"You can't love animal's if you're not a vegetarian"

[SpAc3man]

I freakin love animals. So good. Steak, bacon, chicken, ham, beef, lamb, veal, pork, hogget, venison, mutton, kangaroo. All the most lovely animals. All of them are delicious and I love them. LOVE.

 

[Spearmaster]

I'm not a vegetarian and I like animals just fine, love is a strong word, I just hope its platonic and not creepy. Not saying this to offend, just that some people love their animals in a wrong way.

 

[Soundwave]

What does it mean if you feel genuine affection for hamburgers? Like, not just for eating.

 

[darlarosa]

Meat is meat. Food is food. There is not a person in this forum or in this world I would not kill if I had to, for food. Just survival as it is.

Is it survival if you have other options? If so, should eating people be permissible if you feel like it?

There is no reason not to eat people. Functionally our repulsion is in part result of wanting to maintain high population numbers and our of social taboos. There is no reason not to.

I would eat a person. Not ashamed to say it. There are many people on this planet, and some would make for a suitable food source.
Survival as I mentioned it was not the focus of my previous statement. As I said food is food.

So... you've embraced psychopathy? Who cares about how many people (or other sentient creatures) suffer so long as you're happy?

Most people have empathy for others, which is the ability to understand how other people (or other sentient creatures) feel. That usually comes with the understanding that you shouldn't cause people to be in anguish (or, y'know, kill them) if you don't have to. Do you think it's justifiable (or not unjustifiable) for people to hurt you just because they feel like it?

Or are you just talking about 'freegan'ing human corpses that you just happen to find? I'd agree in that case it's just flesh, but the how and where you got it (killing sentient creatures?) does matter on an ethical level. Finding $80 on the ground isn't the same as shooting someone in the head and taking their wallet, even if you can buy a decent pair of headphones with the proceeds either way.

Who the fuck said that? Firstly happiness is irrelevent. I'm talking straight facts. Empathy is a luxury, but there are times when it is to be put aside. I am talking in straight facts not pointless emotional appeals. I never said that we should just fucking kill people and eat them for the sake of eating them. I never insinuated that, if that is where your mind went then that is your problem. All I said was the fact is we are edible, animals are edible, plants are edible, food is food. If we were in a dessert without means of survival we would turn on each other rather quickly regardless of whether we were friends or enemies because we are food. If a man wants to kill himself then let his flesh be useful or disposed of in a useful way. We are sacks of meat and bone. We have only the dignity and respect we have created to justify our laws, and our cultures. Remove the emotions. Remove the cultural assumption of morals, ethics, taboos, norms, and mores to leave the pure and simple fact that we are food. We don't have to love every human. We don't have to love every animal. We don't have to eat every human. We don't have to eat every animal. BUT we are food and we should acknowledge that fact for what it is.

Except, I presume since you're on the Internet, that you're not stranded in a barren fucking tundra without any access to other food? Your point's moot, at best.

That was just an example. My point is not moot at all. My point was food is food as I've been saying over and over. If we ate each other there is nothing factually wrong with that, by nature we are meat. The only thing "wrong" with it comes from whatever perspective culture you come from. Various places and civilizations engaged in cannibalism for centuries without noted issue, some places still do. I gave examples of circumstances but I am not saying they are necessary or the only times when human flesh can/should be consumed. I am not putting a value judgement on things. You are so we're just talking past each other.

 

[amadhatter]

I love dogs. They eat meat, so do I. Where's the problem in that?

 

[Chris OBrien]

I am sorry for your friends health issues, but the fact is Iron is not found only in meat. There are tons of plant sources that are comparable to meat. Green leafy vegetables a personal favorite of mine. So no going vegetarian does not mean you have to take supplements it does however mean you may have to actually eat vegetables.

Actually, they had basicly done the vegetarian thing for about a year, eating only fruits and veggies etc, and simply put there just wasnt enough iron in all of that to make up for it. Yes if you eat the right stuff in larger quantities it might make up the difference, but fact is that Meat is still a better supplier of that, amongst other stuff your body requires. Hence their Doctor suggested them suppositories, or eating at least some kind of meat, like chicken for example.

It just shows that even a vegetarian diet can also be unhealthy, just as eating fatty foods is unhealthy even though we also require fat. Vegans are even worse because well they have to avoid quite alot more, though i aint a expert on it.

The Point i was making however was simply that being a vegetarian, or a vegan, does not make you any better than someone who eats everything, or prefers meat, neither in the sense of health or morals. Hence people ought to stop acting "houlier-than-thou" over their personal preference in food.

You have to understand that to you, it's just a choice between chicken or beef for dinner tonight. For them, it's not just about what's tasty, it's about raising awareness of a world of social issues and the implications of the choices we make every time we cook dinner.

Calling it a "high horse" or "holier-than-thou" implies they have no interest in changing the world for the better, only in feeling better than the world (it's also an easy way to write them off, ignore their points, and continue one's current pattern of behavior). I do not think the majority of people, vegan, vegetarian, or otherwise operate this way. If a vegan or vegetarian tries to talk to you about their dietary choices, take a moment to think about how the conversation started. It's not always the vegans who fire the first shot--usually it's meat-eaters who make uninvited and uniformed comments about their diets.

The iron content in chicken--the example you provide--is about 0.30 milligrams per 100 grams of chicken. The iron content of quinoa is 1.5 milligrams per 100 grams. The iron content of spinach is 2.7 milligrams per 100 grams.

Just to break it down even more clearly:

Chicken Iron 0.30 mg/100g
Quinoa Iron 1.50 mg/100g
Spinach Iron 2.70 mg/100g

Your friend ate an unhealthy diet. Iron is readily available in plant sources.

Speaking of anecdotal evidence: my girlfriend has been vegan for over a year. She has Thalassemia (a blood disorder resulting in anemia). In her most recent blood work, she had perfect iron levels. For most vegans and vegetarians, their adopted diet is far healthier than their previous diet, even if it isn't perfect--and for most of them, dealing with filling those nutritional gaps is worth removing themselves from an industry and culture with which they disagree.

In short, stop being close-minded, stop judging people on really silly crap that nobody should really care about and just try the whole acceptance thing. I hear it works well for most People.

Most vegans and vegetarians adopted their diets, meaning they had to put aside social training, family traditions, and powerful peer pressure to learn about and transition to their diets and then maintain them. They came to the painful conclusion that they were uncomfortable with the lifestyle they had been leading--and the diets they were taught to believe were correct and natural--and then decided to change their behavior, often despite the ridicule of family and friends. I fail to see how this is closed-minded.

 

[zinho73]

Hello, I don't normally post a topic myself, but I saw something today, and I was just wondering what you guy's would have to say about it. On Facebook I saw an argument happening over the idea that 'If you're not a vegetarian, it's impossible for you to love animals'.

I don't know about you guy's, but I found this idea completely idiotic, the way I see it, we are in the food chain as-well as the animals, it's natural for us to eat them. I personally believe that whilst there's no problem in being a vegetarian, I don't think people should really be judged just because they eat meat, especially by making the assumption that they therefore do not love animals. It's just normal nature, you can still love animals, even if you eat meat.

So, what do you guy's think?

The person who said that understands very little about people, animals and love.

 

[A-D.]

Le most giant snip of the universe.

Actually i didnt intend to start a giant debate about how healthy or unhealthy that diet would be, im not a vegetarian, or vegan, so i have no clue, i merely pointed out with the example that a Friend of mine did try and essentially fucked up, meaning everyone can fuck up any type of diet regardless of how "morally sound" it is. All i see, and i mentioned that is basicly half the People here being way too aggressive and using examples that are so far out there to attack others with. For example, comparing a carnivore to nazis, thats such a massive leap of logic its not even funny.

Hence getting off the high horse, not all vegetarians or vegans are like that obviously, but some really are. Its the equivalent of a borderline fanatic religious person, in that they shove their lifestyle choice in your face and if you do not agree with any of their thoughts you're essentially the worst person on the planet. At least according to their logic, and yes they dont speak for everybody but they are sadly the most vocal part.

In short, again, no point being all "houlier-than-thou" over food, there are still more serious problems than whether you eat plants or not. And as a sidenote, if everyone started being vegetarian now? Well, i hope you guys like worldwide famine, because 7 Billion People eating nothing but grown food? Yeah we dont have the space to even make as much food as we'd need.

 

[BNguyen]

In short, again, no point being all "houlier-than-thou" over food, there are still more serious problems than whether you eat plants or not. And as a sidenote, if everyone started being vegetarian now? Well, i hope you guys like worldwide famine, because 7 Billion People eating nothing but grown food? Yeah we dont have the space to even make as much food as we'd need.

Thank you for this point, most people seem to forget how little land there is that is available for growing crops when most of it has unsuitable soil, is too rocky, is already in use for various reasons like our living space, protected natural habitats and parks, is desert or tundra, or is being used by animals. The most likely choice to help spread crop land would be to push the animals out seeing as how most other suitable places are protected by the government or used for pointless reasons (looking at racetracks and sports stadiums).
But, maybe in all likelihood we can develop something along the lines of skyscrapers re-purposed to grow indoor crops like greenhouse towers, and even though these would take us less space that widespread growing fields, it would still take several cities worth of greenhouse towers to feed everyone.

 

[EvilRoy]

I find it genuinely funny that you completely skimmed over the part that talks about how many animals are killed via pest control and farm equipment for crops, to explain to me that animals aren't killed humanely in Australia.

Which brings up an interesting thought though.... Do you feel that the life of a mouse is worth less than the life of a cow? How many prairie dogs need to get run over by a grain thresher before it counts-in your mind-as a single dead chicken?

I didn't skim over it. I am aware that small animals are shredded by harvesting machines. However, the article was clearly biased and falsely depicted the situation of farm animals. For every mouse shredded there is a cow or pig horrifically slaughtered. For every poisoned prairie dog (which we don't have in Australia) there is a river ecosystem destroyed by animal waste from farms running into the water. In fact, I would say that shredded mice probably don't even reach the amount of shredded chickens, which are casually tossed into a grinding machine after they hatch if they are male, because they cannot be used for meat or eggs. I don't think our methods of farming and harvesting plants are ideal. Obviously we still need to be conscious of what we eat and how it is produced, even with a vegetarian diet. However, your article was fucking bullshit. We cause destruction by existing, but we must aim to minimise that destruction as best we can, and I think a vegetarian diet is a start until we are able to mass produce in-vitro meat. As long as the current meat industry is as profitable as it is there is no incentive to invest in such expensive endeavours. Unfortunately that's how our shitty capitalist system works.

It wasn't bullshit, it was simply every bit as biased as the articles you and others have quoted earlier in the thread.
Beyond that, though the statistics are likely off, the point is entirely valid. It's not one to one. A death of one cow to produce one handful of protein vs the death of how many pest animals to produce one handful of plant protein.

You can argue that cows are fed feed that has (usually) some type of mechanically harvested grain in it, and that grain itself is harvested at the cost pest animal lives. So the problem becomes one where we need to calculate the optimal death per kilogram protein. It is highly unlikely that eating only animal protein or only plant protein will yield the minimum death per kilogram protein. If you would like to produce some statistics that you find more favourable, then it would be a pretty small job for me to just do it in excel. Keep in mind though that I'll need both values for animals dead due to feed harvesting, and animals dead due to plant protein harvesting, plus the average feed intake of a cow to slaughter.

You've chosen to bring up ecosystem damage, but the pesticides and fertilizers used in your average farmland are going to do just as much if not more damage to the environment.

And a last side note. You shouldn't really use the 'animals inhumanely slaughtered' argument. You can argue they aren't humanely raised, but saying they are slaughtered in a cruel manner just makes me think that you have no idea how animals die in the wild.

Edit:
Now that I've thought about it a moment longer, I'll also need you to dig up for me what % animal feed is actually plant based, rather than filler from other sources.

 

[Chaos Marine]

I had one person tell me that because I'm an atheist I can never do any just or moral act because my motive to do good doesn't come from a belief in a make-believe entity. I shrugged my shoulders and replied with 'I do good because I want to do good, not because some fictional character told me I'd burn in hell if I didn't.' I can't remember where I'd heard that from but it certainly shut him up.

Back on topic, people are assholes. Extremists of any group or click are extreme assholes. Just human nature to try and feel superior to others. Yes, I also see the irony.

 

[RoBi3.0]

{snip}

In short, again, no point being all "houlier-than-thou" over food, there are still more serious problems than whether you eat plants or not. And as a sidenote, if everyone started being vegetarian now? Well, i hope you guys like worldwide famine, because 7 Billion People eating nothing but grown food? Yeah we dont have the space to even make as much food as we'd need.

This is simply untrue. I find it interesting that you berate vegetarians for being "holy-than-thou" then elevate meat to the status of savior of mankind. The fact of the matter is meat is not the most efficient form of food production. The amount of land needed to produce a certain amount of meat far exceeds the amount of land needed to produce the same amount of vegetables.

Meat is produced at such high rates in the U.S. simple because it is more profitable. You can sell one pound of beef for the same price as you can sell 10 pounds of potatoes. Meat is not keeping people [meaning the world] from starving.



Edit: fixed a word that was left out and clarified a point to avoid hair splitters.

 

[A-D.]

{snip}

In short, again, no point being all "houlier-than-thou" over food, there are still more serious problems than whether you eat plants or not. And as a sidenote, if everyone started being vegetarian now? Well, i hope you guys like worldwide famine, because 7 Billion People eating nothing but grown food? Yeah we dont have the space to even make as much food as we'd need.

This is simply untrue. I find it interesting that you berate vegetarians for being "holy-than-thou" then elevate meat to the status of savior of mankind. The fact of the matter is meat is not the most efficient form of food production. The amount of land needed to produce a certain amount of meat far exceeds the amount of land needed to produce the same amount of vegetables.

Meat is produced at such high rates in the U.S. simple because it is more profitable. You can sell one pound of beef for the same price as you can sell 10 pounds of potatoes. Meat is not keeping people [meaning the world] from starving.



Edit: fixed a word that was left out and clarified a point to avoid hair splitters.

Ehrm, no im not elevating meat to the saviour of mankind, im merely pointing out the logic that, if we all now switched over to essentially a plant based diet, i.e. vegetarian or vegan even, we do not have the space required for the amount of mouths to feed. Im sure you know the concept of over-using fields in agriculture? It destroys the soil, meaning after a while nothing will grow there anymore either. In fact in the US the problem is even more apparent because of the massive agriculture of wheat, which was introduced by the europeans, instead of say maize for example which was the case before it was fucked up, also the whole over-tending the field is destroying the soil already, coupled with genetically altered seeds which produce genetically altered food. And thats true for almost all plants these days, at least the edible ones we consume on a regular basis, with few exceptions. Tomatoes? Cucumbers? Wheat? Yeah thats 3 examples of food which at least in some instance offer genetically altered variants which are..well bigger, tastier or more resistant to pests and pesticides.

So logically, even only eating plants isnt that healthy nowadays because of how we fuck around with the stuff that goes on our plates, that goes for farm animals too by the way. Add to that now that overusing the fields we have, as well as any new ones we'd create would end up unusable after a while, meaning we'd need even more farmland to begin with so we could avoid the destruction of the soil, we dont have the space necessary, there's only so much land to go around without us essentially clearing every forest and turning it into farmland..which btw is kinda bad for you know Oxygen production.

So we have a few Problems, in fact even if everyone switched and it would work out just fine, People would prefer choice. Not everyone is fine with eating just plants, are you going to tell them what they have to eat? Taking away their choice to eat what they prefer? How about i tell all vegetarians now that you are only allowed to eat meat, that wouldnt go over well with some people i bet. Same goes for the other side.

And im not berating vegetarians and vegans for the whole "holier-than-thou" stick, im berating everyone for using that line of thought that their dietary choice is somehow superior. It isnt.

Captcha: dead ringer
How fitting.

 

[RoBi3.0]

{snip}

In short, again, no point being all "houlier-than-thou" over food, there are still more serious problems than whether you eat plants or not. And as a sidenote, if everyone started being vegetarian now? Well, i hope you guys like worldwide famine, because 7 Billion People eating nothing but grown food? Yeah we dont have the space to even make as much food as we'd need.

This is simply untrue. I find it interesting that you berate vegetarians for being "holy-than-thou" then elevate meat to the status of savior of mankind. The fact of the matter is meat is not the most efficient form of food production. The amount of land needed to produce a certain amount of meat far exceeds the amount of land needed to produce the same amount of vegetables.

Meat is produced at such high rates in the U.S. simple because it is more profitable. You can sell one pound of beef for the same price as you can sell 10 pounds of potatoes. Meat is not keeping people [meaning the world] from starving.



Edit: fixed a word that was left out and clarified a point to avoid hair splitters.

Ehrm, no im not elevating meat to the saviour of mankind, im merely pointing out the logic that, if we all now switched over to essentially a plant based diet, i.e. vegetarian or vegan even, we do not have the space required for the amount of mouths to feed. Im sure you know the concept of over-using fields in agriculture? It destroys the soil, meaning after a while nothing will grow there anymore either. In fact in the US the problem is even more apparent because of the massive agriculture of wheat, which was introduced by the europeans, instead of say maize for example which was the case before it was fucked up, also the whole over-tending the field is destroying the soil already, coupled with genetically altered seeds which produce genetically altered food. And thats true for almost all plants these days, at least the edible ones we consume on a regular basis, with few exceptions. Tomatoes? Cucumbers? Wheat? Yeah thats 3 examples of food which at least in some instance offer genetically altered variants which are..well bigger, tastier or more resistant to pests and pesticides.

So logically, even only eating plants isnt that healthy nowadays because of how we fuck around with the stuff that goes on our plates, that goes for farm animals too by the way. Add to that now that overusing the fields we have, as well as any new ones we'd create would end up unusable after a while, meaning we'd need even more farmland to begin with so we could avoid the destruction of the soil, we dont have the space necessary, there's only so much land to go around without us essentially clearing every forest and turning it into farmland..which btw is kinda bad for you know Oxygen production.

So we have a few Problems, in fact even if everyone switched and it would work out just fine, People would prefer choice. Not everyone is fine with eating just plants, are you going to tell them what they have to eat? Taking away their choice to eat what they prefer? How about i tell all vegetarians now that you are only allowed to eat meat, that wouldnt go over well with some people i bet. Same goes for the other side.

And im not berating vegetarians and vegans for the whole "holier-than-thou" stick, im berating everyone for using that line of thought that their dietary choice is somehow superior. It isnt.

Captcha: dead ringer
How fitting.

Yes, I am familiar with the concept of over uses of fields. I am also familiar with the concepts of crop rotation and fertilizer. In South eastern Ohio where I lived for several years a common crop rotation would be to grow corn for a year the grow soy beans for a year or two. This coupled with fertilizer makes it so you are capable of growing a crop every year. This is just one example. Furthermore your argument would have more weight if we where raising livestock in the desert but we are not. We are raising livestock on land that could be used for crops. Nor are we rotating crops through land used to raise Livestock, meaning crops are not grow for x year then cattle raised on the same land for x years. Land dedicated to industrial scale meat production is dedicated and used solely for industrial scale meat production. We are also feeding cows [and other livestock] crops grown on land that could be used to make people food. I am also aware of the fact that the U.S. pays farmers to not grow certain crops in order to stabilize related economic markets. Therefor our maximum production out put is greater then what we actually produce.

Also you go on a rant about GMOs but fail to provided a point for the rant. So I am not sure what you are trying to prove with that information.

I am not saying that a global switch would be easy nor am I suggesting that it would not present any major problems. Nor do I think it should happen. I like to eat meat and don't want to stop. As you said people should be able to choose.I was simply disagreeing with you insinuation that it was impossible, and that the consumption of meat was preventing famine.

 

[Chris OBrien]

{snip}

In short, again, no point being all "houlier-than-thou" over food, there are still more serious problems than whether you eat plants or not. And as a sidenote, if everyone started being vegetarian now? Well, i hope you guys like worldwide famine, because 7 Billion People eating nothing but grown food? Yeah we dont have the space to even make as much food as we'd need.

This is simply untrue. I find it interesting that you berate vegetarians for being "holy-than-thou" then elevate meat to the status of savior of mankind. The fact of the matter is meat is not the most efficient form of food production. The amount of land needed to produce a certain amount of meat far exceeds the amount of land needed to produce the same amount of vegetables.

Meat is produced at such high rates in the U.S. simple because it is more profitable. You can sell one pound of beef for the same price as you can sell 10 pounds of potatoes. Meat is not keeping people [meaning the world] from starving.



Edit: fixed a word that was left out and clarified a point to avoid hair splitters.

Ehrm, no im not elevating meat to the saviour of mankind, im merely pointing out the logic that, if we all now switched over to essentially a plant based diet, i.e. vegetarian or vegan even, we do not have the space required for the amount of mouths to feed. Im sure you know the concept of over-using fields in agriculture? It destroys the soil, meaning after a while nothing will grow there anymore either. In fact in the US the problem is even more apparent because of the massive agriculture of wheat, which was introduced by the europeans, instead of say maize for example which was the case before it was fucked up, also the whole over-tending the field is destroying the soil already, coupled with genetically altered seeds which produce genetically altered food. And thats true for almost all plants these days, at least the edible ones we consume on a regular basis, with few exceptions. Tomatoes? Cucumbers? Wheat? Yeah thats 3 examples of food which at least in some instance offer genetically altered variants which are..well bigger, tastier or more resistant to pests and pesticides.

So logically, even only eating plants isnt that healthy nowadays because of how we fuck around with the stuff that goes on our plates, that goes for farm animals too by the way. Add to that now that overusing the fields we have, as well as any new ones we'd create would end up unusable after a while, meaning we'd need even more farmland to begin with so we could avoid the destruction of the soil, we dont have the space necessary, there's only so much land to go around without us essentially clearing every forest and turning it into farmland..which btw is kinda bad for you know Oxygen production.

So we have a few Problems, in fact even if everyone switched and it would work out just fine, People would prefer choice. Not everyone is fine with eating just plants, are you going to tell them what they have to eat? Taking away their choice to eat what they prefer? How about i tell all vegetarians now that you are only allowed to eat meat, that wouldnt go over well with some people i bet. Same goes for the other side.

And im not berating vegetarians and vegans for the whole "holier-than-thou" stick, im berating everyone for using that line of thought that their dietary choice is somehow superior. It isnt.

Captcha: dead ringer
How fitting.

The problem I'm having with what you are saying is, since this thread became active again after almost a year without posts, no one has behaved the way you describe. As far as this conversation goes, you're writing preemptively.

I have never said no one anywhere should ever eat any meat and the entire world should switch to an all plant diet.

I wrote earlier:

As I have written over and over, I agree that an ideal diet for omnivores includes a small amount of meat. Vegan and Vegetarians would rather not take part in an industry and culture they are deeply opposed to--instead supplementing and finding other sources of protein rather than contribute to the mass factory farming of livestock.

As for you remarks about Vegans and Vegetarians being like religious fanatics... I disagree:

You have to keep in mind, vegans and vegetarians would probably not be the religious people in that comparison. They may appear to have a similar fervor at times, but they share more in common with the smaller, less socially accepted, group--the atheists or agnostics. And if you engage in a conversation with them, they will almost undoubtedly try to talk you over to their side--but more likely with facts and logic than a holy book and statements about faith.

 

[John the Gamer]

"it's impossible for you to love animals"
"we are in the food chain as-well as the animals"
"by making the assumption that they therefore do not love animals"

Sure I love animals. Mostly because Humans ARE animals. We're not plants or rocks after all.



On a more serious note; I love animals. Both as pets and food. You don't tend to eat your pets after all. So you might as well bond with them right?

As for food-animals like cows, pigs or goats; see of it more as us giving them purpose in life; we allow them to live and reproduce whilst protecting them, making their species more evolutionarily viable, and in return we eat them. =Everybody happy (except for vegitarians, obviously)


Also: if a vegitarian is so upposed to killing animals for food, why is it OK to kill plants for food? Don't they the same right to exist as other living beings? HYPOCRICY ANYONE?

Though the giant-meat factories are pretty horrible and I'm sure we'll be looking for alternatives to those ecological bio-hazards in the decades to come. (I'd prefer my chicken NOT filled with penicilline-immune bacteria thank you very much) Alternatives like bugs: they're pretty nutricious and energy/cost efficiënt I hear. Don't know about the taste though.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Also: if a vegitarian is so upposed to killing animals for food, why is it OK to kill plants for food? Don't they the same right to exist as other living beings? HYPOCRICY ANYONE?

Please, just stop with this argument. I see it far to often, and it is just absurd. If you can't tell the difference between a thinking, conscious creature and a plant, I don't really know what to say

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

In short, again, no point being all "houlier-than-thou" over food, there are still more serious problems than whether you eat plants or not. And as a sidenote, if everyone started being vegetarian now? Well, i hope you guys like worldwide famine, because 7 Billion People eating nothing but grown food? Yeah we dont have the space to even make as much food as we'd need.

Thank you for this point, most people seem to forget how little land there is that is available for growing crops when most of it has unsuitable soil, is too rocky, is already in use for various reasons like our living space, protected natural habitats and parks, is desert or tundra, or is being used by animals. The most likely choice to help spread crop land would be to push the animals out seeing as how most other suitable places are protected by the government or used for pointless reasons (looking at racetracks and sports stadiums).
But, maybe in all likelihood we can develop something along the lines of skyscrapers re-purposed to grow indoor crops like greenhouse towers, and even though these would take us less space that widespread growing fields, it would still take several cities worth of greenhouse towers to feed everyone.

I am not sure about this, because I only saw it in a mention earlier in the thread, but wouldn't it take a larger amount of crops to actually feed the animals from birth to slaughtering age than the animal would actually be worth as food? Let me know if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that you generally can't get more out of most organisms than you put in to keep them alive.

 

[BNguyen]

In short, again, no point being all "houlier-than-thou" over food, there are still more serious problems than whether you eat plants or not. And as a sidenote, if everyone started being vegetarian now? Well, i hope you guys like worldwide famine, because 7 Billion People eating nothing but grown food? Yeah we dont have the space to even make as much food as we'd need.

Thank you for this point, most people seem to forget how little land there is that is available for growing crops when most of it has unsuitable soil, is too rocky, is already in use for various reasons like our living space, protected natural habitats and parks, is desert or tundra, or is being used by animals. The most likely choice to help spread crop land would be to push the animals out seeing as how most other suitable places are protected by the government or used for pointless reasons (looking at racetracks and sports stadiums).
But, maybe in all likelihood we can develop something along the lines of skyscrapers re-purposed to grow indoor crops like greenhouse towers, and even though these would take us less space that widespread growing fields, it would still take several cities worth of greenhouse towers to feed everyone.

I am not sure about this, because I only saw it in a mention earlier in the thread, but wouldn't it take a larger amount of crops to actually feed the animals from birth to slaughtering age than the animal would actually be worth as food? Let me know if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that you generally can't get more out of most organisms than you put in to keep them alive.

Well, that may be true, but it all depends on what they're being fed, a lot of the livestock around my area is fed with grass. A lot of crops require good soil and a lot of areas lack adequate soil to raise crops whereas grass grows almost everywhere. It we could convert the tough soil into something usable then maybe we could switch over but even then, I'm not going to be the one to tell people who enjoy eating meat that they can't because somebody says they find it morally wrong.
And another point, we do overproduce food on both the plant and meat side but even then, most countries are not willing to send excess supplies to regions that lack the means to produce sufficient amounts of food to feed their citizens - mostly in poor areas across Africa that are still tribal or are under the rule of warlords. Is it because the countries wouldn't get money from donating food? Or is it because once we let go of it it goes right into the hands of the powerful or wealthy?
Frankly, we need to solve problems like this before we go around deciding what's morally right to eat; heck a lot of people in the US can't even get sufficient amounts of food for lack of funds.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I am not sure about this, because I only saw it in a mention earlier in the thread, but wouldn't it take a larger amount of crops to actually feed the animals from birth to slaughtering age than the animal would actually be worth as food? Let me know if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that you generally can't get more out of most organisms than you put in to keep them alive.

Well, that may be true, but it all depends on what they're being fed, a lot of the livestock around my area is fed with grass. A lot of crops require good soil and a lot of areas lack adequate soil to raise crops whereas grass grows almost everywhere. It we could convert the tough soil into something usable then maybe we could switch over but even then, I'm not going to be the one to tell people who enjoy eating meat that they can't because somebody says they find it morally wrong.
And another point, we do overproduce food on both the plant and meat side but even then, most countries are not willing to send excess supplies to regions that lack the means to produce sufficient amounts of food to feed their citizens - mostly in poor areas across Africa that are still tribal or are under the rule of warlords. Is it because the countries wouldn't get money from donating food? Or is it because once we let go of it it goes right into the hands of the powerful or wealthy?
Frankly, we need to solve problems like this before we go around deciding what's morally right to eat; heck a lot of people in the US can't even get sufficient amounts of food for lack of funds.

I think that's a poor justification for turning against their arguments. Just because someone enjoys it doesn't make it right by any stretch. If you found yourself raised in a society where kicking puppies was common sport and you were disgusted by the practice I'm pretty sure you wouldn't keep quiet about it just because someone says "Whoa there, let's not get in the way of their fun because you have moral issues with it." There's been many waves of moral reform over the past couple hundred years, just because a practice is generally accepted and enjoyed doesn't make it right.

Also let's not make all vegetarians out to be people who want everyone to be like them. Many of them just don't eat meat because the idea of it disturbs them, just like most people would have issue with eating other humans.

EDIT: Also, I do agree that those issues are indeed more pressing matters. But just because there's a greater issue somewhere else doesn't mean all other issues should be ignored