Why Do You Think A Lack Of Meat Upsets People So Much?

Well, it takes all sorts to make the World go round.

 

What he is saying seems to align with the best scientific theory that we have at the moment, so I don't think can necessarily be 'debunked' at this time. My point was more that it is sort of irrelevant to the present day reality.

 

the benefits of having meat in our diets is the same now as it was then.

again, logistics are a real bitch.
what that means simply is that the nutritional value of meat far exceeds that of plant matter pound for pound and the biological resources to process plant matter are very, very expensive.
Why do think grazing animals that eat a strictly vegetarian diet spend pretty much all their waking hours eating.
Why do you think many have multiple stomachs and elaborate digestion systems in order to break down the fiber and glean what little nutrients are available.
Yes, evolutionary needs change and the advent of fire and cooked food was a HUGE one that "put the pedal to the metal" in the evolution of the human brain. Cooked foods are so much easier to digest and extract nutrients from that it allowed us to lose roughly 60 feet of digestive tract and provided us with enormous amounts of "free time" to observe and innovate.

logistics...
look at India, a nation predominated by vegetarians, many of whom live on the brink of starvation because the land cannot support enough crops to feed them all and meet their nutritional needs. An acre of land used for grazing and raising livestock will ultimately provide more food of better nutritional value than if the same land were used to grow plants for direct human consumption. (simplistic example, I admit, but not inaccurate)
logistics are a bitch, especially in a world pushing 9 billion+ humans that all need to eat. Don't be myopic and only consider the few square miles you reside in where supermarkets are on every corner.
now of course modern farming techniques and the advent of international trade has rendered some of those issues as "kinda" moot, but not the nutritional value of the food stuffs in question.

also lets not forget that evolution isn't something that happened "back then" it is an ongoing process, as a matter of fact people are beginning to be born without wisdom teeth and other bits that no longer are needed.


I'm curious about how many of you that "poo-poo" science and all that have actually been educated/trained to research and evaluate such things?
some of the comments regarding science I see in these forums are just plain ignorant of the reality of the scientific method.


oh and I rarely if ever take notice of the "area" a post is in, I just check new content and reply to topics that sound interesting.
and as far as I know, most areas of the forum are wide open for whomever to post in, so please don't ask "if you eat meat, then why are you in the vegetarian forum?", because I can be and it violates no rules..

 

Right, your last sentence is exactly what I was referring to in my first post. Did you really read my post?

Anyway, I don't think your breakdown of the logistics is necessarily correct. It takes many more land and water resources to "grow" cows and chickens than it does to grow food directly for people to eat. For example: "It takes 4,200 gallons of water PER DAY to produce a meat-eater’s diet. A plant-based diet uses only 300 gallons of water per day. Additionally, a whopping 70 percent of our domestic freshwater goes directly to animal agriculture." Additionally: "All resources taken into account, one acre of land can produce 250 pounds of beef. Sounds pretty good, right? Not when you consider the fact that the same acre of land can produce 50,000 pounds of tomatoes or 53,000 pounds of potatoes." I got these stats from onegreenplanet, broken down from scientific literature, but a quick google search will yield the same statistics in many different sources.

Here is an article from Tufts:

"A lacto-vegetarian diet (a vegetarian diet that includes dairy products) had the highest carrying capacity, meaning that it could feed the most people from the area of land available."

http://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/us-land-capacity-feeding-people-could-expand-dietary-changes

The same article points out that a vegan diet is a comparable in resources used to a diet with some meat, meaning that a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet is indeed the most sustainable (vegan is less sustainable). It also points out that a lacto-ovo veg diet is 8 times more efficient than a typical American diet.

I think the problem is that cattle take a lot of space, water, and food. Instead of using fields directly to grow crops to feed people, we use massive fields to grow food for cows (it's nice to think that most cows are grass fed, but that isn't the reality anymore, most are fed corn), and then cows need a relatively large amount of room to live because they are large animals. While their meat may have some nutritional "bang for your buck", I don't think it's worth the amount of space they require. Cattle farming is also currently one of the, if not the, largest contributer to deforestation in the Amazon.

And your point with India, while an interesting thought, seems like a huge leap to me. Perhaps India has exceeded it's carrying capacity, that is the amount of people who can safely be sustained on the amount of land they inhabit. Given my research, if India is a largely vegetarian country, then they should be able to feed the most amount of people off of their land. So, I would venture to guess that their food situation is the result of either A. gross overpopulation, or B. a food distribution problem. The case is likely that it is a result of both things and perhaps some other factors. We (the world at large) currently grow more than enough crops to meet the nutritional needs of the entire world population, but many of those crops go into feeding cattle, and into feeding greedy Americans and other first worlders.

 

You can be, but I know drumminmama, who has moderated this forum for a long time, often asks that the vegetarian forum is reserved for inter-vegetarian discourse, since there are many other venues for debate in the forum at large. That being said I rarely notice the forum I post in either, so...

 

yes I did read your post, more than once.

YAY!!
someone who actually counters things with more than uninformed opinion.

if you note, I did mention that modern farming/agriculture techniques renders some aspects of my position moot, but does not alter the nutritional value of the food stuffs in question when compared pound for pound.

insects are the way to go for the future of sustainable protein source.

 

Just making sure .

My position on vegetarianism is more of an ethical one, but I love science and scientific literature so I am fairly interested in the sustainability side of it too.

On the ethics side of the coin, I love the work of Peter Singer. His book "The Ethics of What We Eat", was by far one of the most difficult and contentious books I have ever read, and although I did not agree with all of his philosophies, I found the book endlessly thought provoking. Here is a short pdf essay that he wrote, which skims the surface of his beliefs, if anyone is interested: http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer05.htm

And concerning insects--yes, I've read that, too. I don't know much about them, save that they are concentrated sources of protein and nutrients. I will have to some research into their nervous systems, pain receptors, and capacity for suffering before I make any decisions about my likelihood to consume them. I read somewhere that some vegans eat oysters, which have almost no capacity for pain or suffering, so folks consider them on par with plants.

 

Noxious, I forgive you for swooping down on me last night......you did say you would probably cry if you had to kill an animal......so love to you for that....

 

as I get older I recognize the same essence of life in every living creature, sometimes to the point that I half expect everything with life to transform into pure spirit/energy right before my eyes.

a little secret in managing this world is realizing that everyone is a mirror.

 

Critical Analysis and the ability to research is sorely lacking at times on Hipforums. I don't even think it's always necessarily people that are against science per se, just too much reliance on click bait and people getting that slight reinforcement of their position regardless of how dubious the source(s) are.

Also, it probably doesn't help when forums try to limit or silence opposing viewpoints. Opposition to one's view is often what spurs someone to analyze their position and thus provide the rhetoric, justifications and evidence to reach their conclusions in response. If they are unable to do that, they likely should reconsider the position(s) they hold but even if they can provide rational and logical persuasive explanations supported by evidence, the discussion of both sides is very beneficial.

For instance on a topic such as this it allows someone like myself, who is not very knowledgeable in regards to the subject matter, to understand the positions of various sides and weigh the pros and cons of each to inform myself on the subject and decide which arguments are most persuasive.

 

I tried being a vegetarian when I was a teen, but I'm apparently addicted to hamburgers and hotdogs.

 

A lot of people mention that. There is a whole industry that want it to taste good to you. They will do what they need to to market it. And the human body seeks pleasure if you like it you want to do it again. I struggled for a while with this too. I thought well people like Owsley ate a meat based diet. They say Buddha did as well. What if i just eat meat in the Native American way which is respecting the life of the animal and using all of it. But eventually I wanted more.

 

If its not human, its ok to eat.

 

.........



Cheers Glen.

 

I could never be vegetarian because of bacon

Bacon is so fucking awesome

A grilled sandwhich with bacon, fetta, dill pickles and a bit of relish. Oh My God!

 

And we have just come full circle

 

Everyone give yourselves a hand.