Vegetarianism

[Zelfouz]

vegetables are deficient in b12, b6, protein, phosphorus, sodium, iron, manganese.

B12 I have already discussed on two separate occasions in this same thread, so I will not comment on it again.

One source of B6 is whole grains. It's also in nuts, such as peanuts.

Protein; My god, don't get me started. The Standard American Diet contains so much more protein from the huge quantities of meat eaten than is necessary for humans to thrive. Protein can literally be found in anything, and we don't need NEARLY as much as most people think we need. If you are concerned, excellent sources of protein are nuts and beans and whole grains. Unless you're anorexic, the risk of becoming deficient is negligible.

Phosphorus is present in beans, nuts, seeds, and cereals.

Sodium is in salt. Need more sodium? Just add salt. WOW.

Iron is present in green leafy vegetables, beans, peas, and other legumes. Whole grains, and seeds have it too. No problems here.

Manganese is only required in trace amounts anyway and can also be acquired from several different sources. It's in breads, cereals and grains in pretty hefty quantities. There are shittons of the stuff in pineapple.

A lot of the nutrients you mentioned (with the exception of B12, which does need to be supplemented somehow I agree) are available in trace amounts in almost all types of food. A diet with a wide variety of foods will for the most part ensure that you get enough of what you require.

vegetarian diets are excellent for kidney health, heart health, liver health, and galbladder health. it reduces fat in the body, reduces cholesterol (note: some people with a certain condition get WORSE cholesterol on vegetarian diets but that's very rare), and may ward off most forms of cancer.

Emphasis mine. Given that heart disease kills more people than anything else, I would consider reducing the risk of that to be a very high priority. Especially if heart disease runs in your family, as it does in mine.

vegetarian diets, however, increase levels of oxalic acid, potasssium, and zinc. That wouldn't be a problem, except when you get too much of it (which is easy on a vegan diet), you greatly increase the risk of testicular/ovarian cancer, or other genitourinary conditions.

I am not familiar with this. I'll get back to you after looking up more information.

I think you are incorrect about the difficulty in maintaining the presence of these nutrients in our bodies. But I could be completely wrong. In general, however, most vegetarians and vegans ARE undoubtedly healthier than the general public (possibly because the general public eats way too much fast food). As I stated a few posts ago, I do not believe there is anything wrong if someone merely cuts down the meat in their diet. For me personally, I consider the ethical reasons to be of utmost importance and would take a nutritional suplement if I were deficient in any nutrients. I have not needed to do this, though.

 

[Venetia]

i thought you were asking about straight vegetables, not including nuts and stuff.

um it's a proven fact that vegans are not healthy people unless they take massive supplements, and it's also a proven fact that supplements are not better than getting the real thing.

also you can't get fatty acids from any vegetable.

so if you're vegetarian just for being healthy then you're a retard if you TOTALLY cut out meat. meat is cheaper than supplements and is better. you NEED fat. you NEED the things meat gives you. meat is not evil. you're designed to eat it.

i agree that americans eat too much meat but we're not talking about lardasses who live on mcdonald's, we're talking about maintianing a typical healthy diet.

if you're a vegetarian because of beliefs or whatever, fine, i don't care. just don't feed me a line of bullshit in saying that people don't need the things meat gives us at all, because without supplements and a very carefully planned diet you'd be pretty bad off.

we're designed to eat it. it's good for us. deal with it and stop trying to rub your beliefs off on people.

i swear, preachy vegans are just like preachy baptists. trying to convert people with guilt. fuck that.

 

[Zelfouz]

i thought you were asking about straight vegetables, not including nuts and stuff.

This topic is about vegetarianism and similar diets. I was referring to anything that a vegetarian or someone on a similar diet would eat.

um it's a proven fact that vegans are not healthy people unless they take massive supplements, and it's also a proven fact that supplements are not better than getting the real thing.

I would like to see your sources on where this fact is proven. From looking at http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/health.html and the references it gives, it appears to me that a vegan diet that is not properly planned is not optimal, so you're right in general. But one that is planned properly can be very healthy. At any rate, a vegetarian diet is definitely very healthy compared to the standard, based on this reference http://www.vegetarian-diet.info/health- ... n-diet.htm

also you can't get fatty acids from any vegetable.

No. But it's present in seeds and nuts, which vegetarians and vegans can and do eat.

so if you're vegetarian just for being healthy then you're a retard if you TOTALLY cut out meat. meat is cheaper than supplements and is better. you NEED fat. you NEED the things meat gives you. meat is not evil. you're designed to eat it.

Meat is very far from being cheap to produce. Huge amounts of land, water, and crops are required to raise livestock. This should be reflected in the cost of meat, but it is not, because the government subsidizes farms who produce meat with tax payer money. Source: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=11&year=2007&base_name=how_subsidies_change_your_worl

You're right that you're a retard if you just chop meat out of your diet without consideration for getting the nutrients it contains elsewhere. My only point is that all of the nutrients CAN be attained elsewhere, easily.

if you're a vegetarian because of beliefs or whatever, fine, i don't care. just don't feed me a line of bullshit in saying that people don't need the things meat gives us at all, because without supplements and a very carefully planned diet you'd be pretty bad off.

we're designed to eat it. it's good for us. deal with it and stop trying to rub your beliefs off on people.

i swear, preachy vegans are just like preachy baptists. trying to convert people with guilt. fuck that.

You've clearly taken me to be much more offensive than I intended to be. I never once stated that I thought anyone else in this thread should change, nor have I attempted to guilt anyone into doing anything. The only thing I'm saying is that, if the only reason you think vegetarians or vegans are wrong is because "we're supposed to be omnivores!!" your reasoning is faulty, because all of the nutrients in meat can be acquired elsewhere. I agree completely that everyone should eat whatever they want for whatever reasons they want. I just don't believe the claim that we are omnivores is a valid criticism.

eta:
If the part of my last message you took offense at was when I stated that my own ethical reasons are important enough to me that I would be willing to supplement if I had to (but I don't need to), I apologise. I didn't intend to imply that I think anyone who does not share my diet is in any way evil. I do what I do for my own personal reasons and beliefs. I hold nothing against anyone who doesn't share these.

 

[Venetia]

i didn't really read all of that because i'm losing interest but i wasn't attacking you, sorry, i hate and was attacking extremist vegans who judge omnivores and try to convert them, they are like a vomit. i realize now i said "you" and i meant "veggie assholes"

 

[Twirly]

I think people eat to much meat. It would be enough to eat meat one time a week or two.

 

[rey meustrus]

Hello.

I'm heading towards less meat in my own diet, though it's because of the people around me.  There's one, and only one, purpose to eliminating meat from your diet.  It's a protest.  It isn't a protest that doesn't need to be made (loving the double negative); treatment of mass produced animals is horrendous.  But, as has been said amply before in here, pure herbivorism is unhealthy and unnatural.  It's a sacrifice that needs to be made.

As for myself...I'm going to have to learn to replace the lost nutrients.  I suspect that the topic here shouldn't be whether vegetarianism is good or bad (since we all have conflicting opinions and we'll get nowhere bashing each other), but things to remember about a vegetarian diet.

 

[terramaster]

There's one, and only one, purpose to eliminating meat from your diet.  It's a protest. 

Not quite. Most meats take alot of energy to digest. Alot of people don't eat meat for the extra energy. Religion depicting life as scared is far from protest in my opinion.

Some (but not all) meat-bearing animals are treated poorly is something hardly to protest. I think because most cows and the like are now domesticated and bred for no other purpose than meat, there is no point in letting them go to waste rotting or into the belly of another animal (as nature would have had it). Cows have no way of defending themselves and would probably die any other way. Ants do similar things with worms and such.

pure herbivorism is unhealthy and unnatural

Veganism is a whole other ball of wax, but allot of it is still healthy and more natural than eating meat (most meat you commonly find is now processed >_>).

 

[rey meustrus]

If you're going to go about talking about processed foods, then you'll have a hard time proving that anybody's diet is natural unless they live in a cottage at Walden.

 

[Venetia]

well, the best anyone can do (outside of people who grow their own food) is hope that the produce and whole meats they buy at the market are processed as little as possible.

i mean, when you see a tomato, there's a chance that there was some genetic manipulation with it at some point in the generations before it, but otherwise a tomato is a tomato, it really can't be processed more than that, unless they started injecting shit into it (why?), or unless it was literally seeped in so much pesticide that it permeated the fruit (and that'd be toxic).

 

[rey meustrus]

As for tomatoes themselves...they are seriously genetically engineered to be tougher than "natural" tomatoes.  This is so that they do not bruise when machine harvested.  I've never eaten any other kind of tomato so I can't attest to it personally, but I've heard that these tomatoes are highly inferior by taste and texture.  In their defense, though, had tomatoes not been genetically engineered then farmers would have been unable to produce them at a good enough profit, causing them to grow other crops and lower the supply of tomatoes until their market price rose to meet production costs.  It's the consequence of the modern economy, and I certainly wouldn't say I like it.

 

[Ellie]

This is what a tomato should look like:

http://www.southernexposure.com/Merchan ... Tomato.jpg

Near enough everything is genetically engineered to some extent. Tomatoes to look like consumers want them to, wheat crops to grow taller, chickens to be fatter, cows to produce more milk, etc.

 

[shadow]

wtf those are tomatos? i thought tomatos were round

 

[Luminier]

wtf those are tomatos? i thought tomatos were round

this is the single cutest thing ive heard in at least three months

 

[Gruuberhans]

I'm not a veggie at all, and there's no way I could ever give up meat. But if i we were all cavemen and I had to hunt for my own meat, then screw it, plant some seeds.

.....Fish is pretty easy to catch though. o_O

 

[Tachiba]

I tried it once for a week.  But after 15 minutes I went out to Burger King.

Personally, I cant stand PETA.  It's true that some companies abuse their animals, but why suddenly become a vegitarian cuz of that, when it's OK for carnivores such as Lions, Tigers, and Panthers to eat meat.  Even other omnivores could eat meat, and no one'd care.

It's alright to become a vegitarian if youy dont like meat, but because of that, nah.

 

[rey meustrus]

Like I said, removing meat from your diet is protesting the treatment of processed animals.  Just as effective of a protest would be to raise your own animals free range and kill, skin, prepare, and cook them yourselves, though most people that would protest the poor treatment of such animals probably couldn't stomach all of that.

 

[Button]

just for your information. it is proven that most fruits are still "alive" when being eaten. and who is to say that a piece of fruit dosent feel pain. im annoyed at organisations like peta because they only wanna save the cute and fluffy animals and screw the rest

 

[___]

I have been vegan (dietarily, not in the I protest outside animal testing facilities and splash people with red paint for wearing fur sense, asshole activists are retarded) for 7 years or so now. According to every doctor I've seen during the duration I'm in perfect health, within an ideal weight range, astonishingly low blood cholesterol levels (the body produces all the cholesterol its needs from fats, dietary cholesterol from animal products has no positive impact on health, so the lower you go to a certain point the better), normal range blood pressure, etc.

I'm a bit of a wimp because I'm way too much of a geek to get away from the computer / books to get any exercise, but when I do rarely go out I have no problem walking several miles in an afternoon, hiking for two or three days straight, etc. I wouldn't brag about my weightlifting ability but I am reasonably fit for a person with a sedentary lifestyle, and I have no trouble building muscle mass or any of the other typical stereotypes you'd imagine.

Here's the best part though, besides the obvious I pay almost zero attention to what I eat. I know how to cook pretty well and I include a variety of foods in my diet, but the stories you hear about having to specifically plan meals or mix protein sources or whatever is utter nonsense from where I'm standing. Besides a daily multivitamin, the same kind many adults already take, I pay absolutely no attention to specific nutrition and it hasn't seemed to cause me any problems. The only vitamin you really have to worry about is B12, which is only present in ruminant animal products because it's produced by soil bacteria, which we tend to wash off the vegetables we eat. You can replace that by taking a daily vitamin or drinking a red bull or other energy drinks on a regular basis. The body recycles B12 very efficiently, so it's not a huge deal - some nutritionists estimate you can go 5-10 years without B12 before you start exhibiting symptoms of deficiency.

My reasons were mostly health; after high school I started gaining a lot of weight, got up to nearly 200 pounds and was getting short of breath climbing the stairs to my apartment. I decided I had enough, and went looking into good plans for diet and exercise; a few online acquaintances pointed me in the right direction and I started reading. I learned a few things that really shocked me about the treatment of animals in factory farms, and modern farming methods that were just disgusting from a sanitary and ethical standpoint. I also learned it takes about 30 pounds of feedstock to produce a pound of beef, which to me doesn't make sense when we are dealing with famine.  A variety of other facts and statistics that tended to show a serious reduction in animal product consumption would have positive impacts on my life and potentially on a social scale sealed the deal for me.

Other than relating personal anecdotes I'm not interested in debate on the topic, there's a thread about a year ago that I already spent a ton of time in dispelling common myths and ignorance about the subject which you can find here in the Symposium if you're curious.  Good luck to you whatever your personal choice ends up being.

Oh as a footnote, if they dropped the bomb tomorrow and I couldn't get a variety of foods necessary to maintain my health I would have no problem snapping little bunny fufu's neck and eating him raw; I know how to hunt, trap and fish better than the average Joe. Realistically speaking though I seriously doubt that's going to happen.

 

[FlippyD]

just for your information. it is proven that most fruits are still "alive" when being eaten. and who is to say that a piece of fruit dosent feel pain. im annoyed at organisations like peta because they only wanna save the cute and fluffy animals and screw the rest

Fruit doesn't feel pain because it doesn't have a brain to feel pain for it, or receptor sites, or neuropeptides.

 

[Button]

oh i see well its still a living thing thats eaten alive