Vegans, and Veggies, and Carnivores...Oh My

I am not trying to sway anyone. So far it looks like only Mamma and I are veggies. I was hoping to find a few more to get their reasons. There are lots of reasons people choose to be vegetarians and different degrees of vegetarianism. Some people say that we should eat meat because it is natural and we are all just animals. Some say that we are above animals so we can eat them if we want. Some some we are more enlightened than animals and don't have to report to eating like our ancestors. some say we have the teeth of herbivores or the intestines of a carnivore. Some, it is cultural. I dare say it is easier to be a vegetarian in California (where I live) than in a lot places. It has been pretty easy for me. As a veggie, I am just curious about other people. I don't want anyone to try to convert anyone.

 

I'll eat anything I find appetizing. I love strawberries and kiwis to death, but as I'm typing this, I'm eating fried chicken. I can't say I like too many vegetables... potatoes and carrots... that's about it.

So I hate most vegetables to the point of spitting them out when I try them, and fruits have never been filling at all for me. Don't even get me started on fungi. Even if I wanted to give up meat, I would die of starvation if I did. Perhaps part of the reason why fruits aren't filling for me is the fact that I have an extremely fast metabolism; it isn't unusual for me to start munching again soon after getting home from Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner. Whatever the reason, I can't live a satisfied life without meat.

Naturally, I have no beef with vegetarians (pun intended... maybe?). Heck, my best friend is vegetarian. Can't offer any insight as to why, though. Maybe I'll ask her when I next speak to her.

 

The trouble is this is a debate that can go on and on and on. The simple fact is we are all individuals who know what we want. Some of us love the taste of meat and others don't.

I can accept a persons views on what they eat. What I don't accept is these that come and say your evil and a murderer for eating meat. At the end of the day as a race of living intelligent beings we have to respect each person’s views.

Look at it like this. If you like the taste you'll eat it, if you don't you won't. Like Marmite or Bovril some like it some don't.

Though I do love a bacon sandwich and a really tasty juicy cheese burger. And a well cooked pork joint and a beef steak medium rare.

 

Mother nature is so cruel to her children she makes Frank Perdue look like a saint.

- Mark Sagoff

Yeah, because the life of domesicated animals would be so much brighter if they were liberated...

 

PETA seems to feel that way. They are a little too extreme for me.

 

I think i would lose so much weight if I became vegetarian, also fruit and veg where i live isn't very exciting. I only eat chicken, turkey and sea food - i guess because i don't care much for them , whereas i think cows are really sweet animals. I've also went off dairy, as I find it weird to drink a product made for calves. Also i wonder why we chose to use cows and not another mammal's milk.

 

Cows are the most popular milk animals, but you can also get goat milk and cheese. My husband actually never had cow milk until he was an adult. He was raised on goat milk. It is actually supposed ot be more easily digestible. It is strange for adult humans to drink something made for infant cows. But it tastes good, and I love cheese.

 

Not to derail, but....

The vast majority of the world's population is lactose intolerant to a significant degree. Milk (of any kind) is made for baby mammals and most peoples lose the ability to produce the enzyme to break down milk at around five years of age.

Milk is for babies.

Lactose Intolerance World Wide

 

That is why the good Lord gave us Lactaid...so I can still enjoy my icecream and grilled cheese sammiches

 

With crispy bacon!

I know, not for you, for ME!

 

I use soy bacon...it tastes good...not exactly like the real thing...but WAY less fat

 

Now this is something I find somewhat humorous. Vegetarians eat soy bacon, soy burgers, soy hot dogs, and other all-vegetable foods made to simulate animal0based foods.

When was the last time you saw a carnivore picking up a meat product made to simulate a meatless delicacy?

 

There are candies that are made with gelatin that are made to simulate fruits. Gelatin is a meat product.

 

Hmmm....if I shape my hamburgers like broccoli, will they be more appealing? LOL


(sorry...drat my weak impulse control)

 

Just wondering (i.e. not insinuating anything) but is it true that most vegetarians 'sneak' meat but just don't admit it? I've heard a lot of people say that. I mean, seems like simulated soy-bacon is a small step away from real bacon.


Humans are designed to eat meat. If you were starving out in the jungle your principles would be out the window so fast you'd forget you ever were a vegetarian.

 

I have never sneaked meat. As for "principals" going out the window when hungry enough...you are assuming a reason for being vegetarian is based on the principle of it being immoral to eat meat. There are other reasons. I have a coworker with a rare kidney disease who CAN'T eat meat or his kidneys will stop working. A vegetarian whose objection is to the current industry and how meat gets from animal to the store is not necesarily going to have a problem with catching a rabbit and eating it. That isn't supporting the industry. For me, I don't have to eat meat. I have the luxury of finding it distasteful and prioritizing an animals life over my instant gratification. If I had to eat meat to survive I would. But I don't have to. So, I don't. It is a luxury to have such an abundance of food that I can choose to disregard half of what is available.

 

...not if they're vegetarians for moral reasons... which is why i am one and could never 'cheat'... though those who are for health reasons probably do...

exactly... which is why i find it completely morally unacceptable to eat any of the 'faked' products, since you'd still be symbolically eating your fellow animals, even if not killing them to do so...

...wishful-thinking balderdash!... the study of humans' biological/physiological makeup and history of changes in same proves otherwise... for just one f'rinstance, the appendix was originally meant/used for digesting seeds and nuts... and when man started eating his fellow creatures instead, it gradually atrophied into a useless organ that often needs to be removed...

...for another, the tooth you carnivores like to call a 'canine' was actually meant/used to strip open reed-like plants to obtain the nutritious pith within... and was never designed as a meat-tearer such as real carnivores sport... nor has it been used for that bloody purpose since man started eating meat, as it's neither positioned nor shaped for that...

...neither mine nor any other moral vegetarian's principles would!... besides which, how could anyone be starving in a jungle, where there's so much edible vegetation handy and where your fellow animals are more likely to eat you, than v/v?...

 

I disagree. I am not "symbolically" eating an animal. I am just eating something that goes well on a hamburger patty and tastes good BBQed or something to provide some texture and protein to my spaghetti sauce. I don't expect it tast like real beef. I am not thinking about eating a cow when I eat a veggie burger. Fake bacon is so fake that my dogs' beggin' strips smell more like real bacon. They are a way to get some variety, to be able to modify existing recipes to be veggie freindly, to have something to throw on the BBQ at a picnic. If I am not hurting an animal, I don't see how is can hurt my morals to eat a tofu dog.

 

Whenever I think about what it would be like to go veggi one question pops into my mind. It's not my reason to keep eating meat, just an interesting thought that nags at me. Wether you're taking the life of an animal or the life of a plant you're still taking a life, it's just that we empathize better with animals than we do with plants.

 

There are some people who take it so far that they will only eat plants that are either annuals and would die anyway or that come off of the plant without killing it. I do empathize more wiht animals than with plants. I feel sorry for anyhting with a central nervous system, especially a brain. They can feel fear and pain. They can fight for survival. They can scream. They can trash. They can run in fear. A carrot doesn't do that. It isn't able to demonstrate to me that it feels anything. Besides, I have to eat something. I will take the lesser of two evils and kill plants. I do it when I try to garden or keep houseplants often enough. LOL

 

plants and animals are of different 'kingdoms'... thus, when you eat a fellow animal, you break the 'essential trinity'... the natural cycle of of 'animal, vegetable, and mineral' and commit what amounts to 'cannibalism' since you're eating your own 'kind' and not one of the other two, as was meant...

here's the rationale, if you doubt the logic:
http://saysmom.com/maia/content.asp?Writing=46

 

So... Just by going off of this post (the link wouldn't open for me for some reason), carnivorous and omnivorous animals are going against nature when they eat another animal?

 

I'm sorry. but this statement makes absolutely no sense. Not only does nature only generally work as you and this weird, weird web site describe, but this source also seems to tell us to reform the sharks and crocodiles. Apparently those animals just were silly to evolve that way. Of course!

The site you point to that is supposed to 'explain' everything is just plain funny.
'One species of animal eats another: hideous, lethal disorders result.' is one that made me chuckle. It is not like we trained the hyper-carnivores of this planet to eat herbivores and omnivores.

Even if I had a doubt of eating meat, websites like that would only make me want to go out back and grab a deer steak out of the freezer. I like meat. Meat has much more protein in it that roughage does. And I hardly think that if you got stuck in a situation where you either ate meat or starved, you would starve to death. Self preservation instincts are highly under-estimated.

 

you're lucky. I feel dumber.

 

This thread is making me hungry....

I like meat. I don't care about animals. As far as I'm concerned, they're here to amuse me or be eaten. I'm big on conservation, but not interested in animal rights.

Having said that, people are being a bit dismissive of vegetarianism in this thread.

Vegetarianism is simpler than you think. Honestly, it isn't some bizarre balancing act to remain healthy as a vegetarian. Where it is, it's got more to do with the way we've set up our food networks than the facts of human physiology. Vegetarianism is a way of life for millions of people, ranging from rich vegans in LA to dirt poor peasants in India.

Vegetarianism is also a lot more sustainable than eating meat. The meat industry does a lot of damage to the environment. The rainforest is logged to make hamburgers, masses of arable land is used to grow food for cows (an alarmingly inefficient way of making protein), and so on.

So, if I could wave my hand and force the world over to a universal vegetarian diet, I'd do it. The environmental benefits would be awesome, and as a bonus, there'd be fewer fat people.

But, I can't, so I continue to eat meat.

With that thought: Who here has killed their own meat?