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Some of you may disagree with me, but God gave us meat to shorten our life spans ...
I've been a Vegetarian for years now. That doesn't mean that I don't go to KFC or Wendys here and there. The truth really is that humans, are Omnivores. Now, You can live a better, healthier life by Balancing out Fruits, Veggies, and Meat. It's possible its been done. This crap I see about Vegetarianism as a totalistic way of life is wrong. Your not defiling your self anymore if you eat meat and veggies in the same diet. And don't fool yourself by thinking meat is the only way to go. There are more nutrients in vegetables than in meat. But, as I said, I've no problem with meat.
However, If some of you, could see your body from the inside, you would change your views very quickly ...
The wheat, beans, cabbage, etc. consumed by vegetarians were most likely farmed using farming tools such as threshers, plows, and giant mechanical rolley dicey machines. All of these trap and make mince-meat out of field mice, gophers, and rabbits in the sowing process. Many animals have died to produce your bread, carrots, peas, and other produce. And yet you can still maintain a "holier-than-thou-because-I-don't-kill-animals" attitude? If that's not hypocrisy, I don't know what is.
I think it would be harder to sustain a world of vegans than a world of omnivores.
If you think about how many resources are needed per person, vegans are harder to feed.
I think it would be harder to sustain a world of vegans than a world of omnivores.
If you think about how many resources are needed per person, vegans are harder to feed.
You're actually 100% wrong on that second statement. Somewhere else in this discussion this was already covered in depth, but it takes around 30 pounds of raw vegetable matter to produce a pound of beef, not to mention the massive amount of land area cattle farming compared to vegetable farming uses per pound of product, or the environmental consequences, or the expense of the equipment and maintenance of the animals as compared to the vegetable, or the number of personnel, or the cost of transportation and storage of the product. I could go on but you get the point. There is a sane balance point somewhere where a healthy diet could include animal product and, I imagine, the possibility of a society that produces and consumes animal products in a sane and healthy fashion, but we are not living in it.
Anyways, @Beadly: the difference between that and eating animal products is in intent. I'm sure any animal rights activist (I don't know, I'm not one) would prefer a vegetable product that didn't result in harm caused to animals, directly or indirectly, and if given the opportunity would take that product exclusively. Nonetheless, I swat flies and squish cockroaches, and in any case I'm not the kind of person you're talking about. Some killing and physical harm is probably always going to be going on, whether intentional or accidental, in any world where one animal places itself in the way of another's survival.
@Nphyx: Really, the only group that I was taking pot-shots at were the totalitarian vegetarians who claim to act upon their belief in "treating animals humanely" (a statement from which I derive no small amount of lulz). If their motivation behind being vegetarian is for the sake of protection of animals, then the only non-hypocritical method to achieve this would be to grow one's own foodstuffs (without the useage of pesticides) and harvest it by hand. I would venture to guess that almost no "morally-motivated" vegetarians actually do this, thus resulting in latent hypocrisy (I REALLY need to stop using that word so much).
@Pete: I'm not neccecarily sure if it would be harder to maintain , but the hypothetical world would probably smell a lot worse. :dead:
@Nphyx: Really, the only group that I was taking pot-shots at were the totalitarian vegetarians who claim to act upon their belief in "treating animals humanely" (a statement from which I derive no small amount of lulz). If their motivation behind being vegetarian is for the sake of protection of animals, then the only non-hypocritical method to achieve this would be to grow one's own foodstuffs (without the useage of pesticides) and harvest it by hand. I would venture to guess that almost no "morally-motivated" vegetarians actually do this, thus resulting in latent hypocrisy (I REALLY need to stop using that word so much).
Plants can cause health problems.
Meats can cause health problems.
Plants can feel pain.
Meat (lol sorry. Animals) can feel pain.
You cannot live on plants with without supplements and you can likely be underweight or suffer from athritis.
You cannot live on meats without supplements and you can likely be overweght or suffer from random health risks.
Human need a balanced diet and shouldn't alway rely on supplements on a daily diet because some supplements can increase the risk of heart attacks (eg: Calcium).
Some people are born pale, eating plants alone can cause vital vitamins like Iron are contained in meat, losing this will reduce haemoglobin and will cause pale (lack of colour in cheeks). Plants have Iron but not enough to sustain it like meat.
I would like a vegetarian or an omnivore(only) to check the levels of certain vitamins in their blood, also their weight. From my experience, most of them aren't healthy. I have a few friends that are vegan/vegetarian they have health problems, most are underweight. One of them has athiritis.
I have been on a strict vegetarian diet (e.g. vegan minus the lifestyle) for 7 years. Last time I got a physical, about a year ago, the doctor said I was in "more than perfect" health. I'm right around my ideal weight for my body type and height (a little on the heavier side of that range right now, stupid holiday goodies!). My blood pressure is ideal, my resting pulse is a little higher than I'd like it to be (it's about 76 which is perfectly healthy anyway but could be better), because I am extremely sedentary and don't get enough cardio excercise. For the same reason my body fat ratio is slightly higher than I'd like it to be as well, but once again well within healthy levels (I am not classified as overweight, let alone obese).
There aren't standard blood tests for most essential vitamins and minerals, you mostly determine deficiencies by symptoms, however for the things that are testable, such as iron, I am just fine and I display no symptoms of other deficiencies. I am a little on the pale side, but that's due to the fact that I'm a night owl and due to my Northern European heritage I just plain don't tan.
The only supplement I take, or have ever taken, is a standard multi-vitamin, the same kind most adults take. It comes in a one year supply bottle and costs about 6 dollars per bottle. I pay a reasonable amount of attention to what I eat, but not to the insane levels that some people would have you believe is necessary; I mostly eat what I like when I like to, and I guess that coincides with a balanced diet in my case. I mostly cook my own food, but I eat out probably once or twice a week on average. American fast food is pretty much right out for me, but Oriental, Mexican, and Mediterranean food that fits my diet is easy to find.
I'm sure for some people with special dietary needs due to defect or disease my lifestyle isn't the appropriate choice, and I don't pressure anyone to choose it. But I can tell you it has helped me become and stay healthier than I have been since I was a kid, despite getting very little exercise and having a love for (lots of) good food.
Yes meat has a good amount of iron in it. However most of the meat you consume comes from herbivorous animals, and it's not like they magically cause iron to materialize out of nowhere. They get it from plants and manage to not be anemic due to deficiency. A quick Google search brought up this page: http://www.bloodbook.com/iron-foods.htm ... 0in%20Iron
You'll notice that the meats listed have around twice as much iron per serving as the plant materials listed (except for liver, which has a huge amount of iron if you don't mind the fact that it's packed full of toxins).
If you look at a standard food pyramid: http://web.mit.edu/athletics/sportsmedi ... yramid.JPG[/img]
You'll notice that it recommends 2-3 servings of protein rich foods per day and 11-20 total types of food available only from vegetable sources. That's around 5-7 times as many vegetables per day as meat products in a sane and balanced diet that includes animal foods, so somewhere in there I imagine one can fit twice the portions of iron rich vegetables as iron rich meat
Anyways, the idea that vegetarianism causes deficiencies of iron is a myth and an easily dispelled one with a rudimentary amount of logic and research. Bad eating habits result in deficiencies, and relatively speaking vegetarianism is a much better set of eating habits than those practiced by the vast majority of people in the western world. Perfect in all ways and circumstances? Probably not. There's no one perfect solution to anything that works for every single individual.
Conclusions
So after four pages, I'm ready to start drawing some conclusions from this thread, and I'm probably going to step out of the argument except to backup anything new I say here (I don't mean to sound like a dick, but I don't think anyone on the opposite side of the debate is playing with a full deck of cards). So first, a statement of facts as I have observed them, based on both evidence and anecdote.
Fact: The only way to guarantee one's health is a healthy diet and exercise.
Fact: One can survive perfectly healthily and happily without animal products.
Fact: One cannot survive without vegetable products.
Fact: Animal products are not the sole source for any nutritional need.
Fact: No single food product is the best or most comprehensive source of any nutritional need.
Fact: Animal food products should occupy only a small portion of your diet compared to vegetable products (mainstream dietitians recommend limiting your intake of meat to about 6 ounces per day, or about 2 "servings").
So I have to ask myself, besides misconceptions, misinformation, and innocent ignorance of facts, why is it that people get so up in arms about this subject? When you look at the whole range of foods in the human diet, animal products occupy only tiny portion quantitatively. Your average person eats beef, chicken, and maybe a few types of fish/seafood regularly, whereas they eat foods made from dozens if not hundreds of varieties of plants. In fact your average person omits more varieties of food as a matter of taste than a vegetarian does simply by being vegetarian. If someone says, "I like my burgers with no mayonnaise, pickles, or tomatoes" for instance, nobody bats an eye. If someone says, "I like my burgers with no beef" the instant reaction of everyone in earshot is "THAT'S INSANE! HOW DO YOU SURVIVE?!" (yes in caps just like that).
Part of it I'm sure is that people try to make it a moral issue, and nobody likes to be told they're doing something that's intrinsically evil as a routine part of their lives. Fuck that, it's not my job or anyone else's to make moral decisions for anyone besides ourselves.
More importantly though, I think, is that the idea that meat as the centerpiece of a meal is ingrained in the minds of people who belong to western culture. You can have your steak and potatoes without the broccoli if you like, but if you have your broccoli and potatoes without your steak you've somehow committed a basic crime of etiquette by rejecting the main course. I say being a vegetarian isn't a big deal, quit making a big deal out of it! I don't eat beef, I don't eat chicken, I also don't eat pickles! I just don't like to. I'm not going to starve, I'm not going to go pale and anemic, and I'm not going to wither away and die.
Most of all, though, criticizing the vegetarian diet is extremely short-sighted and hypocritical for most people. I find it extremely hilarious when I see the typical obese, malnourished couch potato ranting about how vegetarians are unhealthy and how they like their meat. If you want to honestly talk about and think about dietary health, go for it, but most of the dietary habits of the people most critical of vegetarians in my experience are at vastly higher risk of long-term health consequences than the vegetarian they're criticizing. You can have your three-times higher rates on average of heart disease, cancer, obesity, and other deadly and difficult to treat afflictions, I'll deal with being extremely healthy at the expense of 6 dollars a year worth of vitamins.
I thought this may be time to show you a article i've been reading.
Is Red Meat Really Bad For You?
The most common argument that I hear is that eating red meat is bad for you. In fact, many vegetarians claim their lifestyle is better for your heart and your health in general. We often read and hear the same claim in the news -- eating red meat is unhealthy.
Consider Weston A. Price, who traveled the globe studying the diets of native societies in the 1930s while there were still natives untouched by white man and his processed foods (Nutrition & Physical Degeneration by W.A. Price).
His primary result was to show that wherever natives were exposed to processed foods, such as white flour and sugar, degeneration and disease soon followed. But he also discovered that there were no healthy vegetarian societies or tribes. While he did find some vegetarians, there were always healthier tribes nearby eating meat or animal products.
If you study cultural anthropology, you'll find the amount of meat eaten by any society was determined not by religious beliefs or health fads, but rather by availability alone. A clear example of this can be seen by looking at the diets of traditional Aboriginals in Australia. The inland Aboriginals eat a diet of approximately 75-90 percent vegetable and 10-25 percent animal foods.
The coastal Aboriginals, who have access to fish and larger animals like kangaroo eat about 75 percent animal and 25 percent vegetable foods. (1)
The conclusion that vegetarianism is safer for your heart is an unfounded scare tactic fostered by the processed food industry. The first reported case of a heart attack came only recently in 1921. (2) Hydrogenation of vegetable oils began about 1908 and since that time, consumption of vegetable oils has risen some 400 percent, while saturated animal fat consumption has reduced on the whole.
In short, we've had a reduction of animal fat consumption, an increase in hydrogenated vegetable oils and an increase in heart disease since 1908. It's hard to see how consuming less animal fats has made for healthy hearts. Moreover, statistical analysis of chronic disease shows that we are far worse off with today's dietary recommendations when looked at from a disease perspective.
If viewed from a purely historical perspective, the current dogma over eating meat and heart health is suspect as well. Humans have been eating animal foods as a primary food staple in every part of the world with a winter.
This includes the fish eaten in every region near lakes and oceans. If eating meat were as unhealthy as suggested, we'd never have lasted as long as we have.
Too Much Acid?
A similar argument against eating meat: It makes people too acidic, disrupts the pH of their blood and thereby encourages disease. This argument is just as problematic as the last. In fact, the whole issue of pH balance and diet is very misleading and misrepresented by many who favor vegetarian diets.
For example, Eskimos maintain optimal pH balance on a diet of 90 percent animal foods, while some Hindus and inland Aboriginals maintain optimal pH balance of the converse of 90 percent plant foods!
Many "experts" falsely blame high acidity levels on meat eating. This really is just a lot of bunk. pH is specific to body compartment and body fluid. Therefore, when making any reference to pH without making a clear statement as to where the measurement is taking place (urine, venous blood, arterial blood, saliva, and even specific organs) is meaningless.
The stomach, small intestine, and large intestine for example, all have different optimal pH levels. It has also been argued by Rowkowski and others (including very possibly William Wolcott) that sprinting around the block once will produce a far greater shift in pH toward acidity than eating nothing but meat all day long.
I have personally tested my own urine and saliva every hour for days on end and let me assure you, if you were to do the same, you would quickly find that what you do with exercise and how close you are to your needs for water consumption will influence your pH far more than what you eat.
I've knocked my urine pH down from 7 to 5 in 10 minutes of squatting with sets of 10 on a one-minute rest in just a few sets!
The long and short of pH is that different pH levels are appropriate for different people given their genetic heritage and is much more heavily dependent upon variables other than meat.
The Real Reason ...
So what really produces the illusion that vegetarianism is better for you? In many cases, converted vegetarians are eating real food for the first time. They're often cooking fresh food for the first time and eating much more raw food for the first time! Finally, they have stopped eating so much packaged crap.
All this acts to increase one's vitality and mental clarity just like using fresh water will clean your windows much better than dirty water. Vegetarian diets are also very effective detoxification diets across the board, greatly reducing body burden from lifestyles that included prolonged periods of consuming junk food.
Finally, people going on vegan diets are often directed to do so by holistic health professionals who also encourage the use of organic foods.
Since fat stores toxins and commercial farmers make their income by the pound, most farmers stand to benefit from feeding their livestock harmful foods. These harmful foods, in turn, produce livestock with much more fat.
The benefit from going vegan was to avoid those toxic commercial meats and therefore nothing inherent to being a vegan per se. Those eating organic meats will not suffer from the harmful effects of eating commercial meats.
This brief analysis certainly doesn't address all of the reasons why one might go vegetarian, but I hope that it's enough to help you understand the issue isn't so straightforward as some would have you believe. Genuine, organic meat, as Price showed, has been an important component of all healthy societies, so we ought to think twice before giving up on meat.
Fact: The only way to guarantee one's health is a healthy diet and exercise.
True. How about the diet?
Fact: One can survive perfectly healthily and happily without animal products.
False, They can be healthy, but not as much as people who intake both sources.
It's not like omivores get diseases all the time.
Fact: One cannot survive without vegetable products.
False, first of all. You can. Secondly. You'd get very fat.
Althrough fat is good in a lifestyle, even in vegetables, I certainatly wouldn't recommend eating a ton of meat. :crazy:
Fact: Animal products are not the sole source for any nutritional need.
No, but they are a somewhat vital source, and should be in a lifestyle.
You may not be, but vegetarians are usually the main source of anemia (carnivores are rare), Iron is extremerly hard to replenish with vegetables just alone, you need all of them. Not just vegetables (or meat).
Fact: No single food product is the best or most comprehensive source of any nutritional need.
No one says they are. As you see in my eariler question.
Fact: Animal food products should occupy only a small portion of your diet compared to vegetable products (mainstream dietitians recommend limiting your intake of meat to about 6 ounces per day, or about 2 "servings").
Yes, but they should be a part of your diet. Not to have too much or not having any at all can cause deficiencies.
Have you read Nphyx's last post? Judging by the results of his physical, he outclasses the vast majority of North American omnivores healthwise. Since he doesn't seem to agonize over his diet any more than you or I, I wouldn't say it's too far a leap to the conclusion that your average vegetarian is well within reach of good health. I'm not saying all vegetarians are that healthy, but it's certainly possible for them to be healthier than your average omnivore.
False, first of all. You can. Secondly. You'd get very fat.
I wish you'd cite some examples for these points. It adds a lot to a discussion when everyone knows where everyone else is coming from. You would get very fat, first off. Secondly, you'd be deficient in a bevy of areas -- not every nutrient that animals ingest is stored in any significant amount. Your immune system would go straight to hell, too. You'd die before long. Could you tell me how this qualifies as survival?
Aside from that, I'd say it's fairly obvious that nothing from Nphyx's spoilers sunk in, as you're still using their exact opposites in your arguments (with little to back them up.)
Have you read Nphyx's last post? Judging by the results of his physical, he outclasses the vast majority of North American omnivores healthwise. Since he doesn't seem to agonize over his diet any more than you or I, I wouldn't say it's too far a leap to the conclusion that your average vegetarian is well within reach of good health. I'm not saying all vegetarians are that healthy, but it's certainly possible for them to be healthier than your average omnivore.
False, first of all. You can. Secondly. You'd get very fat.
I wish you'd cite some examples for these points. It adds a lot to a discussion when everyone knows where everyone else is coming from. You would get very fat, first off. Secondly, you'd be deficient in a bevy of areas -- not every nutrient that animals ingest is stored in any significant amount. Your immune system would go straight to hell, too. You'd die before long. Could you tell me how this qualifies as survival?
Aside from that, I'd say it's fairly obvious that nothing from Nphyx's spoilers sunk in, as you're still using their exact opposites in your arguments (with little to back them up.)
I didn't mean they really couldn't, but it's unlikely, because plants may have many minerals, but they cannot fill the whole nutritional value of everything that's including on the balanced nutritional chart.
You can't expect to eat only one element of the nutritional chart and remain healthly unless you were having something that isn't 100% plant.
EG: Eggs, milk, butter.
But plants alone is just... vitamin supplements.
Well I have nothing to really say about that last part except that there's a man in texas living right now, 47 years old, and he's a omnivore because he has a phobia of plants. (Yet he seems to have many things in his home made from plants.)
He's overweight. Possibly you're right.
I might update you if he dies soon or not. Perhaps he does.
"Have you read Nphyx's last post? Judging by the results of his physical, he outclasses the vast majority of North American omnivores healthwise."
Average? Unhealthly? Healthly?
Explain what vast majority you're comparing him to?
And as for your "nothing sinking in" statement, I don't really get the intellectual side of that, my article was the response to his info the spoiler tags.
Everything gets their nutrients from plants at some level. Certain nutrients are processed by animals for easier absorbtion, but the plants are the ones that are pulling these nutrients out of the soil in the first place. Plants are not "vitamin supplemets." They contain carbohydrates, starches, fibre, proteins -- all important to the body, carbohydrates especially. Anything that might be lacking (i.e. any nutrients that undergo animal processing) are easily replaced with standard multivitamins.
I can think of better ways to respond to Nphyx's posts than to immediately contradict them without much proof. For instance, after his post regarding iron, you immediately replied saying that "Iron is extremerly hard to replenish with vegetables just alone, you need all of them."
As a sidenote, omnivores eat both plants and animals. Carnivores have a meat-only diet.
I'm not going to reiterate the iron thing again. Leafy green vegetables are probably the best source of iron in the human diet, in terms of cost/benefit, besides fortified grain foods like breakfast cereal, but that's just my opinion. There is rarely a person with an iron deficiency anywhere in the modern world, vegetarian or otherwise. It's a sadly ignorant myth.
You cannot, period, cannot survive on animal products alone. You would be lacking a vast range of nutrients that are simply not contained in any animal product. The first and most common form of malnourishment is probably scurvy. This actually happened to my brother when he was a kid, he became convinced that anything growing out of the ground was yucky and refused to eat it for about 3 months. Once we saw the doctor when he started looking and feeling funny my parents set that right. Plant products however do contain every single vitamin, protein, fat, carbohydrate and mineral necessary to human survival except B12, which I covered in an earlier post and am not going to repeat again.
In regard to natives and diets, most native people who are on a vegetable-only diet are limited to plant products grown in their local area, and there are few places in the world that can grow the full variety of plants necessary for a sustainable vegetarian diet. If civilization collapsed and I were in that situation I'd start hunting, but thanks to the huge variety of products available to me that's not necessary
The few natives who are on nearly completely carnivorous diets (Aleuts, for instance) have many special adaptations, such as symbiotic digestive organisms not present in most people. They also have access to a greater variety of animals to eat, mostly sea foods, which you can't find or aren't allowed by law to eat in most places. I actually watched a documentary on them a little while ago, if I could remember it I'd cite it.
The blip about hydrogenated vegetable oils vs. animal fats is absolutely true, partially hydrogenated oils are otherwise known as trans fats and we've recently discovered they're particularly bad for us (wikipedia or google for more info, please). Fortunately I don't make a habit of using them personally. I know there are still a lot of people who do, vegetarian or otherwise - it's a relatively new issue. Unfortunately animal fats contain large amounts of cholesterol. Arguments about how bad cholesterol is for you aside, the plain fact is that any dietary cholesterol is in excess of the body's needs, which is one of the big reasons why you're supposed to limit your intake of animal products to around 6 ounces of meat and eggs per day and a small amount of dairy.
Fuck vegetarianism. If you can prove to me that any animal eaten in the western world is self-aware (by this I mean has a concept of death, ie. my statment does not regard instinct and the feeling of physical pain) then I'll eat rabbit food for the rest of my life.
Regardless, can any of you vegitarians actually justify your stance? You may say "Oh it's cruel to eat other living things, it's not our choice to take their lives!" etc etc, but why? I'm not just trying to make an argument here, it's an honest curiousity. Every vegitarian I've ever spoken to about the matter has simply spouted self-righteous nonsense in an incoherent "holier than thou" manner. Call me uncaring or whatever you will: I eat meat because I enjoy it, but I'm not a vegatarian because I don't percieve animals as being of equal value to humans.
* Intestinal tract length. Carnivorous animals have intestinal tracts that are 3-6x their body length, while herbivores have intestinal tracts 10-12x their body length. Human beings have the same intestinal tract ratio as herbivores.
* Stomach acidity. Carnivores' stomachs are 20x more acidic than the stomachs of herbivores. Human stomach acidity matches that of herbivores.
* Saliva. The saliva of carnivores is acidic. The saliva of herbivores is alkaline, which helps pre-digest plant foods. Human saliva is alkaline.
* Shape of intestines. Carnivore bowels are smooth, shaped like a pipe, so meat passes through quickly - they don't have bumps or pockets. Herbivore bowels are bumpy and pouch-like with lots of pockets, like a windy mountain road, so plant foods pass through slowly for optimal nutrient absorption. Human bowels have the same characteristics as those of herbivores.
* Fiber. Carnivores don't require fiber to help move food through their short and smooth digestive tracts. Herbivores require dietary fiber to move food through their long and bumpy digestive tracts, to prevent the bowels from becoming clogged with rotting food. Humans have the same requirement as herbivores.
* Cholesterol. Cholesterol is not a problem for a carnivore's digestive system. A carnivore such as a cat can handle a high-cholesterol diet without negative health consequences. A human cannot. Humans have zero dietary need for cholesterol because our bodies manufacture all we need. Cholesterol is only found in animal foods, never in plant foods. A plant-based diet is by definition cholesterol-free.
* Claws and teeth. Carnivores have claws, sharp front teeth capable of subduing prey, and no flat molars for chewing. Herbivores have no claws or sharp front teeth capable of subduing prey, but they have flat molars for chewing. Humans have the same characteristics as herbivores.
We're omnivorous, you rhetoric-spouting gob. We eat fucking anything. Plants, animals, bugs, worms, fruits, garbage, little tiny rocks. We could probably drink gasoline if it weren't so bloody expensive.
Yes, factory farms are a drain on the environment. What if people worked (and yes, it could take time!) to reform the industry and make people take responsibility? Is it really a better choice for the environment to decide 'o i will just survive on carrots and soy now thx'? I'm not saying that you yourself do this, but many vegetarians and vegans do practically live on soy products, which are usually highly processed. At least 80% of the U.S.'s soy is genetically modified, and that's just the start of it. Furthermore, the development of soy monocultures is stamping out chunks of rain forest in some areas. It's not that soy isn't good or anything. Fermented soy foods are one of my favorite things on the face of this little blue marble, natto aside. Soy milk is great on cereal.
However, many people overdo it. Many people overdo and misunderstand a lot about vegetarianism. When a Dirty Omnivore thinks you're doing your own lifestyle wrong, there's a problem. There is a vegan girl in my natural history class (environmentalist liberal arts schools FTW :rock who believes:
-Plants are not alive, so we can eat them without guilt
--Was saddened to learn that they are alive, and have been shown by some studies to experience distress
-There are only two classes of animal: carnivore, and herbivore
-Certain carnivorous animals could be reformed to eat only plants, too, so not even that counts
She is a sweet, sweet girl aside, but very misinformed.
So, do I have problems with vegetarianism? No, not really. Done right, it's a healthy, fulfilling diet. On the other hand, I'm sick of whiny, self-important students lording their dietary status over me like they're the Ãœbermensch because they eat Primal Strips instead of beef jerky.
IMO there's nothing wrong with vegetarians, as long as they don't try to make other people vegetarians, everyone chooses for him/herself. But keep in mind that the reasons humans evolved into the modern human was their meat consumption.
One thing that is annoying about the vegetarians is that they only care for some animals, like pigs, sheep and cows. Chickens have a much more terrible life, they can't even move in their cages.
And the pigs and cows are killed quick and painless, while fishes slowly choke on the air, packed together with thousands of other fish.
Last thing I have to say is that there are still extremely many cows and pigs on the earth while the fish are almost extinct.
Cows and pigs taste great, fish tastes horrible, so why not eat meat?
On the other hand, I'm sick of whiny, self-important students lording their dietary status over me like they're the Ãœbermensch because they eat Primal Strips instead of beef jerky.
On the other hand, I'm sick of whiny, self-important students lording their dietary status over me like they're the Ãœbermensch because they eat Primal Strips instead of beef jerky.
You want to know what would happen if everyone suddenly became a Vegetarian Dynasty?
The sudden drop in carnivorous activity would mean that all sources of meat, like livestock for instance, would have a leap in population size. These creatures that we eat are mostly herbivores themselves. They would be a great danger to human food sources. Guess what would have to happen? Governments would initiate "Population control". Millions of animals would die, and then what? Because no one is going to eat them, they'll rot in assigned dump sites and become a waste.
It is a known fact that herbivores tend to grow larger than carnivores. In a few hundred years time, our bodily mass would require nearly twice of what we eat today to stay fully nourished.
In any case, more problems would arise than solved if we suddenly or even gradually became solely herbivores. Not to mention plant life would be heavily scarred by mass consumption, pollutants, insecticides, herbicides, etc.
We could actually shorten the worlds life span with such actions.
Not to mention that greenhouse gases would be on an exponential rise due to the increased population of livestock alone.
It would be a very disgusting world to live in.
Then, let's look at the cultural aspect of vegetarianism. Indigenous populations of all countries have eaten meat since the days of the first caveman. The first world countries are outnumbered greatly by second and third world countries. That small percentage would have a hard time telling the rest of the world that it's better to eat plants when those other countries have been eating meat since the dawn of time. If a man from Britain demanded from an African tribe to become vegetarians, he'd probably be killed for heresy.
We being carnivores is a requirement for nature to continue to function perfectly. Changing such a thing could have drastic consequences.
