I like meat, but only once in a while. If I eat it too often my gut feels sick. I feel this mostly in the very early morning hours as I awake. If you manage to find a way to listen to your body, you might discover this too.
A few generations ago, meat was for most regular people VERY EXPENSIVE. This is because people then had NO REAL MONEY.
Yes, these people did not live long as frequent disease, war, child birth, social problems caused significant mortality. But their diet usually did not kill them like it does to so many people today... Poor people had no choice but to eat vegetables, and it was actually quite healthy. If these people managed to get by all the huge problems that would otherwise shorten their life, they stood to live a long life.
I feel that reducing meat in diets would help the environment and health. But maybe we need a thread on how plastics are killing the world at even a faster pace? Not to be a pessimist...
A few generations ago, meat was for most regular people VERY EXPENSIVE. This is because people then had NO REAL MONEY.
Yes, these people did not live long as frequent disease, war, child birth, social problems caused significant mortality. But their diet usually did not kill them like it does to so many people today... Poor people had no choice but to eat vegetables, and it was actually quite healthy. If these people managed to get by all the huge problems that would otherwise shorten their life, they stood to live a long life.
I feel that reducing meat in diets would help the environment and health. But maybe we need a thread on how plastics are killing the world at even a faster pace? Not to be a pessimist...
Last edited:
Oh, don't get me started here. Palm oil and palm fat are in so many budget hand-creams, liquid soaps, shampoos, etc too.
And nobody who buys these things is informed at all..... It is disgusting. People, if the hand soap is incredibly cheap then expect that it is made with environment-destroying plantation palm oil .
I would much rather eat a free range eggs for breakfast than shower myself with such soap!
Last edited:
That's an old chestnut, Douglas Adams even poked fun of it in Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
But to to answer it fully in a human related way would drag this firmly into politics. Politics of the 19th century (I'll let you deduce).
Yes, I think that's about right.
Some of the things visited on factory farmed / industrially slaughtered animals might (rhetorically) be described as 'torture', but systematically there is only indifference to suffering as a byproduct, rather than a sadistic intent to inflict it.
Murder is a similarly charged word - I do believe that animals suffer a 'morally relevant' loss in being deprived of their lives.
And again, I think that even if you feel that way about these things, there's probably a strategy vs tactics aspect that's being missed in using those terms casually.
Re lambs, to play devil's advocate, I'm sure they are often having fun on a Welsh hillside but their overall quality of life rather depends on the farmer, location, and skills of those involved. Some of the hazards include mulesing without anesthetic, premature separation from the ewe, "indoor" lambing, inhumane or dangerous transport conditions, and finally, inadequate stunning prior to being suspended / exsanguinated.
Ultimately, I think the commercial demands of having animal products form a significant portion of our (collective) diets are incompatible with high standards of animal welfare.
Leaving aside the ethical aspects of farming, humans are about a million years of evolution away from being a true omnivore. Our digestive system lacks a cecum (now a vestigal appendix) and we cannot digest cellulose (as can ruminants). Unless you are armed with a LOT of human specific dietary knowledge (which even registered dieticians seem to lack), sooner or later, you are going to run into health problems.
Sadly this is true. I have seen both extremes locally. My friend Rachel is a sheep farmer and she does an incredibly good job, so good it's not financially viable and she has to subsidise her income with part-time jobs
True. I still remember the day I died in 1989. It was a beautiful funeral.
The new puritanism.
The claim veganism is more ethical is philosophically absurd.It is no more wrong for a human to kill and eat other animals than it is for a lion or tiger [or any of the other predatory omnivorous species like bears] to do the same thing.
I dislike intensive livestock farming but there are plenty of other choices like free range grass fed lamb,goat or beef.Indeed the vast majority of sheep and goat meat is produced that way and it is easy to buy free range chicken and pork.
The other absurdity is the claim that livestock farming is a major cause of carbon and greenhouse emissions but the world has existed for a long time with vast numbers of ruminant grazing animals.An estimated 200-500 million bison in North America alone.
The claim veganism is more ethical is philosophically absurd.It is no more wrong for a human to kill and eat other animals than it is for a lion or tiger [or any of the other predatory omnivorous species like bears] to do the same thing.
I dislike intensive livestock farming but there are plenty of other choices like free range grass fed lamb,goat or beef.Indeed the vast majority of sheep and goat meat is produced that way and it is easy to buy free range chicken and pork.
The other absurdity is the claim that livestock farming is a major cause of carbon and greenhouse emissions but the world has existed for a long time with vast numbers of ruminant grazing animals.An estimated 200-500 million bison in North America alone.
A timely link me thinkst, hope you clocked the insect one earlier...?
I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat (but farm it right) | George Monbiot | Opinion | The Guardian
I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat (but farm it right) | George Monbiot | Opinion | The Guardian
I'd humbly suggest that in the Western countries in which I have lived, meat eaters and non-meat eaters alike are badly in need of nutrition advice, and this is not a fatal (no pun intended) objection to a plant-only diet.
It's always difficult to generalize because 'vegan' covers everything from someone like me (who consumes only Oreos and IPA), to Rich Roll, but plant diets are generally considered positive with respect to e.g. heart disease.
What about Rule 34?
I have no issues eating animal, plant or mushroom but I do have an issue with processed food which should be avoided at some cost.
Meat seems to be easier to digest than vegetables.
From an evolutionary POV we are omnivores and always have been. There are no pure herbivores amongst primates.
Last edited:
Processed in what way? Even cooking something can be construed as processing.
Plants have their own defences. Some of those defences make them quite unpalatable.
Look up Oxalate for an example.
There are plenty of primates that are pure herbivores, Gorillas for example. My point is that humans are poor omnivores.
Plants don't want to be killed and eaten (except fruit, and nectar...anymore?)
either. What any organism "wants" doesn't appear to be relevant when it comes to the food chain (web?) To a polar bear, you are a snack
It needs to be framed from within a formal philosophical context and nobody with appropriate qualifications in that area would publish such a concept because it is clearly absurd.
We cannot change our DNA.
Are there any situations in which you'd consider a bear to have done something unethical?
The second sentence seems like a non-sequitur - aren't both true? It would still reduce greenhouse emissions to stop farming cows - we wouldn't suddenly find millions of bison roaming the plains (even if there is no greenhouse gas difference between a bison on the plains and a feedlot cow).
- Status
- Not open for further replies.