I only eat expensive organic foods...because it makes me immortal. Also makes me feel superior.
Poll: Meat causes cancer :O | What will you do? | Human Evolution vs. Contemporary Science?
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Sure, but there's a threshold of cruelty to animals that most humans would never accept, and only accept because they are unaware of it happening. You think meat eaters can watch battery farm footage without being repulsed? Humans, for some reason or another, generally react negatively to animal cruelty. My bias towards the human species isn't because of some idea that we are "superior" to other animals, but rather because I am a member of the species. If human lives are at risk, be it from malnutrition, predatory animals, pests or pathogens, I think it's quite clear who should be prioritised for survival.Simonism451 said:
But there's a difference between survival and making a profit, eating a cheeseburger, hell, having a leather sofa. I'm sure you can tell when harm towards other creatures stops being about survival and becomes exploitative. I'm sure most people can tell the difference between shooting a lion because it poses a legitimate threat to your life and shooting a lion for a trophy.
Well, my bias towards the human species is because I think we're superior. It's the same reason why I don't think owning a dog is slavery. It's also why I think that battery farming, while cruel and unnecessary, isn't essentially the holocaust.DizzyChuggernaut said:
Well I suppose it all boils down to a difference of opinion. You think humans are superior to other life forms while I think arranging different species to form some sort of hierarchy is pretty absurd outside of pure natural selection. That's fair enough, I can't argue because it's purely subjective. But do understand that my comparison, while you may not see it as valid, is my honest opinion and is an opinion I hold not to de-legitimise the horror of one, but to legitimise the horror of the other.Simonism451 said:
I was hoping that it was pretty clear that I was talking about a privileged modern society, how can it be taken that I possibly meant one that's literally centuries old where there was valid reliance on animals? I really hate it when people bring up either some historical or obscure group that can't at all be the least bit compared to anyone living in a city or town with grocery stores. The fact that we have options is the entire point of why it's wrong to eat meat.Dr. Thrax said:
"A vegetarian or vegan diet isn't practical for everyone, everyone has differing tastes, and in order to meet the same nutritional values of an omnivorous diet, you'd probably get stuck with eating something you don't like, or making up the deficiencies with supplements."
I'm incredibly skeptical of any health associated arguments being made on this site when far too many people everywhere I look have shown that they don't actually care much about health. Well, at least not until veganism or vegetarianism is brought up anyway. I've reviewed a few comments already and only more have come by this point. Things along the lines of "Meat gives cancer all right, delicious cancer. Cancer? I'd rather have that than no meat. I'll take the cancer so long as I can have meat with it." Even facetiously, this gets across that at least a little bit people don't care even half as much on their health as they make themselves out to be. I'm also having trouble with the differing tastes argument as well, because there's a great variety of vegetables, spices, sauces, and everything of that nature to improve and alter food. And I'm speaking as someone who for the entirety of his school years was known for being the fussy one of the family. It takes some time, but there's plenty of things to discover.
"and I'd die of malnutrition."
That's probably hyperbole. If I can survive a vegan diet I'm pretty sure anyone else can if they put effort into it.
"The best lesson the raptor can teach you is to be grateful for the prey that sustains you. The worst lesson it can teach you is a practical demonstration of that point."
There's an incredible difference between a raptor hunting its prey for survival and the systematic slaughter of billions of animals. On top of that, there is also a different in how the food is acquired and in numerous cases eaten. Sure, some people eat healthy diets with meat. Fact is though is that fast-food places exist and they need to be getting there business from somewhere. So the animals aren't even dying for survival, they're dying to make people less healthy. And even in cases that aren't that the suffering is still undermined by the simple fact that it can be completely avoided.
Oh, so organisms need to sentient for their lives to have worth? How very speciesist of you. Actually, that illustrates my point perfectly - it makes sense to differentiate on the basis of sentience, intelligence, and a whole host of other factors that separate us from livestock. As a result, comparing the meat trade to the Holocaust is comparing apples to oranges. Comparing Sandy Hook to Columbine is a much more equal comparison - comparing apples to apples, if you will.DizzyChuggernaut said:
...and yet for millennia people survived just fine without electricity, and yet the consumption of meat was all but ubiquitous. Are you sure you don't have your priorities back to front?
I don't get why the "industrialisation" of the meat industry makes it so evil. As long as correct animal welfare is in place - and I do think it's important to produce meat ethically - I'd say it's a lot more benevolent than hunting (often endangered) animals in their natural habitat. Take a pork farm where the pigs are raised in safety, have the attention of a vet, are well-fed and allowed plenty of exercise and fresh air until one day they're killed quickly and painlessly. Then compare that to inuits hunting whales or polar bears. If the former seems inhumane but the latter is "just the way things are", perhaps a bit of romanticism and "myth of the noble savage" is influencing your thinking?
Seriously? You'd consider somebody swatting a fly exactly as bad as killing a chimpanzee? And would you be prepared to say both constitute murder, since animal lives are worth as much as humans'?DizzyChuggernaut said:
Grass does not have the capacity to feel pain or any sort of emotional suffering. You are either arguing in bad faith here or have an understanding of biology on par with Victorian era pseudoscience.Batou667 said:
So what you're saying is that if there was a creature more intellectually advanced than us, they'd have every right to slaughter us? You know this sort of reasoning has been used to justify atrocities against other humans, right?
You must have a very romanticised view of the past if you think that before electricity (let alone economies and clothing) things were "just fine".
Because the industrialisation of the meat industry greatly inhibits the ability to give animals proper welfare. Animals are locked in cages where they can barely move, they are pumped with antibiotics instead of given medical care and they are fed well beyond any normal capacity. These animals aren't even treated like animals, they're treated like resources. In the USA in particular an overwhelming majority of meat, dairy and egg production comes from these sorts of farms. Do you not believe that throwing millions of newly-born male chicks into grinders because they're "useless" is cruel in any way?
The difference is necessity. Nature is cruel and death is a part of the process, there's no way to avoid that. Anyone that's ever seen a wildlife documentary knows how brutality is simply a part of nature. The Inuit need to hunt in order to survive because the ecosystems they live in provide little if any non-animal nutrition. Meat is a necessity, and I mean literally. They're like any other animal that lives at such extreme latitudes.
But that's the thing, the Inuit aren't setting up gigantic factory farms in order to process all of this meat, their existence is far more sustainable for the environment than McDonald's.
My point wasn't that swatting flies is as bad as killing chimpanzees, my point was that there is no way to arrange animals into a hierarchy of "superiority" without applying our own arbitrary rules. Also I've already said that human lives are worth more than that of other animals (at least from my human perspective), but not to the point where extreme cruelty to animals becomes acceptable. Yeah maybe a cow can't ponder the meaning of life or do astrophysics, that doesn't mean that it isn't experiencing extreme anguish when a worker drags its limp overweight body along the shit-covered factory floor to be slaughtered.
If chimpanzees laid 500 eggs each and spread feces around your home which spreads a whole host of pathogens, maybe I'll feel as bad about killing a chimpanzee as I do swatting a fly. That said, I still think that mass extermination of insects is harmful for the environment (bees are extremely important for pollination).
A significant number of these sorts of studies on red meat have historically relied on self-reporting, which introduces a host of issues, such as people lying, misremembering, or telling you what they think you want to hear. Additionally, people who eat red meat typically tend to also have numerous unhealthy lifestyle habits such as smoking, drinking, eating processed foods and a lack of regular exercise. Sure, some of the studies attempt to factor this in, but this is usually difficult, if not impossible with the way the research is conducted. Even when they do factor this in, it's left as more of a footnote, or something along the lines of "The self-reported data on lifestyle habits beyond diet was not sufficient to determine whether or not non-nutritional factors play a role in cancer risk associated with red meat"; which to me, is fucking lazy and disgusting.
Third, there's the fact that over the course of human evolution, the last two centuries are literally the only ones where probably 80%(or more) of the meat all people eat is solely muscle meat. What does muscle meat contain significant amounts of? Methionine. What does methionine do? Well methionine consumption tends to be co-related with IGF1(insulin growth factor), which is a growth promoter, and subsequently a tumour growth promoter. Additionally, vegetarian diets have been found to down-regulate IGF1 activity, which is associated with a lower cancer risk. Does this mean I'm recommending a vegetarian diet in a post attempting to refute some of the WHO claims? Not at all. What pretty much none of those studies take into account, is the fact that there's an amino acid glycine, found in cartilage and connective tissue which in many ways is effectively complementary to methionine, and either significantly mitigates, or negates its negative effects. Remember, from an evolutionary standpoint, humans have been eating nearly the whole damn animal, for probably 98% of our time on earth. Obviously, if you suddenly only start eating the tastier, less grisly looking parts, you're going to start seeing problems.
Lastly, they probably do have a point about one way red meat could increase cancer risk, but that has less to do with red meat itself, and more to do with how people cook it. Basically, it boils(hah, a cooking pun) down to, well, slow-indirect cooking, vs. higher intensity direct cooking. Pan-fried, grilled, and seared meat that is well done is far more likely to contain oxidised, and carcinogenic compounds than meat that has been slow-cooked in a stew. Of course, even lone glimmer of truth in this whole mess is not the apocalypse some people want it to be. Say you like your grilled or fried meat; you can still eat it if you do one of the following things.
1.Marinade the meat, and use anti-oxidants like spices, herbs, citrus, vinegar, wine and honey to reduce the formation of oxidised compounds.
2.Eat your meat medium/rare, rather than well done.
3.Eat your vegetables and fruits
4.Pre-cook your meat with a gentler method, and grill/fry it for a very short time just for that crisp outer layer.
TL;DR If you're reading the WHO article, and freaking out because you eat red meat, I have good news and bad news.
The good news is, if you exercise with high intensity, avoid smoking/drinking/sugar/processed foods, eat a roughly 60-40 split of fruit/veg to meat, eat fat/offal/connective tissue in addition to muscle meat, and cook most of your meat slowly/gently, or cook it in liquid, or cook it in marinades high in anti-oxidants, you'll be fine. Hell, you'll almost certainly be healthier than even those "super-human" vegetarians the media can't stop talking about.
The bad news is, if you smoke, drink, eat processed foods, avoid exercising, eat a lot of meat/carbs with few or no vegetables/fruit, eat only muscle meat, and eat mostly fried/grilled food you're very likely going to end up with cancer. Oh, and if it's not cancer, it'll be diabetes, heart disease, or some other lifestyle disease.
Third, there's the fact that over the course of human evolution, the last two centuries are literally the only ones where probably 80%(or more) of the meat all people eat is solely muscle meat. What does muscle meat contain significant amounts of? Methionine. What does methionine do? Well methionine consumption tends to be co-related with IGF1(insulin growth factor), which is a growth promoter, and subsequently a tumour growth promoter. Additionally, vegetarian diets have been found to down-regulate IGF1 activity, which is associated with a lower cancer risk. Does this mean I'm recommending a vegetarian diet in a post attempting to refute some of the WHO claims? Not at all. What pretty much none of those studies take into account, is the fact that there's an amino acid glycine, found in cartilage and connective tissue which in many ways is effectively complementary to methionine, and either significantly mitigates, or negates its negative effects. Remember, from an evolutionary standpoint, humans have been eating nearly the whole damn animal, for probably 98% of our time on earth. Obviously, if you suddenly only start eating the tastier, less grisly looking parts, you're going to start seeing problems.
Lastly, they probably do have a point about one way red meat could increase cancer risk, but that has less to do with red meat itself, and more to do with how people cook it. Basically, it boils(hah, a cooking pun) down to, well, slow-indirect cooking, vs. higher intensity direct cooking. Pan-fried, grilled, and seared meat that is well done is far more likely to contain oxidised, and carcinogenic compounds than meat that has been slow-cooked in a stew. Of course, even lone glimmer of truth in this whole mess is not the apocalypse some people want it to be. Say you like your grilled or fried meat; you can still eat it if you do one of the following things.
1.Marinade the meat, and use anti-oxidants like spices, herbs, citrus, vinegar, wine and honey to reduce the formation of oxidised compounds.
2.Eat your meat medium/rare, rather than well done.
3.Eat your vegetables and fruits
4.Pre-cook your meat with a gentler method, and grill/fry it for a very short time just for that crisp outer layer.
TL;DR If you're reading the WHO article, and freaking out because you eat red meat, I have good news and bad news.
The good news is, if you exercise with high intensity, avoid smoking/drinking/sugar/processed foods, eat a roughly 60-40 split of fruit/veg to meat, eat fat/offal/connective tissue in addition to muscle meat, and cook most of your meat slowly/gently, or cook it in liquid, or cook it in marinades high in anti-oxidants, you'll be fine. Hell, you'll almost certainly be healthier than even those "super-human" vegetarians the media can't stop talking about.
The bad news is, if you smoke, drink, eat processed foods, avoid exercising, eat a lot of meat/carbs with few or no vegetables/fruit, eat only muscle meat, and eat mostly fried/grilled food you're very likely going to end up with cancer. Oh, and if it's not cancer, it'll be diabetes, heart disease, or some other lifestyle disease.
I think you'd have a hard time justifying this belief other then with conversation stoppers.Simonism451 said:
What I find most disturbing about this debate is the incredibly skewed view on how farm animals are actually held. Most ppl. seem to agree that mass production of meat is cruel and so forth (#1 supplier for affordable meat btw.) but then turn around and make the argument that small farms are all fine and dandy. Consider livestock farming (a telling name) for pigs. Sows are held in metal cages barely bigger then the animal itself for months on end. Then,when their piglets are taken away, they gain a few more meters of space, just to undergo the same torture a few months after. Milkers are being artificially inseminated a couple of times a year (which ruins their health gravely) reducing their possible lifespan of appr. 25 years to 6-8 years. And I am not even going to talk about the sounds they make when you take their calves away from them. This (and so much more) happens on small commercial farms. That idea of free pigs and cows on "mom & pop"-farms barely enters the realm of this discussion because they provide minimally to the whole meat marked enterprise.
If I stopped to think about all the things I do, am surrounded by, eat and drink in the context of 'could it kill me' at all times; I'd do nothing whatsoever.
This really what is wrong with the industry. These practices are cruel, but even more they are just unnecessary.DizzyChuggernaut said:
Also aren't they given antibiotics to counter the fact that they are more susceptible to disease due to overcrowding and the resulting poor conditions? Which ironically is causing more problems like resistant bacteria.
They could fix this but alas, they might have to sacrifice some revenues. Oh no not the money!
The majority of the conversation was about how Dizzy feels that Carl the chicken is essentially Anne Frank. I can't see how you can lead a conversation on that premise without quickly arriving at a point where stopping it becomes the preferable alternative to turning it into a complete farce.47_Ronin said:
The conversation wasn't about how the meat industry is effed up and supporting it is morally iffy if you happen to live in a first world country where alternative sources of nutrition are widely available. I totally agree on that.
Sorry, I should have clarified. Only the first sentence was meant for you, the rest concerns people Dizzy and I discussed with earlier.Simonism451 said:
With conversation stopper I meant sth. akin to religion or similar, where you cannot prove your premise. I still mean what I said though.
Didn't we already know that processed meat was carcinogenic?
Anyway, I'm not vastly bothered. People eat far more than a healthy amount of meat regardless, so you may as well cut down. Personally I only eat about two meals a week with meat in anyway, just so I can be a special little snowflake (vegetarianism's too mainstream, sheeple). But really, we didn't evolve to eat meat every single day, it's terrible for the environment, it's either expensive or wildly inhumane and it's not like there aren't alternative sources of protein.
Basically, if this is the kicker that makes someone vegetarian, they're a moron (especially given that damn near everything is carcinogenic).
Anyway, I'm not vastly bothered. People eat far more than a healthy amount of meat regardless, so you may as well cut down. Personally I only eat about two meals a week with meat in anyway, just so I can be a special little snowflake (vegetarianism's too mainstream, sheeple). But really, we didn't evolve to eat meat every single day, it's terrible for the environment, it's either expensive or wildly inhumane and it's not like there aren't alternative sources of protein.
Basically, if this is the kicker that makes someone vegetarian, they're a moron (especially given that damn near everything is carcinogenic).
"This guy...amiright? Super far off topic here. It's cool though."Rornicus said:
Actually, I started on-topic and then I trailed off into moaning about the typical vegan spiel on how meat is murder. Hopefully I can get some credit where it's due that it's been working.
"Exploitation of who exactly?"
Billions of animals that had to live a miserable life in abhorrent conditions to die pointlessly for an indefensible institution that makes it's profit solely off indulgence. Hopefully we'll refrain from arguments on how "they aren't human so they don't matter" when this won't logically work while we have zero-tolerance towards numerous other forms of animal cruelty for entertainment purposes.
"And how does it cause excess pollution?"
Factory-farming breeds a lot of animals so it stands to reason that they create a lot of waste while they're alive and even more after they're dead. On top of this we also should be aware that cows create methane so an industry that purposefully breeds these animals to mass-produce them contributes to there being more methane. It's been said a long time ago; your burger is a greater contributing factor to global warming than your car.
"Plants die when I eat them too. I'm not crying in my broccoli tonight over it."
That's a false equivilance because plants don't have a brain while animals most certainly do. The level of thought of course changes from animal to animal but at least we can be sure of there being some form of sentience and complex thought. As far as plants go the only thing we know is that they react - but nothing on whether they actually feel.
"Listen to Pink Floyd"
Which reminds me of another reason why factory-farmed animals deserve better; because no matter how simple an animal may seem they're still sometimes inherently better than the likes of certain humans that exist like Ted Nugent and say, other rock guitarists who announce that they're "ashamed to be British wah wah" because they had suffer the horror to live in a country where the majority of people were compassionate enough to think that Fox-hunting is an atrocious and antiquated practice with an inhumane means of dealing with an animal. If we can give these people basic rights then it just stands to reason to extend this welfare towards more noble creatures.
You'll have to ask to those who made the studies. WHO is just saying: the evidence of our 800 studies is conclusive, each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%.Lightknight said:
By itself, maybe. But if you're teetering on the edge of vegetarianism, knowing how badly animals are treated and the resultant pollution, I wouldn't begrudge you taking the next step for health reasons. Especially if you have a history of colorectal cancer in the family.TheRightToArmBears said:
The WHO study only found slight positive correlation. Even admitted to be attributable to chance. Chill out everyone eat some steak.
Processed meats are a very particular subset of meats, so no, that doesn't necessarily apply to all, or even most human consumed meats.
If anything, I think this is the kind of thing I'd be more worried about:
https://www.rt.com/usa/319524-tampons-cotton-glyphosate-monsanto/
So who else wants weedkiller in their feminine hygiene products? Or other products made from the same cotton farms...
If anything, I think this is the kind of thing I'd be more worried about:
https://www.rt.com/usa/319524-tampons-cotton-glyphosate-monsanto/
So who else wants weedkiller in their feminine hygiene products? Or other products made from the same cotton farms...