NationStates Jolt Archive

Most people seem to have an opinion, and i'm intrigued as to the distribution of this completely unbiased and normal sample group.

We should eat people. End of discussion.

We should eat people. End of discussion.
Sure, but how do people taste?

Sure, but how do people taste?

Depends on which flavor of Soylent you buy.

Most people seem to have an opinion, and i'm intrigued as to the distribution of this completely unbiased and normal sample group.

To each their own I guess. I have no problem with being a grazer, I just don't understand why they are so compeled to try and force it on everyone and use phoney studys and statistics to sell it.

I eat meat, but I don't have any problem with vegetarians.

To each their own I guess. I have no problem with being a grazer, I just don't understand why they are so compeled to try and force it on everyone and use phoney studys and statistics to sell it.
I don't think that Homovox is trying to sell anything.

To each their own I guess. I have no problem with being a grazer, I just don't understand why they are so compeled to try and force it on everyone and use phoney studys and statistics to sell it.

I am not a vegetarian, but I have a few friends who are. Only one of them ever claims eating meat is bad, but then I remind her that she's wearing a leather jacket.

If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?

Seriously though, I've got a lot of respect for anyone who can maintain a vegetarian diet. I'd probably starve to death in a week if I couldn't eat meat.

I eat meat to save the plants. *nod*

Omnivore. Don't really care if vegetarians won't eat meat. But nonexistent god help them if they try to convert me...
Here's the simplest reasons why vegetarianism makes NO SENSE:
1) the human digestive system does not have the necessary structures to properly digest plant matter, and so depends on meat in order to obtain sufficient protein.
2) some vegetarians (particularly those who play sports) take vitamin supplements in order to maintain a normal life as well as their diet (I have several friends who do this - and they do their research).
Now can anyone still say that vegetarianism is more healthy or natural?

Omnivore. Don't really care if vegetarians won't eat meat. But nonexistent god help them if they try to convert me...
Here's the simplest reasons why vegetarianism makes NO SENSE:
1) the human digestive system does not have the necessary structures to properly digest plant matter, and so depends on meat in order to obtain sufficient protein.
2) some vegetarians (particularly those who play sports) take vitamin supplements in order to maintain a normal life as well as their diet (I have several friends who do this - and they do their research).
Now can anyone still say that vegetarianism is more healthy or natural?

Ashu can.
www.amgsolo.com


P.S. Not a vegitarian, just saying...

I eat meat, but I don't have any problem with vegetarians.


I don't think that Homovox is trying to sell anything.

Oh, I don't think so either. It is just my experience that of the grazers I know, a large percentage of them see it as an obligation to condemn those that eat meat. I simply don't understand why.

I make sure to eat red meat on Fridays in addition to consuming large amounts of meat on the other days of the week.

Ashu can.
www.amgsolo.com


P.S. Not a vegitarian, just saying...
Let me now pick apart his article:

1) Vegetarians live longer (approx. 3-6 years): quite possibly. So far, vegetarians one-up.

2) "a person gets his nutrition second hand in meat from the plant-based foods that the animal has eaten" - hmm...yes...but you're missing something: those proteins had to be digested by a specifically herbivorous digestive system first. The human digestive system is ill-equipped to properly extract many proteins from most plant matter. In fact, this is also true of herbivores: they play host to digestive bacteria that extract the proteins for them.

3) "Meat clogs arteries with cholesterol and burdens the heart with saturated fat" - so do many plant products. Eating meat doesn't entail eating so much of it that its hazardous for your health. Coconut, amongst other plants, is even worse in much smaller quantities. So...meat is bad if you eat too much of it? That's not much of a point...

4) Just to reiterate, as the article does: "Cardiovascular disease and cancer are directly related to diets high in calories (meat), high in saturated fat (meat), and low in fiber (meat)." - paraphrase: "if you eat too much meat, you will be less healthy" Buddy, if I eat too much cheese its pretty bad, too.

5) "a no-fat vegetarian meal causes no reduction in artery function" - wait...so the oils in beans don't get stored as fat? Uh-huh... Also, fat ONLY builds up if you ingest too many calories. Again, we're back to "meat is bad if you eat too much of it."

6) "Animal muscle has next to no fiber whereas plant-based foods and grains are replete with it." - I've never met a person who eats meat and not plant matter, as well...

7) "Scientists have found that a diet based primarily on fruits, vegetables, cereals, and legumes will significantly decrease the risk of developing cancer." Allright...I'll give them that one. So far, the veggies are 2 for 7 of their arguments.

8) "Heart disease can be reversed simply through exercise and a vegetarian diet." - So vegetarianism is good if you're already sick from eating too much meat...the old "too much" being tossed around again... "Diabetics can reduce or eliminate their medication by adhering to a vegetarian diet." - Diabetes...sugar...pretty sure plants have sugar, too, pal. Especially those fruits. And this is another special case, not an argument for the masses.

9) "The USDA even recommends that people eat less saturated fat and cholesterol, which means less meat." *sigh*...should I say it? They're talking about "too much" again... Broken record, much?

10) "vegetarians easily get plenty of protein through different types of beans, chick peas, different types of lentils, soy products, dairy products, and different types of nuts." - Yes. And the rest of us get all of it from ONE source: meat.

11) "Sixty-four percent of non-vegetarians don't even get the absolute minimum of 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day." - You know, the food pyramid is being seriously re-evaluated... "To get enough fruits and vegetables, they need to be the primary component of one's diet." - Okay. Primary. Did that say 'no meat' anywhere...? No seriously, I might have missed it...

12) "Dangerous bacteria is legally considered inherent to raw meat." - Raw. RAW. Not a big fan of raw meat, myself... Unwashed plants can be pretty nasty, too. So's water poisoning.

13) "One infected cow can contaminate 16 tons of beef and one hamburger can contain the meat of 100 cows from four countries. Animals are even fed manure, so humans are indirectly eating this feces when they eat meat." - Now that's spooky. But wait! The next line: "Scientists looked at home cooking and found that 42 percent of pathogen-prone meat dishes are under cooked." Oh, wait, so proper cooking makes it all better? Now why was I worried, again?

14) "A 1995 USDA study found that over 99 percent of broiler carcasses had detectable E. coli, although not the deadly strain. However, this shows that almost all chicken has contact with fecal matter sometime during processing. A USDA microbiologist said of poultry processing that “the final product is no different than if you stuck it in the toilet and ate it.” A 1978 USDA rule allows poultry processors to wash contaminated birds instead of discarding them, but they wash them in a communal dunk tank known to industry insiders as a “fecal soup.” This almost ensures salmonella cross-contamination." - Nasty. But a) not deadly b) they're still talking about before you cook it.

15) "The toxic threat of mercury posed by seafood is much greater than previously thought. Health departments have recommended limitations on eating species of fish, especially by pregnant women and children, but it's better for nobody to eat any of this contaminated food." - You know, its a miracle all of those ancient civilizations that lived on the coast survived at all, isn't it? And btw, this is still the old "too much".

16) "The antibiotics administered to animals to make them grow faster on less feed is resulting in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This is causing illnesses in people that are difficult or impossible to treat, and creating a worldwide crisis of drug-resistant disease." - Now that's unpleasant, but that's not natural meat, is it? But you know, out of all of the people I know who eat meat, I can't think of one person who I even remotely heard of who got an untreatable disease linked to meat.

17) "Animal agriculture is responsible for outbreaks of mad cow disease, the human version of mad cow disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and SARS." - I lived in an area affected by mad cow disease, in Malawi, Africa actually. Know what happened? They took the diseased cows, and separated them from the infected ones. Malawi has never had a case of mad cow disease in humans.

18) "Animal agriculture is a cause of a global pandemic of influenza three or four times a century. The reckless diet of non-vegetarians endangers the lives of all people including vegetarians." - Reckless? Excuse me? Influenza is the result of avian diseases being transmitted to pigs and then humans (direct bird => human transmission is impossible due to genetic differences). Now if Asia could just keep its pigs and chickens seperate, we'd be set.

19) "Meat packinghouses..." - etc, etc. This is not a natural meat phenomenon. Its poor government legislature.

20) "Humans were never meant to eat meat." - Oh. My. God. Wow....just wow. So we have canines for what? And the human appendix (a remnant of a herbivorous digestive system) evolved to become a redundant organ WHY?

21) "With his vegetarian diet, Solo hasn't been sick in over seven years now." - My best friend is fervently opposed to vegetarianism. However, he is moderate is his consumption of meats, and eats an adequate amount of fruits and vegetables. He hasn't been sick for 10 years. Frankly, this is more a case of individual immune system than diet (though diet does affect the immune system). Also, I have a vegetarian neighbor. She gets sick roughly once a month.

In conclusion, the article offers a little, save that meat is linked to cancer, vegetarians get a 3 year life bonus, the meat packing industry is a shambles, and TOO MUCH meat is bad. Not a conclusive argument against meat in-and-of itself.

Most people seem to have an opinion, and i'm intrigued as to the distribution of this completely unbiased and normal sample group.
Your poll is too limited. I love meat, although I don't often eat it, but I have nothing whatsoever against those who prefer not to.

I'm vegetarian. but sometimes i indulge with the occasional baby...

Let me now pick apart his article:


Hey, calm down, you asked:

Now can anyone still say that vegetarianism is more healthy or natural?

*shrug* Yeah, someone can.

Sure, but how do people taste?
Ask the Donner's

Well, choosing between indirectly killing an animal for my own consumption or indirectly killing an animal to harvest grain...

Each year millions of gophers, groundhogs, racoons and other rodents are killed in combines used to harvest grain, soy, and other crop plants and vegetables. So, having a diet that relies strictly on eating plant products increases needless animal deaths. Unless of course, you pick your own damn crop.

more queries:

if you selected 4, 5, or 6, and are not a cannibal, why do you eat animals but not people? would you eat a chimpanzee? a dolphin? a retarded human? a baby? where and how do you draw the line?

if you selected 5 or 6, has anyone forced you to watch those horrible videos of animals being slaughtered and whatnot?

more queries:

if you selected 4, 5, or 6, and are not a cannibal, why do you eat animals but not people? would you eat a chimpanzee? a dolphin? a retarded human? a baby? where and how do you draw the line?

if you selected 5 or 6, has anyone forced you to watch those horrible videos of animals being slaughtered and whatnot?

No one ever makes chimp, dolphin, or human, so I assume it tastes bad.

Has anyone ever forced you to watch those horrible videos of childbirth?

more queries:

if you selected 4, 5, or 6, and are not a cannibal, why do you eat animals but not people? would you eat a chimpanzee? a dolphin? a retarded human? a baby? where and how do you draw the line?

if you selected 5 or 6, has anyone forced you to watch those horrible videos of animals being slaughtered and whatnot?

I would happily eat any meat that was not a health risk. This eliminates chipanzees, humans, and other closely related species. As for dolphin, I guess Dinaverg's point holds. As no one uses this as food, I would have to assume that it is unpaletable.

With regard to the second point about watching videos. No, I haven't but I have slaughtered livestock myself for food. I would guess that is more explicit than a few illuminated pixels on a TV screen. What is missing from the hands on practice though is the emotive narration and sound effects. Slaughtering and butchery are practical and efficient businesses, when done properly.

I am an omnivore, with a preference for high value food, that enables me to providethe energy needed for this oversized energy hungry organ that we all have called the human brain to function. We have evolved to eat a mixed diet, but one that includes high calorie meat protein. If, however anyone wants to substitute this with high calorie vegetable protein, then fine, that is their choice. What they can not do is just drop the high calorie foodstuffs altogether. Their system would collapse.

Why is it that meat eaters are generaly tolerant of vegetarians but there are some vegetarians that seem to think that they have the right to tell the rest of the world what they should do?

On the cruelty and unfair treatment issue, I have a question. Has anyone ever shown that vegetables do not feel pain, and if not why is it fair to hunt vegetables - which have no chance of escaping - but unfair to hunt animals which do have a chance of getting away?

I’m a vegetarian. Willing myself to find meat disgusting has allowed me to more easily control other parts of my life. I couldn't give a fuck about what anybody else eats.

I'm eating meat right now.

Vegetarianism may be possible nowadays with a global economy, but come the Cannibalism Cataclasm only us meat-eaters will possess the stomach to survive.

I eat lots of meat, but I've got no problem with vegetarians.

Depends on which flavor of Soylent you buy.

That was one of the worst movies I ever saw. Period.

As for dolphin... As no one uses this as food, I would have to assume that it is unpaletable.

Ever eaten tuna? There used to be big scandals about dolphins getting caught in the tuna nets and chopped up and packaged in those little tuna cans. Mmmmm... dolphin.

Everyone always says God has created everything for a reason so then why did he create cow, pigs, deer, etc...? people who are vegi lover should be :sniper:

Everyone always says God has created everything for a reason so then why did he create cow, pigs, deer, etc...? people who are vegi lover should be :sniper:

troll alert.

Seriously though, I've got a lot of respect for anyone who can maintain a vegetarian diet. I'd probably starve to death in a week if I couldn't eat meat.

it's not as hard as you may think...
my problem is when people think vegetarian, they think "vegan" no milk or w/e either. but that is just crazy.

and FISH IS MEAT!

Heh. For reasons absolutely nothing to do with giving a flying fuck about animals (I'd trade a million animals for one human life in a second.), I'd like to be a vegitarian. If I had 20 minutes, I'd write out an explanation. To massively oversimplify, we increase the carrying capacity of the earth by a magnitude of 10 by switching to vegitarianism (thus making food even cheaper, and therefore more available to places that don't have food). Moreso, the meat we eat is produced in disgusting circumstances, and increases the threat of things like H5N1.

I just don't have the backbone to be a vegitarian. :(

I'm a vegetarian, have been all my life. I think the way animals are factory farmed and mass slaughtered is horrible, but I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with eating meat. I've just never cared for the idea of trying it, it doesn't smell good to me. I'm definitely far too lazy to convert anybody.

HOWEVER, I get really pissed at people who try to discredit vegetarianism and say that it's a bad idea, usually under the incorrect assertion that "it doesn't provide enough protein and you have to take supplements/combine foods in complicated ways/eat lots of dairy or eggs anyway." It's just not true, and I don't know where that assumption came from but it's wrong. There's still a debate over whether you can get sufficient B12 from non-animal sources, but that's only an issue for vegans and otherwise all nutrients are easily accounted for under a vegetarian diet. It's true that few plants contain all the essential amino acids, but as long as you don't eat the same damn thing for every meal you'll end up with them all, and there are a couple of sources that contain all of them such as soy and quinoa.

Basically, I've been a vegetarian all my life and my family's never paid attention to any of this stuff people allege you have to, and nothing's wrong with me, and I hear so much misinformation about vegetarianism, it just frustrates me. People accuse us of preaching our philosophy but I feel like I have to defend and reeducate constantly any time the subject comes up, never mind if I wanted to persuade someone!

I honestly don't care what others diets are, there are much more important things to worry about and it is thier personal choice. What does torque me are those who go on a moral crusade by trying to tell other's they are wrong for what they eat. What is worce are alot of those groups use blatant deception and lies to promote thier cause. Peta is one that immediately comes to mind...

I don't eat meat. I've been considering going back to meat eating, but then I remember about the whole hormone injection bit and I think again.

But yeah, don't shove your steak in my face and I won't tell you how that poor cow lived and died.

It's never good when people give you advice by don't eat too much meat. How much is too much? They don't know, but when you have reached too much, they say "See? I told you so!" What kind of advice is that?

Besides, I can't see how vegetarianism is natural. Any diet that requires vitamin supplements to sustain it is definitely not natural. It's not like you have cows popping pills in the fields because they aren't getting enough nutrition in their diet.

I seem to be the first of my kind in this thread in terms of the exact cause of my vegetarianism-of-sorts (unless I missed somebody, in which case I apologize). See, my friends....let's start at childhood. I hated pork products. Actually, pigs in general disgust me. I could never eat a pig, not even in high school at the post-fasting luau when I'd starved myself for four days. I waited another half-day for food.

At a young age it became clear to me that I was not made to eat most meats. Not I meaning "I as a vegetarian", I meaning "I as a person". Nearly any attempt I make at complex meats (red meats, mostly) ends in vomit. Has for years. I still can eat turkey (and have to for my protein) and sometimes chicken (though it's about 50/50), and my condition may or may not ever go away, we don't know.

I dont' care what people eat or why they choose whatever they choose. All I care is that they don't stick me with a purpose I don't support, or try to serve me something that I know from experience will make me ill.

Having grown up on a farm, I can tell you this: when you eat chickens, you're doin' them a favor. They're ugly, smelly, man-made birds.

Yes ... we (mankind) invented the chicken. We're not interfering with "God's domain", we're merely eating that which we invented for food.

So what.

*grabs another spicey wing*

I LOVE BIAS POLLS! Yeah, obviously you don't like meat based on the wording in your poll...however, results clearly show that meat is awesome and i shall continue to eat as many animals as possible!

I love meat, but can quite easily be vego!
Then as UGLY DUCKLING say "cows got to die too, why not let survive you"

It's never good when people give you advice by don't eat too much meat. How much is too much? They don't know, but when you have reached too much, they say "See? I told you so!" What kind of advice is that?

Besides, I can't see how vegetarianism is natural. Any diet that requires vitamin supplements to sustain it is definitely not natural. It's not like you have cows popping pills in the fields because they aren't getting enough nutrition in their diet.
It does not require vitamin supplements to sustain it! A non-vegetarian diet is simply an easy way of making sure you get all the vitamins you need. A vegetarian diet is not so easy but it is possible.

And no, you're right, you don't get cows popping pills in fields. They generally just get them all injected in their ass instead.

2) some vegetarians (particularly those who play sports) take vitamin supplements in order to maintain a normal life as well as their diet (I have several friends who do this - and they do their research).
Now can anyone still say that vegetarianism is more healthy or natural?

Nope. But they can claim it is the right moral choice for them to make. For example because they care about the suffering of the animals involved. Or because meat is an inefficient foodtype; meaning that we could feed more people if less people ate meat.

New vegan slogan: every time you eat at MacDonalds you force 5 people to starve.

Not an accurate number - but propoganda seldom is.

HOWEVER, I get really pissed at people who try to discredit vegetarianism and say that it's a bad idea, usually under the incorrect assertion that "it doesn't provide enough protein and you have to take supplements/combine foods in complicated ways/eat lots of dairy or eggs anyway." It's just not true, and I don't know where that assumption came from but it's wrong. There's still a debate over whether you can get sufficient B12 from non-animal sources, but that's only an issue for vegans and otherwise all nutrients are easily accounted for under a vegetarian diet. It's true that few plants contain all the essential amino acids, but as long as you don't eat the same damn thing for every meal you'll end up with them all, and there are a couple of sources that contain all of them such as soy and quinoa.
Marmite. 60% of the reccommended RDA of B12 in a 4 gram serving. Lovely stuff.