Veganism...why?

[Micalas]

I have the exact same position; if I wouldn't do it to a retarded child, I wouldn't do it to an animal.

Oh, sweet! Now I have a way to justify my meat eating life-style.

 

[ishist]

I would be almost violently opposed to veganism except I have a plan. Our evolution into intelligent sentient beings was dependent on our varied omnivorous diet. I forsee a "The Time Machine" style future where normal Humans will have evolved past most of our handicaps. Vegetarians will have evolved but be entirely dependent on a regimen of vitamins to stave off death. Vegans will have devolved into an exceptionally smug form of lichen, in thrall to their ant overlords.

 

[Deepzound]

As a vegan, I can say that the key to understanding veganism, is investing the time to look into the issue yourself.

I don't have several hours to write up all the arguments (though in short form, they are usually confined to three topics - Environment, Health and Ethics), so in stead I'll recommend watching the following two films as relatively quick primers on veganism:

Earthlings [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce4DJh-L7Ys] describes the ethical and environmental reasons for veganism.

Forks over Knives (site [http://www.forksoverknives.com/]) describes the health reasons.

Additionally for the people who prefer books I'd recommend checking out "The China Study [http://www.amazon.com/The-China-Study-Comprehensive-Implications/dp/1932100385]", "Diet for a New America [http://www.amazon.com/Diet-New-America-John-Robbins/dp/0915811812]" and "The World Peace Diet [http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Peace-Diet-ebook/dp/B0013BJHZY]" for a more comprehensive understanding.

 

[Pipotchi]

I would be almost violently opposed to veganism except I have a plan. Our evolution into intelligent sentient beings was dependent on our varied omnivorous diet. I forsee a "The Time Machine" style future where normal Humans will have evolved past most of our handicaps. Vegetarians will have evolved but be entirely dependent on a regimen of vitamins to stave off death. Vegans will have devolved into an exceptionally smug form of lichen, in thrall to their ant overlords.

What about level five vegans? I.e. those that dont eat anything that casts a shadow?

On topic I looked into vegatarianism but its not for me. Good for them though, although they always look miserable at Christmas, eating their Nut loaf or whatever

 

[Calibanbutcher]

I just wanted to drop in real quick, because someone was going on about the health benefits of a vegan diet:
There are none.
The only thing that surely awaits you, the moment you decide to go on a purely vegan diet without supplements, is death by Vitamin B12 deficiency.

Comparing average meat-eater diet to the average vegan one? Yes, there are. No eating the crap that is commonly in meat. Not eating the large amount of saturated fats that have been linked to heart disease and cancer.
Compared to the ideal meat-eater diet with good quality meat and a controlled diet making sure you get exactly what you need? I don't really know if there is any benefits then, but how many people follow that?

Because you can't get B12 from all the vegan products that are fortified to cover that problem, such as soy milk or cereals. Jesus, I live with a no supplement vegan, they haven't been collapsing or dying yet. Why the hostility bro?

Yeah, I guess that it doesn't matter... -snip-

Or/and what he said.

Please bear in mind, that there are far more meat-eaters than vegans, so of course, going with that there are more cases of heart deficiency and what-not. But the health advantages don't come from eating vegan but from actually thinking about what you are going to eat, not eating most kinds of fast-food and thinking a few seconds before stuffing your face.
I have also seen a study with 25 morbidly obese americans, who basically ate nothing but fast food and soda, who, after going on a strict vegan diet, suddenly felt better, had less heart problems, etc.
Is that due to veganism?
Of course not, it's becasue they took care not to eat junk food anymore.
But of course most vegand - meat comparisons decide to go the easy route and compare vegan diets to fast food loving fat and sugar junkies.
And every single other diet on the planet could win against these odds.
And concerning Vit B12:
Your food has to be fortified.
Synthetic (or sometimes also organic) Vitamin B12 has been added to your food.
It's a form of supplement in my book...
Soy beans actually contain very little Vitamin B12, as do cereals, so it's very safe to assume that the soy milk and the cereals were infused with Vitamin B12 artifically, thus making it a Vitamin B12 supplement in my book.

 

[Spy_Guy]

Humans are at the absolute peak of the food chain. It's wonderful.

Whenever I think about human accomplishments like the factory-line food production or laboratory animals, it just fills me with such bliss. I enjoy my medicine and my food and I can just marvel at how we've advanced from simple predatory behaviour to manufacture (delicious) food at this magnitude.

I don't really care about how they live, to be honest. They're subhuman and thus available to us for use however we see fit. Just as how seals are available for use by killer-whales in whichever way they see fit (food).

No, the arguments of slaves being seen as subhuman once upon a time is invalid as they're members of the same species as us. Though... if anyone here considers themselves a sentient cow and thus the spokesperson for bovines everywhere, I can accept your point, no problems.

Now to a few things I've seen here that I took issue with:
Exhibit #1

Wow, way to represent the species man.

Vegan seen here representing his beliefs in a manner that will certainly not cause prejudice at all.

Now, I generally don't have any issues with other people's personal beliefs and I think I can let them live as they will as long as they don't encroach on the comfort of a fellow human being... I do however have issues with people representing their beliefs by means of attacking others, thus invalidating them in the eyes of their opponents.
Much in the same way as I dislike gamers shooting up schools and making the rest of us look bad.

So, have a call-out, guy. I insist.


Exhibit #2

Because eating animals "is immoral and unnatural." That's what the only vegan I've known says. Oh and "humans are actually herbivores that force themselves to eat meat from a young age."

I wanted to snip out the bits that are subjective about "morals" but it would be choppy, and I need to acknowledge hat this person is just the messenger, and I maintain my policy of not shooting those.

With regards to the bolded section, however:

 

[Vivi22]

Saturated fats found in meat (not found in primary sources of vegan protein) have been linked to various forms of cancer, heart disease and all sorts.

Those links have been frequently and consistently debunked as of late. In fact, now that the mechanisms which cause heart disease in the first place are better understood, it's not only impossible for the consumption of saturated fat to cause it, it actually prevents it by creating more optimal levels of good and bad cholesterol in the blood stream, and by not causing the inflammation which damages arteries in the first place and allows small LDL particles to take up residence in the artery walls. If you'd like to read a bit more about it then check out the book Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis. He's a cardiologist who looked at a ton of research, lists all of his sources, and has been reversing heart disease in his patients by encouraging them to give up grains and follow a low carb, high fat diet which includes plenty of meat and fat.

And I'd love to see this source that says too much meat can't cause obesity or heart disease. Please, do share.

Again, read that book because it explains the mechanisms behind both in quite a bit of detail. You can also check out the documentary Fathead by Tom Naughton or pretty much anything by Gary Taubes as a place to start looking into low carb diets and myths like the lipid hypothesis.

But to answer your question about obesity more directly, it's pretty much impossible to become obese from over eating meat when you understand the mechanisms by which people actually store fat. First, fat is primarily stored as a result of insulin triggering the storage of blood glucose as fat. This typically will not happen unless blood glucose levels rise to high and we can't efficiently burn it off quickly enough to prevent it being a problem. This won't happen when you eat meat. Protein and fat have no impact on blood sugar levels and can't cause the spikes which trigger fat storage. Only carbs can do that, and only in sufficient quantities. This is why the biggest culprits are sugar and wheat which will spike post-meal glucose levels into the diabetic range for most people, triggering insulin release to deal with the issue. But it's not just limited to sugar and wheat. For someone trying to actively lose weight, even fructose in many fruits can cause problems if they have more than 1-2 servings a day, usually because these peoples hormonal and metabolic systems are so out of whack that they can't handle any sugar anymore, even fructose.

This is a bit of an oversimplification mind you. There are other factors at play in how someone stores fat such as their sensitivity or resistance to insulin and how readily their body will tap into fat stores for energy if needed, but the gist is that obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc. all stem from over consumption of carbohydrates. Even worse is that carbs such as wheat and sugar will stimulate appetite and make people crave more when their blood sugar inevitably crashes creating one hell of a vicious cycle. Not only will that not happen on a low carb diet which includes plenty of meat and fat, but they provide greater satiety after consumption and more consistent energy levels throughout the day. Many find they can go hours longer between meals without eating and be perfectly fine because their blood sugar is under control and their body is utilizing the fat for energy instead of carbs.

You're arguing against points I never made. I never claimed wheat to be the messiah of foods, nor sugar,

No, but you did try to equate a simple concept such as conservation of energy to a complex system such as the human body which runs on more than simple calories, and argue that cutting out animals is more efficient because it loses the middle man. Your post also implied to me that you were arguing people would be better off if that 1/3rd of the worlds grain went straight to people instead of animals. But since that wasn't your intention I apologize for the misunderstanding. But the reality isn't as simple as you made it out to be, and ignores that animals are a very efficient source of protein, fat and nutrients we outright can't get from plants with any efficiency, and is certainly the more optimal choice since a diet including meat, particularly in larger quantities than the USDA recommends is much closer to the diet most people, particularly of European descent, have been eating for millions of years.

I said "a lot of people in this world could do with a lot less meat, and a lot more veg". I never claimed RDA gave you exactly what you wanted, only pointed that if in one meal I obtain more than 160% of the apparent minimum (which could be higher if I'd had pepperoni instead of cheese), then there is probably something wrong there. That was all.

I agree something is wrong there, but what's wrong is that the USDA pulled nutritional recommendations out of their ass and are often swayed by the whims of whichever lobbyists have the deepest pockets. The best research out there does not support their recommendations.

I mean look at it this way: of the three major macronutrients, protein, carbohydrates and fat, there is one that humans can get 0 of in their diet and be perfectly fine. I'll give you a hint: you're not going to find much of this macronutrient in a steak. So if we can thrive on diets with 0 carbs (the only down side being you're not going to run any marathons on 0 carbs), then why do the USDA recommendations call for eating the bare minimum of those you need to live, while recommending around 300g of carbs a day, most of that in the form of wheat based products? The answer, quite simply, is the people making the nutritional recommendations also happen to be paying pretty big subsidies to grain farmers. Wouldn't want all of that government money to be wasted on crops no ones eating I suppose.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

snip

That's actually my point. That was the only vegan I knows defense for being a vegan. It was in quotes for that very reason.

 

[Jammy2003]

Please bear in mind, that there are far more meat-eaters than vegans, so of course, going with that there are more cases of heart deficiency and what-not. But the health advantages don't come from eating vegan but from actually thinking about what you are going to eat, not eating most kinds of fast-food and thinking a few seconds before stuffing your face.
I have also seen a study with 25 morbidly obese americans, who basically ate nothing but fast food and soda, who, after going on a strict vegan diet, suddenly felt better, had less heart problems, etc.
Is that due to veganism?
Of course not, it's becasue they took care not to eat junk food anymore.
But of course most vegand - meat comparisons decide to go the easy route and compare vegan diets to fast food loving fat and sugar junkies.
And every single other diet on the planet could win against these odds.
And concerning Vit B12:
Your food has to be fortified.
Synthetic (or sometimes also organic) Vitamin B12 has been added to your food.
It's a form of supplement in my book...
Soy beans actually contain very little Vitamin B12, as do cereals, so it's very safe to assume that the soy milk and the cereals were infused with Vitamin B12 artifically, thus making it a Vitamin B12 supplement in my book.

Well maybe you are looking at the wrong studies, not my problem.
Others exist, I'm sorry for you wasting your time looking at such obviously biased ones, but I assure you biased studies exist both ways.

In regards to B12:
1) It's not my food, get your facts right.
2) Well we have different ideas of supplements then, to me a supplement is something you actively take ie. a tablet.

 

[Vegan_Doodler]

Sorry to pick on such an old post but I didn't have time to post the other day, and sorry if these points have already been made but I couldn't find them so...

Then you either weren't looking very hard or you failed to comprehend it, I'm not entirely sure which is more likely.

Man, I I meant I actually couldn't find posts with these points.

The only reason cows have a negative impact is because there are so many that have been bread for the purposes of farming,

Guess what? The only reason a Cow doesn't have a inherently negative impact is because we and other species eat them. A Cow not being eaten will only breed, eat and shit.

Because we eat them more are farmed, and there for have more of a negative impact.

and the idea that herbivores destroy entire eco systems doesn't really hold up, if that where true plant life would be extinct, herbivores would die out, and carnivores would die out, humans weren't always around to 'control' them.

It holds up, you just couldn't figure out why all on your own. Let me help you out:

Cow has no predators -> Cow lives it's life until it's natural death -> Eats a fuck ton and let's out lot's and lot's of methane -> breeds, now we have even more cows that do nothing but eat, shit and breed -> rinse and repeat until the number of cows cannot be sustained by the eco system, the eco system collapses and the cows fucking starve.

By the way, your reasoning is terrible. Because Humans are the only Predators that do and ever have existed, huh? Predators eating Herbivores is the only way the system even works. So you either didn't understand the context or you are ...unenlightened. Yeah, that doesn't sound too harsh.

Wow way to be real condescending man, very classy. You do realise taking what you just said to its logical conclusion would mean all live would have died out years ago. Animals don't continually bread, and I've even head they die some times so that's got to lower their numbers, right. "Because Humans are the only Predators that do and ever have existed, huh? " My point was that what you are saying is the only reason cows haven't killed of the planet yet is because humans keep their numbers down (complete opposite of what they do but whatever) but humans weren't always farming them, so logicically we wouldn't be here talking about it because cows would have fucked up the planet.

Humans actually are (initially) an inherent drain on the world, think about it, how many of us are actually usefull, how many of use are doctors or scientists, it's an unspoken truth that the majority of humans aren't really all that special.

Because Doctors and Scientists are the only useful people, huh? Get some perspective.

Now you are putting word in my mouth while displaying my actual words two lines above, I didn't say that they where the only useful examples did I, I just used them as examples because they where the first to jump to mind.

snipped for the sake of all our intelligence

Wow, thanks man how considerate of you!

Posting Pictures of Barn Yard Animals in a comparison to Terrorists and Dictators...why don't you just go full circle and post a picture of yourself next to the barn animals?

I really don't get this needs to be asked. Because I'm not a terrorist or dictator, you where saying that humans are inherently superior, evidently they are not. A human has far more potential to be destructive than a cow, and I don't think I would call a cow a terrorist unless I was a blade of grass.

On a side not can we sop with the whole veganism isn't healthy thing, you would be hard pressed to find an unhealthy vegan, and well..

Oh, it isn't unhealthy, not necessarily, it's terribly inefficient, that's why it isn't as good as simply having a balanced diet.

Sun>Plant>Animal>human
Sun>Plant>Human
Seems more efficient to me.


Seriously though, I don't think I did any thing to warrant that kind of condescending reaction.

 

[Jammy2003]

-snip-

So basically, you hate carbs. Carbs are bad. That's what your arguement seems to boil down to? I'm simplifying because I've had enough long debates in the first 11 pages of this thread, and don't want to get into any more. I wrote 1 paragraph, you gave me 7. You want to debate with me this late in the thread? Go back and read what I wrote before, I have no interest in writing it all out again

Ok, maybe I will read the book sometime, I'm not gonna do it right this second to debate with you though. Animals are a very efficient source of lots of things, yes. However we can't sustain the level of production we currently have, and you are suggesting we have more?

With your talk of the USDA I'm gonna assume you're American, 70-80% of your grain production goes to livestock. That's a lot of wheat, making a lot of meat. And the conditions or practices aren't too good either, meaning there is also a lot of crap quality meat. Maybe a diet of good quality meat, and low carbs is good for you, but that isn't what the average person is going to get.

You are arguing against points nobody has raised, and I'm not interested in playing devil's advocate for you. I don't know as much about carbs as you seem to, so I'm not gonna defend them. I do know it's possible to live healthily on a vegan diet though, and you are pretty much completely off topic to the thread at this stage.

 

[Vegan_Doodler]

Wow, way to represent the species man.

Vegan seen here representing his beliefs in a manner that will certainly not cause prejudice at all.

Now, I generally don't have any issues with other people's personal beliefs and I think I can let them live as they will as long as they don't encroach on the comfort of a fellow human being... I do however have issues with people representing their beliefs by means of attacking others, thus invalidating them in the eyes of their opponents.
Much in the same way as I dislike gamers shooting up schools and making the rest of us look bad.

So, have a call-out, guy. I insist.

I wasn't attacking him with my belief, I don't do that. If you read the guys original post he says "vegans are idiots" several times, when I replied in a completely respectable manner he said "I'll call anyone I like an idiot". While I admit my "Wow, way to represent the species man." line doesn't add anything to the conversation is and isn't really worthwhile, I didn't say that because he doesn't share my beliefs, I said that because he was being a dick.

And I'd appreciate if you quote me don't do it out of context so that I have to explain what really happened.

 

[Vegan_Doodler]

snip

Well you seem like an very unpleasant person.
I was completely civil and your reaction was to be condescending, insulting and aggressive.

 

[Cheery Lunatic]

A vegetarian/vegan diet has been proven to be healthier, probably because if a person puts in so much effort to go vegan, they also put in effort into eating healthier and exercising.

It would be nice if everyone made a greater attempt at healthy eating, that way one of the two vegan arguments would be demolished.

Now excuse me while I go eat some hypocrite burgers and fries.

The combination of your last sentence and your avatar made me laugh harder than I think I should have.

OT: I'm not gonna bother reading 13 pages, but I am assuming (hoping) that people mentioned there are also religious reasons (not just moral) as to why people go vegan.
I'm one of the only Catholic brown kids in my area, but I have plenty of brown and Asian friends that are vegetarian (or vegan) due to religion (Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain). It's funny that people mentioned that vegans are pricks about their lifestyle, because of all the vegetarian friends I have, I know of one vegan, and he's a total ass about it. He goes around calling anyone that eats meat and owns a pet backwards and hypocritical.

 

[Jammy2003]

The combination of your last sentence and your avatar made me laugh harder than I think I should have.

OT: I'm not gonna bother reading 13 pages, but I am assuming (hoping) that people mentioned there are also religious reasons (not just moral) as to why people go vegan.
I'm one of the only Catholic brown kids in my area, but I have plenty of brown and Asian friends that are vegetarian (or vegan) due to religion (Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain). It's funny that people mentioned that vegans are pricks about their lifestyle, because of all the vegetarian friends I have, I know of one vegan, and he's a total ass about it. He goes around calling anyone that eats meat and owns a pet backwards and hypocritical.

Actually I don't think religious reasons for being vegan got mentioned particularly, thanks for bringing them up.

While he may be an ass about it, depending on your logic behind having a pet and not eating it, he might not really be wrong... Though please try to remember that vocal minorities do not represent the whole community, in any community.

Edit: That isn't saying his way of going around and shoving it under people's noses unasked is right, if that is what he does, only that he might not be logically wrong in saying it.

 

[Lamnidae]

Because a plant can't look you in the eyes and tell you just how miserable it feels doesn't say they are less equal to any other living organism...

We are omnivores...
Always have been, forever will be...

But the vegans will get back to their senses when the time is there to become Hunter/Gatherers once more...

 

[squeekenator]

Because a plant can't look you in the eyes and tell you just how miserable it feels doesn't say they are less equal to any other living organism...

If you have solid evidence that plants have brains and are thus capable of feeling miserable you should probably be collecting your Nobel prize rather than posting about it on random internet forums.

 

[CarlMin]

Yeah, I guess that it doesn't matter that vegans have lower rates of heart disease and some forms of cancer than non-vegetarians, and statistically live longer than meat eaters? Not to mention the decreased risk of colorectal, ovarian, and breast cancers, diabetes and obesity and lastly hypertension.

Show me some studies comparing vegan diets to paleo or other low carb diets including meat instead of the diet of the average American which is filled with grains, sugars, vegetable oils andother processed garbage and these statistics will be more meaningful. I've yet to see studies which actually compared vegan diets to those types instead of just stacking the deck in favour of vegan diets by comparing to one of the worst diets in human history.

I don't really know what kind of studies you want me to find you. It seems you don't really understand the point of the ADA fats I referred to. According to the ADA and Dietitians of Canada, (and most health organizations researching this issue) diets that avoid meat tend to have lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein, and higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium etc. So if you're saying that the only reason vegan and vegetarian diets seems to be more healthy is that it as unfairly compared to the American diet, that still wouldn't prove anything as the very reason the vegan alternative is healthier is because they avoid eating so much meat.

You see, vegans eat the same grains, sugars, vegetable oils and other "processed garbage" as the meat-eaters. It would seem strange if they didn't. almost 2 percent of all Americans are vegan, and they live in American and will unavoidably eat the same non-meat products as meat-eaters. However by cutting out the meat, they achieve low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes. It would seem strange if they didn't. almost 2 percent of all Americans are vegan, and they live in American and will unavoidably eat the same non-meat diet as meat-eaters.

The same goes for vegetarians who tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates, lowered risk of chronic disease.

So it seems like vegans and vegetarians achieve a lower intake of saturated fat and cholesteroal. What could possibly by the decisive factor here? Well, probably that vegans and vegetarians do not eat any meat, which means that they cut down on, for example, saturated fat. And as their non-meat diet forces them to consume more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, soy products, fiber, and phytochemicals, they live healthier lives.

So a low-carb ir paleo diet might give the same health benefits if they are less meat-orientated. But that's aside the point. The point is that vegan and vegetarian most certainly do not live unhealthy lives, as the comment I initially replied to stated. Quite the opposite. The fact that you could probably achieve the same health benefits with a varied diet that consist of only a little meat doesn't really refute that point.

Either case, here's a summary of one article as well as some links that could be helpful if you want to know exactly how the studies were conducted, by I doubt that you'd find evidence of biased research, as pretty much every healthy study in most countries, as put forth by most bodies, come to the same conclusion concerning the health aspects of vegan and vegetarian diets.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864

If you want some more facts on the issue, you can find some independent, university sources linked in this wiki-article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganism#cite_note-disease-4

In either case, I think you?ll have to agree with me that there is certainly no reason to suggest that vegans and vegetarians are prone to unearthly lifestyles with insufficient nourishment as many less knowledge individuals in this thread seem to suggest.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Mmm. The plant issue is a tricky one. Because it betrays the fact that vegans essentially seem to be anthropocentric.

Who says a plant doesn't feel pain? On what grounds can this be asserted other than an inference based on biology and the nature of how human beings feel pain.

To be honest, can you even say breaking a rock into pieces to build a house doesn't hurt the rock?

Pretty much everything we eat was raised for that sole purpose.

Animals just happen to be cuter, and easier to understand because we are animals ourselves.

That doesn't mean plants, (or indeed inanimate objects) don't suffer as a result of what we do to them. Merely that if they do, we are less capable of recognising the suffering.

Still... I thought this through myself and came to the conclusion that being vegetarian or vegan for those reasons was problematic, and, honestly, a little egocentric.

I don't like causing suffering, but the fact remains that me being alive comes at the expense of other living and non-living things. There's no way around this, and presuming the suffering of animals is more important than that of anything else doesn't make sense to me.
That's not to say nothing can be done at all, just that I think vegetarianism doesn't really solve much in that regard.

Oh come now, with that logic there is no point in doing anything at all. That's a ridiculous extrapolation and can be done in reverse, to suggest that if living causes suffering then why be compassionate to anything? Why have a dog, cat or family? Why not eat them?

Of course it's extreme. But following things through to their logical conclusion is almost inevitably absurd.

That's one of the problems with logic.

The reverse case that you are pointing out is just as true, but does not negate the point.

Either way, what you choose to show compassion for, and what you don't is pretty arbitrary.

I mean, why is it OK to cause obvious harm to one thing, but not another?
Who decided that?

Well, as it happens, when you look at it, there may be a few exceptions here and there, but at the end of the day it seems to come down to compassion being proportional to how similar something is to you personally.

I can't argue with the feelings behind that, but it hardly seems a particularly fair way to judge what gets to live and what gets to die.

Got to say this is probably one of my favourite posts, someone who is using pure logic, and they disagrees with me *squeeeeel* this is going to be fun.

Ok, I do see a logical flaw in your extreme situation, it's that just because it would be nearly impossible to to execute such ideology practically then you abandon it completely, while compromise is the braking of a logical chain drawing your line in the sand isn't always a bad thing, at least you can be near or even just halfway toward the logical ideal rather than saying screw it and abandoning that path all together. Alternatively people could take a que from Rorschach an "Never compromise, even in the face of Armageddon" and keep striving for the ideal rather than abandoning it, which is what I try to do in life, not always successfully, but still.
A line I think I first heard for a Karate Kid movie was,
"when do I get to smash rocks"
"why do you what to smash rocks? what have they ever done to you?"
from that day I haven't caused intentional damage to any inanimate objects.

Sorry for the windedness at the beginning of the post. It just seems increasingly rare to find logical people on the internet.

Sorry it took so long to respond here. I've been known to get a little apprehensive of reading things that could turn into huge arguments.

I guess I shouldn't have worried though.
I don't know why finding logic in the internet would be so difficult, but in my experience logic is a fairly fragile tool. Not very useful in isolation, and easy to break by introducing factors that can't really be broken down on a logical basis anyway.

In any event, while it's certainly possible to strive for an ideal, or indeed to draw a line in the sand, it matters what that ideal is.

And when that ideal has to do with not causing harm to anything else, you unfortunately run into the issue that this is impossible. The only way you could accomplish it would be to kill yourself. Although even that isn't strictly speaking true when you consider all the implications.

And a lot of things happen regardless of your conscious involvement. The amount of bacteria and viruses my body destroys on a daily basis would be quite disturbing if I were to contemplate that they have as much right to exist as I do.

But given the knowledge that my continued existence will cause harm to something, the question arises as to whether there is anything I can do about this.
And if so, what?

If you look through this discussion a common bias does seem to repeat itself though. I recall someone pointing out that growing food crops causes a lot of harm as well.
That in itself would be kind of self-evident, except that the comment had nothing to do with the welfare of the plants we eat, and was in fact a comment about the amount of insects that die as a result of various things we do to grow plants we can eat.

It might not seem much, but framing a comment in that way exposes the implicit idea that the value of an insect's life is greater than that of a plant.
This seems especially evident given that no mention was even made of the plant's welfare.

Now, that's just an example, but when I consider my own behaviour it becomes obvious that unless I stop to think about it I do exactly the same thing.

And it seems quite selfish a lot of the time.

Now, if I have to eat something, why not my pets? Or my family? Well, the answer to that is also very selfish and egotistical.
I value my family and pets for other reasons. They are simply worth more to me alive than what it would gain me to eat them.

Eating other people in general... Well, I see no particular fundamental reason why that's any better or worse than eating anything else, but it's frowned upon as an idea, and aside from which, being human myself, accepting a situation in which other human beings would be an acceptable source of food means having to decide who gets eaten. (And of course, creates the risk that it just might be you).

Now, as to being a vegan, there may well be quite a few reasons why that would in fact be better. I'm just not particularly convinced by the typical 'animal welfare' arguments. You could easily make the same argument about plants, except plants are even less capable of defending themselves. Nor can they communicate or even express themselves in any way we really understand.

I can empathise with a cow, sure. But that's because I recognise aspects of it's behaviour, and can relate them to my own.
Empathising with a plant or a tree requires a lot more effort, and I have to cast aside several pre-conceived biases...
Can a plant feel pain? Not as far as I can tell, but that's because what I know about pain is defined by how my own body behaves. Since a plant has a different structure, and lacks the features necessary to feel pain the way I do, one possible conclusion would be that it has no feelings at all, and what I do to it doesn't matter.
Or... I could assume that saying something can only suffer insofar as it feels the same kind of things I do is arrogant, and egocentric.

Either way, it doesn't really solve the problem of what I'm going to eat tomorrow, it just raises the question of what assumptions underlie my choices.
If I am concerned about the welfare of the things I use for my own selfish purposes, then it does leave me to wonder what I consider to be more important, and why.

 

[ToffeeMC]

50% of the chicks that emerge as males and get casually tossed into a grinder? That is an unavoidable consequence of mass breeding chickens. Not all of them turn out female.

Why cant we eat roosters? That may seem stupid but ive never understood this practice. Youve invested money in getting an egg to hatch into a rooser. Why not just free range farm them for consumption? Isnt it a huge waste not to?

You can eat rooster. I don't understand why we don't if they don't lay eggs and they don't really have any other uses, but they are common to eat at christmas. At least in England. But it's called Capon, but only for some reason I don't want to go into, but will.

Spoiler

It's castrated :/