Moral doesn't seem to bother this guy ?

I eat meat and I wouldn't go a day with out it. I do believe the current animal farming is cruel and immoral, and by me eating the meat I am contributing to the problem, But I just couldn't give it up... lol

PolyTrip:

Well that isn't my argument. Pigs are more intelligent than say a Frog, and I would choose to eat a Pig because it has more meat and would keep me going for longer, plus the meat is much more versatile and I could make a whole array of dishes from one single pig using the different cuts - plus you could make leather from the skin (you don't wear leather do you?) - this would take A LOT of frogs to achieve the same effect. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

We evolved as hunter gatherers - 'gathering' was only a part of our diet.

Now with regards to aliens coming to prey on human beings - would they really eat humans just on the premise that they eat other sentient organisms? Maybe they would also enjoy some Lionburger or Sharkburger??? If they were higher up on the food chain, then sure, maybe they would eat humans as well, or maybe they would find other uses for us?

What if these aliens were herbivorous locust like beings? What if they ate all our crops, and were thoroughly disinterested in meat? They would force all human beings to become carnivorous... heck, the aliens may well be very tasty themselves They may even beso destructive that they eat all of our rainforests, crops etc, so that earth becomes entirely uninhabitable for us terrestrial organisms.

But then again that is all speculation since we know absolutely nothing about alien life forms, if they exist at all...

There is some truth here, but currently we are actually growing huge numbers of crops just to feed animals. So we get the worst of both worlds.

For sure more farms need to go the organic route. Here in the north east I see quite a bit of organic farming. Times are slowing changing.

For me vegetarianism is about minimizing my personal impact. I don't deny that I still leave a foot print on this planet...in fact I don't deny that I need to shrink my foot print more. It's all about being, and increasing awareness of how we integrate into the ecosystem.


I personally think that 500 years from now humans will look out our generations of meat eating just as we do those that owned slaves. During the hey day of the slave trade many made strong arguments for the morality of owning slaves. Seems pretty hard to imagine that from our current stance eh? I suspect future generations will feel the same about factory farming and killing to live.

Peace.

I always find it interesting to see how prickly meat eaters get in the presence of vegetarians- it's like our very existence is enough to make them defensive. If you're no doing anything wrong, why the defensive attitude?

That said, let's state a root fact here: humans are omnivores. We evolved to thrive on virtually any diet. Therefore, we have both healthy and unhealthy meat eaters, healthy and unhealthy vegetarians. It's about your approach and your awareness, whether or not you acknowledge and respect the source of that food, etc.

At 20 years without a bite of meat, it's safe to say I'm not about to drop dead from lack of creatine. I am in my mid 40's and am much healthier than most of my peers. But I also have friends who are into organic farm-raised meat, buy it straight from the farmer, honor it... And they seem healthier than the other "normal" carnivores around them.

When my wife was pregnant she had occasional cravings for fish, which went down well, no gastric stress even after 18 years without meat. Again, we are omnivores.

What we eat really is a choice, based on our personalities and philosophies. Let's stop pretending we have a medical "need" for one type of diet or another- that's a ridiculous argument which flies in the face of thousands of years of experience. The meat-free diet is not some new experimental fad!

BTW, we saw the Dalai Lama speak last year. He talked about how he was pushing the Himalayan monasteries toward a less meat- intensive diet. For moral reasons.

Meat is good. Nothing wrong with eating meat, how most of us get our meat is wrong though. If creatures were not suppose to eat each other we wouldn't have lions and tigers and jaguars. We wouldn't have canine teeth to shred and tear meat if we were not evolved to eat meat. Many creatures have evolved as omnivores, including us humans.

Its great if you want to become a raw vegan, but too often these people get the holier than thou complex. Looking down at us who cook, and eat flesh. So by thinking they are better than us omnivores they are doing themselves more of a disservice to their spiritual enlightenment than what would happen if they ate meat.

As a note I did not get this holier than thou attitude with the comments here, although I mostly skimmed them. I speak from personal experience of people I am friends with, have been friends with, or associated with.

Thank you for bringing this up. This is something I notice a whole lot in my experience, by simply being someone who chooses to eat whole natural foods and avoid animal products you are somehow calling the values of those who do eat these things into question. As you described it, they seem to get very prickly and many even retort to ridiculing and and belittling the crazy health freak as some kind of defense mechanism, as if my simply eating a salad at lunch is somehow threatening to the entirety of their belief system.

Why is it strange to want food that is nutritious and contributes to good health? Why are you some kind of outcast freak in this society if you believe in eating food that is not filled with all kinds of junk that that is known to cause ill health and disease, such as petroleum byproducts like yellow 5 and blue 2 etc... nuerotoxins like msg, preservatives like potassium and sodium benzoate, and concentrated refined sugar products such as high fructose corn syrup? Just to name a few of the moar common ones.

It's a weird wold when having a little common sense makes you some kind of anomonly.

Just read Guyomechs statement on the prickly meat eaters. I think it is because of the vegans holier than thou attitude they can have that gets them defensive. I guess I live in rural farm land, and so this is their livelihood. Pretty much all these small farmers I know are also against factory farms, and although may not be organic, still farm in a more respectful traditional sense. And they feel threatened by someone saying they dont have the right, or are immoral.

And all in all no one wants to be told what to do, or that their way of life is wrong.

A well balanced, respectful diet is best. The male in-laws have the manly man attitude, and me and the wife go there and make veggie lasagna or spaghetti or something like that, and the father-in-law wont even eat it. Well there's no meat on there, that aint food. So now we make sure to use some of his venison whenever we make it, but keep in all the veggies. He would barely eat it the first time, now is his favorite food almost. Its crazy seeing the attitude some people have towards veggies........

Belief System=BS. And it MUST ALWAYS be defended.

All true! As mentioned by many in this discussion, there are both healthy and unhealthy ways to go about any choice of lifestyle. Whether or not you eat meat is far less relevant than whether or not you are concious of the energy embodied in your food choices.

At risk of stating the obvious: we are all cybernauts here. Common understanding: reality is flexible, mutable. You are the pilot. Why waste energy being judgemental?

[quote=Purges]We evolved as hunter gatherers - 'gathering' was only a part of our diet.quote]

Hmmm, do you have a source for that? While it is true that we have been eating meat for a long long time, there is no evidence really to prove that we have evolved such complex nervous systems with meat as part of our diet. The most convinving theory is that we evolved such complex brains back in the tropical forests of africa as mainly fruitarians, with some leafs and nuts and seeds etc.

There are a number of reasons that this theory outweighs the probability of the savannah theory-that we evolved on the savannah on a diet consisting of lots of meat. We did become human so there was some change and some researchers think that some of our ancestors did leave the forests and then return to the forests and that the ones who left and stayed on the savannah eventually died out and these are some of the primate species we find and assume are earlier forms of man-but it might not be that simple.

Anyway my point is that saying we evolved eating meat is not entirely true. We have eaten meat for a long time, but we deveoloped the nervous system we have a LONG time ago and the evidence just does not support the idea that it happened as meat eaters.

This is sort of way way too complex to get into here though and I am no evolutionary biologist. Get the book left in the dark if you want something that will cover many of the bases of evolutionary theory and diet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtgY5JFGIeE

There is a good interview to watch with tony wright that refutes the idea that we evolved essentially as meat eaters. Forget the fact that it is on consciousTV cus they air some weird stuff. He is getting more support though from respected people and Dennis Mckenna wrote and introduction to the newer copy of his book. I think he is bigger in the UK but you need to read the book if you really want to understand the theory behind all of this. The book is filled with studies that were done that all support the idea that we evolved as fruitarians. This is not a new age book.

We don´t need meat. You can only obtain meat by killing an animal. All animals and especially highly evolved mammals, have a counsciousness like us (since they have brains like us) and are therefore capable of suffering like us. Therefore eating meat is an unnecessary contribution to unnecessary suffering.

It´s that simple.

Culture, tradition or 'it tastes so good' don´t change any of those facts. It´s just immoral.

I don´t care about the 'holier than thou' attitude. I have no problems with feeling morally superiour to thieves either: I don´t steal so i have all the right to feel that i´m morally better than a thief.

If you don´t want me to feel better than you because i´m a vegetarian, then simply stop eating meat.

If you realy think that contributing to the unnecessary killing of sentient beings doesn´t make you morally less evolved than someone who doesn´t do that, than any argument is a waste of time.

I would just like to say that if my comments in any way came off as 'prickly' or what ever, that I respect (and in some senses envy) those of you who have chosen to go vegetarian, vegan or raw -- it must take a lot of research, strength and perseverance to get to that level of living day to day, as well as putting up with the comments of the more boorish members of society, which must get rather tedious.

It is a choice though, and there are two sides to every coin, hence why I presented my side of the argument. Hopefully even the most hardcore of you can see that it is not as black and white as some like to make it. Joedirt put this very humbly and eloquently and I do admire that attitude. And yes mate, I am much moar conscious of my 'footprint' these days as well.

It is very interesting and eye opening for me to have these discussions - I remember one discussion where there was a lot of talk about raw food and Jamie (at the time 'Fractal Enchantment' really opened my eyes to the possibilities of raw food - I even spent the afternoon looking at recipes and familiarizing with the ethos a little better.

Point being, I love that this community are so open and respectful of other's approach to life - you really are an inspiration and who knows, maybe a few years down the line I may join your ranks, I haven't reached that point yet though, but it is certainly something I give a lot more thought these days.

<3

For the past 1.5 years, I have eaten at least 15lbs of red meat per week. It has been my largest calorie source for that time, although I will eat eggs, cheese, butter, etc as needed. I try to keep carbs extremely low. My immune system is much stronger than it used to be. I am lean and strong, have high energy levels, great skin, etc. I received much opposition from friends when I started eating this way, but I must say that not ONE prediction of theirs has come true. I am not constipated, I do not have oily zitty skin, I have not turned into an angry hormonal mess. Quite the opposite, actually. I have not one single health issue of any sort, and subjectively feel better than ever.

The moral issue seems to get much attention, but it's always a one sided discusision. There is nothing moral or natural about modern agriculture either, even if it's organic. They still gotta kill the gophers and moles that invade the fields, and do whatever other killing is necessary to keep Mother Nature from reappropriating the lands. Left alone, land becomes part of the surrounding ecosystem. And a complex ecosystem is NOT what I see when driving by farms around here.

I don't need to convince anyone really. I'd prefer that my meat stay reasonably priced anyways. Just wanted to point out a few facts that get continually glossed over.

I'm sure I could find quite a few sources to back this up, just as I am sure you could find your own sources to back up your hypothesis. I'm sure the truth exists some where in between.

Now, let's have a look at our closest evolutionary ancestors. Chimpanzees. they certainly won't turn their noses up at a bit of meat, they will even cannibalise. I have video evidence of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7XuXi3mqYM

Now this serves a few purposes in my view -
It broadens their territory, they have probably for ever frightened the competition from their turf, which is a positive for the chimps in the long term.

It provides protein and iron and other things that are in short supply in most of the fruit and vegetation that they eat.

And also this sort of pack mentality is important for the survival of this particular species. it hones their strategical combat skills for times when they themselves are under threat from other primates, big cats etc

Now meat may not be their primary food source granted, but then consider when people were moving further north to inhabit colder climates. They would have had to endure times of great hardship when the land was covered in snow and ice and there was very little vegetation to be seen, let alone eaten. they would have had to adapt their diets to suit their environment. So there would have been dried fruits, grains which store for a long time and so on, but that wouldn't be able to entirely sustain them remember that this is pre-agriculture, which was certainly a game changer.

So yes, for these reasons I believe eating meat became a fundamental part of our evolution very early on.

^yeah I wont argue with that, chimps do eat meat. I think there have been some groups that were found it eat less meat or none..cant remember where I read that though.

What interests me is Bonobos. Bonobos are the closest primate to us, and they eat very little to no meat at all. Meat is usually only eaten in the absence of other foods. Bonobos will eat fruits bascially exclusivly in many cases and then nuts and seeds when fruits are less available and meat is usually last resort. They are also observed to become more agressive the most meat they eat.

I am not super qualified to explain all of this though. This is why I say to people to read left in the dark if you want to understand this point of view for yourself and the research that is behind it. I read the book but I cant site every study in the book etc. If you study this in depth you will find that the line is blurry though. We dont really know all of this yet so discussion is good.

I think that a better alternative for meat as a true ancestrial food is insects.

Meat seems almost essential in a northern clime, I'll say that much. Back in the jungle and during primary evolution however is debatable. But I don't feel like debating. I'll suffice it to say the book jamie mentions posits a rather strong argument.



About the holier than thou thing....I was vegetarian, then vegan a long time ago. And preachy about it! Not this time around, not at all.


Since quiting meat again I'm pretty happy that all my food scraps are now compost (or chicken feed). My trash bin is less and less full all the time. (meat makes nasty compost).

By the way, I completely agree with what some have mentioned in this thread, that one can still be responsible for the death and suffering of some animals (and general unsustainability) or even human beings, even being vegetarians.

If one wants to diminish as much as possible the suffering caused by being alive in this planet, which i find a good goal, then we must look at all sorts different aspects.. For example, questions to be asked: Is one using cosmetic products (shampoos toothpaste etc included) from big companies or anything that isnt local/organic/non-animal-tested? Does one smoke cigarretes (cigarrete companies make ton of animal testing) ? What about clothes, where are the clothes coming from (often from practically slave/over-exploited conditions? What about electronics, how often is one buying things, changing mobile phones, buying computers and gadgets (considering all electronic equipment comes at huge costs, social, ecological, etc)? What about the food, even if its organic, is it local? If not, the transport has huge costs and might be counter-productive. Does one use public transport? Is one consuming medication coming from pharmaceutical industry, or even supplement vitamins from these big companies? Are vegetables/grains consumed coming from big monocultures? etc etc etc

Just being vegetarian/vegan should not be enough imo to ease one's conscience, and I often see a lot of contradictions that some vegetarians/vegans fail to recognize in themselves (but of course, each one for their own, I can only work on myself in the end... I guess better something than nothing, but then at least these people should not preach on others). The effort to diminish footprint, not harm animals, people and the world, is something that continues every single day and that involves thinking and questioning every choice in daily life to find the best least harmful way in a given context, unless you are completely isolated and living in a self-sustainable land.