Are any of you not vegetarians?

I did an informal survey of folks that I know and found that that majority of my vegetarian & vegan friends had flatter eye teeth than my meat eating friends.

 

i believe that there is a reason for everythingon this planet, and i believe that animals are our friends and our food. Animals can eat humans too u know???
balance this lifeforce out!

 

Don't be afraid to be a carnivore. Its in your heritage and instinct In the reality of things, eating no meat isn't going to do shit for the environment. We have a lot more important issues causing environmental harm that people should be moving toward rather than the salad bar.

 

I find the argument that "eating meat is immoral" interesting, as it seems there are several hidden judgments that underlie this point of view. One of those judgments says that one form of life is more valuable than another. Animals and vegetables are just different forms of life. Is one more valuable or more justified in being harvested than another? Disrupting another life form for the purpose of meeting our nourishment (or other) needs is something that we as humans can't avoid if we wish to continue our own form life. At least that's currently the stage of our development... not many can as yet live solely on sunlight, myself included... and I'm ok with that.

And if we carried that argument further, could we really avoid killing anything of an animal nature, if our needs dictated it? Hmmm... some examples that come to mind: rodent infestation in the house (should we share our space with them, eh?), walking and stepping on ants along the way (perhaps we should levitate), countless animal byproducts that are used in countless products in modern society (do hardcore vegans avoid them all? do they know of them all?), oh that darn mosquito that lands on us... should we leave it alone and share our blood with the little cutie? because killing it for our own purposes would be wrong, right?

Another judgment at the heart of this argument is that death is somehow wrong & immoral. Death shouldn't happen, at least not to animals. Death is... unnatural. Isn't that so? And anyone who partakes of it is immoral and unnatural. (Vegetable matter is of course excluded from this argument because, after all, it is an inferior life form and doesn't warrant the same regard as the animal realm.)

As it happens, much to the shock of some, death is a very natural part of the birth/death cycle and there's absolutely nothing wrong or shameful about it. Believe it or not, it happens to every body. On this world, we participate in death in many many many ways. And that's OK. The important thing is not THAT we kill, but WHY we kill and HOW we kill. Do we have respect for the life form that we interrupt for our own purposes? Do we take only what we need, in a responsible manner, which doesn't unnecessarily deplete it? Do we ensure that we provide quality of life to our animal and vegetable friends that we intend to consume?

Without quality of life the vegetables won't produce well, and there's an obvious and immediate effect to the cause of neglect in the way we grow them. But with animals we don't often see the obvious effects of neglect there. We see meat and meat only, and fail to see the low quality of meat that comes from poor life conditions for the animals.

Beneath the outer actions there is the energetic intention, which is often overlooked today. The Native Americans of old knew of this and there was harmony in the way they provided food for themselves.

And what about the planet Earth? Aren't we harvesting and depleting it of its vital fluids? Do we drive cars that use gas? Do we purchase products that have been produced in factories? Well then we're participating in that plunder... at least in part.

We can do the best we can to live responsibly. But immorality doesn't come from the use of one of the earth's resources (meat), it comes from lack of awareness about the way in which we use all of them.

 

wonderful post!!! you get it! peace!

 

Sounds crazy huh? Well, I didn't read the entire thread, but I wanted to put my two cents in anyway.

I wonder how many vegans eat organic lettuce or corn? I wonder how many of them realize that many organic farms use blood meal for improving the soil (yes...icky sticky blood from a real, used-to-be live cowuke:, except they dry it and it's not so sticky anymore).

Blood meal is kinda expensive in the greater scheme of things, but the one thing it has going for it is that it's approved for use in certified organic veggie farms. It's all natural and they're limited in the fertilizers that they can use so blood meal makes the grade. Blood meal is one of the greatest nitrogen rich fertilizers that you can get, unfortunately since it is pretty costly, the major industrialized farms rarely use it, they can use the chemicals instead.

Kinda sucks thinking that the veggies that you've been eating have been soaking up all that blood, just think of all the poor cows that had to die for your organic vegetable habit.

Seriously though, I don't give a shit what you eat...just keep eating.

 

I'm a vegan and I found that funny.
It's probably because I'm not one of those pretentious ones.

But seriously though, well-planned vegetarian and/or vegan diets OVERALL are much better for your health and the environment.Also, find me a real, valid link to a real and valid study that says that bringing up your child as a vegan/veg will severely hinder it's development and I will concede. Until then, just realize that the more vegetarians there are, the less all of you onmis have to worry about starvation, and stop picking on us. Really, we're doing corpse munchers everywhere a huge favor...

 

Not so much of a study but a real court case.

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/child_abuse.html

 

^^^^like I mentioned before, WELL-PLANNED VEGAN MEALS WILL PROVIDE ALL NECESSARY VITAMINS, MINERALS AND NUTRIENTS. The mother should have been more careful, taken a B12 supplement and not refused to get her son treatment. Your link doesn't really hold much water. Nice try though.

 

If

Then why should

They considered B12 to be a toxin as it is an animal based product.

The idea of going to jail for 5 years holds a great deal of water for me.

 

It just tastes so goooood.

I don't eat veal though. Thats mean.

 

I'm personally a vegetarian.

My reason is because it makes me feel better (physically), I don't feel tried after I eat, I don't feel lethargic, and I have more overall energy - in addition to the fact I've lost some weight since I made my decision.

As far as the environmental impact, I don't think you have to stop eating meat - if meat's what you want - to avoid contributing to massive pollution. You just have to be careful about where your meat is coming from. The original stats given are true, but only for mass cooperate farming.

Which is also a very cruel and unhealthy process anyway.

I'm still living at home, but when I have my own home I plan on raising my own chickens for eggs and I might have them butchered or at least sell some of them for butchery, and I don't think there's any reason for anyone else to have to change their lifestyle (other than maybe paying more for free range/organic or locally produced meat) to completely avoid animal products.

Question: Do hardcore vegans not use Bert's Bees products?

 

I only know of 3 or 4 plants that kill intentionally. A much greater percentage of animals do.
Many people eat plants while they are still alive. Dead meat isn't conscious.
All CO2 emmissions combined add up to a measely 32:1,000,000 ratio if memory serves. If not it's less.

Every year hundreds of billions of stalks of corn are grown in soil that they simply weren't meant to grow in. They are then harvested and brutally torn apart to make room for new. This is only American statistics.
Store shelves are lined with "Fresh Produce."
People pickle cucumbers to shred up and put on their hot dogs along with mashed tomatoes.
A common side dish is live lettuce ripped apart and drenched in oil.
Citrus fruits are squeezed and torn to use their innards as a beverage.
Grass gets yanked up and thrown in a pile to rot.

Yeah, you'll never look at a salad the same way again.

 

i love meat its natural for me to do so and i enjoy it as long as the animals are well cared for i aint got no problems. how much does it cost to ship crops around oh and hang on a sec fertilizes cause eutrophication which fucks up loads of ecosystems, how do you feel now (rightous LOL). all forms of agricultural farming have an detrimental effect on the environment so please dont start blaming us meat eaters for damaging our home land (earth)
PEACE & HAPPINESS

 

Not. Small, completely organic, and environmentally friendly farms harm nothing. Horse or human power. Land worked Lovingly and thoughtfully. How does that harm the environment?

 

but meat is more damaging. The further down the food chain you go, the more energy is wasted, thus making the food less efficient.

 

So you're enslaving animals to do heavy labor are you now? You horrible people you.

I love your signature by the way.

You are certainly mistaken. Any good vegetation is grown in manure. Where do you think that comes from?
How might animal growth be more damaging than plant growth? Most animals are not sprayed with chemicals.

 

Just because the manure comes from animals, makes it alright to eat the animals? Not really following your logic on that one.

And though animals raised for food are not sprayed with chemicals, they are certainly fed enough harmful growth hormones, antibiotics and arsenic of all things. Yup. Most of the chicken you eat contains traces of arsenic. Look it up.

 

According to the The International Carnivorous Plant Society, there are more than 660 species and subspecies of plants that are known to be carnivorous. fyi - http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq1120.html

Unless one is talking about sustainably harvesting native natural vegetation, seeds and fruits, etc, one would generally need to remove/destroy the native naturally growing vegetation (and all the associated companion species of insect, bacteria, fungi, etc - to larger net detrimental effects on the native animals, birds, etc that relied on those plants), in order to plant any crops species.