One of the most powerful animals on earth only eats veggies.....just saying GIFSoup
That's more about availability of food - gorillas have canines. Some other apes do eat meat - chimpanzees and orangutans for example, again all about food availability.
Humans are definitely omnivores and the only reason we now eat more meat than early homonids (primarily vegetarians) is the evolved cognitive ability to fashion tools for the purpose of hunting and the organisational skills of animal husbandry.
It is this organised and sytematic breeding and killing that leads to cruelty concerns - if man was still hunting in packs in the jungle for meat then would there be a similar outcry?
I have no issues with vegetarians - free choice and all that. I also have no issues with carnivores because I'm one of them and love the taste of meat. But I do take on board the health risks linked to excessive red meat and processed meat consumption - both of which I try to limit.
I've only recently begun learning about the green side of this as well. Red meats and in particular beef produce a huge amount of carbon emissions.
The popular red meat requires 28 times more land to produce than pork or chicken, 11 times more water and results in five times more climate-warming emissions.
Then think of the Amazon and other forests’ areas cleared for grazing, and all of the wildlife lost in doing that. That's not to say I'm a veggie but I have toyed with the idea, at current I only really eat chicken, occasionally turkey and you can get some really good quorn substitutes! Oh, and quorn's also healthier and often cheaper.
These figures are based on the US form of agriculture where cattle are raised on grain and is the stock propaganda figures used to promote the idea that vegetarianism will save the World. In the UK and elsewhere in the World beef comes from animals grazing naturally on grass with hay and silage in winter. Third World producers are tearing down forests to grow soya beans to provide protein for vegetarians, it is a cash crop that replaces the growing of food so leads to more forest being torn up for food. Animals can live and graze in a forest without tearing it down.
The wild animals we used to eat that lived off the land have disappeared because of farming. More farming of crops for protein means less animals and less diversity. The existence of animals for protein that live off the land means more diversity.
The idea that vegetarianism will save the World is absolute tosh. Vegetarians have simply lost their way in our plastic urban society and can't come to terms with the fact that all life exists from consuming the dead material of another life. Vegetables have a life, its just that they can be killed without stimulating any taboo human feelings around death. All the anti meat propaganda reflects the feelings and hang ups of the vegetarian who puts human feelings into the body of an animal which exists only to be killed and otherwise would not exist at all.
Vegans are the cerebral vegetarians ones who have realised they have no moral argument unless that reject any use of animal products so it gives them the moral high ground to denounce meat eating. Vegans will/should also refrain from using slug pellets and sprays to kill the greenfly on their vegetables or consuming vegetables on which animals have been slaughtered to protect their food. They should avoid treading on ants when walking the pavement. Eating flowers, another Vegan pretention to a holy existence, means no seeds develop to generate more plant life, mass slaughter in the plant World is OK. Cue - Meaning of life....
I post it here to inform the debate, not to antagonise, but DON'T open it if you have squeamish people around, or you are squeamish, or at work, or possibly have children there.
sorry, just edited it as the opening picture was full on..
If you go to slaughterhouse on youtube you can see what we are talking about, possibly have a visceral response to place alongside the intellectual responses.
Judging by a lot of posts on here just being a vegetarian is cause for many of you to despise, and even hate me.
One of the most powerful animals on earth only eats veggies.....just saying GIFSoup
Great argument that, Tigers and Lions other very powerful animals eat meat, and your point is?
haha it was a gag. BTW just because an animal has canines it does not actually mean they are meant to eat meat. As for food availability that is not 100% true either, there are two opinions to this argument and valid cases on both sides.
My point is, you don't have to eat meat to have energy and to survive. Humans do not need meat to survive.
Hears a question, if we're meant to eat meat then why does our body reject 80% of it unless its cooked?
I've only recently begun learning about the green side of this as well. Red meats and in particular beef produce a huge amount of carbon emissions.
The popular red meat requires 28 times more land to produce than pork or chicken, 11 times more water and results in five times more climate-warming emissions.
Then think of the Amazon and other forests’ areas cleared for grazing, and all of the wildlife lost in doing that. That's not to say I'm a veggie but I have toyed with the idea, at current I only really eat chicken, occasionally turkey and you can get some really good quorn substitutes! Oh, and quorn's also healthier and often cheaper.
These figures are based on the US form of agriculture where cattle are raised on grain and is the stock propaganda figures used to promote the idea that vegetarianism will save the World. In the UK and elsewhere in the World beef comes from animals grazing naturally on grass with hay and silage in winter. Third World producers are tearing down forests to grow soya beans to provide protein for vegetarians, it is a cash crop that replaces the growing of food so leads to more forest being torn up for food. Animals can live and graze in a forest without tearing it down.
The wild animals we used to eat that lived off the land have disappeared because of farming. More farming of crops for protein means less animals and less diversity. The existence of animals for protein that live off the land means more diversity.
The idea that vegetarianism will save the World is absolute tosh. Vegetarians have simply lost their way in our plastic urban society and can't come to terms with the fact that all life exists from consuming the dead material of another life. Vegetables have a life, its just that they can be killed without stimulating any taboo human feelings around death. All the anti meat propaganda reflects the feelings and hang ups of the vegetarian who puts human feelings into the body of an animal which exists only to be killed and otherwise would not exist at all.
Vegans are the cerebral vegetarians ones who have realised they have no moral argument unless that reject any use of animal products so it gives them the moral high ground to denounce meat eating. Vegans will/should also refrain from using slug pellets and sprays to kill the greenfly on their vegetables or consuming vegetables on which animals have been slaughtered to protect their food. They should avoid treading on ants when walking the pavement. Eating flowers, another Vegan pretention to a holy existence, means no seeds develop to generate more plant life, mass slaughter in the plant World is OK. Cue - Meaning of life....
That comes across as largely incoherent and hugely presumptuous. I don’t see how someone wanting to have a clearer conscience means they’ve lost their way in today’s urban society?
I post it here to inform the debate, not to antagonise, but DON'T open it if you have squeamish people around, or you are squeamish, or at work, or possibly have children there.
sorry, just edited it as the opening picture was full on..
If you go to slaughterhouse on youtube you can see what we are talking about, possibly have a visceral response to place alongside the intellectual responses.
Judging by a lot of posts on here just being a vegetarian is cause for many of you to despise, and even hate me.
Okay, let's imagine a world where tomorrow everyone wakes up and goes "you know what, i'm going to be a vegetarian from now on". The planet would go into melt down, millions of farm animals would eventually be slaughtered simply because the farmers had gone bankrupt. This wouldn't be a clean injection from a vet, this will be mass slaughtering (on a larger scale than the meat industry currently) and i really don't think those that are about to lose their jobs are going to slaughter them in a particularly ideal humane way. So here we have an entire industry devastated by this, but thats not all, what about supermarkets, butchers etc. They have people working £7 an hour that they can't afford to keep on because one of their main profitable industries has vanished. So here we have millions of people accross the UK along who's lives you're going to ruin and throw into poverty. What's a farmer going to do with land he can't use for crops? Sell it? What's the land worth if you can't build on the green belt?? Not to mention the probable extinction of cows, sheep, chickens, goats, pigs and any other farm animal you want to mention. The human devastation would be huge. What about in 3rd world countries where eating meat and selling meat is their only way of making a living? Oh yeah, sorry, we're all vegetarians now.
I have many friends who are vegetarians, to do so for health reasons is fine, but to butter it up with "ethical" reasons is utter BS. Those people hate animals, why would they deliberately select a lifestyle which would mean the extinction of entire species?
One of the most powerful animals on earth only eats veggies.....just saying GIFSoup
Great argument that, Tigers and Lions other very powerful animals eat meat, and your point is?
haha it was a gag. BTW just because an animal has canines it does not actually mean they are meant to eat meat. As for food availability that is not 100% true either, there are two opinions to this argument and valid cases on both sides.
My point is, you don't have to eat meat to have energy and to survive. Humans do not need meat to survive.
Hears a question, if we're meant to eat meat then why does our body reject 80% of it unless its cooked?
It's not a subject I debate as there seems to be loads of arguments on both sides as expressed in this thread. All I know is that I will never give up meat as in the whole I hate vegetables.
I came away from the programme with three key things. 1) The fat in red meat is not harmful to you (I always assumed it was) 2) Processed meats are bad news (I always assumed they were not good but not that bad). 3) A vegetarian diet with limited amounts of meat is better than a vegetarian diet (This is what I do although fish didn't get mentioned).
To a great extent, it it came back to what we know though - that moderation is not going to do too much damage. If you eat McDonalds every lunchtime, drink 10 pints while smoking 40 cigarettes and have a kebab on the way home - well, what do you expect?
This thread is the usual collection of half-arsed prejudice with a thin top-dressing of badly informed ideas about evolution, nutrition and politics versus semi-religious defensiveness, also with a thin top-dressing of badly informed ideas about animal welfare and politics. Mostly people eat what they like and then think up reasons why it's the right thing to do, which is why the obesity problem isn't going to go away any time soon, or else restrict their diet as a way of compensating for other areas of their life where they feel they have no control and boosting their damaged self-esteem by establishing a sense of of moral superiority . You're all doomed anyway.
This thread is the usual collection of half-arsed prejudice with a thin top-dressing of badly informed ideas about evolution, nutrition and politics versus semi-religious defensiveness, also with a thin top-dressing of badly informed ideas about animal welfare and politics. Mostly people eat what they like and then think up reasons why it's the right thing to do. You're all doomed anyway.
Not a vegeterian but I don't buy the half-arsed evolutionary argument.
It's true that we are omnivores. It's also true that the ability to process meat gave hominods a big evolutionary advantage in developing cognitive functions. But we've now evolved and we don't need to eat meat to survive and thrive. For almost the whole of our history we were hunter-gatherers and ate what ever we could. In the last 10,000 years our diets have changed immeasurably due to the neolithic revolution and then the spread of new foods from the Americans to Eurasia and vice versa. We certainly didn't eat bread, spuds, corn, tomatoes, chillies or drink beer until 10,000 years ago way after our evolution into homo sapiens was complete. Nobody suggests that we should give up these foods because we didn't evolve while eating them.
The veggies are often accused of a holier than thou attitude, but it seems to me that the committed carnivores are usually worse.
Believe what you like, its bollocks for anyone not eating beef in the US but the author doesn't mention that. It assumes all cattle are fed on grain (as in the US) and it takes 7 kilo of grain to produce 1 Kilo of beef. Has no relevance to the UK at all where our cattle are reared on grass (no not that sort of grass...).
@Jints - the last sentence of your post is spot on mate. There seem to be a couple posting on this thread who seem to despise vegetarians and the whole concept of trying to live a cruelty-free life but hey, it's not for me to call them out because basically I can't be arsed to get into a row with individuals who seem intolerant to others. I'm happy with the choices I make and the reasons for those choices so if anyone doesn't like it, well f**k 'em.
@Jints - the last sentence of your post is spot on mate. There seem to be a couple posting on this thread who seem to despise vegetarians and the whole concept of trying to live a cruelty-free life but hey, it's not for me to call them out because basically I can't be arsed to get into a row with individuals who seem intolerant to others. I'm happy with the choices I make and the reasons for those choices so if anyone doesn't like it, well f**k 'em.
I am the carnivore equivalent of you.
I don't mind what veggies and vegans do at all so long as they don't try to force their choices onto me.
There is, in my experience, a zealot strand of non meat and fish eaters unfortunately hence my comment re forcing choices.
I post it here to inform the debate, not to antagonise, but DON'T open it if you have squeamish people around, or you are squeamish, or at work, or possibly have children there.
sorry, just edited it as the opening picture was full on..
If you go to slaughterhouse on youtube you can see what we are talking about, possibly have a visceral response to place alongside the intellectual responses.
Judging by a lot of posts on here just being a vegetarian is cause for many of you to despise, and even hate me.
Okay, let's imagine a world where tomorrow everyone wakes up and goes "you know what, i'm going to be a vegetarian from now on". The planet would go into melt down, millions of farm animals would eventually be slaughtered simply because the farmers had gone bankrupt. This wouldn't be a clean injection from a vet, this will be mass slaughtering (on a larger scale than the meat industry currently) and i really don't think those that are about to lose their jobs are going to slaughter them in a particularly ideal humane way. So here we have an entire industry devastated by this, but thats not all, what about supermarkets, butchers etc. They have people working £7 an hour that they can't afford to keep on because one of their main profitable industries has vanished. So here we have millions of people accross the UK along who's lives you're going to ruin and throw into poverty. What's a farmer going to do with land he can't use for crops? Sell it? What's the land worth if you can't build on the green belt?? Not to mention the probable extinction of cows, sheep, chickens, goats, pigs and any other farm animal you want to mention. The human devastation would be huge. What about in 3rd world countries where eating meat and selling meat is their only way of making a living? Oh yeah, sorry, we're all vegetarians now.
I have many friends who are vegetarians, to do so for health reasons is fine, but to butter it up with "ethical" reasons is utter BS. Those people hate animals, why would they deliberately select a lifestyle which would mean the extinction of entire species?
Do you think that sometime not far off the seas could be fished out?
Comments
Being a Vegetarian is a bit like being a Jehovah's witness, being a vegan is like being a member of scientology.
GIFSoup
Humans are definitely omnivores and the only reason we now eat more meat than early homonids (primarily vegetarians) is the evolved cognitive ability to fashion tools for the purpose of hunting and the organisational skills of animal husbandry.
It is this organised and sytematic breeding and killing that leads to cruelty concerns - if man was still hunting in packs in the jungle for meat then would there be a similar outcry?
I have no issues with vegetarians - free choice and all that. I also have no issues with carnivores because I'm one of them and love the taste of meat. But I do take on board the health risks linked to excessive red meat and processed meat consumption - both of which I try to limit.
The wild animals we used to eat that lived off the land have disappeared because of farming. More farming of crops for protein means less animals and less diversity. The existence of animals for protein that live off the land means more diversity.
The idea that vegetarianism will save the World is absolute tosh. Vegetarians have simply lost their way in our plastic urban society and can't come to terms with the fact that all life exists from consuming the dead material of another life. Vegetables have a life, its just that they can be killed without stimulating any taboo human feelings around death. All the anti meat propaganda reflects the feelings and hang ups of the vegetarian who puts human feelings into the body of an animal which exists only to be killed and otherwise would not exist at all.
Vegans are the cerebral vegetarians ones who have realised they have no moral argument unless that reject any use of animal products so it gives them the moral high ground to denounce meat eating. Vegans will/should also refrain from using slug pellets and sprays to kill the greenfly on their vegetables or consuming vegetables on which animals have been slaughtered to protect their food. They should avoid treading on ants when walking the pavement. Eating flowers, another Vegan pretention to a holy existence, means no seeds develop to generate more plant life, mass slaughter in the plant World is OK. Cue - Meaning of life....
I post it here to inform the debate, not to antagonise, but DON'T open it if you have squeamish people around, or you are squeamish, or at work, or possibly have children there.
sorry, just edited it as the opening picture was full on..
If you go to slaughterhouse on youtube you can see what we are talking about, possibly have a visceral response to place alongside the intellectual responses.
Judging by a lot of posts on here just being a vegetarian is cause for many of you to despise, and even hate me.
My point is, you don't have to eat meat to have energy and to survive. Humans do not need meat to survive.
Hears a question, if we're meant to eat meat then why does our body reject 80% of it unless its cooked?
I am far more inclined to believe articles and authors such as this: http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0721-livestock-emissions.html
It's fact that replacing beef with chicken is greener and healthier for us. If a few people want to go a step further then who are we to judge?
I have many friends who are vegetarians, to do so for health reasons is fine, but to butter it up with "ethical" reasons is utter BS. Those people hate animals, why would they deliberately select a lifestyle which would mean the extinction of entire species?
To a great extent, it it came back to what we know though - that moderation is not going to do too much damage. If you eat McDonalds every lunchtime, drink 10 pints while smoking 40 cigarettes and have a kebab on the way home - well, what do you expect?
This thread is the usual collection of half-arsed prejudice with a thin top-dressing of badly informed ideas about evolution, nutrition and politics versus semi-religious defensiveness, also with a thin top-dressing of badly informed ideas about animal welfare and politics. Mostly people eat what they like and then think up reasons why it's the right thing to do, which is why the obesity problem isn't going to go away any time soon, or else restrict their diet as a way of compensating for other areas of their life where they feel they have no control and boosting their damaged self-esteem by establishing a sense of of moral superiority . You're all doomed anyway.
Damn. I've run out of chocolate biscuits.
It's true that we are omnivores. It's also true that the ability to process meat gave hominods a big evolutionary advantage in developing cognitive functions. But we've now evolved and we don't need to eat meat to survive and thrive.
For almost the whole of our history we were hunter-gatherers and ate what ever we could. In the last 10,000 years our diets have changed immeasurably due to the neolithic revolution and then the spread of new foods from the Americans to Eurasia and vice versa. We certainly didn't eat bread, spuds, corn, tomatoes, chillies or drink beer until 10,000 years ago way after our evolution into homo sapiens was complete. Nobody suggests that we should give up these foods because we didn't evolve while eating them.
The veggies are often accused of a holier than thou attitude, but it seems to me that the committed carnivores are usually worse.
Believe what you like, its bollocks for anyone not eating beef in the US but the author doesn't mention that. It assumes all cattle are fed on grain (as in the US) and it takes 7 kilo of grain to produce 1 Kilo of beef. Has no relevance to the UK at all where our cattle are reared on grass (no not that sort of grass...).
I don't mind what veggies and vegans do at all so long as they don't try to force their choices onto me.
There is, in my experience, a zealot strand of non meat and fish eaters unfortunately hence my comment re forcing choices.
How about we ignore them and go for a pint :-)