would you ever become vegan?

[loc978]

Most of the vegans I've met are anemic, iron-deficient, downright unhealthy people... sort of the opposite side of unhealthy to a normal corn-and-beef-fed fatass American. I find it funny that people tend to gravitate toward either one unhealthy lifestyle or the other, in the first world.
So no. Wouldn't consider it seriously for even a moment.

...

No, because vegans are hypocrites. Even broccoli screams when you rip it from the ground.

^also this^
Every living thing survives by either consuming other living things, or what used to be living things. Broccoli can scream chemically, but it also feeds on decomposed corpses. Circle of life and all that jazz.

...
**less-stealthy-edit**
All of that said, less extreme vegetarians have a damn good point about healthy eating habits. A truly healthy diet for a human being tends to be comprised of at least 75% unprocessed plant matter. People who eat more meat than veggies, fruit and whole grains put together tend to be the most malnourished in the first world.
I'd counter the phrase "I didn't climb to the top of the food chain to eat a salad" with "my species didn't get to the top of the food chain by being picky eaters" (and no, you didn't climb to the top of the food chain. Your distant ancestors did).

 

[kouriichi]

Id rather smack my face against a brickwall until it turns blue. Id rather take a long fall off a short cliff. Id rather bath in fish guts then go to the nearest zoo and fling myself into a bear pit. Id rather take pedobear to disney land. Id rather drink a 40/60 mixture of bleach and napalm. I WOULD RATHER EAT BACON!

Ok, id do the last one no matter what but you see what im getting at. Its something i could never do. Meat and meat products are to big a part of my life, it would kill me to no long be able to enjoy cheeses and steaks and burgers. ((i hope i dont get banned for having "meat", "big" and "part" all in one sentince.))

 

[The Human Torch]

No way. TRUE veganism goes as far as not cooking anything, and that's really hard on the digestive system.

Plus, there's all kinds of great vitamins and minerals and flavanoids and fats in animal products that are really hard to find in vegetables. You're cutting yourself off from animal protein, for example, which is much more effective at muscle-building than soy protein.

Besides, if you stop me from drinking mah milk, I will CLUB you.

yeah, milk .... that's literally the hardest part man XD

but you can get alot of proteins from other plants, not just soy

Animal protein is still the best for bodybuilding.

And that's just one. It's really hard to find, for example, Omega-3 in plants outside of flax.

Again, just my two cents. Veganism won't kill you, it just isn't the best choice.

screw body building, that's dead muscle to me .. as i said in my last post .. there are people from my boxing club that have been vegan for years and they're some of the best fighters in my club, they look healthy and there are even ufc fighters that are vegan.

muscles from body building is just mass, the true muscles you get from real excersises count

Yes, because bodybuilding is not "real exercise" *rolls eyes*.

Anyway, never want to be a vegan/vegetarian. We are born omnivores and I like the taste of meat.

 

[Varrdy]

lol thanks you just lightened my mood by (whips out a calculator) 9.5% of my maximum happiness which is roughly the equivalent of a well told joke. fancy that

Great! If I can make someone laugh, or at least smile, then I honestly think I've achieved something wholesome and worthwhile. Glad to be of service!

Wardy

 

[Enigma6667]

Only if I get some epic psychic powers.

But in all seriousness, no, I love me my meat.

 

[Ultra_Caboose]

Meat is delicious. Meat is tasty. Meat makes my world go round.

I will NEVER go vegan. if a Doctor told me I'd die if I ate one more strip of bacon, I'd go to the grave with grease on my chin and a smile on my face.

This is essentially me. I'm very much attached to the "meat and potatoes" kind of diet. I honestly do not like damn near every vegetable. I try them repeatedly, and can never bring myself to find a veggie I can tolerate.

Personally i feel privileged to be in a society that gives me the option to live whatever lifestyle i want, and although i now personally believe that humans may reach a point where everyone has these options and perhaps should reduce or fully stop meat consumption, not only for overall health but also for the sake of overall ethics.

The last part of this kinda bugs me. I respect the thought, but the ethics of meat consumption are really varied, and pushing a whole society to adopt veganism just seems really one-sided.
I have nothing against your veganism. Humans are of course omnivores and can eat damn near anything. The fact that society gives us the option to eat whatever we want makes it seem strange that we'd eventually restrict or even abandon one whole side of the food spectrum. Dishes including meat make a up a huge part of just about every food culture in the world. To take away meat takes away a portion of cultural identity. Wouldn't take much to just convert all of the world's meals into Robocop-esque nutrient paste.

 

[jack583]

i would not.
why?
well look at it this way:
plant cells and animal cells are exactly the same. execpt that the plant cell has an added "cell wall".
now plants--as a whole, not just cells--do not have nerves and therefore can't feel pain.
they also can't defend themselves or run.
but when eaten, the plant cells will die the same way animal cells would.
so eating a plant is the same as eating a cow.
the difference is that plants can't cry out in pain as you kill them.
the cells could be feeling pain, but they can't scream out saying they are.
the just have to sit there, motionless, waiting to die.

so yeah, i'd rather eat something that has a fighting chance, then something that can't fight back.

i would rather eat something with a fighting chance too ... i used to hunt with my dad years ago and like i said earlier

if we hunted our food, i would not be vegan right now ... and animal that has lived a full life in the wild then got killed quickly and cleanly by an ethical hunters bullet is good meat ... no hormones, no cages, no suffering.

but alot of the meat you see in your supermarkets today had no such thing as a fighting chance.

yeah, silent screamers or not ... we gotta eat something. most plants are ready to go ... if they aren't then the edible bits wouldn't be ripe (edible) would they?

like how apples drop from a tree

have you ever seen a place that keeps livestock for slaughter?
not really to bad.
no cages, and often plenty of room to move.
a cow is born, and grows up always well fed.
plus there is the fact that cows and other animals are raised a bred to be eaten.
you will never see a cow, chicken, or any other animal in the meat asile on the endangered species list.
yes there are a lot of unwanted chemicals in meat, but like you said, the only way to get meat without those is to kill an animal yourself.

not only that .. i worked in an french/algerian abbatoir for almost a year ... i've not only seen slaughter, i've done it .. alot. and already mentioned we used to hunt. alot of the places i worked at or seen were kind of inhumane but ....this WAS an islamic slaughterhouse so ... yeah .. not too nice a way to go ... the abbatoirs here in england (well most of them) usually get their meat already dead and ready to carve so .. can't really comment about how they lived.

and you have nothing to say about how animals that are raised to be eaten won't become instinct as easily as wild animals?
seriously. i'd be willing to bet that if we took a few pandas and started breeding them for food their numbers will increase. and after that we can take the strongest ones, train them the best we can so that they can survive in the wild, and then set them out; the pandas could then be taken off the endangered species list.

also, i'm not against the vegan lifestyle. i've just been working on this arguement to shut up the extremist "meat is murder" vegans, and i've been wanting to use/test it to see if there are any errors in my logic.
because like you said in your first response: "we gotta eat something" (remembered that the best i could)

 

[BioHazardMan]

If KFC is wrong, I don't want to be right. No way.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Uhm, same metabolic cycles imply similar nutrient needs, the closer related to another species we are, the more overlap there is. Not only are humans perfectly able to live a herbivore diet, our entire digestive system is better suited for that than for an carnivore diet. Now that's a simple fact. You're right though, humans were never 100% herbivore, which is why we have the rather limited ability to digest meat (limited when compared to true carnivores).
And why pray tell is my body not suited for living an herbivore diet? Show me some evidence, scientific papers, text books, etc.

Because human physiology isn't made for it. We don't have a digestive tract made for a herbivore diet either, it's way too short to properly extract all the energy you can get from it. It's all nice from a bio-chemical point of view, and yeah bio-chemically we work around the same, but there are stark differences in physiology. Look at a gorilla, a herbivore primate. Look at his gut. We don't have that. We're suited for an omnivoric hunter-scavenger-gathering diet, that's what our natural shtick is. Again, you're approaching this from the wrong angle, there's a lot more to diet than bio-chemistry, you seem to forget that.

Doesn't work all that well. Lots of herbivores eat plants humans can't digest properly. We can do fuck-all with cellulose.

Yes, biochem. You know, science. I am a science major, ergo I will only consider things from that angle. Physiology...never did like the people over in the bio department. Your assertion that there is something more to diet than biochem is appallingly wrong. It's the sort of idiotic statement I wouldn't expect anybody who has gone past high school to make. Biochemistry is the study of the chemical reactions in life, of how life functions on the molecular scale. All that we are, all that enables us to exist, can be expressed in this way. What we eat is simply another factor in a large chain of cycles, and cofactors/vitamins/minerals are simply other factors in those. Because of the way evolution functions, all mammals share cycles, which in turn means we require the same nutrients. One cannot go purely by eating behavior, of course (or do you eat grass like a cat?), to gauge where they are getting said nutrients, but one can get a fairly good idea. Along with a basic understanding of nature, chemistry, and biology, it is pretty easy to come up with a way to get all essential nutrients in a given environment.

And cellulose isn't toxic, so moot point.

 

[omega 616]

I don't even mean ovo-lacto vegetarian, I'm talking PURE vegan.

Vegans consume neither the animal or the products of any animal with a face, meaning that things like milk, eggs and even honey are off the list.
Apparently, there are quite alot of health benifits that come with going full vegan and i was wondering if anyone else here would do it (I just recently decided to do it for personal reasons) or is already living the vegan lifestyle.

Do you even think humans should become (ok i REALLY don't want to use the word "Vegan" again) herbivores? since our very physiology dictates that we're omnivores and meat to some people is literally the only lifeline.

Personally i feel privileged to be in a society that gives me the option to live whatever lifestyle i want, and although i now personally believe that humans may reach a point where everyone has these options and perhaps should reduce or fully stop meat consumption, not only for overall health but also for the sake of overall ethics.

Hopefully i won't evolve into one of those "omfg u had a BURGER?!?!"**throws bucket of cows blood on mums face** ..... truly cringe worthy >.<
+ i'm not really vegan yet ... only been at it for a week.

No offence but FUCK NO! I am not a "must eat meat for every meal" kind of bloke but there is no way on earth I would just eat veggies. To me all veggies taste of nothing, which is fine, but I want flavour!

Fruit and some nuts are quite tasty but I cannot live on just nuts, fruit and veggies, just sounds so boring.

Like you say we evolved to eat meat, there must have been a reason for that so I will eat meat. I love the taste of it, I recently had my first ever bite of a steak and it was awesome.

I have never understood any argument to go purely into vegan-ism(?) just sounds daft to me, like nuns and priests not having sex, god made us able to do it so we can carry on the spieces, so why they go against god? If it was up to them the human race would have died hundreds of years ago.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Allow me to answer this with all the gravity that this question begets:

[HEADING=2]Bwa Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha![/HEADING]
[HEADING=1]No.[/HEADING] No I would not, I wouldn't even consider becoming a vegan for the smallest fraction of time that human beings are capable of perceiving, and actually becoming a vegan would probably make the universe implode from the sheer impossibility of what just transpired. Meat is forever!

WTF Captcha Time! "endifid LIBRA's". Seriously, what the hell is that?

 

[Kurt Cristal]

So-called "moral" veganism is a big myth. Plants are living things. Micro-organisms are living things. You're eating them. Oh and when human kind started ingesting grains and nuts, they had to make farms to grow all those grains. Turns out those grain farms ruined several ecosystems, killing hundreds of animals dependent on the land they had lived on for support. Ooops. Your grains and nuts killed animals. Sauce:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/vegetarian-myth-review/

The nutritional benefits are ALSO a myth. And I have sauce to back that claim as well:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/vegan-island/

 

[Cowabungaa]

snip

Woah, are you really a science major? You don't act like one, resorting to personal attacks, ignoring human physiology, which is just plain silly when we're talking about eating things. Who's making idiotic statements here? You're just being incredibly narrow-minded. I mean, really, you never liked the people in the physiology deparement? But no matter.

And cellulose isn't toxic, so moot point.

Sees how much you don't know about physiology, how important it is and how you're wrong that it's all about bio-chemistry; we cannot digest cellulose. Sure it's not toxic, but who cares, if you eat a ton of grass you'll crap the vast majority of it right back out again without ever utilising it. We don't have the digestive tract to deal with it, break it down properly so we can use it's energy to the fullest. Why do you think I used the gorilla example? They have a massive gut to ferment plant material, to break down cellulos. We don't have that because we're not herbivores, we're not made to live on a natural, herbivore diet, Homo Sapiens has never done so, we lack the physiology for it, we're just not evolved that way. Yet you claim you can do it.

Now with modern science and food technologies we can engineer our meals so that people can choose not to use animal products, but we're talking about a situation in which all that is not around. You're just ignoring so much things related to physiology, food gathering, processing, you name it.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

snip

Woah, are you really a science major? You don't act like one, resorting to personal attacks, ignoring human physiology, which is just plain silly when we're talking about eating things. Who's making idiotic statements here? You're just being incredibly narrow-minded. I mean, really, you never liked the people in the physiology deparement? But no matter.

And cellulose isn't toxic, so moot point.

Sees how much you don't know about physiology, how important it is and how you're wrong that it's all about bio-chemistry; we cannot digest cellulose. Sure it's not toxic, but who cares, if you eat a ton of grass you'll crap the vast majority of it right back out again without ever utilising it. We don't have the digestive tract to deal with it, break it down properly so we can use it's energy to the fullest. Why do you think I used the gorilla example? They have a massive gut to ferment plant material, to break down cellulos. We don't have that because we're not herbivores, we're not made to live on a natural, herbivore diet, Homo Sapiens has never done so, we lack the physiology for it, we're just not evolved that way. Yet you claim you can do it.

Now with modern science and food technologies we can engineer our meals so that people can choose not to use animal products, but we're talking about a situation in which all that is not around. You're just ignoring so much things related to physiology, food gathering, processing, you name it.

Calling you an idiot when you write idiotic things is something scientists don't do? Meh, some of us are antisocial assholes, who hate nothing more than people spreading misinformation...

Also, I've never suggested eating cellulose, nor have I claimed to be able to digest it. I have no idea why you went on to rant about that, so either you did not read my post, want to put words into my mouth, or your expertise doesn't extend beyond one particular primate's ability to digest plant matter. I know we can't digest it, but eating is pretty damn harmless.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Also, I've never suggested eating cellulose, nor have I claimed to be able to digest it. I have no idea why you went on to rant about that, so either you did not read my post, want to put words into my mouth, or your expertise doesn't extend beyond one particular primate's ability to digest plant matter. I know we can't digest it, but eating is pretty damn harmless.

I used it as an example for how physiology matters. While we may have the same bio-chemical pathways as gorillas or cows, they can still do something we can't, live on stuff we can't live on.

I'm trying to say that there's a lot more to diet than bio-chemistry, especially when we're talking about the natural environment. Modern humans aren't concerned with a lot of things related to eating that you would be concerned about when living in the wild. Just go watch Ray Mears or Les Stroud programs.

 

[Carlston]

Nope. I accept I am a omnivore as well, a "true" vegan must be on who uses nothing animal, and rubber, plastic, and oil shatters that.

And then do nothing to affect animals, and eating a grazers veggies do that to...so not gonna even try since all vegans are only kinda vegans to begin with... and honestly I hate the idea of being "superior" just cause I don't eat animals.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

No. Complete no. If we weren't meant to eat animals then they should stop being so tasty, and producing things that can be made into more tastiness.

Still, I guess beer is vegan, so there's a chance.

 

[Flamezdudes]

I love how my RE teacher put it.

We evolved to have bigger and better brains by eating lots of protein/meat and now that we have a large amount of intelligence we suddenly complain about eating meat.

Eating meat got us to the point of complaing about eating meat. Hehe.

 

[llew]

if it gave me super-human powers like in scott pilgrim vs the world yes, but as that seems physically impossible no, too much work for not much gain

 

[CarpathianMuffin]

If it were for health reasons, yes. Meat and animal products are an option for me that I wouldn't particularly mind giving up.
Though since that'd be highly unlikely to happen, I won't go vegan anytime soon.