Why are you not vegan?

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Me too. My family is like that.

Last edited by Postures on 15 May 2011, 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Watch Earthlings.

I love the taste of meat (not the stuff from fast food chains or anything else with excess fat) and ice cream. I eat/drink milk, Greek yogurt, and cheese everyday with no ill affects what so ever. I tried once to forgo meat for several months, and I felt feeble and more malnourished . I do eat at least 7 servings of fruit and vegetables a day with mixed nuts and whole wheat bread, so I get all the beneficial vitamins and minerals. I prefer this balanced diet over something more restrictive which may jeopardize my health.

I'm Lacto-vegetarain and the same goes for me.
I honestly don't feel bad about it because that is not the reason I became vegetarian.
I became one because I can't stand the thought of eating living things (or any part that might have been part of the flesh/bones thereof).
Now there might be a few people on here who go on a spiel about how everything is alive and bla bla bla....but this is according to MY definition of what is alive and what is not.
This relates to your topic because I honestly don't care how they were treated before.
I mean any abuse is bad, but if they are going to die anyways, why am I going to make myself the butt of the joke and embarrass myself if it is already going to happen.
That is pretty much what all those animal rights things are about....I started zoning out of those debates a long time ago.
I would rather try and convince people to not eat animals in the first place.
Also, the whole environmental, I have read an article or two about, and it could be solved by eating locally. That's pretty much the gist of it.

I may start researching animal rights and such, it seems like something I should know about being Vegan.
I became one because it seemed a way to have strict control over what I eat without resorting to my eating disorder... I don't care if that sounds like crappy logic, it's worked for me and I stick by it!

Why not study plant's rights while you're at it?

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, read up on the "root brain theory" and research being done into it (which pretty much confirms it so far).

We're heterotrophs. We kill and/or injure living things in order to survive. That's just how it works. Claiming moral superiority because you choose what things you kill or injure is absurd. To those that can't eat animal protein, don't like the flavor, just don't like meat, choose not to for some other reason, whatever. Fine. Just don't claim moral superiority for it.

This is why the Taoist ideal is a person that can live off the air (not a person who lives off plants).

Frankly, simply because I do not care about animals.

Edit to clarify the inevitable comments:
I'm not the person to hurt animals for fun though. That said, I'd be one of the first to cheer nutrient paste like in the matrix . If we could artificially produce everything we need for acceptable prices (aka, cheaper then food now) I'd eat nothing else. Flavours are nothing more then carbon chains so you can make the paste taste like beef.

Wow, I can't believe this thread is still going! Amazing, and Bethie is running a single handed response service to defend the vegan option.

Equally amazing is that no-one has steered it into the ethics issue, environmental ethics, animal rights ethics etc... Still at least it's not abusive props to all!

I know a man who used to work for DOC [department of conservation], he lives with a thirty odd year vegan in excellent health and is vegan himself except for feral meat he shoots himself [it is the only meat he eats], I think they rock as a couple, they live very simply and have a negligable environmental footprint and he is actually contributing to conserving our forests as everything he shoots is a threat to them [they evolved as delicate ecosystems with no mamals except two very small bats but the largest flightless birds - giant moa].

Environmental impact of meat production is possibly the most compelling reason to be a vegan/feral only meat eater - in this country at least.

peace j

Ethical schools concerned with suffering deal with self-awareness, or sentience.
For that very reason, the vast majority of people would object far more strongly to stabbing a dog versus a potato.
The possession of biological "life" is not the motivator at all, but your strawmanning of it.

Libertarian arguments are all well and good if your actions affect only yourselves.
Not so much when they affect the entire planet and everything that lives on it. Extremist "libertarianism" isn't accepted anywhere else, why should it be here?
It's my personal choice to own slaves.
It's my personal choice to beat my wife.
It's my personal choice to dump this noxious chemical in this unlined pond.
Ludicrous.

As I said before, study the root brain theory and then come back and tell me that plants don't think. Darwin's claim was that the root of plants functions similar to that of "lower animals." Whatever he meant by that, plant "brains" don't seem to function at the level of humans, but they do function at an animalistic level (or that's what current research is telling us). For added fun, watch "Revenge of the Plants," and pay special attention to what the acacias do when the animals start to overgraze.

As to the other: Are you taking an anti-meat or an anti-vegetarian stance with my "libertarian" argument? If it's the former, as I've said, the root brain theory will likely change your views on that. If it's the latter, I don't see how choosing to be a vegetarian can be twisted into a bad thing.

There are a number of flaws with the moral superiority argument for vegetarianism. I focused on the root brain theory since it pretty much kills all of them.

I do, however, think that conditions for farm animals should be improved.

Funny story: I very much enjoy playing Harvest Moon, where the only meat you can eat comes from fish... and gelatin comes from pouring water on lava. Yeah.

I watch the page numbers climb on this post in my ego list (the list of posts that I've participated in) and I wonder if the OP has gotten the answers that s/he was really seeking or if it's been just one big headache.

because i live in nola and find it very hard to avoid eating poboys and gumbo. i have an aversion to red meat though. it makes me a bit nauseous.

folks will do what folks will do....

peace j

Well I like to devour the flesh of deceased animals..........as for veganism I have nothing against those who choose that unless they try and shove it on me. Also just a personal opinon but I think actually learning about which sources of meat mistreat the animals and fighting those sources and such rather then just simply refusing to eat meat in general would be a lot more useful if that is a cause you care about. I have had meat that has been hunted and meat that has been farmed by my family out in minnesota and it's delicious not ot mention I don't have to feel guility because i know for sure the animals where not abused.

You know, in Harvest Moon, the better you treat your animals, the better the products you get from them. There were also those commercials that said, "Great milk comes from happy cows."

This is true, and also true of the meat that comes from the animal. Stress has real physical effects (negative on itself and negative on the taste), and so an animal that's not stressed in its life has better meat.

That's how I see it, anyway.

I would have to agree with that.