Isn't Veganism a first world privledge?

I disagree. If you look at the price of beef or chicken per lb and compare it to any vegetable its obvious that the vegi's are cheaper. Maybe if you want to buy some fancy shmancy vegan processed fake meats loaded with tons of sodium and junk yeah it may get a little expensive. If you compare a "healthy" meat diet to a HEALTHY VEGAN diet then its a no-brainer vegi's are cheap man look at the price tags, use your noggin! At most i would say a healthy diet may cost more because it cost more for foods that are less processed also if we are talking health here meat is the least healthy food on your plate at meal time there are few befits and a ton of side effects ( heart disease, cancer, stoke etc.)

 

Sometimes when I peel taters or other veggies and I start to throw the "waste" away---I think that someone in Somalia or Darfur, etc--would kill to have those leavings. You live in those places--you eat whatever--whenever --you can get ANYTHING. On one hand we in the so-called first world are very priveleged to have so much food to choose from and on the other hand, not many of us would make it if grocery stores closed down. Not without violence, anyway. We have choices. Many don't.

 

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One pound of meat contains a lot more nutrients and calories than one pound of any vegetable.

Regardless, meat is cheap as fuck in America, even artificially so...which is not cool.
The price of meat should reflect it's total impact on the environment...maybe then people wouldn't eat so much of it... hmmm?

 

I was vegetarian when I posted in the beginning of this thread but as things unravelled I started to eat meat again.I still have this gut feeling that eating meat is wrong,but that it is at present a wrong thing I currently cannot worry about.But the point I want to make is that under the capitalist system,there wouldn't be any livestock animals such as cows,lambs and pigs etc if everyone became vegetarian because there wouldn't be any financial incentive to keep them.If everyone suddenly became vegetarian,they would disappear from the farm environment.So If we assume that vegetarians are in a way kind of evangelical about trying to persuade others to stop eating meat,where does that leave us? If everyone stopped eating meat but wanted to keep farm animals on the planet,it would mean that these animals would have to be looked after in a sustainable way,in a kind of pet farm.They would have to be cared for.They would have to be euthanised and maybe even given contraceptives to avoid overpopulation.We would even have to witness and care for the livestock as they become old and die,something quite unheard of in today's system.All this leads us to the central crux which is that it is not really practical therefor for everyone to stop eating meat.Vegetarians and carnivores will just have to agree to differ and co-exist in this moral argument...That said,there is a lot to be said for reducing the amount of meat in your diet both for the sake of your heath and the planet's health.Also if we are going to eat meat the animal should have a good life until they are killed.I'm sure you're all aware of the contingent points here so I will leave it at that.

 

Why wouldn't they be happy in the wild?

 

Conceivably,but we would have to have a different economic system in place for this to be practicable.Also we would have to construct an entire eco-system for the animals to live in...Then what,would we introduce natural predators to keep the population down?

 

dude just so you know we didn't bio-engineer cows chickens pigs and fish. They came from the wild and they shall go back. There are many more cow now that they are being raped to keep the milk flowing. The whole world will not decide collectively to stop eating meat. as the vegi population grows demand will be down and the farm animal population will go down. I don't think there will ever be a point where the world no longer eats meats, however reducing the amount will keep this planet much cleaner and keep its residents much healthier

 

The whole world CAN'T just decide to stop eating meat, that's the point.

 

it is common to see chickens running around my neighborhood if you go to assateague island in md they have horses running around wild, nobody takes care of them (except they are protected by the park) they just wander around like a stray cat or dog that nobody cares for. they wouldnt go crazy in the overpopulation because they wouldnt be forced to breed.

 

♥ ♣ :sunny: I'm An Ethical Cruelty~Free Green *Raw Organic Vegan Fruitarian* ~ Lover and Protector of All Divine Animals and Precious Mother Earth... and I don't have much money at all! :sunny:

 

Haven't read this but I know in many creation stories it is said that all people were vegetarian when people were nomadic and living in temperate climates. When people began staying in colder climates it became imperative to eat meat. There are still many places in the world, non-western world where it is rare to eat meat and many of them because of not often eating meat will choose to just stay away from meat...these are people with very little money at all. I think it is sustainable, and certainly not a first-world privilege, but I think it might be harder to be veg* in the first-world if you don't have a lot of money and you're buying from regular grocery markets. Many vegans know not to buy from regular grocery markets often, if at all.

 

Someone mentioned 3rd world people that eke out a living, some still living in mud huts and so forth. Ironically, I think that those people will survive much easier than first world people in a BIG crisis where food and the acquisition of food becomes paramount. Most of the 1st world people cannot feed themselves if the usual sources, eg-grocery stores were to close for some reason. We've pretty much given up the responsibility of feeding ourselves over to factory farms. We DO have a choice-----NOW. Down the line--who knows? Sometimes when I've stripped some veggies to cook and there are a half of a plate full of scraps that go uneaten--I think--there are some places in the world they'd kill 'ya for a little bit of veggie scraps.

 

We do take things for granted. I saw a class being offered once about identifying edible wild plants growing in our area. I thought that would be an interesting class to take. My father was pretty good at things like that. When I was a child, we'd go on forages, we picked plants and even mushrooms because he knew which were safe and nutritious. By the way, coming from the old country, my father would use every bit of scraps, he'd find some use for it and failing that, he'd probably have eaten the scraps themselves as a snack! He wouldn't have had trouble in a crisis. lol

 

Well the problem would be that in a place like nyc for example. There are 9 million people and the only vegetation is in central park. They could all be the best foragers in the world but they would still more likely riot because there is no food.

 

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I read somewhere about ancient American Indians collecting mosquito eggs/larvae. They use nets to scoop them off the surface of the pond water, then it's eaten raw or dried, pulverized and stored or mixed with pemmican. Researchers said it was higher protein and calories than chicken eggs, and taste very similar!

 

Almost all livestock is domesticated and not tamed stock of wild animals. Read up on what domestication means. Domesticated animals are very different from their wild counterpart.

 

Actually ive heard that some poor people came up with a crazy trick... Its a bit scary for me to think about though! I think its way scarier than eating meat(not that im afraid to eat meat, just the thought and all). They keep a cow alive, drink the milk, and also... the blood but they dont drink so much that the cow dies. They let the cow drink and eat more, and give it time before they leech it again.

Freaky