Which is better: Vegetarians or Meat Eaters?

[AGR]

I am getting ads for this site in this thread:
Grade-A Meat and Cheese delivered to your door in Japan! The Meat Guy

I already knew the site,its located just near me on the other state,I am thinking of ordering some kangaroo just to see what is like,did anyone ever eat it?

 

[Pyrophosphate]

I don't know enough about nutrition and the like to say which is healthier, if there are any significant health differences. I just know I don't like people being preachy either way, and I don't think trying to make people feel guilty for eating meat actually helps anything.

I also find it funny how nobody ever minds killing plants for food.

 

[Thelema]

I read it too. I said this diet is best, not that I eat it all the time, also because sometimes fruit is very expensive or hard to come by. Still I feel it´s markedly better for my digestion and overall feeling. So I don´t care as much if I have some deficiencies, as long as my body feels better.

Is the blog still going? I read it a few years ago and I'd expect him to either be a walking diabetic skeleton or someone that decided more balance would work better...

Wait...don't answer that...I use de googles

I can't seem to find the blog I was talking about. The last I remember reading was him talking about "dropping a lot of water weight." aka not eating enough.

 

[OvidiuDanut]

Depends on what you want to do.

Meats are the greatest source of useable protein over any other method. You can eat nuts and certain vegetable pasts to recoup the losses from going vege, so it's up to you to make the end choice.

So you can pretty much ignore the health effects because they're null, and just go for moral justifications (those I won't get into, I could write a paper on that)

Basically neither have any great advantageous over the other, so its more a question of wanted lifestyle than of need.

Pretty bold statements...Have you read The China Study by Dr.Collin Campbell or the books written on the matter by Dr.Norman Walker?

 

[Lea]

Is the blog still going? I read it a few years ago and I'd expect him to either be a walking diabetic skeleton or someone that decided more balance would work better...

Wait...don't answer that...I use de googles

I can't seem to find the blog I was talking about. The last I remember reading was him talking about "dropping a lot of water weight." aka not eating enough.

I didn´t look for it not, but I remember I read it a few years ago too.

Except of that, I have a book from Robert S. Morse about detoxication and he is a doctor who uses fruitarian diet to cure his patients. A very interesting book. If he has a good healing results with that then there must be something about it. Fruit, nuts, vegetables are not mucus forming like other food, therefore have detoxifying effect.

 

[satstrn]

I love meat and grew up eating it, but switched to a mostly vegan diet after I moved out of my parents. Either diet can be healthy or unhealthy, depending on what you eat and how often you exercise. I think everyone who eats meat needs to see firsthand what the animals go through before they can make an informed decision on the ethics of meat eating. I saw my share of it and decided I could no longer do it. We have been eating meat for hundreds of thousands of years and it is completely natural, but the current industrial system is neither natural nor sustainable. I respect everyone's decision on this matter but it troubles me that so few really make the connection between what is on their plate and what the animals have to go through. I don't have an issue with meat eating but the animal should be treated with respect and dignity, and this doesn't happen on standard factory farms. Most people would agree that animals should be treated humanely, I think. You can purchase products from farmers who treat their animals fairly, it just takes some extra work to find and it costs a good deal more. See the truth for yourself and then make a decision of strength based on your core values. Don't sit here and say you're against animal cruelty and then knowingly support it. I'm not better than you and by no means am I morally pure but I do eat honestly and according to my beliefs. I respect your decision either way, but face the truth and make the connection.

Earthlings full length documentary

The food segment starts at 17:45.

Earthlings (COMPLETE MOVIE) animal cruelty treatment fur meat vivisection - YouTube

 

[MsBuzzkillington]

That is by far one of the most depressing documentaries, ever. I have seen it before.

 

[MikeyC]

I hate thinking about how my meat got on my plate. I always want to assume the animal in question was killed humanely. I know that I have eaten cruelly-killed animals, and I probably will continue to, and that's quite sad.

 

[Entangled]

I would not say that one is better than the other. It's just a personal choice that people make, and we should not be judging people because of it. But if you are one or the other you should not be shoving it in others peoples faces saying 'Look I'm better than you!'

For me, I have been decreasing my meat consumption over the past couple of months. I wouldn't call myself a vegetarian, but I have just found (by change) the alternatives to meat taste somewhat better than meat itself. But again that is just my opinion.

 

[JMiller]

I applaud people who are willing to make an effort in their diets to cut out meat.
That being said, no I won't be a vegetarian because my mentality as follows is:

-It tastes good

-It's dead anyways so I'm not going to let it go to waste

 

[Phoenixx]

I don't know health wise, but I think cheeseburgers are delicious.

^ Hehe, this made me laugh. ::

I'm with Buzz on this one, there's pros and and cons to both. As for me, I like a balance of both, although lately I've been leaning more towards eating vegetables, fruit, and just sticking to poultry and fish, not so much beef and pork.

 

[Lea]

-It's dead anyways so I'm not going to let it go to waste

Yea if I get meat somewhere I normally eat it because if I don´t, it will go to waste .

 

[Lea]

@Satstrn: But they get inhumanely killed in the end anyway, so it could be said that any person who buys meat supports the killing.

 

[MikeyC]

All those, like myself, who hates inhumane killing of animals will hate this: Greens call for ban of live animal exports - Yahoo!7

There should not be any more live exports to Indonesia. Ever.

 

[BlackPuma]

@Satstrn: But they get inhumanely killed in the end anyway, so it could be said that any person who buys meat supports the killing.

That's absolutely true. Even if a person is against animal cruelty in the meat industry (and/or in general), buying meat from a unknown source is risking supporting (even if only financially) the company that practices those despicable methods. Usually targeting their wallet hurts them most.

Convenience is not a good excuse for ignorance. If there's something that someone knows can be done to personally reduce the usage of cruelty-meat (and so reducing a contributing fraction of the meat demand) it should definitely be applied when possible.

The problem I have is that I don't know of any trustworthy sources. Farmers markets would be a obvious place, but even they could've gotten it from a untrustworthy source. This also makes me think I'd eat a lot less meat if I lived on my own.

 

[WeirdyMcGee]

Well, I grew up with aboriginal grandparents-- hunting and fishing were every day activities; and getting your meat that way may be the only way you can get meat that you *know* was not killed inhumanely.

 

[BlackPuma]

Well, I grew up with aboriginal grandparents-- hunting and fishing were every day activities; and getting your meat that way may be the only way you can get meat that you *know* was not killed inhumanely.

Plus being fair. In that scenario the animal wouldn't be a sitting duck. A battle of skill, wits and opportunity. Rather then merely a matter of time and production.

 

[Lexington]

What a question!

 

[FriendlyShadow]

I'm a meat eater and proud of it. I dislike animal cruelty as much as the next guy, but there's no beating evolution. We are meant to it meat. It's a fact. We need protein's to survive, and meat gives us a lot of it. Even hard vegans who despise eating even fish and dairy products have to take substitution pills to make up for the lost nutrition from not eating meat, and a lot of these products are made from ingredients made from animals, making the entire lifestyle hypocritical and pointless.

Look.. I'm not going to change your mind, and you're not going to change mine.
I can get all the protein and nutrition I need without eating a single animal or
taking a single pill. The fact that I can do that, coupled with the fact that
most meat must be cooked before it is 'edible' suggests to me that it's
not part of our natural diet. It may not be as simple as cooking a dead
animal, but being completely vegetarian is a perfectly healthy lifestyle.
Eat all the meat you want. Go ahead and evolve. I'll stay where I'm at!

 

[satstrn]

Nature is inherently cruel...ever see those videos of foxes eating baby chicks? Ever seen a cat slowly torture a mouse until it bleeds out? Killing an animal for its meat is natural, even if it suffers. The question of "humanely raised" meat is a different question, as I see it. The heavy majority of animals killed for food (I would estimate at well over 90%) are raised in an environment where they are unable to perform their natural behaviors. Gestation crates which dont allow pigs to turn around, battery cages which dont allow hens to flap their wings, grain fed cows that live on feedlots intead of pasture, baby cows that are chained at the neck for veal....all examples of such. The farm animals that live on factory farms are kept in such close quarters that they would die were it not for heavy antibiotics. About 99% of these animals are sick when they are slaughtered. They are fed growth hormones which promote unnatural growth and killed when they are still very young. They are unable to lead normal social lives and exhibit extreme stress and frustration because of it. Baby animals are torn from their mothers....baby pigs have their tails and testicles ripped off without anesthetics, and baby chickens have their beaks burnt off in the same manner. They are stressed, scared, sick, and generally in pain for their entire lives. Disgruntled workers often take out their own frustrations on the animals, routinely beating and mutilating them. For me, it is not the act of killing but the act of not allowing a pig to be a pig, or a cow to be a cow, and so on that is the problem. Local level farmers who raise their animals on pasture and treat their animals with respect are not cruel, in my opinion. Until recently humans and farm animals had a symbiotic relationship, with the animals benefiting from reproduction and protection from predators and humans benefiting from milk, eggs, flesh, and often times companionship. When we stopped treating animals with dignity and respect is where we went wrong, and it is why I chose to stop consuming their products. Its a profit driven industry that has no respect for human health, the environment, or the animals. I'm not saving animals from pain and suffering, but not putting these products into my body gives me some degree of control over something I really can't change. It makes me feel more at peace. I'm a pretty healthy guy, too.