You Can't Be A Vegetarian
It seems that every generation has its own special memes for worship. Some times it is a product of misinformation. This is understandable since there is so much crap out there one can hardly make any good sense out of it. Often times though is because we fail to use our minds rationally. Emotion takes over, then mass hysteria and then all hell brakes lose. Such is the case with what people call vegetarianism. Nonetheless, as we will examine, eating plants makes you vegetarian as much as standing in a garage makes you a car.
We think that food follows a linear path. You know, we grow grass, the cow eats the grass and we eat the cow. Vegetarians think that just because they take out the middle man (cow) it makes them different. It doesn't. The logic might help in the construction of kindergarten projects about the food chain but doesn't really cut it for real life.
Life moves in circular chains, not linear. The cow eats the grass, we eat the cow, then the worms, roaches, fungi eat us, the grass then eats them. That's how life works. That's how life evolves. One cannot be a vegetarian on a planet were plants eat animals just because one choses to narrow focus on a small part of the food chain. Even so, If one is still in doubt of the intentions and actions of plants here is a more straightforward plant in some meat action.
Now to the next, more intricate part. Have you ever paid close attention to things around you? Have you ever wondered how the fire extinguisher foam is made? How about the buttons from the shirt you ordered from ebay? Perhaps your tennis racket? How about jello? Sure,.. you don't eat jello. How about your medication then?
Vegetarians (and vegans) claim that they always check the labels for items that incorporate animal products. Well, this might be true for some countries but we forget that 90% of everything we use comes from China. And really, they are not that politically correct like the touchy West. Unless you are a photosynthesizing hippy, you are guaranteed to be using animal products for almost everything in your life. For example, here are few applications for a cow:
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://www.snopes.com/photos/food/graphics/cattleproduct.jpg)
As if this was not enough, in some parts of our pale blue dot at least, vegetarians might actually be killing more animals that the rest of us miserable omnivores. Mike Archer argues the case of Australia. Modern Agriculture practices for producing foods such as wheat and rice has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Australian animals and plants per hectare. The arrival of Europeans caused the eradication of most unique native vegetation, mostly to increase production of monocultures of introduced species for human consumption. This is also the case for much of the rest of the world.
Even if one is a well intentioned vegetarian, killing for food production is inevitable. In some cases the death toll is even higher than raising cattle or sheep. Mass agriculture demands a lot of sacrifices e.g eradication of millions of sentient lives every year such as mice. We could include in the list non-sentient life such as worms and bugs since higher cognition can still exit without our infamous cortex.
The moral argument for vegetarians has no basis either. Plants are sentient and can also suffer. They have biochemical reactions to noxious stimuli that are very much like ours. Just because they don't say "ouch" doesn't mean they don't experience pain. Pain, after all, is nothing but a mechanism for self-preservation. For every form of life is different because we all have different physiology. No life is better or worse, more or less evolved. Just different.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://iphonescreenrepairtampa.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/fancyline600png1.png)
Remember, plants have been on this planet billions of years earlier than animals. If a romantic alien poet visited our planet the irony would be self-evident. We are plant food in every way. We are able to survive because they have created ecosystems that produce oxygen for our consumption. Our dying flesh becomes their nutrients. They can do just fine without humans surviving on the naturally occurring soil and carbon dioxide. They are farming us, we are not farming them. Claiming the title vegetarian is to say the least, intellectual hubris.
Much like most things human, arrogance blinded us, creating bogus terms such as vegetarianism. We are not at the top of the food chain. We are part of it. Every single thing on this planet eats and gets eaten either directly or indirectly.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://i64.tinypic.com/j7spk2.png)
As a certified personal trainer I can shed my opinion on this. It is absolutely correct, while we certainly do not need to overeat meat it is pretty essential. I`ve had "vegan" clients and they were so malnourished in different aspects that it was obsene. Especially for males animal fat/egg yolks is so essential it is laughable. Without testosterone you are nothing and let me tell you, the building blocks to secrete it are not lettuce and fucking apples. Great article!
I'll just quote what I see as the most interesting part of the article.
In other words, the fact that vegetarians do stuff differently than other makes them like others. It doesn't make them different. In fact, the more people are doing things differently, the more alike they are.
I love it.
Amazing i am vegetarian and i am more powerful than most of the man eating meat around me.
i practice fitness for the last 17 years, when i switched to vegetarian i only lost about 10% power overall.
If you make effort to think more deeply about what you need to eat to compensate meat then it's allright.
Have you read the book eat and run? he is vegan could you run as he does?
He became vegan during his career and still gain in performance over the years
http://www.scottjurek.com/eat-run/#about-er-section
If you want to know more about health I strongly recommend you to watch the documentary 'What the health'. It's a good introduction in why people choose to eat less animal proteins. In that documentary Scott Jurek is also being interview. Maybe you will find a way to get your 10% power back.
http://www.whatthehealthfilm.com/
is a great one. I just watched it 2 days ago. It did open my eyes to many things.
Meatheads know nothing about hemp seed and flax, smh.
Well I was getting sicker and sicker so there you have it.
Your comment doesn't tell me much. I have no idea what you think a vegan diet is and wat you did or didn't do. Neither of us really know the full truth but what I do know is that living off nutella is not a healthy choice.
This is just too simplistic. Eating a vegan diet really doesn't automatically = malnourishment any more than driving a car means you'll die in a car accident. Any person who is not eating a properly balanced diet is going to eventually feel like shit because of that? Whilst that is possible if a person decides to go vegan and just achieves that by cutting out whole food groups (usually proteins and fats) without replacing them with anything. This is actually common enough especially if the motivation is really weight loss rather than a longer term lifestyle change. But the vegan diet isn't an issue if it is balanced, the average silverback gorilla is hardly lacking in testosterone despite almost entirely plant based diet is it? And there is a huge list of elite athletes who eat this way. If you just make sure you get the balance of good fats, proteins, carbohydrates and nutrients for your lifestyle and activity levels right you'll be fine. If you do that and choose plants then you get to be even more than fine - you'll be helping avoid environmental disaster, missing out on all those nasty diseases that vegans just don't get and becoming a more compassionate being.
Vegan men tended to have significantly higher testosterone levels than both vegetarians and meateaters (see graph here), which can be a risk factor for prostate cancer, the reason plant-based diets appear to reverse the progression of prostate cancer may be due to how low their IGF-1 drops (see Cancer Reversal Through Diet?).
https://nutritionfacts.org/2013/02/12/less-cancer-in-vegan-men-despite-more-testosterone/I don't agree at all !!!
Have you heard of Frank Medrano?
He is generally a bodybuilder and his power comes from plants because he is a full vegan.
He wasn't born like this, but when he became the most highlighted was the tide of energy - a "real high energy level" - and a faster recovery of power.
He calls these advantages "super prosperity"
Totally agreed 😊
Thank you man.
Tell me about it. There is plenty of evidence that we are omnivores. Most people are just in denial. Check this amount of research out.
It's a complex question. "Omnivore" is a label, and does it mean that we need meat otherwise we die? Or does it mean we as humans ate meat in the past? If it is the former then the answer is no. We don't need meat to survive. If it is the latter, the fact that we as humans ate meat in the past does not tell us anything about whether we need it now.
I don't blame you for thinking you must eat meat. Most people are addicted to it, and when you are addicted to something you will rationalize your addiction.
There is a lot of money made by the meat and dairy industry who are keen on making people eat as much of their product as possible, so there is considerable propaganda. Sure there is vegan propaganda, but this propaganda is driven by compassion rather than profit.
I don't think the world will go vegan, but my attempt is like lighting a candle rather than complaining about the darkness.
This is why I am an antinatalist. When I see people rationalizing their bad habits, I realize that there is something innate in humanity that drives him to oppress others and seek rationalizations to justify it. Everyone does it: slave owners, Nazis, dictators, and meat eaters.
I will continue to be vegan, but I am starting to think that the problem is not humans eating meat. Rather, the root of the problem is with humanity itself, and the only solution then is antinatalism. Boycott humanity and never breed, and encourage others to do the same.
this is the same as saying you are addicted to ...food..or oxygen.
as for antinatalism...indeed...the breeding meme has gone too far.
I don't think meat is essential. There are lots of products which can replace it, like fish. But why should one eat fish but no meat.... Being a vegan is almost impossible indeed. If you want to have more testosterone take a look at black maca. There is literally no need to eat meat, but it tastes so good that I won't stop eating it :p
Being a vegan isn't about not ever using products that exploited animals and hurt them, but rather minimizing it as much as possible.
You can easily control what you eat in modern society. You can't control what they use to create tires.
In the same way that 4 legged mammals have greater moral value than insects, worms, or rodents in your moral sphere, so do human women have greater moral value than 4 legged mammals in most folks moral sphere's.
That's because typically a 4legged animal is more developed and capable of processing what's going on than an insect or worm, at least as far as we can understand.
I'd kill 100 rats to save a cute babies life, but that doesn't make it right, but that's what I'd do.
However to kill 100 rats, or in the case of corpse-munchers, kill 50-100 animals a year simply because they want a momentary sensation of flesh and the knowledge that it's "real meat" is not just immoral, but inexcusable. It's senseless. It's not to save another more valuable (subjective) organism, no, it's just depravity.
Hopefully you would kill 100 rats whether the baby was cute or not.
ever heard about Carl Lewis ?? vegan olympic sprinter
and is quote :
"I've found that a person does not need protein from meat to be a successful athlete. In fact, my best year of track competition was the first year I ate a vegan diet. Moreover, by continuing to eat a vegan diet, my weight is under control, I like the way I look. (I know that sounds vain, but all of us want to like the way we look.) I enjoy eating more, and I feel great."
Carl Lewis was up to his eyeballs in drugs like most athletes and used the vegan story as a cover up
https://steemit.com/science/@shako97/mind-blowing-thing-about-universe-and-us
gUYS please take a look on this post
I would argue that calorie count is the most important factor. The difference between plant and animal food sources is secondary.
I disagree - I have a B.S. in Sport and Exercise Science, Certification in Sports Nutrition, and I am a competitive powerlifter. My strength has all come from a plant based diet. If you claim there is no protein in plant based foods then you are admitting you are not knowledgable in what's in your food. There are two distinctions that need to be made here - Vegan and plant based diets. Vegan is a way of living - it includes home products, clothing, and food. You can easily eat pasta and chips and be considered a vegan. There will be no gains made with that diet! A plant based diet, is a diet consisted from anything you can grow. Tofu has 24g of protein, almonds 6-8g, lentils 12-15g, chia seeds 6-8g, 2 servings of broccoli or kale is 6-9g and so on. A plant based diet is a great diet for any athlete. Don't believe me - check out Torre Washington, John Lewis, and Ed Bauer. The fitness industry is full of big companies trying to push protein because there is a lot of money in it. Studies are coming out now that animal protein will actually turn on triggers for cancer. Do you research and have an open mind. Just because the bro next to you said it, does not make it true #plantbaseddietsalltheway
my god .where were you before? lol. totally agree!
As a personal trainer, what qualifications or relevant studies do you have to give advice on nutrition? Your position is contrary to the American Dietetic Association so you must have a strong argument.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864
I haven't consumed any significant amount of animal fat in over 2 years. Please tell me exactly how to expect my body to breakdown due to lack of such an essential dietary component.
I will just say that meat is not essential. There is no nutrient in meat that we need to survive. Animal fat is high in saturated fat, which increases cholesterol, and egg yolks contain dietary cholesterol, and cholesterol increases testosterone, but the human body produces its own cholesterol anyway, so dietary cholesterol is not necessary, and there are vegan sources of saturated fat.
Kyriacos rocks! Better and better. Man, you're poke the bear with this one. Nice.
of course. I had no idea I would get so many people pissed though.
You should know this. Try evolution theory, fake moon landing or even flat earth. They'll attack you like mosquitos.
I did tackle some of these before and all hell broke lose. Maybe it is healthy to stir the bees nest once in a while.
It's a lot of new users lately and you have more followers now. Maybe it's time again. You'll earn a fortune on those three topics, hahah.
alrighty then. I will set a schedule and spread them out.
I'm waiting. Let the show begin.
"you'll earn a fortune on these topics"... nailed it @oldtimer This shit is intellectually dishonest and lazy, and is meant to provoke rather than provide insight or to contribute to valuable discussion. This is actualy the problem with mainstream media like CNN, MSNBC... it's all about the dollars, not sound reporting/discussion. You know rachel maddow makes $30,000 a day spouting propoganda about russia? There's insane money in bullshit and manipulation.
Yeah, food is like religion or politics. Ask me how I know. :)
go on...
Oh geez. :) Running a dessert company for a niche diet since 2009, I've become a lot better about letting people making their own choices.
In today's First World, food is emotional far more than it is a physiological necessity, and emotion, my friend, is the most powerful thing known to humans.
To make comments or critiques on someone's food choice is, for some reason, just as provoking as saying you love/hate Trump or that God obviously does/doesn't exist.
For the curious few who want to "prove" how emotional food is, I suggest a 5 day water fast (5 days of only water.)
I think you'll quickly see just how often you reach for food not when you're hungry, but when you're angry/excited/sad/happy/curious/bored etc. It's a fascinating experiment.
Ive been hungry before. I went through intense training in the army. Most people that are vegetarians never went hungry and left alone with an animal. they are couch vegetarians. comfy western ones. throw them in the wild and their ideologies will change no time.
No need to be thrown in the wild actually, just challenge them to live in a hot/humid third world country.
"food is emotional far more than it is a physiological necessity" - Spoken very much like a comfy western, just imagine people starving from third world thinking first "is this food vegan/vegetarian"? XD
exactly. most of them are couch vegetarians.
You DO like to get folks fired up, don't you? ;)
I mainly try to be OK with the choices folks make in the First World; it's their turn to enjoy the party, as long as they're not hurting anyone I let 'em be.
Being hungry can definitely change your food choices, I'm with you there.
I love it. I have to admit.
You sort of spouted garbage based on nothing, of course people are going to be pissed. You're not only factually wrong but morally bankrupt.
I give plenty of references in my post. Not a single one dared to tackle them.
including you. Your opinion means little to me if you can'r even argue the title of the post.
Oh wait, yeah you did, you talked about how plants feel pain like how we do, yet they have no central nervous system or recepter to actually FEEL the pain like animals do.
You also are ABSOLUTELY BLIND to the fact that eating animals causes more plants to be eaten by default, which means no matter what you shouldn't eat animals even if this was true.
Then literally everything else is you justifying saying "well we can't be perfect so why try at all :)"
Beyond that there's nothing to address and you've had your face bashed in repeatably in the comments by vegans with facts, and you still aren't getting it. Like I said, you're not worth my time. You're either faking it for money or actually insane.
it is inevitable. this is what I am saying. do yourself a favor and stop being so willingly thick.
nop. I say, that meat consumption is insignificant to overall carbon footprint. e.g having a child is the biggest source of pollution for the planet.
not a single one brought a single argument. only emotional ones "you are bad because you eat meat"
well, boo hoo.
In other words things die and get hurt so why do anything to contibute less to their suffering :))))
Like I said before, that's some sick demented shit right there you're saying.
It's been proven it's well over 20-30% of human-caused carbon output, how is that insignificant? Insignificant is 1-3% at most.
Regardless, again, you're justifying your misbehavior by blaming other things. It's not hard to ALSO not eat dead animals.
Huh, I saw you reply to people quoting scientific findings and documentaries, did you forget you did that?
they are food. much like people fly planes, use medicine or other products that have animal parts in it, they are part of the human civilization. you are too sensitive to eat meat. fine. just understand. nobody cares.
overall. that is, even the animals we use for other things..check the cow in my post.
documentaries are not arguments..especially when the executive director takes a private jet back and forth across the country to receive a "green" award.
Sad post. The animal agriculture industry is the lead cause of global warming, and that matters. The meat industry contributes more to global warming than all the cars, trains and planes put together in a year.
On top of this, plants do not have the brain or nervous system necessary to process pain or suffering. Animals do.
Please watch Cowspiracy and What The Health. Seriously - they'll open your eyes.
Also the obvious point - no one can be completely perfect, but we can try our best. The definition of being vegan is to avoid animal products as far as POSSIBLE and PRACTICAL. Therefore, you can be 100% vegan.
being 100% vegan is actually not the natural way of life for humans. some essential vitamins i.e. B12 is necessary for human survival, which is only found in animal meat
Wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Bacteria
my point was that humans source for B12 is animal meat consumption not where B12 is produced
Do you know how there's B12 in animals? Because of SUPPLEMENTS. This is because the natural way of getting B12 is through dirt - dirt on veg, or second hand dirt that animals ate, but mostly through first hand dirt because we didn't actually eat that much meat back in the day. However, because of all out hyper-clean food now, even the animals people eat have to be given it through supplements. That doesn't sound very natural either to me. Vegans just get their supplements first hand.
Wrong. Simply put - B12 is found in bacteria in soil (where herbivores continue to get it). You would too, if you grew your own veg. But now all your lettuce gets washed in chlorine, packed in plastic and sold in supermarkets. So yeah, unless you grow your own, supplements are advised. But that proves nothing about the intentions of nature. Show me please the length of your small intestine compared with that of a cat, teeth, agility.... looking a lot like herbivores aren't we?
Those statistics are highly misleading. It depends how the animals are raised. Especially cows are great for the environment if they are properly grass-fed. Many different ecosystems need ruminants to be able to flourish. And flourishing ecosystems are the most effective way to take CO2 from the atmosphere and put it back to the ground.
On the other hand, monoculture grainfields are the worst: they destroy complete ecosystems because there will be only one plant at a time. They truly destroy life. When life is destroyed, huge amounts of CO2 are released to the atmosphere.
If you don't want to see global warming, only logical result is that you should support growing cows instead of grains.
Why don't you look something outside the vegan bubble and propaganda? Maybe this will open your eyes: http://regenerateland.info/2015/12/24/a-collection-of-rebuttals-to-cowspiracy-and-other-anti-holistic-management-propaganda/
Or read a whole book on the subject: http://lettertovegetarians.com/
Grass fed cows are actually worse for the environment because they take up more land and therefore more water. Sorry, but your claims don't add up.
If you watch cowspiracy you'll know that there are a whole ton of people in the meat industry desperately trying to cover up the true impact of meat, so it doesn't surprise me that there's anti truth propaganda floating about. What did you think of the original cowspiracy?
Do you even think about what you write? Water is not a problem with properly grass-fed cattle. Do you know where the water goes? To the ground, as piss. It's food for plants, it helps them grow better. It doesn't destroy nature, it helps it flourish.
Vegan propaganda is totally lost touch with the reality. You don't understand how complete ecosystems work, when water, nutrients, etc. flow from one place to another.
What's wrong with the critique I linked to? IMHO it proves quite well that Cowspiracy is just a propaganda film, they don't even try to tell the truth.
@harrietbradley @kriacos , The major cause of global warming is world's population we are too much in numbers and you gotta do something to feed this population. Decreasing population will solve most of the issues. fewer people need less food, less space which in term helps plants to grow more in numbers. More plants will lead to less global warming!!
and you are right too... :)
This I agree. It's not wether people eat animals or plants. Problem is that there are so many of us who eat so much of the Earth's resources. CO2 is rising because we cleared our forest. It does matter if we use the cleared land to feed cows or grow wheat
So problem is how to control the population. Do we choose or let nature take its course?
I think mother nature will take care of it very soon, we already seeing how the her "immune system" has started fighting off the human disease through natural disasters all around the world, if we dont sort ourselves out fast mother nature will do it for us, the world isn't going to die off because of our decisions.
false claim. plant agriculture causes much the same problems as I reference in my post.
they have a very similar structure. read the article. again. i reference.
you can't. you still kill animals to eat your vegan products. again. referenced in the post.
Hey, sorry, but I think you may have misunderstood me.
Let me try and explain clearer so you might be able to understand this time.
You're saying plants cause global warming... Technically this is true. But what do animals eat? Thats right, plants! And a lot of them. This means that in order to eat animals, you have to make a LOT more plants and use a LOT more water than if you just eat the plants. This is very basic logic. Very basic. There is no way around it - An omnivorous diet causes waaaaaaay more greenhouse gases than a vegan one.
Secondly, if you don't have a brain, even if the plant is producing distress hormones or whatever, it had nothing to process them with. However, even if you were right, again, you have to feed animals plants. Therefore, if you want to minimise damage, you should still go vegan as less plants will be 'harmed'. Again, very basic logic.
Please read the definition again, as clearly you haven't understood it. Perhaps if you still can't understand, you should look up the definitions of 'possible' and 'practical'. Essentially the definition means that you can be vegan without avoiding animal suffering entirely, because it appreciates this may not be POSSIBLE or PRACTICAL. Again, if you don't know what these words mean Google will help.
Its a tough spot to be in for a vegan. I eat meat myself but for vegan people I know its really hard to commit. Not a lot of options, being big meat consumers the system takes you that way. Your choices are narrowed to what food suppliers have to offer, and they will offer what is the most profitable for them. Being that the masses are carnivorous... do the math.
Great info in this post @kyriacos !
They might not eat meat by the surely use animal products either they like it or not. Heck, even their salad kills more animals such as mice since mass agriculture demands mass exterminations.
thank you man.
What if, global warming is a lie?
And even if it's true, you REALLY think it's because of cows?
Sure, it's wrong, but how do you explain drinkable non-salted water disappearing?
Global warming, find, deny it, but you can't deny the droughts that's happening and the forests being cleared for animal agriculture.
My parents are geologists, they told me 5, 10, 20 years ago that, according to the life cycle of our planet, minor ice age is coming.
Drinkable non-salted water disappearing - have YOU seen it?
Even if so, it doesn't disappear, it gust goes from liquid form, being evaporated. So, it's still with us, no worries :)
Forest clearing IS bad, for sure. But maybe too much of the population is the problem?
Why not to fight things that cause the problem?
Non-salted water does disappear when it becomes salted.
Almost every fresh water source in the world (especially the west) is depleted or nearly depleted. Once those are gone the only drinkable water we will have or water for crops will come from the sky and from desalination plants, of which nobody is building as they are not profitable, and that's all capitalists care about.
It took literally forever to build those reserves up and not even 100 years of us not tapping into them will refill them.
To put it in perspective in the US alone the animals consume 55 Trillion, yes trillion, gallons of water, and that does not even account for the water consumed in growing their feed, which is oddly enough the majority of crops in the USA.
Every burger is literally 4,000 gallons of fresh drinkable water. That's over 160 showers for the average American (they take the longest of showers).
And don't you mention fracking, while it's horrible it's 520x less horrible than eating dead animals in terms of water consumption.
This is the problem with you people.
Rather than change and make a different you blame the problem on other things, such as population.
What is your solution? Murder all of Africa? Forced sterilization?
Sorry but eating plants is much easier, as none of those forests (rainforests especially) were cleared because there wasn't space for someone to live somehwere else.
They were cleared because sociopaths demand dead animals with every single meal and refuse to acknowledge the impact they cause.
Are you suggesting that I should physically assault people like you?
:^)
Well, you see? I'm russian, we have loads of drinkable water here :)
In worst case, we have Baikal lake
And I'm former military sniper, so:
well... I think, you know the answer, come :)
What if, we just eat less meat? What if we switch to chicken or pork?
Why you suggest just to stop eating meat at all? Isn't it too radical? Eating less meat - well, yeah, I'm ready for that. But not eat meat at all - this will just cause confrontation.
I'm not saying that we should kill extra population (even though I can help :) joking) but we should learn to handle it somehow. Most part of India are vegetarians (not sure though) and India has enormously huge population.
And I consider it dangerous for my health to be vegetarian. I tried it when I lived in India for 3 weeks. I've spent lots of time just eating vegetables. I eat enormous amounts of them, then I'm hungry in 2 hours, I eat enormous amounts of vegetables again. And so on and on.
When I eat meat, I am not feeling anything close to being hungry in 6-10 hours. I prefer spending my life not eating all the time.
You're lucky, Russia is one of the less-exploited regions...buuut that also means you'll probably get hundreds of millions of refugees in a couple decades :)
The problem is unless we go down to what many (healthy) traditional societies ate, which is only 1-3% of their calories from meat/animal-products (when stationary and in civilization), then things would still be horrible environmentally.
It'd certainly help, but any less than that and things aren't going to improve all too much. There's no need for it at all though, so why eat it at all?
That's because of the density of the food. If you ate more fatty foods (or less juicy foods) you'd be fine.
Because your body is used to ultra-dense sources from animals (which have been concentrated) such as milk/cheese/eggs/meat your stomach capacity is lower...plus those vegetables might have simply been cooked too healthily or more-so you didn't have enough of the main part of the meal, the start (most likely).
Vegetables have super low calories, that's why in every culture the base of the meal is always a starch like potatoes, rice, bread, etc, with vegetables, legumes (beans), or meat on the side/on top.
I was the same way for the first month I stopped eating meat/dairy/etc, then I realized I was simply not eating enough and I begun gorging myself on huge bowls of spaghetti every night, or a huge bowl of beans and another bowl of rice with many many tortillas, etc.
Then I was fine :)
I usually only eat twice a day now, just a small breakfast then I'll have a big dinner sometime later in the day, probably only spend about 30minutes eating all day if even that, but I am a quick eater.
well... sounds convincing.
I will try ;)
But not giving any promises though :v
Global warming isn't a lie though.
Partially - it is. But we are "lucky" - we will see minor ice age pretty soon
You have fangs, just as all predators. Why?
Part of cowspiracy as well? :)
So, don't look miserable, chewing grass! :v
Haha! We don't have fangs. Look at actual predators to see what fangs actually look like.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_tooth
I agree, Wikipedia is not the most trusted source but not in the case of anatomy
You really think, we need fangs (canine teeth, ok) for tearing vegetables apart? :)
Incisors are just perfect for that.
I will always prefer meat as it makkes me forget about hunger for 6-10 hours.
And I use this time to prosper, invent, develop myself instead of chewing grass and thinking, what to chew next
Well said @harrietbradley! I avoid animal products in as far as is possible as I cannot in conscience deliberately cause suffering. I don't use either of the 'V words' though, and reading many of the comments below, I think I'll keep it that way.
Thanks! And well done for making an effort to do your bit. May I ask why you don't use the v words? Because of attack or because of the stereotypes/ associations?
A bit of both really. As you know, all vegans/vegetarians are pompous, self-important snobs who need to be taken down a peg or two. I'm over 30 years a veggie and believe me, I've heard every inane argument in defence of cruelty ad nauseam.
I know it won't be in my lifetime, but I'm confident that a more civilised version of the human race will look back at our treatment of our fellow creatures with horror and disbelief.
Global warming is a myth you realize that, if anything there is clear evidence of CLIMATE CHANGE (getting colder).
Global warming is a benefit, more temperate zones to inhabit, including antartica, the higher elevations, and that equates to more co2, which is exactly what plants use, CARBON to break down into OXYGEN for us. But too bad it's stopped being global warming ever since all the data points to global cooling, COUGH climate change.
Plants still fell pain, research CONSCIOUSNESS IN PLANTS.
Lol okay. I'm sorry but I can't have a sensible conversation with someone who doesn't believe in global warming, and also thinks that plants feel pain. Mate - plants don't have a brain or a central nervous system in order to process pain or have a consciousness. Even if they have distress hormones or whatever, they have nothing to process them with. Sorry, but you can't fall back on that one.
Because you can explain how I feel pain in Dreams, or how people still experience everything in NDE, and out of body experiences, showing that you can be BRAIN DEAD and still experience, and not halucinate, actually objective observations of reality confirmed by others. Furhtermore because you believe that pain exists only in humans, regardless of "whatever", since you have not researched this, you are ignorant to speak about something that amounts to "whatever", they have distress hormones for no reason, because they cannot process them with, it's not for communication and information, it's just because. Also you'd have to explain how you came to the conclusion that consciousness requires a nervous system, even though people experience consciousness in NDE.
There's evidence that global warming exist? You must have been living under a rock for the last 4 years, global warming has been reclassified as CLIMATE CHANGE, since the temperatures across the globe has started dropping, the the models used to predict the scare of "climate change" before were admitted to as fraud and done solely to create such fear, but you want me to believe in the false narrative that a degree of change over a century in average temperatures will cause extinction when daytime to nighttime changes in temperature exceed that by orders of magnitude making it inconsequential, while painting nature as weak and pathetic unable to adapt while the species we have today have survived ice ages and have evolved through numerous such cataclysmic events, you want me to believe that man is responsible for this last "change" when there is no proof of one underlying constant, that hasn't changed or experienced change in nature, even dinosaurs cannot be explained in the terms of today's gravity, their muscles would need to be hundreds of times more powerful than today's creatures simply to stand up, let alone run, or fight, an inevitable response in nature.That just point that nothing is constant and the folly of "maintaining" against such change might not be evident yet but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Better fall back on the non-discussion fallacy instead of presenting proof of Global Warming, and assure yourself that consciousness is a phenomenon that happens when enough physical complexity is achieved, because that doesn't sound like a bunch of 'religious" dogma when it falls flat on assumptions without methodology or reason to approach the question of consciousness, and is invalidated by recognizing that people have experienced out of body and mystical experiences for ever, and is the reason why every religion and every philosophical reach is done "what are dreams, what are out of body experiences, what is consciousness what is awareness" while you sit on a throne of "duh, these people are still asking these questions?" As everyone can recognize, speaking on plant consciousness without first thoroughly examining that, is the definition of ignorance, and basically calling me a denialist, or anti global warming on the sly, only amounts to a non-discussion fallacy while pigeonholing me on the imply.
Capiche?
So it's not sad, it is the opposite, based on truth. You can relax. If you want to save the planet don't have kids. You'd be pushing them into veganism anyway and they'd be weak and death before you know it.
In this article I get the impression that the vegetarians gets hammered down without a proper defence. This article talks about the circle of life, that plants are more complex then we think and almost everything contains something from an animals. The reason why people choose not to eat animals is sadly not mentioned. Maybe we shouldn't place people in box and then look for reason that box morally doesn't exist.
The vegetarians get hammered down without proper defence. True. But why? Here's the reason... The number of people living on a vegetarian diet are as few as minimum. And all the vegetarians know that it's wrong to kill animals for eating.(morally, ethically, environmentally, whatever). What we can say in defence is that you should try vegetarian diet once and you'll feel the difference yourself. What more can we say? If we say, you're going to feel better, you'll be prone to less diseases or you'll have peace and calm behaviour. Is anybody going to listen?
And I think the things mentioned here regarding the food chain. Well, LOL!
One question, would you be able to kill yourself what you eat?
If not you are just hypocrite.
I still agree it's unpossible not killing, take your car you kill a bunch of insects..., cut your grass...
But Is it a reason to kill for gustative pleasure as we don't need meat to be healthy.
I agree plant can have a form of feelings, so i try to preserve to the maximum nature around me. It's not because i can't have 0 effect on nature , i burn carbone gas as all humans than we should not do effort in order to decrease our impact on nature. Same for meat, it's not because i can't avoid killing than all of sudden i start to eat everything, do you eat dog and cat? Why don't you do afterall? Ho just because you love them? Why don't you like other animals?
Actually , It's all about exploit everything to consum more and more to keep positive PIB and save our unsustainable economy system.
How economy could grow for eternity in a finite system with limited amount of raw materials?
We already use more raw materials per year than earth can produce , but we don't care after all if we let ash to futur generation.
I raise chickens and rabbits. What do you think? :)
True, very few would have the courage to kill the things they eat. If they see the torture and pain the animals go through, many will have second thoughts about their food habits
Why you say that it is courage? No, it's cruelty.
As a matter of fact, I do
So I respect what you think even if i disagree.
I love hunting
I was a vegetarian for about three years in my early twenties. My then boyfriend was a strict vegan, and we only ate biological food from trusted sources. I also tried to avoid buying leather bags, boots etc.
I did it because I felt sorry to kill animals for food and leather. Your first argument wouldn't make me change my mind, and it's still not that convincing for me now to be honest, for the following reason: I believe that if we really stopped raising animals for food we would slowly have to turn to other raw sources for the rest of their applications. Materials are more flexible than we think. There can be many smart ways of substituting a raw material with another or synthesizing one with similar properties.
The reasons I stopped being a vegetarian were the following:
As my vegan boyfriend claimed, if you really care about animals, you cut off all animal products. Why is imprisonment, confinement and forceful impregnation of cows so that we can get their milk, for example, worse than just hunting and killing? The point is to end animal abuse, right? Is hunting an abuse, since the animal dies fast and you use its meat for eating instead of torturing it?
I give him that.
Your third argument about plants experiencing pain. Plants want to survive too, plants feel pain too, and I remember reading an article about how plants warn each other of predators and they change their biochemistry to fight them off. So it doesn't really matter whether its animals or plants, you are still killing something. Since it's impossible to live just by photosynthesis, it was either my survival or the rest of life's.
Practical issues. Finding only vegan, biological food and in a great variety, (variety is key as I would be missing out on many readily available nutrients found in meat), is both extremely expensive and almost unavailable in my country. I don't think I could live a healthy life under these circumstances.
I still feel sorry for eating animals and especially having a pet I often feel hypocritical for the discrimination. At this point, however, I'm more likely to set my pet free back in its nature than become a vegetarian again. Life is harsh indeed, but I guess you either adapt or perish.
Nicely put. We already started making artificial meat. It only a matter of time for mass adoption.
Until then though, no one can be a vegetarian
Hah, I have to say I agree with you. Actually I don't mind people become vegetarian, be the point is I hope them don't just simply pretend that they are in higher class than the others. I see a lot of them just seem like look down other who eat meat! Like they will say, no, how can you eat meat which killing animal. Come on, you are killing a plant!
You have to 'kill' infinitely more plants in order to eat meat, because animals eat plants. Lots of them. Therefore, if you want to save as many plants as possible, you should still go vegan.
That wouldnt change anything when it comes to the amount of 'killing' going on. Turn a wheatfield into a forest and you'll have huge massacres going on every day. Plants killing insects, insects killing plants, fungi killing everything and being killed by almost everything.
The only impact humans have in that cycle, really, is changing who gets to kill whom. If you weren't feeding soy to cattle, than the space of the soy field would be occupied by wild cats killing squirrels.
The only thing a vegan/vegetarian is reducing is the variety of his/her diet.
Actually the soy could be fed to people who are currently starving - if the world went vegan, world hunger would be solved.
...
World hunger is quite solvable. Charities are either blind, stupid or dont want to be out of a job.
yeap. moral hypocrisy
Every religion and person have their own prespect and opinion. My whole family is pure vegetarian and not even eggg and there is nothing wrong in it. I dont care is it related to food cycle or not. They just follow thing which write in our holly book as its written that we have not rights to kill or eat any animals and if you are Christian then you also follow bible and do things are written in it. There are also others people do things which they feel right to them. Cow is holly animal of us so we cant eat meat of cow and its our choice. Every country every religious have their own choice of thing and they think like it. Here if girl wear bikini then people think its shamless girl but for her its comon but not here some people think she prostitution but in actually she may good we cant say anything about it. Like this diffrent people think diffrent for their openion about vegetarian and if people are vegetarian then nothing wrong in it. Vegetarian deffinations also diffrent at different place.
Still, nobody is a true vegetarian.
At every place and thinking of people and defination is diffrent for vegetarian like before egg was in non-vegetarian but now its in vegetarian. Diffrent people following diffrent rules and books but as our holly book and our law i can tell my family is 100% pure vegetarian. Now what book or research you follow i dont know but here so many are true vegetarian
indeed
This post is amazing! because im in constantly arguing with one of my friends that is vegan. im trying to explain some thoughts that you explain very well on this post. I cant wait to share this with her and hear her reply.
And id like to add some comments.
Here in Uruguay, life is quite expensive. We are a very small country and we have more Cows than Humans, and thats not a joke! We produce meat for export and thats one of our economy engines. There is an important amount of people that have economy problems to have access to aliments, and vegans here in Uruguay are really people that NOT have money problems, and thats a little weird. I think is logical to eat what you have at your hands, and here animal products is the most common food. I mean, its ok if you wont base your feeding with animal products, but when thats is the only option in some cases, i think its fine to eat a little bit of animals products a few times. But a vegan wont do that because it cut the count for the years that can say: "im vegan since like 4 years ;)". This is a topic that interested me so much because i grew up in a family that when i was a little kid, theres no chances to choose other menus for the day. Sometimes you just have to respect what you have to eat and be thankful for that, thinking that is some kids around the world literally dying to eat.
Very well put
Thank you!
:)
This was an excellent post. I have actually thought a lot about this myself. A lot of my concerns are health based its actually somewhat difficult to replace complete proteins in a pure vegan diet. Also, having a lack of meat or fish in a vegetarian diet can make it hard to get enough Omega 3 and Vitamin D in their diets.
Environmentally, vegetarianism can cause significant ecological harm. Many farms and produce producers unless they are truly 100% organic usually use pesticides and insecticides that kill plenty of other animals like insects as well slowly damaging the water supply for people.
Yeap, many health implications are involved. Many vegetarians comfortably avoid them.
Yeap, pointed that out in the article. In Australia this is a massive problem.