What are you thoughts about Vegetarianism and why do you feel that way?

FrostyChick

Little Miss Vampire.
Jul 13, 2010
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My thoughts and feelings are along the same lines as those on religion.
You can believe whatever you want to, however, when you try force people into sharing those beliefs, whether by coercion or attempting to pass new laws. You have gone too far.
What you put into your own body is your business, and no one has the right to dictate otherwise.

And as for this whole "You don't eat meat? Well I don't like that, but more power to you.".
I call bullshit, choosing not to eat meat doesn't make you special, it doesn't grant you anything. You have the same rights and powers as everyone else, nothing less, nothing more.
 

Dante DiVongola

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Jul 1, 2011
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AngleWyrm said:
Dante DiVongola said:
Overall, I just can't bring myself to care about if the meat I eat was prodded, crammed in a small living space, and had it's throat slit and was hung to bleed out.
I would prefer to eat happy meat, rather than miserable meat. I've got a sneaky suspicion that well being changes the proteins that make up that meat.
Actually it does sort of change the quality of the meats. xP Most of the 'mass farmed' animals are going to be put in terrible conditions with tainted water and foods. As opposed to those that are on a free-roam ranch, the 'mass farmed' animals' meat is going to be of poorer quality. I don't really have any knowledge of if the stress/psychological state of an animal has any direct influence over it's meat quality, but that's very much worth looking into. Thanks for your post! :)
 

ChildishLegacy

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Apr 16, 2010
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DrunkPickle said:
I don't support vegetarianism. I think it's just silly, and over-thought. The only way I could see vegetarians as reasonable people is if their reason for not eating eating meat was allergy, or religion. Other than that, no. I'm really annoyed by those pesky animal-lovers who impulsively protest against meat consumption. We are carnivores, and we're built to eat other animals, no matter how cute or fuzzy.
So you're allowed to not eat meat because a magic book tells you not to, but not because you personally feel guilty about it?

Also we're not carnivores, or we'd have to eat meat to survive. We don't have to therefore we can have a choice.
 

poleboy

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CarlMinez said:
The western, meat-orientated lifestyle is destroying the earth in every imaginable way and I still hear people claiming that eating meat is natural as if it was some sort of relevant argument.
Careful not to fall off that horse.

The meat-oriented lifestyle is not exclusively western by most standards. Only India has a large, dedictated tradition for vegetarianism, and that's mostly due to religious influence over centuries. Other asian countries have traditions for simply eating whatever they can get their hands on, as well as using the entire animal for food.

We are not exclusively omnivores
Sorry, but that is just complete nonsense. The word omnivore, in itself, prevents it from being excluding in any way. Omnivore means you can survive on a diet of either meat or vegetables. There's no "right" balance of vegetables and meat, though there are more or less healthy choices.
 

Mischa87

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Jun 28, 2011
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I could write up a big spiel on the whole topic, but I think jpmetz says it best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaYSFcBm-W4
 

Navvan

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Feb 3, 2011
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Dante DiVongola said:
I just got through watching a video on YouTube where the vlogger briefly addressed her Vegetarianism due to some commercial that has a guy eating a burger and a baby with meat on her face. She talked about the baby and from the way she tried to grasp for the right words, she probably saw it almost as a barbaric act. She described the meat on the baby's face as if she had eaten her own mother or something.

She trailed off a bit to talk about how she became a vegetarian when she was a teenager because of her learning about how the animals were killed and farmed. She didn't try to push on that her ways were right, but she's implied that eating animals were immoral in some fashion. Granted, this could also be personal bias due to her fondness for animals, but she seems to indirectly imply that eating animals should be wrong.

I'm not picking at her for anything, however, it kind of lead me to sort of think about how I view animals. I realize that, in all honesty, I couldn't give a flying shit about them. Not in the ignorant fashion of 'Well their just animals, it's not like they feel' sort of fashion. Rather, I sort of feel that way in a sense that we're creatures just like them. They kill their own kind in horrible ways and so do we. We don't always eat our own kind, but, in cases of survival or in criminal cases, it's happened with us humans as well.

I do feel that we need to be better about the way we farm these animals, but they're just another variation in the food chain to me (and a very tasty one, I might add). Overall, I just can't bring myself to care about if the meat I eat was prodded, crammed in a small living space, and had it's throat slit and was hung to bleed out. It's just an elaborate form of what animals do in their natural habitat anyhow.

So, tell me, what are you thoughts about Vegetarianism and why do you feel that way?
There are perfectly logically and sound reasons for being a vegetarian both for health, environmental, and moral reasons. Its just that the health benefits are somewhat debatable and in the end anything doing with morals is completely subjective. You just believe that there are no major health benefits and don't agree with the moral reasons behind some vegetarians.

The one thing that is completely objective is that farming meat is more costly than culturing plants of equivalent calorie count. The cattle have to eat plant material in order to form the meat that you eventually eat. This is not a 100% efficient process which means a good number of the calories go for other vital processes in the cow as well as some heat. The water needed to raise a plant is again less than for cattle of equivalent mass, even without factoring in that the animal eats plant material.

The only advantage meat has is that it generally (not always) has a higher calorie/nutrient density than most plants. This allows it to be cheaper to ship solely by a calorie/volume ratio. However most meat also requires additional care when being shipped (Refrigerated containers) that plants don't necessarily need depending on distance and shipping method.

Personally I'm not a vegetarian, but I have considered it. I might "convert" to some for of low meat diet but I doubt it will ever be 100% without meat.
 

Alexi089

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Jun 26, 2011
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I really just want to post this, since no one else has:

I get on fine with most the vegetarians I've met so far. Most just get on with it. One or two have tried to be all holier than thou, and they can usually be remedied with such excruciating classics as 'DO YOU HEAR THAT CARROT SCREAMING!?'. Douchebags will be douche bags.

I can't see myself ever becoming vegetarian, since I find meat too damn tasty and it's a nice convenient source of protein.

As for the argument of cruelty, I see their point but I don't think it's quite that black and white. Nature does need food chains to function, and you wouldn't chastise a fox for killing a rabbit, would you? That method of killing is much more barbaric than stunning and then quickly killing animals like humans do (providing the slaughterhouse people aren't a bit twisted). I reckon I could probably kill an animal for food, but it wouldn't be the easiest thing I've ever done in my life.

I also wonder what exactly we would do with cattle and sheep if we didn't farm them. Granted, the population would gradually die down, since people would gradually stop eating them; but I'm guessing most vegetarians don't want the species to disappear. Cattle, however are actually quite dangerous, when you remember the average cow weighs half a tonne, the average bull weighs a full tonne, and both are easily spooked. Leaving them to free-roam could result in a lot more traffic accidents and walkers getting trampled. I'm not sure how we would control their population to prevent problems without culling them (for the UK at least). I'm not aware of any predators here capable of taking down animals as large as cattle (besides the small population of wolves); and reintroducing bears or even more wolves probably isn't a great idea for a country this densely populated. Afterall, deer over-population has been an issue before: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4133919.stm Someone will probably argue that everyone would just need to be more careful, but anyone who lives in rural areas knows that free roaming deer, sheep, wild horses etc can be very unpredictable, sometimes running out from cover infront of cars. Therefore, my two cents is we don't need a large population of animals like bulls, free-roaming, getting spooked and making charges at cars or people.
 

Yoshisummons

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Aug 10, 2010
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It's one step from being suicidal. If someone makes the logic leap that animals are people, and it's inherently bad to eat people. Then, aren't plants living creatures as well? So why not prevent the harm of those things. Wait, you say only animals can also be people because it's more obvious, because you seen those cute kittens?

At the end of the day, by living on this planet you are limiting the biomass from being plants, bears, rats, bacteria, to turning that biomass into you, a human being. Is that bad? Depends on your values, and what you deem to have value.
 

Hugga_Bear

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May 13, 2010
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If someone wants to be a vegetarian then I don't care, sure go for it.
Personally I think we need to limit our meat intake for sustainability reasons. The current rate of consumption is huge and we need more space for growing food, animals invariably take a LOT of space (due to their feed) and that's problematic.

Why I advocate limitation and not vegetarianism is that there will always be room for some animals, even if we turn over all good arable land for us there'll still be places where we can't grow crops but feed grows, or places where animals can simply roam and feed themselves.

So I think we do, as a species, need to sort our stuff out but not for ethical reasons, simply because at our current pace it's becoming rapidly unsustainable.

Oh and as for ethics I've always maintained that as long as I will kill it I will eat it.
 

Filiecs

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May 24, 2011
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I'm a vegetarian (lacto-ovo)because I just plain don't like the taste of meat. My parents never fed it to me because it's healthier and so I never developed a pleasing taste for it.
I couldn't give less of a shit about the animals.
 

TownTattle

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Nov 7, 2011
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I am not vegetarain, but I have huge respect for those who are so long as they don't shove their lifestyle down my throat. Those vegetarians who force their beliefs on others are just as bad as the douchebags who make fun of vegetarians.
 

TheMatsjo

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Jan 28, 2011
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Dante DiVongola said:
So, tell me, what are you thoughts about Vegetarianism and why do you feel that way?
I am a vegetarian, primarily because I think it makes room for a better society with less pollution, better (healthier) food, costs far less energy to produce and saves a buttload of suffering in the process.

The "we're omnivores" argument is a load of nonsense, a variation on the natural argument easily exposed when saying the same for clothing: "we were born naked, so we should not wear clothing". Having the option of doing something does not equal an obligation to do so. Yes, we can eat animals, but not eating them leads to a better net result. Sooooo, yeah that's it. Those are my views.

Cheerio!
 

Durgiun

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Dec 25, 2008
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I think it's a weird eating habit, considering that humans are omnivores. But I generally don't give a rat's ass about it.

But... On the off-chance that someone is a militant vegetarian/vegan (like a certain tool on YouTube) then I shall take it upon myself to debunk their bullshit reasons to go vegan/vegetarian. Or if I'm feeling lazy, I'll look up other people's videos debunking their shit.
 

Robert Sanders

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Jul 9, 2011
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Regnes said:
I think it's a flawed concept of a lifestyle in most cases, unless the person really just doesn't like the taste or texture of meat or something, it's pretty much just dumb.

We're omnivores, we're meant to eat other animals, it's ok to kill an animal for food. If every carnivorous creatures suddenly just switched to a vegetarian diet, shit would hit the fan and our ecosystem would go out of whack.

Ever see all the environmentalists talking about how disastrous it is when apex predators suddenly go away? Like the shark crisis in the ocean right now, it's all true, when we see apex predators stop doing their jobs for whatever reason, ecosystems change for the worse.

We are the most significant apex predator in history, it is each and everybody's job to eat as many animals as they can get their grubby paws on, we are goddamn sharks.
Man no longer has any predators or diseases that pose a major threat to him. Sure, the occasional hiker gets eaten by a bear and we do have diseases like H.I.V., but bears need the protection of wildlife organizations just to keep them from extinction. Most of the viruses we can't cure "yet", can be treated or detected early so they don't pose a major threat. Even with most apex predators, numbers are controlled by disease and competition for limited resources. Man is "The" apex on this planet, and we can kill all life on this world, ourselves included.
 

Jandau

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Dec 19, 2008
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Oh boy, this is a tricky one... Well, I'll try to sum it up in a few short points:

1. Humans are omnivores, meaning we can eat whatever the fuck we want. So technically, if someone wants to eat all meat he should be free to do so just as if somone wants to eat zero meat. Bashing someone because they don't eat meat is rude and stupid. However, bashing someone because they are shoving their lifestyle choice in your face and condemning you for not sharing it, that is perfectly justified bashing.

2. Personally, I have nothing against eating meat, but that doesn't mean I condone animal cruelty. The way I see it, if there are creatures whose main purpose in life is to die to feed us (or live to feed us), the least we could do is make sure they have a comfortable life and a non-cruel death.

3. We should cut back on meat, not because of any kind of moral objections, but rather economic reasons. Meat is more expensive to produce than plant-based food. It's also more land-intensive. Since the general population of the planet isn't showing any signs of slowing down with the whole overpopulation thing, soon we'll be forced to use farmable land in a more efficient manner. I'm not saying we should abandon all meat, but rather reduce it, lowering the demand for it and allowing for more land to be turned towards farming instead of raising livestock.

The whole thing is tricky because under the whole "Vegetarian VS Carnivore" guise hides a number of different (if related) issues. Animal Cruelty, Lifestyle, Economy, Health, etc. Each of these aspects should be taken on its own and people shouldn't be expected to accept pre-packaged sets of attitudes for all of them. I get to object to Animal Cruelty, but still eat meat.
 

Vivi22

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Aug 22, 2010
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Midgeamoo said:
Invalid arguments (probably all of them have cropped up by now) are all over these threads, such as "We're omnivores, its NATURAL for us to eat meat". By that logic we shouldn't be getting less sleep than we'd like due to work/school, running to work/school every day rather than using the car or bus etc, living in the wild, all the while not having any clothes on, I mean, that's all natural isn't it?
Your logic is flawed. Just because doing one thing which is natural is better/worse for human health does not mean all things which are natural are better/worse for human health.

Eating meat is natural, and also happens to be better for human health than not eating meat(saturated fats which you get from consuming animals being essential for things like brain development and proper functioning of the immune system). But that is not an argument for abandoning all technology and clothing and "returning to nature". Obviously wearing clothes is better for human health so we don't die of exposure in winter, just like modern transportation technology is essential to insuring billions don't starve to death.

You haven't proven there's anything "invalid" about the argument you quoted. Just the logic you used trying to refute it.

TheMatsjo said:
Yes, we can eat animals, but not eating them leads to a better net result.
It's worth noting, and I'm not trying to start an argument here or anything, but there are large parts of the world which are entirely unsuited for the production of crops, but because they readily grow grass in large quantities (which we can't consume) the best agricultural use for said land is to raise animals such as cattle and sheep (thus converting otherwise unusable land into food we can consume). There are even some parts of the world (particularly the northern territories of Canada and places like them) where the growing season is so short, or the amount of land capable of supporting crops is so small, that the only alternative to meat for much of the year would be trucking in fruit and vegetables which would be costly to say the least, not to mention resulting in more pollution. And if the weather prevents shipments from getting through for any length of time, could result in mass spoilage and possibly people running out of food altogether until shipments can go through.

I'm really just trying to make the point though that things are rarely as simple as they seem, and what the best agricultural use for land in one area might be is not necessarily what it would be in another area.
 

EpicEps

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Nov 29, 2011
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I've been a vegetarian all my life. And it is not because of moral reasons or because I care about the environment. Meat just makes me sick to my stomach. I've tried it before and the texture and the taste just made me sick.

What aggravates me though is the stereotype placed on vegetarians. Since I'm not also an environmentalist or morally objected to it, I feel pressured to be because of the stereotype. Like my family giving me strange looks when I say I like leather or that I want moccasins. So there's a great deal of pressure to be the stereotypical vegetarian.