than vegetarianism" (which is NOT remotely the same as saying all omnivorous diets, or all omnivores, are "lazy by nature") because... Ugh, re-writing things I've already typed is getting tiresome... Omnivorism doesn't punish laziness in the same way that vegetarianism does. Which is sort of like saying a public school teacher doesn't punish in the same way that a nun in a private Catholic school does. Doesn't mean a given student of one system is automatically better than the other [/end metaphor torture].

Both omnivores and vegetarians who can afford it have the option of buying organic foods, which removes much of the dangers associated with food contamination. Though the original qualities of the foods, for better or worse, remain.

What I do know is that a produce contamination scare comes up about once a year. And even then, the source of contamination is usually animals. Whereas a meat scare comes up about monthly. 70% of food poisoning cases in the U.S. involve eating meat, according to the USDA (which I previous badmouthed, but which can probably be counted on to either accurately or under-report this particular statistic.)

So I can bring up food safety and I do, because one is statistically far more likely to get sick from eating conventional meat than conventional produce. That one can't readily eliminate risk in either case doesn't mean no comparison can be made.

As for mercury poisoning ... are you kidding? The fish we get is situated farther away from industrial pollutants than agricultural assets (whether it be cattle or vegetable/grain production).

And yet: "Pregnant women, women planning pregnancy and young children should limit their intake of shark (flake), broadbill, marlin and swordfish to no more than one serve per fortnight with no other fish to be consumed during that fortnight. For orange roughy (also sold as sea perch) and catfish, the advice is to consume no more than one serve per week, with no other fish being consumed during that week." -FSANZ

And 'stripping the soil'? Production of grain and vegetables do this moreso than just running cattle. (...)

Apparently you missed the part about finish cattle requiring 2-6 pounds of grain per pound of beef?

A lot of the most destructive habits of industrial agriculture could be culled, or at least stalled, if we ceased the more wasteful uses of its products. If we only raised what cattle could be fed on existing pasture without damaging it beyond natural regeneration, it would be a tremendous help... But we'd have to eat a lot less beef.

And we might well have to give up on pigs altogether.

Surely as you mention that an incorrect vegetarian diet can be immediately harmful whereas the effects of poor animal fat control can take years to produce severe symptoms ... possibly because the human body can tolerate a heavy meat diet far better than a poor vegetarian diet?

Yes. And surely you recognize that "tolerate" is not the same as "thrive". And that "toleration" is less likely to breed correction.

Oil (as in that unrefined black stuff which is worth more than gold now) is just old plant life ... doesn't mean if I shove leaves into my fuel tank it will go. No ... oil works because it's stewed by geological activity and converted into something new (...)

...Nor, presumably, would you put petroleum in your mouth.

Food is not a simple alchemy. Yes, some nutrients are condensed and altered in animal flesh. Some are also used up in the animal. And some toxins are also condensed.

It is easier to get some nutrients in an omnivore's diet. But that doesn't make it impossible to get them from a vegetarian's.

And the number one thing we're forgetting is enjoyment. What point is there of a diet you hate? I went veg for 3-4 days because a girlfriend was hung up on it ... and I started having to fry up some tassie salmon when she wasn't around ... with a bit of feta ... on some saltine crackers .... *drools*

No argument. I definitely enjoy the culinary benefits of an omnivore's diet. Sometimes to excess. Even within the range of vegetarianism, I'd far advocate "lacto-ovo" over veganism. But if I had to go vegan tomorrow... I could do it, and still be healthy.

Overall ... maybe a squeeze of lemon and a bit of coriander, you have a healthy, nutritious, simple dish. When it comes to ecological concerns, it's a better alternative then a whole bunch of veggies too when you take the whole clear cutting, pesticide use and overt amount of fertiliser which destroys river systems.

...Which is also why the prospect that overfishing has put many fish runs in danger of extinction is so dreadful.

Nature lends itself to survival, not laziness. Which is why the extinction of super predators in higher animals is far harder to find in comparison to the extinction of herbivores.

You seem to be implying a) all herbivores are "lazy", and b) predators are more likely to survive extinction events than herbivores. Neither of these points is adequately supported.

If more herbivore species have gone extinct, it's because there are more of them. Any area with large carnivores requires a significant number of prey animals to support it. Major extinction events have the same essential effect on all species- when the food is gone, the species dies.

It's not hard to be a healthy omnivore ... it's just that the number of omnivores exceeds vegetarians .... I believe if you were to equal the number you'd find just as many unhealthy vegetarians as you would unhealthy omnivores ...

That's really hard to know for certain, really. I don't feel like I can speculate on what would drive a society that consisted only of omnivores, or what their priorities would be. True, it could be just as screwed up.

What is clear is that as things currently stand, eating habits are a contributing factor in a majority of health-related deaths, including ones that ought to be avoidable within the constraints of an omnivore diet. Apparently however easy it is to be a healthy omnivore, it's not quite easy enough.

Not that that's necessarily entirely the eater's fault.

Oh ... most important thing to note ... that if you were to reduce world population to only 50 million ... get rid of all agriculture (including cattle) ... a vegetarian diet wouldn't work ... if you're talking about a diet that consisted solely on what you could forage (naturally) as well as game ...? Vegetarianism would be a quick way to get you killed.

If all agriculture spontaneously ceased, I think we'd have bigger fish to fry (so to speak) than worrying about the relative merits of vegetarianism.