would you ever become vegan?
- Thread starter SsilverR
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No meat? No milk? No cheese?! Hell no, I love myself some cheese. Besides, being a vegan really isn't healthy (okay, maybe mentally, but not physically), and too much of a fuss.
First off, there is really no substitute for meat when it comes to protein.
Second, no I would not. Meat is far too good. Besides, though we may be omnivorous, our digestive system is better suited for meat than it is for plants.
Second, no I would not. Meat is far too good. Besides, though we may be omnivorous, our digestive system is better suited for meat than it is for plants.
have you ever seen a place that keeps livestock for slaughter?SsilverR said:
not really to bad.
no cages, and often plenty of room to move.
a cow is born, and grows up always well fed.
plus there is the fact that cows and other animals are raised a bred to be eaten.
you will never see a cow, chicken, or any other animal in the meat asile on the endangered species list.
yes there are a lot of unwanted chemicals in meat, but like you said, the only way to get meat without those is to kill an animal yourself.
For all those suddenly wanting to know where I have my evidence I'd like to rephrase my point as logically it makes more sense for there to be life after death (to me at least). It doesn't really count as evidence but this site really helped me feel better about death when I was facing surgery with 50:50 chance of survival.ultrachicken said:
http://lifeafterdeath.info/
True it can still be claimed that this is all theoretical nonsense but hey when your faced with the end of your mortality, you'd be wanting to believe there's something to look forward to instead of just a blinding abyss. Logically to me there just has to be something after death, but as I say, this is more opinionated than fact as it can neither be proven nor disproven.
I don't think I could. I believe in balance and like you said we're omnivores. Meant to eat both. That's what a lot of people forget. Oh and if you ever feel bad about what WE to to our animals, look up animals hunting on youtube sometimes, it's .... *shivers*.
What about all the factory farmed chickens who get to spend their entire lives cramped up in small confined cages their whole lives being fattened up so that they'll keep laying eggs? The ones who never get to leave their cages and lay eggs nearly every day and when they can't lay any more they get killed?Ekonk said:
Without ever even getting to be able to comfortably stretch?
Sure they may not die but it doesn't sound like much of a life to me. True I get only free range eggs but the fact remains that every day, millions of chickens suffer to produce eggs.
Also not true. For starters a cow doesn't constantly produce milk, they lactate milk when they are in heat or have a child, much like humans. So in order to ensure that the cows are prepped with milk often enough, they impregnate the cows artificially and then when the calf is born, usually within twenty four hours, it's taken away. Often to be made into veal.
The emotional stress of early separation from their young, coupled with the physical pain caused by udder discomfort due to a lack of suckling, causes many cows to respond vocally.
To put it bluntly, mother cows do develop the basic maternal bond to their calf, and it distresses them when the calf is taken away. This, combined with the fact that, again like with the chickens, the cows are factory farmed and hooked up to machines that just drain them of all milk doesn't really strike me as ethical treatment.
People have this image of dairy farms being the friendly old farmer who takes his finest cows to the shed and milks them while whistling a tune but this isn't ONE farmer on ONE farm we are talking about. This is a huge industry with a quota of millions of milk bottles to make per year, the cows are little more than living milk bags to them and get treated as such.
And this is coming from a guy who eats Dairy Products all the time. I love cheese and milk and yogurt and ice cream and chocolate... but I can't deny that there is some grounds for why people would want to go vegetarian because they don't want to be causing animal pains.
Actually that all depends on your viewpoints in regards to ethical rights of animals. If you note the points I addressed as much, some people might decide that they don't want to be part of the 'problem' and choose not to eat meat.
But as my sister (who is a vegetarian) once said to me:
"I feel that there's no point making a stand on being a vegetarian if you go all out Vegan. Because for meat or for eggs or for milk, animals still get factory farmed and it indirectly still funds the meat industry.
So if a person did care about the ethical treatment of animals, they may actually want to feel like they were really completely not involved in the practise of harvesting them for food in any way, because what's the point of making a stand if it has a flawed premise?
Again I'm no Vegan but I see their point. I mean, if you were going to make a stance against Racism and lashed out at certain groups but not others even though the other groups indirectly fund the groups you are lashing out at in the first place, would you call that a total stance?
Now this, I agree on. Vegan desserts in particular are very unhealthy because they are completely processed stuff that barely even counts as food anymore.
You know Oreo's are technically Vegan? Because they've been processed so much with so many artifical chemicals and flavors added to them that bascially the only real ingrediants left is some soy and vegetable oil and everything else is added flavor. Of course it loses weight when you dunk them in milk but still....
However while it's true that an all vegetarian diet can be bad for you, so too is a heavy meat diet. Hell there have actually been reports of kids in metropolitan areas getting scurvy because they just plain aren't eating enough fruit or vegetables.
Two fruit, and five Veg every day*, that's the standard intake for a healthy diet... and it seems like less and less people are doing it.
(*I'm not a health nut myself, in fact truth be told I'm quite fat. I'm actually about to start a new gym regime)
Thing is all the essentials we get from meat and milk and eggs (Protein, calcium etc) can actually be found in vegetables. My sister gets most of her protein from eating mushrooms and can get her calcium from eating special brands of tofu. In general it's not impossible for her to gain the same health benefits from a full Vegan diet.
Meanwhile, no matter how much red meat you shove down your gob, you will never be able to get the neccecary vitamins and nutrients that you would get from the fruit and vegetables. So when compared side to side a singularly 'meat' oriented diet is actually less healthy then an excluisively 'veggie' diet.
While both are still on their own terms pretty excessive.
Anyway OT:
I can understand the mindset of Veganism. It's not about 'personal purity' or declaring that you are better than other people for being Vegan. It's about doing something because you feel it is the right thing to do. It's not something I could ever bring myself to do (I just really like meat, honestly. In fact let me make something clear here, I had spaghetti with giant meatballs for lunch today, I'm not some celery munching hippie, I'm just being frank) but I understand the viewpoint and frankly can see where they are coming from.
Hell in another life I'd even say I respected them, because in one way or another they have stood up for what they believe in and have been devoted enough to do it.
However while I respect their viewpoint and even understand where they are coming from with this, I can't ever say that I would be one of them. I just like eating meat too much to really consider that a viable possibility and while I admit that it makes me seem hyporcritical to go to such lengths about animals rights then reveal that I am a consumer of meat, I feel like I'm just being honest.
I understand the viewpoint, I even agree with it on some level and I really respect their dedication to their beliefs to go all out like that despite all the difficulties involved with that. But, I could never be one.
Also Eknok, I hope I haven't offended you personally in any way. I don't think I did but I can never be sure, sometimes my text walls come across as a little confronting. So if you were offended in any way, I apologize. I was only meaning to have a debate, hope it didn't come across as rude or obnoxious.
Ditto.AccursedTheory said:
It might just be where I live or something, but I also find Vegans to be extremely obnoxious and irritating. LOLZ MAH LYFESTYLE IS SOO MUCH BETTA THAN URS BECOZ I GOT TO TAKE VITAMIN SUBSTITUTES INSTED OF EETING DAH MEETZ. Right, well, good luck with that, I'm gonna go make a sammich. A pork and beef and chicken and turkey sammich.
Only if it came with psionic powers. Then I might seriously consider it. Otherwise, no, I'm an omnivore.
I wouldn't mind being vegan. Theres a lot of plant food that I really like, and one of my favorite dishes is entirely without meat.
I don't find meat to be very appealing, as meat tends to be like an immensely loud drummer overshadowing the beautiful sounds of the rest of the orchestra. And meat makes me feel physically unwell a lot of the time, though it isn't so bad if it is chicken. I like fish though.
I tend to avoid things that makes me feel worse, so I try to avoid meat when I can. Though I still eat some. To go completely without meat, at least non-fish and non-chicken, is something I could see myself doing.
I don't find meat to be very appealing, as meat tends to be like an immensely loud drummer overshadowing the beautiful sounds of the rest of the orchestra. And meat makes me feel physically unwell a lot of the time, though it isn't so bad if it is chicken. I like fish though.
I tend to avoid things that makes me feel worse, so I try to avoid meat when I can. Though I still eat some. To go completely without meat, at least non-fish and non-chicken, is something I could see myself doing.
I laugh at veganism. Here's why:
1. You can go vegetarian just fine and purchase only organic and free range dairy and egg products. You know, the type of stuff that is a bit more expensive but guarantees ethical treatment of animals. This method is just as expensive as going full vegan, but is less potentially dangerous.
2. By going full vegan, you are still contributing to the destruction of natural environments to expand farmland, and pollution by the use of fertilizers (yes, even "organic" fertilizers).
3. Vegans who suggest that they choose they're diet because they are unwilling to take life frankly just don't understand basic biology. Humans are by nature Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary consumers, (i.e. We Primary prducers, plants; primary consumers, anything with a plant diet; and secondary consumers, anything with a meat based diet. Further, plants are still a form of life, so by eating one, you are taking its life. The solution of course is to learn to photosynthesize.
The only argument for veganism is personal health issues. I've known several people who have been forced to be vegans, at least one of whom contracted a parasite that makes her violently ill if she consumes almost any animal product. Fortunately, none of those people have ever attempted to preach at me about going vegan, because they HATE being vegan.
1. You can go vegetarian just fine and purchase only organic and free range dairy and egg products. You know, the type of stuff that is a bit more expensive but guarantees ethical treatment of animals. This method is just as expensive as going full vegan, but is less potentially dangerous.
2. By going full vegan, you are still contributing to the destruction of natural environments to expand farmland, and pollution by the use of fertilizers (yes, even "organic" fertilizers).
3. Vegans who suggest that they choose they're diet because they are unwilling to take life frankly just don't understand basic biology. Humans are by nature Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary consumers, (i.e. We Primary prducers, plants; primary consumers, anything with a plant diet; and secondary consumers, anything with a meat based diet. Further, plants are still a form of life, so by eating one, you are taking its life. The solution of course is to learn to photosynthesize.
The only argument for veganism is personal health issues. I've known several people who have been forced to be vegans, at least one of whom contracted a parasite that makes her violently ill if she consumes almost any animal product. Fortunately, none of those people have ever attempted to preach at me about going vegan, because they HATE being vegan.
I can't think of a meal that I've eaten in the last week that would be vegan. I like, you know, NICE FOOD too much. For my birthday I had five rashers of bacon and two fried eggs on toast with butter, and the whole thing was COVERED in cheese. And it was GLORIOUS.
