Meat/veg-eaters need to compromise for sake of environment
When people ask if I'm a vegetarian, I always feel like they are disappointed in my answer: I'm mostly a vegetarian. They immediately look underwhelmed: I'm basically telling them that I don't have enough willpower to fully commit, and they think I'm some poser who doesn't take animal rights or the environment seriously.
But I'm not the only one who sees being mostly vegetarian (aka flexitarian) as a positive, worthwhile endeavor -- Graham Hill, founder of treehugger.com, gave this TEDTalk about vegetarianism which is fantastic. I encourage everyone to watch it -- it's only four minutes long, and it outlines his "weekday veg" diet. He doesn't eat meat Monday through Friday, leaving the weekends open for meat if he chooses.
It doesn't mean he will eat meat on the weekend, but he doesn't have to feel guilty for falling off the bandwagon or relapsing into meat. It differs from flexitarianism (which aims to decrease meat consumption generally) by creating a guideline that is easy to remember: as Hill puts it, he won't eat "anything with a face" Monday through Friday, so you simply check the day of the week and that will tell you if meat is an option. More than a diet, it is a lifestyle change.
Hill says it best when he discusses the downside to meat:
I knew that eating a mere hamburger a day can increase my risk of dying by a third. Cruelty, I knew that the 10 billion animals we raise each year for meat, are raised in factory farm conditions that we, hypocritically, wouldn't even consider for our own cats, dogs and other pets.
Environmentally, meat, amazingly, causes more emissions than all of transportation combined, cars, trains, planes, buses, boats, all of it. And beef production uses 100 times the water that most vegetables do.
Meat production is terrible. Animals are wedged into cages next to each other, chickens have their beaks shaved down so they can't peck at each other because they are in such close quarters, and you can imagine the sanitary conditions (or rather, lack thereof) at a place where animals are smashed together into cages.
Combine the disgusting treatment of the animals with the amount of water used in the meat production process and the pollution it creates, not to mention the pollution from the animals themselves and the factories, plus the grain used to feed all the animals, and there is a lot of environmental degradation going on.
But asking people to just stop eating meat isn't as simple as it sounds -- vegetarians and vegans can be elitist and judgmental of people who can't stick to a strict meatless or animal-product-less diet, and meateaters can be elitist and judgmental of people who don't eat meat or animal products.
Neither side wants to budge -- meateaters don't want to sacrifice eating meat forever, and vegetarians inherently feel like they are making a deal with the devil if they condone eating meat. "Weekday veg" is a compromise between the two, but both sides need to accept that compromise and some additional "best practice" rules, like trying to eat free-range and grass-fed animal products.
People who cut meat out of their diet during the week are cutting 71.4 percent of their meat intake out. Eating meat only three times a week cuts down your meat intake by 57 percent. These numbers are huge, and they could really make an impact if they became the norm. People often use the excuse, "I couldn't give up meat," as a reason not to be vegetarian and then they move on, but why not embrace a diet that lets you do both?
Yes, environmentalists can keep pushing vegetarianism and veganism, but the all-or-nothing approach isn't realistic in my book. Like Hill says, people get nervous about giving up meat. Think of the health care reform debate -- the late Sen. Ted Kennedy always said his biggest regret was turning down then-Pres. Nixon's proposal for universal healthcare, because Kennedy wanted more than a compromise -- he wanted all his demands to be met.
Vegetarianism -- more so veganism -- is the best option for the sake of the environment and the humanity of the animals who are mistreated in ways, like Hill said, most people wouldn't allow if those animals were domestic pets like dogs or cats. I'm not going to argue that -- but he's right to say that the binary scares people, and it leads people to shy away from eating less meat, because people say eating less isn't enough, you must eat none.
Some of the commenters accused Hill of being self-serving -- I'm not exactly sure how cutting your meat intake by almost three-fourths and relishing in the fact that it's healthier and better for the environment is completely selfish. Maybe he's patting himself on the back, but I don't really care or see why it matters -- if his idea means dramatically less environmental degradation and fewer animals being treated horribly, then he can pat himself on the back 24/7 for all I care.
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definitely eating LESS meat is better than eating MORE meat. and even the dalai lama was advised by his doctors to add some meat to his diet. not sure whether he did it or not.
But it would be better if we could have the option of eating more humanely raised meat. If it cost more, so much the better. We would only eat it sometimes.
I find people who equate vegetarianism with avoiding red meat a little annoying, because now when I ask for a vegetarian option at a restaurant, half the time the wait staff try to sell me on their fish or chicken options- bleh. ( I live in a very meat and potatoes part of the world)
Thanks for the great comments!
Well, that's just factually inaccurate. Why make things up???
On another note: I strongly encourage all meat eaters to buy only locally-raised meat. It's safer and healthier for you, better for your local economy, WAY better for the animals, and better for the environment. More expensive? Just cut back on the amount of meat you eat -- you'll feel a lot better for it!
Because our daily diet has a lot of lower-cost protein instead of meat, we can afford to spend more on fresh fruits and vegetables, and it allows us to splurge on free-range meat once in a while.
Rather than expecting people to eat an unnatural diet, it would be better to work to end factory farming and ensure that farm animals are raised in a humane environment.
The *frugivores* (gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and other primates) have intestinal tracts twelve times the length of the body, clawless hands and alkaline urine and saliva. Gorillas and orangutans are completely vegetarian, whereas the diet of other primates is mostly vegetarian, occasionally supplemented with carrion, insects, etc.
Linnaeus, who introduced binomial nomenclature (naming plants and animals according to their physical structure) wrote: "Man's structure, external and internal, compared with that of other animals shows that fruit and succulent vegetables constitute his natural food."
One of the most famous anatomists, Baron Cuvier, wrote: "The natural food of man, judging from his structure, appears to consist principally of the fruits, roots, and other succulent parts of vegetables. His hands afford every facility for gathering them; his short but moderately strong jaws on the other hand, and his canines being equal only in length to the other teeth, together with his tuberculated molars on the other, would scarcely permit him either to masticate herbage, or to devour flesh, were these condiments not previously prepared by cooking."
In The Natural Diet of Man, Adventist physician Dr. John Harvey Kellogg observes:
"Man is neither a hunter nor a killer. Carnivorous animals are provided with teeth and claws with which to seize, rend, and devour their prey. Man possesses no such instruments of destruction and is less well qualified for hunting than is a horse or a buffalo. When a man goes hunting, he must take a dog along to find the game for him, and must carry a gun with which to kill his victim after it has been found. Nature has not equipped him for hunting."
According to Dr. Kellogg, "The statement that man is omnivorous is made without an atom of scientific support. It is true the average hotel bill of fare and the menu found upon the table of the average citizen of this country have a decidedly omnivorous appearance. As a matter of fact, man is not naturally omnivorous, but belongs, as long ago pointed out by Cuvier, to the frugivorous class of animals...
"The bill of fare which wise Nature provides for man in forest and meadow, orchard and garden, a rich and varied menu, comprises more than 600 edible fruits, 100 cereals, 200 nuts, and 300 vegetables—roots, stems, buds, leaves and flowers...Fruits and nuts, many vegetables—young shoots, succulent roots, and fresh green leaves...are furnished by Nature ready for man’s use."
Dr. Kellogg further notes that "the human liver is incapable of converting uric acid into urea," and this is "an unanswerable argument against the use of flesh foods as part of the dietary of man. Uric acid is a highly active tissue poison...The livers of dogs, lions, and other carnivorous animals detoxicate uric acid by converting it into urea, a substance which is much less toxic and which is much more easily eliminated by the kidneys.
"Flesh foods are not the best nourishment for human beings and were not the food of our primitive ancestors," observes Dr. Kellogg.
"There is nothing necessary or desirable for human nutrition to be found in meats or flesh foods which is not found in and derived from vegetable products.
"The human race in general has never really adopted flesh as a staple food," explains Dr. Kellogg. "The Anglo-Saxons and a few savage tribes are about the only flesh-eating people. The people of other nations use meat only as a luxury or an emergency diet."
Although writing in 1923, Dr. Kellogg’s words confirm a recent statement by the American Dietetic Association, that, "most of mankind for most of human history has lived on vegetarian or near vegetarian diets."
Flesh-eating animals lap water with their tongue, whereas vegetarian animals imbibe liquids by a suction process. Humans are classified as primates and are thus frugivores possessing a set of completely herbivorous teeth. Proponents of the theory that humans should be classified as omnivores note that human beings do, in fact, possess a modified form of canine teeth. However, these so-called "canine teeth" are much more prominent in animals that traditionally never eat flesh, such as apes, camels, and the male musk deer.
It must also be noted that the shape, length and hardness of these so-called "canine teeth" can hardly be compared to those of true carnivorous animals. A principle factor in determining the hardness of teeth is the phosphate of magnesia content. Human teeth usually contain 1.5 percent phosphate of magnesia, whereas the teeth of carnivores are composed of nearly 5 percent phosphate of magnesia. It is for this reason they are able to break through the bones of their prey, and reach the nutritious marrow.
Zoologist Desmond Morris makes a case for vegetarianism in his 1967 book, The Naked Ape: "It could be argued that, since our primate ancestors had to make do without a major meat component in their diets we should be able to do the same. We were driven to become flesh eaters only by environmental circumstances, and now that we have the environment under control, with elaborately cultivated crops at our disposal, we might be expected to return to our ancient feeding patterns."
In The Human Story, edited by Marie-Louise Makris (1985), we read: "...recent studies of their teeth reveal that the Australopithecines did not eat meat as a regular part of their diet, and were mainly peaceful vegetarians, rather like...gorillas. The popular image of the murderous ape is now as extinct as the Australopithecines themselves."
Dr. Gordon Latto notes that carnivorous and omnivorous animals can only move their jaws up and down, and that omnivores "have a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth, a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth--showing that they were destined to deal both with flesh foods from the animal kingdom and foods from the vegetable kingdom...
"Carnivorous mammals and omnivorous mammals cannot perspire except at the extremity of the limbs and the tip of the nose; man perspires all over the body. Finally, our instincts; the carnivorous mammal (which first of all has claws and canine teeth) is capable of tearing flesh asunder, whereas man only partakes of flesh foods after they have been camouflaged by cooking and by condiments.
"Man instinctively is not carnivorous," explains Dr. Latto. "...he takes the flesh food after somebody else has killed it, and after it has been cooked and camouflaged with certain condiments. Whereas to pick an apple off a tree or eat some grain or a carrot is a natural thing to do; people enjoy doing it; they don't feel disturbed by it. But to see these animals being slaughtered does affect people; it offends them. Even the toughest of people are affected by the sights in the slaughterhouse.
"I remember taking some medical students into a slaughterhouse. They were about as hardened people as you could meet. After seeing the animals slaughtered that day in the slaughterhouse, not one of them could eat the meat that evening."
Author R.H. Weldon writes in No Animal Food:
"The gorge of a cat, for instance, will rise at the smell of a mouse or a piece of raw flesh, but not at the aroma of fruit. If a man can take delight in pouncing upon a bird, tear its still living body apart with his teeth, sucking the warm blood, one might infer that Nature had provided him with a carnivorous instinct, but the very thought of doing such a thing makes him shudder. On the other hand, a bunch of luscious grapes makes his mouth water, and even in the absence of hunger, he will eat fruit to gratify taste."
As far back as 1961, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that: "A vegetarian diet can prevent 97% of our coronary occlusions." More recently, William S. Collens and Gerald B. Dobkens concluded: "Examination of the dental structure of modern man reveals that he possesses all the features of a strictly herbivorous animal. While designed to subsist on vegetarian foods, he has perverted his dietary habits to accept food of the carnivore. It is postulated that man cannot handle carnivorous foods like the carnivore. Herein may lie the basis for the high incidence of arteriosclerotic disease."
Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), responds to the argument that killing animals for food is natural:
"This is quite an admirable argument. It explains practically everything; why we do not eat each other, except under conditions of unusual stress; why we may kill certain other animals (they are, in the order of nature, food for us); even why we should be kind to pets and try to help miscellaneous wildlife (they are not naturally our food). There are some problems with the idea that an order of nature determines which species are food for us, but an examination of human history indicates the broad outlines of just such an order, though inhibitions against eating certain species may vary from culture to culture.
"The main problem with this argument is that it does not justify the practice of meat-eating or animal husbandry as we know it today; it justifies *hunting*. The distinction between hunting and animal husbandry probably seems rather fine to the man in the street, or even to your typical rule-utilitarian moral philosopher. The distinction, however, is obvious to an ecologist. If one defends killing on the grounds that it occurs in nature, then one is defending the practice as it occurs in nature.
"When one species of animal preys on another in nature, it only preys on a very small proportion of the total species population. Obviously, the predator species relies on its prey for its continued survival. Therefore, to wipe the prey species out through overhunting would be fatal. In practice, members of such predator species rely on such strategies as territoriality to restrict overhunting and to insure the continued existence of its food supply.
"Moreover, only the weakest members of the prey species are the predator's victims: the feeble, the sick, the lame, or the young accidentally separated from the fold. The life of the typical zebra is usually placid, even in lion country; this kind of violence is the exception in nature, not the rule.
"As it exists in the wild, hunting is the preying upon isolated members of an animal herd. Animal husbandry is the nearly complete annihilation of an animal herd. In nature, this kind of slaughter does not exist. The philosopher is free to argue that there is no moral difference between hunting and slaughter, but he cannot invoke nature as a defense of this idea.
"Why are hunters, not butchers, most frequently taken to task by the larger community for their killing of animals? Hunters usually react to such criticism by replying that if hunting is wrong, then meat-hunting must be wrong as well. The hunter is certainly right on one point--the larger community is hypocritical to object to hunting when it consumes the flesh of domesticated animals. If any form of meat-eating is justified, it would be meat from a hunted animal."
The myth that humans are naturally a predator species remains popular. "The beast of prey is the highest form of active life," wrote Nazi philosopher Oswald Spengler in 1931. "It represents a mode of living which requires the extreme degree of the necessity of fighting, conquering, annihilating, and self-assertion. The human race ranks highly because it belongs to the class of beasts of prey. Therefore we find in man the tactics of life proper to a bold, cunning beast of prey. He lives engaged in aggression, killing, and annihilation. He wants to be master in as much as he exists."
The fact that predators exist in the wild does not imply man must automatically imitate them. Cannibalism and rape also occur in nature. Robert Louis Stevenson, in his book In the South Seas, noted that there was no difference between the "civilized" Europeans and the "savages" of the Cannibal Islands.
"We consume the carcasses of creatures with like appetites, passions, and organs as our own. We feed on babes, though not our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear."
Studies indicate flesh-eaters have less endurance than do vegetarians, while vegetarians have two to three times greater stamina and recover five times as quickly from exhaustion. Most kinds of cancer, as well as heart disease, osteoporosis, kidney disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, hemorrhoids, diverticulosis, arthritis, gallstones and gallbladder disease are all preventable and/or treatable or a vegetarian diet.
In his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes:
"Killing an animal is in itself a troubling act. It has been said that if we had to kill our own meat we would all be vegetarians. There may be exceptions to that general rule, but it is true that most people prefer not to inquire into the killing of the animals they eat.
"Very few people ever visit a slaughterhouse; and films of slaughterhouse operations are rarely shown on television...Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed have no right to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy.
"If it is distasteful for humans to think about, what can it be like for the animals to experience it?"
Peter Singer concludes in Animal Liberation that "by ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation, too."
In his 1987 Pulitzer Prize nominated book, Diet for a New America, author John Robbins writes: "We do not usually see ourselves as members of a flesh-eating cult. But all the signs of a cult are there. Many of us are afraid to even consider other diet-style choices, afraid to leave the safety of the group, afraid when there isn't any evidence that might reveal that the god of animal protein isn't quite all it's cracked up to be. Members of the Great American Steak Religion frequently become worried if their family or friends show any signs of disenchantment. A mother may be more worried if her son or daughter becomes a vegetarian than if they take up smoking."
Dr. Milton Mills' "The Comparative Anatomy of Eating,"
www.vegsource.com/veg_faq/comparative.htm
and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,
www.pcrm.org ,
argue persuasively that the optimal diet for humanity is a vegan diet. However, even if humans really are omnivores and not frugivores, the diet of natural omnivores is mostly (80 percent) plant food.
"One man's meat is another man/woman/child's hunger."
This slogan is part of the "Enough" campaign, with its aim of reducing meat consumption. The campaign highlights the waste of resources involved in feeding grain to animals:
"Every minute 18 children die from starvation, yet 40% of the world's grain is fed to animals for meat."
Vegetarianism for a trial period is advocated to "help the hungry, improve the environment" and "stop untold animal suffering." Vegetarianism is also recommended on health grounds. This campaign actually has the support of organized religion.
Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain fed to livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.
The realization that meat is an unnecessary luxury, resulting in inequities in the world food supply has prompted religious leaders in different Christian denominations to call on their members to abstain from meat on certain days of the week. Paul Moore, Jr., the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of New York, made such an appeal in a November, 1974 pastoral letter calling for the observance of “meatless Wednesdays.”
A similar appeal had previously been issued by Cardinal Cooke, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York. The Reverend Eugene Carson Blake, former head of the World Council of Churches and founder of Bread for the World, has encouraged everyone in his anti-hunger organization to abstain from eating meat on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
“Is this not the fast I have chosen? To loosen the chains of wickedness, to undo the bonds of oppression, and to let the oppressed go free? Is it not to share thy bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless? Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.”
—Isaiah 58:6-8
“Honourable men may disagree honourably about some details of human treatment of the non-human,” wrote Stephen Clark in his 1977 book, The Moral Status of Animals, “but vegetarianism is now as necessary a pledge of moral devotion as was the refusal of emperor-worship in the early church.”
According to Clark, eating animal flesh is “gluttony,” and “Those who still eat flesh when they could do otherwise have no claim to be serious moralists.”
“Clark’s conclusion has real force and its power has yet to be sufficiently appreciated by fellow Christians,” says the Reverend Andrew Linzey, author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals. “Far from seeing the possibility of widespread vegetarianism as a threat to Old Testament norms, Christians should rather welcome the fact that the Spirit is enabling us to make decisions so that we may more properly conform to the original Genesis picture of living in peace with creation.”
Father Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest, author, and founder of the Riverdale Center of Religious Research in New York, wrote in 1987 that “Vegetarianism is a way of life that we should all move toward for economic survival, physical well-being, and spiritual integrity.”
In a speech before the World Council of Churches in September 1988, Dr. Tom Regan concluded:
“…the whole fabric of Christian agape is woven from the threads of sacrificial acts. To abstain…from eating animals, therefore, although it is not the end-all, can be the begin-all of our conscientious effort to journey back to (or toward) Eden, can be one way (among others) to re-establish or create that relationship to the earth which, if Genesis 1 is to be trusted, was part of God’s original hopes for and plans in creation.
"It is the integrity of this creation we seek to understand and aspire to honor. In the choice of our food, I believe, we see…a small but not unimportant part of both the challenge and the promise of Christianity and animal rights.”
In 1992, members of Los Angeles’ First Unitarian Church agreed to serve vegetarian meals at the church’s weekly Sunday lunch. Their decision was made as a protest against animal cruelty and the environmental damage caused by the livestock industry.
”It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat.”
—Jeremy Rifkin, pro-life AND pro-animal author, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
Les Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least 12 million tons of grain for human consumption–or enough to feed 60 million people.
The world might not go vegan overnight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t educate the public to make conscious decisions that directly affect the lives and rights of animals, the health and well-being of their bodies and the planet.
I don’t think I’m being a ”self-righteous vegetarian,” here, either! In 1985, when my friend Greg told me he was thinking of giving up ”red meat” (a popular ”health” trend these days), I replied, ”Well, it’s a step in the right direction.” Greg appreciated the fact that I wasn’t coming across as a ”self-righteous vegetarian.”
Upon reading an autographed copy of John Robbins’ Pulitzer Prize nominated, Diet for a New America, which I gave as a birthday gift in 1989, Greg immediately became a vegetarian (though he’s reluctant to go vegan). Ultimately, it was the *secular* arguments which convinced him to go vegetarian. Greg spoke with amazement around that time that his friend Ron couldn’t even give up meat for one day (on the occasion of the Great American MeatOut)!
Similarly, in October 2007, after having had a weekend fling with a beautiful woman I met online through e-harmony.com, I didn’t force the issue of vegetarianism on her, but I did treat her to meals only at vegan restaurants here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and took her to a book-signing event, where she voluntarily purchased (yes, she seemed genuinely interested in the subject!) a copy of Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s first cookbook, The Joy of Vegan Baking.
Upon returning to Vancouver, WA, she e-mailed me, saying:
”I miss you already.
I forgot to steal one of your shirts!
”I will talk to you soon.
And I won’t eat meat.”
To which, I replied, ”You’re a girl after my own heart!” (I later sent her two younger daughters a book aimed at tweens, asking, Should We Eat Animals?, discussing the pros and cons of raising animals for food.)
Animal activists would love it if the public went vegan overnight ”cold turkey” (no pun intended!), but anything helps. Sir Paul McCartney is now promoting a ”Meatless Mondays” campaign.
Does this sound ”self-righteous”?
Again, I don’t think I’m being a ”self-righteous vegetarian,” I think the problem lies with the other side, which refuses to even seriously discuss animal rights and vegetarianism as moral issues on par with racism and abortion.
My philosophy is simple: eat mostly vegetables and fruit, and good clean proteins like fish and yes, poultry and beef (the best you can afford) but not often.
Our mouth does contain incisors and they are not there to grind grains. We were and are meat eaters, but not EVERY DAY. Eat vegetables.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7584730387826688635
Your odds of dying are 100%. So how is a hamburger going to increase that by 1/3?
If we look back to the early evolution of humans, it's pretty clear how that omnivorous nature likely worked out in practice. Most of the day-to-day sustenance early humans got was from gathered plant and seed material. However, when the hunt was successful, the group would gorge on meat for a day or more.
Of course, our modern lives are removed from that reality. There is little question that eating meat 3 meals a day every day isn't good for your health, but likewise, eating a strict vegan diet is VERY difficult to achieve nutritiously without including supplemental vitamins of some sort. It would seem neither solution is the healthiest choice.
The healthiest choice would seem to be the one Hill arrived at ... to eat meat sparingly. And if we need to go through the motions described here to justify that choice, then there's certainly nothing wrong with that. But it seems pretty clear to me that the easiest way to arrive at that healthiest choice is to simply look at who we are, how we are built, and how we lived prior to becoming "civilized" ... that should make it pretty easy to see that we evolved to be omnivorous creatures that get most of our day-to-day nutrition from plant products, and supplement that with meat occasionally. We certainly have the right to make other, "unnatural" choices, but the biology and history of humans seems to make it pretty clear that the "natural" choice is an omnivorous diet that is heavier on plant material than on meat, but which includes both.
I have no moral problem with eating or hunting for meat. Most problems in this world are living in the extremes. To much of anything, even a good thing becomes a bad thing. I think part of our problem with food in this county is there is a total disconnect from the process of hunting, growing, raising and yes even killing our food.
While most non hunters believe hunters are blood thirsty killers. If you meet most hunters they have a very deep abiding respect for like and nature. Meat is not created and raised in a factory, it is respected and appreciated as a resource.
Vegans are ascetic and may later eat pork.
I say to a Orthodox Rabbi`Yummy lobster!
Vegetarians are grease bacon `Lard phobic!
Humans love the smell of sizzling`O, Lards!
`
Great read. View the film called `FOOD INC.,
That EXPOSE of` Hormone Foul `Bad Meat.
Discussion. I am reminded of a` Theatre Play.
I forget the playwright? Con Chapman? O my.
(P.S. I No can comment Con Chapman? Oho?)
What great WORD read by` Stephanie Behrens
The O.S. crew do Share much wonderful perusal.
I keep getting pop-ups that read,`No simpatico?
The Play was THIS:`
At the deceased funeral Wake the animals came.
Animals thanked the vegetable eater for no meat.
The Play was respectful of sensible nutrition folk.
Gary Snyder writes a opine-essay `Vegetarianism.
I can't remember the Title. I getting`Brain noodle.
I fidgeting @ OS because `Great Reads are nutrient.
`
Foaming at the mouth about the Gulf Shrimp Industry?
I am so sad about BPs GREED and shrimp will die offs?
Think of the underwater currents of black OIL in reefs?
White choral reef ETC., will be devastated for centuries.
Last eve at a farmers market, I ate shrimp and crab cakes.
I relished the shrimp as if they were the last food on earth.
I'll reread Cary Tennis and ponder Shadow Dark Potential.
Cary Tennis has a read on Salon ref`Crude Mean Darkness.
Socrates always advised to befriend`Daemon shadow beast.
Daemon can teach if you No deny`Daemon may tango ruins.
another the right clothes? So, also waiting for? Immediate action bar!
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Second, Dr. Kellogg is hardly an example of modern science. He believed that we should have a several gallon series of enemas on a regular basis, and that sex is harmful to the body.
Third, observations of chimpanzees (our closest relatives) show that they hunt and eat meat (not just bugs, but antelope and baboons) on a regular basis.
Second, Dr. Kellogg is hardly an example of modern science. He believed that we should have a several gallon series of enemas on a regular basis, and that sex is harmful to the body.
Third, observations of chimpanzees (our closest relatives) show that they hunt and eat meat (not just bugs, but antelope and baboons) on a regular basis.
The human digestive system most closely resembles that of a dog, which eats both meat and other things. We do not have the long gut necessary to digest cellulose.
Do we have the giant bellies of a cow, a pig, or a gorilla? No, of course not. Our bellies are flat, not huge with intestines to digest tree leaves, grass, or woody roots.
"Carnivore" is not synonymous with "predator". We are naturally scavengers, so why on earth would we have teeth and claws to kill animals with our bare hands? It takes a major misreading of the balance of nature to believe that only predators can be permitted to eat meat.
We didn't evolve eating grains, and many people, not having the mutation necessary to safely digest gluten, find it toxic. Grains are a very recent addition to the human diet.
Only since the development of agriculture during the Neolithic age have plant materials become a significant portion of the human diet. It is neither natural nor healthy to consume 70%-90% grains as many Americans do by choice—and that includes plenty of meat-eaters who eat lots of bread, pasta, and processed corn products in the US. That is a third world diet, the sort of which no one in the third world chooses voluntarily. They do it because they are too poor to be able to afford any meat.
Some people can do well on a meat-free diet. Others cannot. Some of those who do survive on a vegan diet live nutritionally on the edge. So as long as they are healthy, they are okay. A serious illness can tax your shallow reserves.
We were born omnivores, and we'll die omnivores, every one of us. There is nothing any of us can do to change into an herbivore, even if we want to think it is morally superior to be an herbivore than a carnivore or an omnivore.
I'm comfortable with where I was born on the food chain. If you're not, well, you were still born to eat meat.
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
---Albert Einstein
"Each year, the meat industrial complex abuses and butchers nearly 9 billion cows, pigs, sheep, turkeys, chickens, and other innocent, feeling animals just for the enjoyment of consumers. Each year, nearly 1.5 million of these consumers are crippled and killed prematurely by heart failure, cancer, stroke, and other chronic diseases that have been linked conclusively with the consumption of these animals. Each year, millions of other animals are abused and sacrificed in a vain search for a 'magic pill' that would vanquish these largely self-inflicted diseases."
---Alex Hershaft, PhD, president, Farm Animal Reform Movement
When analyzing 8,300 deaths in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany among 76,000 men and women in five different, large studies, researchers concluded that vegetarians have a 24 percent reduction in death from heart disease.
Similarly, in the famous Oxford Vegetarian Study, where 6,000 vegetarians were compared with 5,000 meat-eaters over nearly two decades, scientists found that the rate of death from heart disease was 28 percent lower in vegetarians than in meat-eaters.
One study analyzed eighty scientific studies in leading medical journals. The analysis found that vegetarians had lower blood pressure, and were less likely to suffer from stroke, heart attack, and kidney failure.
A large German study of nearly 2,000 vegetarians found that deaths from heart disease were reduced by over one-third, and that heart disease itself was far less than that of the general population.
Another large study examined the coronary artery disease risk of young adults ages 18 to 30 and vegetarians were found to have much higher levels of cardiovascular fitness and a greatly reduced risk of heart disease.
"The process of gradual blocking of the coronary arteries begins not in adulthood but in childhood...and the main cause of this arteriosclerosis is the steadily increasing amount of fat in the American diet, particularly saturated animal fats such as those found in meat, chicken, milk and cheeses. If there was another disease that caused half a million deaths a year, you can be sure that the public would be acutely aware of the danger, and that the cure or prevention would be universally practiced."
---Dr. Benjamin Spock, author, child expert
"I don't understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it is medically conservative to cut people open and put them on powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs for the rest of their lives."
---Dr. Dean Ornish, author, Reversing Heart Disease
Stroke is the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer. Vegetarians have a 20 to 30 percent reduced risk of having a stroke. Stroke, like heart disease, is associated with diets high in saturated fats, and the vegetarian diet is naturally low in these fats.
The Oxford Vegetarian Study found cancer mortality to be 39 percent lower among vegetarians when compared with meat-eaters. The European Prospective Investigation of Cancer found vegetarians suffer 40 percent fewer cancers than the general population.
Studies have shown that decreasing a woman's animal fat intake can reduce the chances that she will die from breast cancer. A large-scale, long-term study in the Netherlands found a powerful connection between the amount of animal fat consumed and the rate of prostate cancer. A review of a dozen studies found dietary fat strongly correlated with prostate cancer.
Ovarian, uterine, and endometrial cancers have all been shown to be strongly correlated to the amount of animal fat in one's diet, and vegetarian women have significantly lower rates of these cancers.
"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all the natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined."
---Dr. Neal Barnard, Executive Director, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
"Vegetarians have the best diet. They have the lowest rate of coronary disease of any group in the country. They have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40 percent of our cancer rate."
---William Castelli, MD, Director, Framingham Heart Study
"Human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores."
---Dr. William Roberts, editor-in-chief, American Journal of Cardiology
Excerpts from
"The Comparative Anatomy of Eating", by Milton R. Mills, MD
Dr. Mills is a graduate of the Stanford School of Medicine.
Which category are humans most suited for?
*Facial Muscles*
CARNIVORE: Reduced to allow wide mouth gape
OMNIVORE: Reduced
HERBIVORE: Well-developed
HUMAN: Well-developed
*Jaw Type*
CARNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HERBIVORE: Expanded angle
OMNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HUMAN: Expanded angle
*Jaw Joint Location*
CARNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HERBIVORE: Above the plane of the molars
OMNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HUMAN: Above the plane of the molars
*Jaw Motion*
CARNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side motion
HERBIVORE: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back
OMNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side
HUMAN: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back
*Major Jaw Muscles*
CARNIVORE: Temporalis
HERBIVORE: Masseter and pterygoids
OMNIVORE: Temporalis
HUMAN: Masseter and pterygoids
*Mouth Opening vs. Head Size*
CARNIVORE: Large
HERBIVORE: Small
OMNIVORE: Large
HUMAN: Small
*Teeth: Incisors*
CARNIVORE: Short and pointed
HERBIVORE: Broad, flattened and spade shaped
OMNIVORE: Short and pointed
HUMAN: Broad, flattened and spade shaped
*Teeth: Canines*
CARNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HERBIVORE: Dull and short or long (for defense), or none
OMNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HUMAN: Short and blunted
*Teeth: Molars*
CARNIVORE: Sharp, jagged and blade shaped
HERBIVORE: Flattened with cusps vs complex surface
OMNIVORE: Sharp blades and/or flattened
HUMAN: Flattened with nodular cusps
*Chewing*
CARNIVORE: None; swallows food whole
HERBIVORE: Extensive chewing necessary
OMNIVORE: Swallows food whole and/or simple crushing
HUMAN: Extensive chewing necessary
*Saliva*
CARNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HERBIVORE: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes
OMNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HUMAN: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes
*Stomach Type*
CARNIVORE: Simple
HERBIVORE: Simple or multiple chambers
OMNIVORE: Simple
HUMAN: Simple
*Stomach Acidity*
CARNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HERBIVORE: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach
OMNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HUMAN: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach
*Stomach Capacity*
CARNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HERBIVORE: Less than 30% of total volume of digestive tract
OMNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HUMAN: 21% to 27% of total volume of digestive tract
*Length of Small Intestine*
CARNIVORE: 3 to 6 times body length
HERBIVORE: 10 to more than 12 times body length
OMNIVORE: 4 to 6 times body length
HUMAN: 10 to 11 times body length
*Colon*
CARNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HERBIVORE: Long, complex; may be sacculated
OMNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HUMAN: Long, sacculated
*Liver*
CARNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HERBIVORE: Cannot detoxify vitamin A
OMNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HUMAN: Cannot detoxify vitamin A
*Kidney*
CARNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HERBIVORE: Moderately concentrated urine
OMNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HUMAN: Moderately concentrated urine
*Nails*
CARNIVORE: Sharp claws
HERBIVORE: Flattened nails or blunt hooves
OMNIVORE: Sharp claws
HUMAN: Flattened nails
Flexitarian Fun Fact: Les Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least twelve million tons of grain for human consumption--or enough to feed 60 million people.
I understand your passion for your lifestyle, but your assumptions are based on your passion not the reality of mankind or the functions of agribusiness.
Thank you for your response. I realize farmers, ranchers, dairymen, etc. are in business to make a profit, and not altruistically feeding people.
I provided the following Flexitarian Fun Fact:
Les Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least twelve million tons of grain for human consumption--or enough to feed 60 million people.
...and must question your assumption that it ignores the reality of agribusiness.
Vegetarian author Laurel Robertson wrote in 1976: "The relationship between meat consumption and available grain is...more sensitive than we might think...In 1974, when the market for meat did fall, the grain that was so unexpectedly released actually did find its way to poorer countries."
My point is simple economics: raising animals for food is a waste of resources. This argument is as old as mankind: it can be found in the Bible; in Plato's Republic; and has been repeated for the modern age by author Frances Moore Lappe' in her 1971 bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet.
"Global hunger could be directly attributed to meat-eating."
---Chrissie Hynde
Half the world's population does not receive an adequate amount of food to eat. Ten to twenty million die annually of hunger and its effects. The Institute for Food and Development Policy reports that, "Forty thousand children starve to death on this planet every day," or one child every two seconds.
The livestock population of the United States today consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed over five times the entire human population of the country. We feed these animals over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of the oats. Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to grow food for people. Most of it is used to grow livestock feed.
Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain-fed livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.
The world's cattle alone, not to mention pigs and chickens, consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. According to Department of Agriculture statistics, one acre of land can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes. That same acre of land, if used to grow cattlefeed, can produce less than 165 pounds of beef.
In his book, The Hungry Planet, Georg Bergstrom points out that protein-starved underdeveloped nations export more protein to wealthy nations than they receive. He calls this "the protein swindle." Ninety percent of the world's fish meal catch, for example, is exported to rich countries. One-third of Africa's peanut crop winds up in the stomachs of European livestock. Half the world's cereal crop is fed to livestock and the United States annually imports one million tons of vegetable protein from Third World nations--just to feed its farm animals.
Bergstrom writes: "Sometimes one wonders how many Americans and Western Europeans have grasped the fact that quite a few of their beef steaks, quarts of milk, dozens of eggs, and hundreds of broilers are the result, not of their agriculture, but of the approximately two million metric tons of protein, mostly of high quality, which astute Western businessmen channel away from the needy and hungry."
Jeremy Rifkin, author of a dozen influential books and President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, writes in his 1992 bestseller Beyond Beef:
"Cattle and other livestock are devouring much of the grain produced on the planet. It need be emphasized that this is a new phenomenon, unlike anything ever experienced before.
"Contrary to popular belief, the poor are getting poorer each year...Increased poverty has meant increased malnutrition. On the African continent, nearly one in every four human beings is malnourished. In Latin America, nearly one out of every seven people goes to bed hungry each night. In Asia and the Pacific, 28 percent of the people border on starvation, experiencing the gnawing pain of a perpetual hunger."
"In the Near East, one in ten people is underfed. Chronic hunger now affects upwards of 1.3 billion people, according to the world Health Organization--a statistic all the more striking in a world where one third of all the grain produced is being fed to cattle and other livestock. Never before in human history has such a large percentage of our species--nearly 25 percent--been malnourished.
"The transition of world agriculture from food grain to feed grains represents an...evil whose consequences may be far greater and longer lasting than any past examples of violence inflicted by men against their fellow human beings."
In the 1970s, the United Nations Secretary General said that the food consumption of the rich countries is the key cause of hunger around the world. The United Nations has recommended that the wealthy nations cut down on their meat consumption.
The Worldwatch Institute has released a remarkable report entitled Taking Stock: Animal Farming and the Environment, which lists nation after nation where food deprivation has followed the switch from a grain-based diet to a meat-based one.
Most of the nations that now import grain from the United States were once self-sufficient in grain. The main reason they aren't is the rise in meat production and consumption.
In Taiwan, for example, per capita consumption of meat and eggs increased 600 percent from 1950 to 1990. With this change, vastly increased amounts of grain have gone to livestock, raising the annual per capita grain use in the country from 375 pounds to 858 pounds. In 1950, Taiwan was a grain exporter; in 1990 the nation imported, mostly for feed, 74 percent of the grain it used.
In mainland China, the situation is similar. Increased meat consumption has meant less grain available to feed people. Since 1978, meat consumption has more than doubled, to twenty-four kilograms. The share of Chinese grain fed to livestock rose from 7 percent in 1960 to 20 percent in 1990.
Over half Of Latin America's beef production is exported, and the rest is too expensive for any but the wealthy to purchase. From 1960 to 1980 beef exports from El Salvador increases over sixfold. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of small farmers lost their livelihood and were pushed off their land. Today, 72 percent of all Salvadoran infants are underfed.
In Brazil, major portions of the Amazon tropical rain forests have been destroyed so that wealthy multinational corporations can produce beef for the wealthy. Corporations such as Volkswagen, Nestle, Mitsubishi, Liquigas, King Ranch, and Swift-Eckrich have bulldozed and burned literally hundreds of millions of acres, replacing the world's oldest and richest ecosystems, home to two million or more species of plant and animal life with a single crop--pasture grass for cattle. And here, the beef produced has not gone to feed hungry Brazilians; it has been primarily exported to Western Europe, the Middle East, and North America. In 1987, the United States imported three hundred million pounds of meat from countries in Central and South America.
With the help of international lending institutions, Brazil has mounted an enormous effort to increase agricultural production, but this has been primarily meat-oriented production and for export. In the late '60s, soybeans were almost nonexistent or Brazil. Today, this crop is the nation's number one export--but almost all of it goes to feed Japanese and European livestock. Twenty five years ago, one third of the Brazilian population suffered from malnutrition. Today, the figure has risen to two thirds.
Oxfam, the international charity, reports that in Brazil huge cattle ranches take up some of the most fertile soil in the whole country, yet 60 percent of Brazilians are malnourished. Oxfam estimates that in Mexico, 80 percent of the children in rural areas are undernourished, yet the livestock are fed more grain than the human population eats! The livestock are exported of course, to satisfy the developed nations' craving for cheap hamburgers.
In the early '60s, sorghum was almost unknown in Mexico. But by 1980, it covered literally twice the acreage of wheat. Sorghum isn't grown for humans. It is fed to livestock. In the late '60s, livestock consumed only 6 percent of Mexico's grain. Today, the figure is over 50 percent. This is a trend throughout the Third World. Copying the United States' meat-oriented diet, these poor countries devote increasing percentages of their resources to meat production.
In Guatemala, 75 percent of the children under five years of age are undernourished. Yet, every year Guatemala exports 40 million pounds of meat to the United States. It borders on the criminal!
In Costa Rica, beef production quadrupled between 1960 and 1980, but almost all this beef is exported to the United States, and what does stay in the country is eaten by a tiny minority. Though more and more Costa Rican land is being turned over to meat production, the population is not eating more meat for the change. The average family in Costa Rica eats less meat than the average American housecat.
Throughout Latin America, land availability is a prominent social issue. Revolutionaries as well as reform-minded moderates have made land reform a major issue. Yet in many Latin American countries, forests are being leveled in order to create pastures for cattle grazing land.
In a region where land availability is a central social issue, existing land is being gobbled up by livestock agriculture. The resulting social tensions have resulted in civil wars, repression and violence.
Hunger is really a social disease caused by the unjust, inefficient and wasteful control of food. Our food security is not being threatened by the prolific, hungry masses, but by elites that profit by the concentration and internationalization of control of food resources.
In country after country the pattern is repeated. Livestock industries are consuming feed to such an extent that now almost all Third World nations must import grain. Seventy-five percent of Third World imports of corn, barley, sorghum, and oats are fed to animals, not to people. In country after country, the demand for meat among the rich is squeezing out staple production for the poor.
The same trend can be found in the Middle East and North Africa--increases in grain-fed livestock require more imported feed. In the early '70s, Egypt was self-sufficient in grain. Then, livestock ate only 10 percent of the nation's grain. Today, livestock consume 36 percent of Egypt's grain. As a result, Egypt must now import eight million tons of grain every year.
In the late '60s , Syria was a barley exporter. But in the intervening years, livestock has consumed increasing amounts of the country's grain. Now, despite a phenomenal 1,000 percent increase in the land area devoted to producing barley, Syria must import the cereal.
According to Buckminster Fuller, there are enough resources at present to feed, clothe, house and educate every human being on the planet at American middle class standards. The Institute for Food and Development Policy has shown that there is no country in the world in which the people cannot feed themselves from their own resources.
Moreover, there is no correlation between land density and hunger. China has twice as many people per cultivated acre as India, yet less of a hunger problem. Bangladesh has just one-half the people per cultivated acre that Taiwan has, yet Taiwan has no starvation, while Bangladesh has one of the highest rates in the world. The most densely populated countries in the world today are not India and Bangladesh, but Holland and Japan.
Many of us believe that hunger exists because there's not enough food to go around. But as Frances Moore Lappe' and her anti-hunger organization Food First! have shown, the real cause of hunger is a scarcity of justice, not a scarcity of food.
If you have a moral reason for not eating meat, don't do it. But, your endless pasting of other peoples' opinions follow the same flawed logic. The fact is everyone could stop eating meat tomorrow and people in nations who choose not to feed their people will still starve. It has nothing to do with allocation of food production, it is a matter of the heart.
Until the leaders of these nations take responsibility for their own people and stop waiting for the West to bail them out nothing of any importance will change. Consider countries like Somalia, the world relief has given millions of tons of food, and the local war lords have withheld that food or sold it for weapons to kill off their enemies. North Korea's people are starving because their leaders spend their resources on weapons not food. And on and on it goes.
While I am on a rant, even worse is this asswipe who keeps trying to sell us "Ed Hardy swim trunks" from his Hong Kong chop shop -- WHY EXACTLY can't Salon eliminate this shoddy clap-trap?????
***
OK, back to subject. I'm sorry Cathy, you seem like a reasonable and well-intentioned young woman. I think it is just fine if you wish eat less meat, or limit it to the weekends. However, this won't work for most people, and they have zero interest in doing so.
Human beings have evolved to like to eat meat, however they ate back in the Pre-Historic era (subject to varied interpretation, obviously). But in the modern era, humans who can afford to eat meat -- eat meat. And love it. They choose it above most other foods. They are not going to eat vegetables and/or fruit, even if they like vegetables and fruit.
AND -- most Americans I know do not like vegetables. Period. They hate vegetables. They were forced to eat vegetables as children, and hated them, and now they are adults and they won't eat vegetables by choice. (I don't mean potatoes, or flour-based foods like noodles, because they do like those things in moderation. I mean stuff like broccoli, carrots, squash, zucchini, etc.) Think of former President George HW Bush (41), who famously said "I hate broccoli, and now that I am President, I don't have to eat it."
You can't turn people like this into vegetarians, let alone vegans. They are immune to all the sobbing over "poor animals in captivity", blah blah blah. ALL AMERICANS suffer from something called "compassion fatigue"; they are sick to death of having to feel sorry for everybody and everything. The more you vegan/PETA types harp on this, the more backlash you are going to get.
You only make it worse by trying to guilt people; saying stuff like "if you eat one hamburger a day, you are 30% more likely to die". This doesn't even make sense. 30% more likely to die of WHAT? WHEN? Everybody dies! I assume you mean "die younger than necessary, of heart disease" or something, but thats HIGHLY debatable. Everyone is different; if you descend from an ethnicity that eats a substantially meat based diet (Mongolian horse nomad, Masai warrior), I'll bet your system is very well developed to digest meat -- you get plenty of exercise, and you'll probably be just fine.
You are probably FAR MORE in danger of dying from eating too many carbohydrates -- especially corn-based -- and too much sugar and sweetened products -- rather than meat. They are also more likely to contribute to obesity and/or Type II diabetes, if you are already genetically susceptible to those things.
NOW -- do I think modern day large-scale meat farming and processing is done humanely? NO I DO NOT. And that' s why I belong to various human societies, do volunteer work there, contribute what money I can and also why I work towards things like factory farming reform in my state. We recently passed an important piece of legislation here in Ohio, establishing a "Farm Board" consisting of family farmers and veterinarians, who will establish rules and regulations on animal husbandry, and enact penalties against those who violate these standards.
THAT is the kind of thing that will make the lives of farm animals better and more humane, give us a stable supply of healthy affordable meat products (for those who wish to eat them) and make us all healthier and safer. BTW, I personally love vegetables...know how to cook them! ... and eat them all the time. I also eat a moderate amount of meat.
Another way to approach the "meat dilemma" is to broaden your diet. Americans DO eat too much beef, pork and chicken. Eat meats such as lamb/mutton & chevron (goat), and get your poultry in the form of ducks and geese (including eggs). These are healthy, not terribly expensive, readily available in most supermarkets AND because they are not so overwhelming popular as cow and chicken products, they are not intensively factory farmed, but tend to be raised on small family farms in relatively human conditions. They are also delicious!
Using Kellogg as some sort of exemplary authority on nutrition was an error on your part. The man's theories were hilarious, not scientific in the least, and not to be taken seriously.
For example...you do realize that Kellogg's Corn Flakes (a yummy treat with virtually no nutritional value and more sugar than you'd like to think) were created because the crunchy cereal was supposed to stop young men from masturbating?
I'm sure he said and wrote a lot of things that SOUND profound and terribly clever, but the man was nothing more than a quack with a clever turn of phrase. Just like MOST of the snake-oil salesmen that try and pretend that their extreme and dangerous diets are the only way to go.
At this point in my life I couldn't care less if vegans look down on me for being a part time vegetarian. The fact is that anything can be taken to extremes and there's always some way not to measure up. I'm unconcerned. I see no reason for either "side" to accept the other. Or I should say we part timers should just take the attitude, who cares? Why on earth would the question even ever come up? Or why would I ever find myself mentioning it? Really. Frankly I think perhaps part time vegetarianism is likely most like the eating habits of tribal people. You didn't score meat everyday in the hunt. But you ate it when you did.
I'll call it "naturalarianism". I'm a naturalarian. HA!
I vote vasu. What crap.
Unlike any other animal, humans have been hunting with tools and cooking their food for tens of thousands of years. Our bodies and digestive systems have evolved in line with that fact.
I am not anti veg, but there is confusing morality with reality, and science only shows data, it does not interpret meaning.
And I will, if I feel like it, go out and order a big juicy steak. But I just haven't felt like it since I began keeping vegan. In fact it turns out that I prefer almond milk on my cereal and tofu with my Asian dishes.
Being vegan is a good choice. And as long as I feel it is my choice, it's easy to keep on the program. I don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, but the foods I miss the most are those that led to a triple by-pass, so that's a wake-up call.
For a good time go to a really good Indian restaurant and only order vegan. You most likely won't leave hungry and it's a good start.
If we can reduce the demand for meat and dairy which can be filled by human farming and butchering, then we all will be healthier and happier.
I wish keeping vegan was harder, then I might not be so fat.