Why are you not vegan?

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There's a lady on one of my other forums who has an extremely severe disorder preventing her body from absorbing iron properly. She's been a vegan for several decades, and is now thriving. Of course, she is against animal torture and environmental destruction and world hunger, so she thought taking a prescription supplement to keep her iron level in check was a small price to pay for the good she was doing.


Animals also rape and cannibalize one another all the time, do you do this?

Non-human animals have no sense of ethics. We do.
Non-human animals who eat meat have no alternative. We do.
Non-human animals who eat meat do not breed, intensively confine, and slaughter in horrific conditions billions upon billions of animals annually so that a privileged few might gorge on their flesh, befouling the earth, air, streams, and oceans in the process.
We do.

I doubt you've ever eaten an animal who GAVE you his or her life, actually....

Oh, they all die of old age? That's good. Better than being killed, which is horrifyingly traumatic, even on smaller business farms.

I'm sure that comforts them in their death.

Do you believe stabbing a dog versus a potato is comparable?

The thing about nutrients is that if you're not eating enough, you could always EAT MORE....kinda like how it is on an OMNIVOROUS diet.

Still waiting for:

commentaries on ethics which are not based on a might makes right paradigm, on nutrition which are not based on total ignorance of...well...nutrition, and the fact no nutrient is unobtainable on a vegan diet, on human anatomy not based on ignorance of anatomical features of natural meat-eaters versus natural herbivores, and of environmentalism or sustainability issues from someone not wholly unschooled in THOSE SUBJECTS.

1.



I'm quoting myself quoting myself. You are completely ignoring the fact that plants do, in fact, think, feel, and even communicate with each other.

2. B12, Vitamin A (vitamin A in vegan sources is much different than vitamin A in animal sources and NOT absorbed into the body as well), protein (vegan sources of protein cannot be absorbed into the body as well as animal sources, and this is a factor rarely compensated for)

Furthermore, in your "counters" to my argument, you completely ignore the point of the argument. For example, when talking about the 1,250 calories (and most of the others), I was pointing out the flaw in YourMother's argument that vegans eat fewer plants.

Lower BMI is not always healthy. An interesting point to consider when you think of the "health benefits of veganism" is that the studies done have been correlative in terms of standard omnivore vs. vegan. The standard omnivore also ingests considerable amounts of hormones and various other chemicals. Aside from that, there's also the consideration that these diets require. Even a vegan that's not well informed must carefully plan their diet, whereas an omnivore does not. The average omnivore also tends to eat out at fast food restaurants, whereas vegans cannot. I'd like to see a study that compares vegans and omnivores that plan their diets as carefully as vegans and stay away from things like fast food. (Edit2: In case you miss my point [and I know that, either way, you're going to act like you did], it's this: The anti-meat health claims are actually more based on what we do to the meat/animal, not the actual meat. Those that eat meat that doesn't go through those things aren't in nearly as bad of health as the average omnivore.)

What is this "elementary education in biology"? Is this you, once again, saying that plants aren't intelligent (or that plants don't feel pain)? Maybe you should actually go look into plant neurobiology. Again, I find myself quoting myself:



No matter what you do, you're killing a sentient creature (and I never claimed that the way most animals are treated is right, so kindly don't argue against something I never said). My point is that vegetarians cannot claim moral superiority for what they do because plants are living, thinking, feeling beings as well. The ONLY reason people claim otherwise is because of the fact that they look and live differently. Look up ANY research done into plant neurobiology and you'll find that all the evidence points to sentience.

Edit: Oh, and 3.



Edit3: One last thing: Read most anything by Mary Enig. She's one of the most important figures in fat research (she was one of the first people to identify trans fats as bad and is on the leading edge of research when it comes to saturated fats).

I've responded to this claim. Chanting it incessantly doesn't mean a biologist would do anything but laugh in your face at the assertion that the experience of plants and animals are analogous.

So, again, there's no nutrient absent in a vegan diet present in an omnivorous one, the only difference being a comparably-tiny number of nutrients with absorptive differences, and the fact that animal products have massive amounts more of saturated fats, calories, and cholesterol. Thank you. Now we can at last move on.

No...you didn't.
The point was that omnivores eat plants + whatever plants the hundreds of animals they eat annually had eaten in their (admittedly short) miserable lives.
Unless you've an objective calculation proving otherwise, it would seem the original point still stands, or at least has not been definitively refuted.
Of course, all this is only relevant ethically as contingent on your nonsense assertion that animals and plants experience existence in the same way.

It is in when the population it occurs within is majority are overweight or obese from excessive caloric and fat intake.

That's crap. It really is. It's quite easy to obtain all the necessary nutrients, if one eats a varied amount of plants, grains, and starches.

Sweetheart, I'm a vegan who eats out at restaurants three times a week, and has no trouble ordering off most fast food menus. Keep making assertions about things you know nothing about. It's making me giggle.
Not that "I like to eat out and go to Mickey D's" is an ethical, or environmental, or health argument, REGARDLESS of the fact that doing those things is far from exclusive to veganism.

Vegans and vegetarians don't have to "plan their diets carefully", or at least no more carefully than would an omnivore.
Again, vegans can eat fast food. Ever heard of french fries and coke? You seem to be getting upset, and I'm wondering what, exactly, is making you so emotional. The "anti-meat health claims" are actually "based" on the consensus of the entire nutritional community, that being that veganism offers health benefits. I can agree that natural foods are more healthful, but that doesn't address the issue.

The one whereby most learned the experiential capacity of a plant versus an animal is not remotely comparable
regardless of how many pseudo-scientific articles you link to regarding reactions in plants which might be analogous to those in animals.

Nope. And if that were true, you're killing more.

The implication that commodification of sentient beings can EVER be right is a welfarist philosophy, which is not what veganism is in the first place.

This is A. Crap
B. Ignores that omnivores likely consume more plants through their consumption of meat
C. Ignores the immense environmental impact
D. Ignores the effect on world food supply and human hunger

The implication being that "plant neuroscience" is not in itself a fringe field considered by biologists to be crock science?

It's been found that many omnivores in the long term do end up developing dietary-related illnesses, such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular illnesses and obesity.

See what I did thar? "Tons of X group with Y diet are unhealthy" is an observation of the studied individuals' choices, not of nutrition.
Oh, and the entire field of human nutrition disagrees.

That's all right. I'm quite healthy, on a plant-based diet of five years.

So do we have any ethical argumentation other than might makes right, "plants gots reactions, too, yo", and "I can't be veg cause I'm too stupid to order vegan food at this restaurant I gotsa to eat at"?

No because we dont give a crap about the false ethical questions. I like meat and will not apologize for it. Also not everyone can be vegan such as people living in alaska where they need whale meat to survive. I love meat so sue me.

You've done nothing to counter the concept (or studies done) on the root brain theory. All you've done is just say that it's absurd because you couldn't possibly be killing living, thinking, feeling beings. Show me ONE piece of evidence that plants don't think. Every study done comfirms it beyond just reaction.

Those nutrient deficients are one of the reasons why vegans have to plan their diets out more than omnivores. Omnivores that get their food from all different sources get those without having to worry about them. If you're eating vegan and not worrying about them, you're not getting them. Period.

Since you refuse to look up anything by Mary Enig, here's one:

http://www.health-report.co.uk/saturate ... nefits.htm (By the way, in case you were wondering, Mary Enig was one of the first to oppose trans fats as well as one of the first to suggest that coconut oil is not nearly as bad as people claim. She's a leading researcher when it comes to fats)

And, since you like going to McDonald's so much and ordering their fries, I thought I'd share this fun little detail with you:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 245AA5a5h5

Of note:



We done here? (Edit2: And, in case you insist that Yahoo! Answers isn't enough without actually going out and doing the research yourself: http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutritio ... tslist.pdf )

Edit: By the way, you seem to like to pull things that are part of a larger point out of context in your quotes. Please keep in mind that people reading your posts can actually go and read mine, so your attempts to literally take apart my arguments and argue against an argument that doesn't exist don't exactly work very well and only go to prove that you actually don't have arguments against them.

We all know the one reason to not be a vegan. Because if no person ate meat then we would have no Temple Grandin.

By the way, the reason I'm so annoyed is that I hate having to repeat myself, which I keep having to do with you because you can't get past "common knowledge."

I didn't address your whole "destroying the environment/ending hunger" argument: The idea that, if everyone ate vegetables alone, world hunger would end and the environment would be better off. This has been debunked on every level. Argument addressed.

Edit: Oh, right, one more of your arguments that is horribly faulty that I should address is this: You have conceded the point that plants can react to stimuli. The reaction can occur in a part of the plant that was not stimulated. This requires some sort of processing ability. If plants didn't have a processing ability, they wouldn't be able to do this. Yet you claim that the science that studies this processing ability is nonsense.

I'll add to this: Look up the ongoing debate on whether crustaceans (crabs, lobsters,shrimp,etc) feel pain. For a long time it was believed they did not since we could not find a nervous system... so we boil them alive.

Now however, it seems they DO have a nervous system but its so different we just can't understand it very well.

Studies have shown plants do react to any damage inflicted on them as well as signs of stress effects during/after the events. How are we to tell plants dont feel pain?

Food is food is food is food. Whatever form it takes it's food so shaddap and just eat it quietly.

Firstly, welcome to WP.

While I appreciate your passion friend, your falling into acting out the very cliche about 'vegans as ranting nutters' somewhat true. Yourself and Bethie have done a fine job of reasoning the pro's but it is perhaps pointless persisting in reasoning with the persistently and beligerently ignorant, you can my friend lead a horse to water but can not make them drink

If you have an interest in environmental issues, earth and social sciences and similar related topics please visit this thread and say your piece, http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt160048.html

peace j

To the OP because I just can't be arsed to do so.

I think VW is Bethie's new account.