A reason for vegetarianism: animal death.

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Bleh, if it weren't one thing it would be another. Rant with you later here, have a good day/night/solar-cycle.

To the extent that humans can effect what is done, that does not have to be "nature".

No, instead your fuming around a thread in which you had no necessity in posting within for the sake of sharing your feelings - one of which happens to include that I shouldn't be allowed to share mine because they conflict with yours. Please, get your head far enough out of the sand to see what you're doing with regard to simple argumentation even if you are completely unwilling to care about any life except yours and whatever select few might randomly matter to you at any given time based on proximity and temporary alliance.

No kidding, at the very least they'd have difficulty the first time but would continue to grow accustom to killing as they proceed to do yet more and more of the same.

I only believe killing animals is wrong if its for fun for sport or endangered. If its for food and self defense that's a different story as long as the animal is not endangered. Animals like cows were meant to be eaten and preyed on if they weren't they would over populate and suffer.

I watched that and still don't know where she gets her protein other than from her own body (never heard of that) and "fruits and vegetables" which is vague. Which fruits and vegetables or does it not matter?

The species of the farm animals would be endangered if not for farming. We would have destroyed their habitat for corn crops a long ago.

It is a symbiotic relationship, you know. Their lives are most likely not very fun or interesting, but then again their are cows. They receive food and shelter in exchange though. It is not at all different than what we do with plants. And I insist it is a double standard to believe it is fine to kill plants and not fine to kill animals.

Oh, and I say this as a guy that owned chicken as a kid and that still ate them.

I guess vegetarianism is a first world urban problem because of that. Kids that grown up so away of their food that for some incredibly dumb reason become shocked that it bleeds and screams when being slaughtered? To me, that really does not change it. I suspect that cows would do the same to us if they were the industrialized species. So when I find people posting these videos expecting to make me change my mind. Expecting me to be shocked to learn of this slaughterhouse conspiracy, it is a very alien thing to me.

Last edited by Vexcalibur on 24 Jan 2013, 6:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Try starving,see where your beliefs get you.You know darn well you'd eat something,living or dead.

Don't get me wrong,I oppose all commercial agri operations that confine an animal.
I hate trophy hunters.
I think ALL LIFE HAS VALUE.
And I have never killed an animal to eat but I have put down dying animals.
Most people are so removed from the life and death struggle but when it comes down to the wire you would eat anything to survive.
And I do beleove it's better to eat vegetable protein than meat,beans and cornbread here.

Amen!

I will mostly agree protein's emphasis is overstated, and most foods in general contain adequate enough protein. I think meat is more helpful nutritionally for the fat, cholesterol, and vitamins and minerals it has than protein. Meat to be fair is more bioavailable as a protein, but too much meat will lead your body into an acidic state and then you get sick, but, balance is key.

Also, you can get protein from your own body, but only in cases of starvation is it done. Studies have been done for things like weightlifting, and people could gain strength and muscle mass even under starvation by robbing protein from internal organs, but this isn't really ideal.

And despite what the video says, there is in fact a medical term for protein deficiency. Kwashiorkor.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002571/


Yay quoting old government studies instead of current ones to prove a point.

But the idea of like "RAWR NEED 300G OF PROTEIN A DAY OR I'LL DIE" sorta prevalent now is not really good. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger early in his bodybuilding career said when he lived with his mother he only got meat like twice a week just due to money. He said in the Army he grew a lot more, as he got more meat (I think at least once a day in the Army.) But even in his initial book he wrote, I think he only recommended a gram per kilo of bodyweight a day.

Last edited by 1000Knives on 24 Jan 2013, 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Although the article you linked claims we are naturally herbivores, the points the author uses to make that claim don't actually show that we are. For instance, she describes how humans have no built-in weapons (such as sharp claws or sharp teeth) but instead have hands for picking things. Point taken. We don't have claws or sharp teeth and we do have hands for picking things. But those things weren't all plants. She even admits that earliest humans were scavengers of prey killed by fiercer animals before we learned how to hunt using tools. This is not evidence that we are herbovores. It is evidence that there are other ways to get meat besides killing it yourself.

She also describes our intestine length which is longer than carnivores. That's true. It is. But it is also considerably shorter than herbivore's intestines. This is because we aren't herbivores. We are omnivores- something that is reflected in the length of our intestines which are longer than carnivores but shorter than herbivores.

It is pretty easy to make the case that large amounts of meat laced with antibiotics and artificial growth hormones is horribly unhealthy. It is also easy to make the case that agribusiness farming is a horrible life for farmed animals. But neither of these things make the case for vegetarianism, but rather for eating small amounts of wild-caught or ethically farmed meat. The often cited China study doesn't even make the case for vegetarianism even though it is often claimed that it does. What it actually makes a case for is eating small amounts of meat rather than large amounts and also eating fish more than meat. The observation that light meat eaters are healthier than heavy meat eaters doesn't allow for the leap that it is healthier still to eat no meat at all.

As a parting thought, fish, clams etc. are not plants. And they are very healthy to eat and can be farmed without torturing them (although salmon farms are often enviromentally destructive although they need not be if done right). This is something that vegetarians don't bring up. They only bring up tortured and beak-less chickens who lead miserable lives and die to give us meat that is laced with unnatural additives they were force fed. That's true. Point taken. But it isn't an argument for vegetarianism. Oysters (and lots of other seafood) aren't tortured and they are wonderfully healthy. There are lots of people who blur that line and call themselves vegetarians even though they eat fish (technically being pescatarians). It's easy to make a case against eating a tortured and hormone-addled chicken. But I have yet to see a vegetarian make a case based either on health or ethics against eating a farmed oyster (which I did for lunch so it's on my mind). Oysters and other seafood aren't plants.

The best case against seafood is overfishing. But shellfish can be farmed quite healthfully both for the enviromental health, our health and without torturing them. The life of a farmed oyster is basically identical to the life of a wild oyster.

Have an oyster!

We have no more reason to imitate the Cavemen' diet than we have to start living in caves.

I'm interested in how you got the position. I'm not interested in criticizing your decision because I believe you have a right to choose, and be discerning.

Is this choice influenced by a branch of creationism, or did you independently come to this point? Did you come across this knowledge by accident? I mean these video have been in circulation for a while, but on the other hand you have to be motivated to look, unless it just was there to see.

The Jain take your ideal even further. Google Jain vegetarianism. The try to avoid killing small insects, etc. They acknowledge they need to eat, but at the same time want to avoid as much harm as possible. They will not eat plant that need to be uprooted, or destroyed during cultivation.

The flip side id death is part of life, and death plays an important part in ecosystems. There isn't this cul-de-sac where you can totally avoid causing harm or death. I mean there are organism that call your body home, they can all be useful, in fact you can't live without some of them, on the other hand your body will fight anything it deems a threat ,It will essentially kill.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 24 Jan 2013, 7:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The caveman diet is not really accurate anyway and also it is not physically relevant today.

Sedentary lifestyle is very different from driving a mammoth of a cliff, and spearing it.

This idea that are digestion hasn't adapted, and we need to revert is nonsense.

it is true that people are intolerant to different things it is a mix. if anything that is evidence of adaption/specialism.

Eh, I eat meat and I'll never feel bad for that. I've killed and cleaned fish and land critters all the same, so I'm no hypocrite; my hands have been in the guts and my knife has made the cuts.

Not a fan of animals suffering needlessly, of course, and that's by poor standards of living up until the kill.

Nothing wrong with being a hunter/meat eater -- that's what humans are capable of being, and it's within "normal" for much of their existence.

Regarding protein:

When you are in a critical survival scenario, which many animals are, then you need not only protein but a quick and ready source of protein, and you need to keep you level up or else you will die, it is as simple as that. With meat, if you are clever the reward can be greater than the effort. Hunting can be a lot of work, but you get a much more protein that you can use. You don't always have to hunt, if you 'cheat' you may get a meal. It is a question of intelligence.

There was a study between birds of the same species but coming from two different environments. One came from a easy environment where the was plenty of food, and the other cam from a more extreme environment, there wasn't much food and the birds had to really work for it. They did intelligence test on the birds, the bird from the easy environment was perplexed, and didn't complete most of the test, the bird from the hard environment, was able to complete the tasks, show manipulation and problem solving capabilities. Now you are well aware of bird intelligence given your love of parakeets.

With large mammals they either have to go the slow digestion route of browsers and grazers, whose digestion is specialized to be able to eat those things. Or you need quick protein to survive, and you need intelligence, and you need more protein to thrive and feed the brain development that help you get your next meal. This is the cycle. Our way of obtaining protein may of changed, but we still the ready sources of protein that fed out body an brain and still does.

Now you can cultivate vegetarian protein sources, however when there was no agriculture, these plants were not always in abundance, there were not just grown there in a neat field, there is a lot of work involved getting a small amount. In areas where you can rely on foraging like a forest then you can get more in abundance, but in a savanna it is more difficult.

But even in a forest it is difficult to be meat free. Gorillas are, however they can digest leaves that we can't. Chimps need to supplement their diet with meat. They eat small mammals, birds, anything that is around, and they also eat ants.

Ants might not seem like a meal, but they are an excellent source of protein and particularly Fixed Nitrogen, because of their interaction with microorganism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_fixation

So in an area which is not so fixed nitrogen rich the giant ant eater is able to thrive. Ant eater can weigh around 40kg.