Vegetarians

[shmokes]

I hate PETA.  I don't care if some of the things they say has truth.  The fact that so much of what they officially do and say is shady or truth with a huge dose of spin makes them impossible to trust.  They are one of those sources that any time they say something you think to yourself, "Wow....I wonder if that's really true." 

Can you imagine if that was your reaction when you were watching CNN or reading the LA Times?  "Wow.....the Pope died?   I wonder if that's really true." 

There aren't just extremists within PETA any more than there are extremists in the KKK; PETA is an extremist organization.  The organization officially carries out campains such as making happy meal-style action figures of Ronald McDonald and friends, covered in blood, stabbing knives into cows and chickens and then PETA volunteers stand outside resaurants handing them to children as they walk out with their parents. 

And they officially say retarded things, such as that the milk you buy in the store is 90% puss and only 10% milk.  It's an outright lie.

[Stingray]

I could not give up cheese.  It's too tasty.  So that's just not possible.  But I eat very little meat - almost never beef. 

This describes me pretty well. I eat almost no red meat. Some chicken, turkey & fish, and quite a lot of cheese.

If you're going to go hardcore ethical you gotta go vegan. 

Thanks for bringing this up. My wife is in fact vegan and not vegetarian. She does not buy leather or eat any dairy. The only animal product that she will eat at all is eggs that we buy directly from the farm, and they are free-range chickens. They taste a lot better than the ones you can get at the grocery store anyway.

-S

[Shape D.]

The organization officially carries out campains such as making happy meal-style action figures of Ronald McDonald and friends, covered in blood, stabbing knives into cows and chickens and then PETA volunteers stand outside resaurants handing them to children as they walk out with their parents.

I Fear for the saftey of anyone who hands something like that to one of my kids.

[SirPeale]

I am at least as concerned with the environmental impact of consuming meat as the inhumane conditions the animals are subjected to.  Grazing reeks havoc on land and the big cattle and pig farms literally create mountains of steaming feces with no good way to dispose of it. 

Indeed.  And the amount of water necessary.  And the amount of land it takes to raise meat vs the same amout per pound of vegetation.

This is mostly due to health choices and preferences.  Ethics play a role, but a person who is a hardcore vegetarian for moral reasons is necessarily a hypocrit because that person is still wearing leather shoes and drinking milk and eating eggs and cheese, etc. -- all of which involve the slaughering and/or horrible living conditions for animals that apply to the creatures that go into our tummies.

I still have my leather items, but I've owned them for years.  I wouldn't toss them now, it wouldn't make any sense.  I wouldn't buy any *new* leather items, but wouldn't have a problem with something from a thrift shop, or something I found.  About a year ago I found a leather overcoat that was thrown away.  Perfect condition.  I don't feel bad about it because it doesn't contribute directly to the leather industry.

Anyway, anyone not eating meats should really read up on combinations of vegetables that will give you complete proteins.  Animal products are almost the only single food sources that deliver complete proteins (there are a couple of beans that will, I think).  Different veggies have different partial protiens that can be combined to make complete ones.  But you need to eat the foods together, or within a short time-frame, in order for your body to break them down and combine the partial protiens.  If you do this you will get absolutely everything good, nutrition-wise, that meat has to offer, without all the bad stuff.  If you don't, your health will likely suffer.

According to what I've read on the matter, this is only partially true.  Soy has all the essential amino acids.  But there are plenty of other veggies that do the same.  Broccoli, mushrooms (!), whole wheat, oatmeal, peanuts, peas, or nuts are good for it.  And the fact is most Americans actually suffer from too much protein, not too little. 

Animal protein is actually more difficult for your body, because first it has to break it down into the amino acids, then convert that to the proteins your body requires.

Oh yeah....and don't use vegetable-based butter substitute, like margarine.  Hydrogenated vegetable oils are filled with little assassins called trans fatty acids that are WAY worse than anything in butter.  Lots of products contain it.  Anything creamy that has no animal products, such as peanut butter (get the stuff with the oil on top that has to be mixed in -- it tastes much better anyway).

Still eating butter - for now, anyway (like the cheese) but I can see myself cutting out the dairy in my diet fairly soon.

[SirPeale]

And they officially say retarded things, such as that the milk you buy in the store is 90% puss and only 10% milk.  It's an outright lie.

I haven't seen *those* figures, but the somatic cell content of milk is quite alarming.  Not only that, but how they treat the cows that give the milk is disgusting.  Repeated impregnations over a five year span, then when they can't get pregnant any more, or their production wanes, off to the slaughterhouse.  Yeah, that's a life I want to live.

[SirPeale]

Thanks for bringing this up. My wife is in fact vegan and not vegetarian. She does not buy leather or eat any dairy. The only animal product that she will eat at all is eggs that we buy directly from the farm, and they are free-range chickens. They taste a lot better than the ones you can get at the grocery store anyway.

I think I could give up eggs, but honey is another story.  I love honey.  I don't get why eating that is such a bad thing.  Bees make too much for them to ever use it all.

[shmokes]

I love the word "bees".

[JackTucky]

How about Bees knees?

[shmokes]

but the somatic cell content of milk is quite alarming. 

See, and that's the problem with PETA.  "Somatic cells" and "Pus" are not synonymous.  White blood cells in and off themselves do not constitute pus.  PETA knows this and deliberately misrepresent the facts to further their cause.  Their goal is to get people to quit using animal products.  They don't care WHY people quit using them, so long as they do.  If they have to tell a few somatic lies, so be it.

And I'm not entirely sure that the somatic cell content is actually alarming.  Somatic cells are perfectly normal in all milk, including human breast milk.  Apparently the limit is 750 million cells per liter and the average seems to be about 350-400 million but that doesn't mean much to me as I don't know what actual percentage of the milk that is and I can't find anything that tells me.  At any rate, PETA knows full-well that somatic cells are not pus.  There also seems to be no evidence that somatic cells are harmful.

I view it like this.  Many of the things Al Qaeda hates about America are absolutely true and a person would be a fool to think any differently.  But I can't endorse Al Qaeda and the tactics they use simply because they "have a point". 

About the only thing I like about PETA is their frequent association with naked supermodels.

[psik0tik]

Well if your going for the moral stand....bees arent tortured into producing honey

[shmokes]

Maybe not in your hives.....


....mwahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

[shmokes]

Oh, and by the way Peale, good luck.  I'd wager that you will be the healthier for it.  Not to mention that the environment and the animals will benefit from the decreased demand.

And on the ethical front, I wouldn't worry.  I had this brilliant idea one day and I'm sure I'm not the only person who has thought of it.  A few years ago I was reading about these teenagers who fell in a geyser or boiling mud pit or something in Yellowstone National Park.  Well some died and the ones who lived had third degree burns over like 95% of their bodies.  They were life-flighted to a hospital and stabilized and had temporary skin grafts done until samples of their own skin could be flown somewhere that specialized in growing living tissue like Johns Hopkins or something after which they would get skin grafts with the right stuff all over their bodies.

It got me thinking.  This is probably super expensive and difficult to do right now, but just like everything else it will eventually be inexpensive and have a very high success rate as technology gets better and economies of scales are introduced.  If we can just grow human skin in a petri dish, why not cow hide, or a ribeye steak for that matter.  I predict that in our lifetime you will be able to buy a genuine leather jacket that was never attached to a living being.  You'll be able to eat cow liver that was never inside a cow.  It would probably be safer too, cos there wouldn't be any of these pesky things like Mad Cow disease.  I ought to patent the idea rather than posting it to public message boards, I suppose.

Of course this is just a stop-gap measure until we can build whatever we want atom-by-atom   

[SirPeale]

And I'm not entirely sure that the somatic cell content is actually alarming.  Somatic cells are perfectly normal in all milk, including human breast milk.  Apparently the limit is 750 million cells per liter and the average seems to be about 350-400 million but that doesn't mean much to me as I don't know what actual percentage of the milk that is and I can't find anything that tells me.  At any rate, PETA knows full-well that somatic cells are not pus.  There also seems to be no evidence that somatic cells are harmful.

Well, I can say this: those cells can produce a immune response, due to being foreign cellular matter.  It can produce intestinal bleeding and violent reactions in severe cases.  In my sons case, it wasn't that severe, but he had violent diarrhea and a runny nose until we removed milk from his diet.  I know when I drink milk I don't feel well (though I can eat cheese okay, go figure).

[shmokes]

Well, carrots are foreign cellular matter aren't they? 

At any rate, is your son simply lactose intolerant?  If so it is the lactate, IIRC, rather than the white blood cells that would be causing that reaction.

I'm under the impression that, according to the FDA, ingesting somatic cells poses no risk whatsoever.

[Dartful Dodger]

he had violent diarrhea and a runny nose until we removed milk from his diet.

Before I added milk to my diet I had passive diarrhea.

[SirPeale]

Well, carrots are foreign cellular matter aren't they? 

Of course.  But you're talking about animal white blood cells.  Cells that are part of the immune system.  Of a foreign body.

At any rate, is your son simply lactose intolerant?  If so it is the lactate, IIRC, rather than the white blood cells that would be causing that reaction.

No, it was an allergic reaction.  Children aren't lactose intolerant until a certain age.  It's a component of breastmilk (and I'm fairly certain most animal milks).  He didn't exhibit these symptoms until we weaned him at age 1 and gave him cows milk.  At first we thought he was sick, due to his symptoms.  Doctors were useless.  "it's a bug, it'll pass" was their answer.  Finally figured it out on my own.  He tolerates it much better now, but still has issues.

I'm under the impression that, according to the FDA, ingesting somatic cells poses no risk whatsoever.

Yeah, I'm so trusting of the FDA.  The FDA that allowed a product like sucralose on the market, and a host of other nasty things.

So go ahead and down a glass of moo juice.  I'll pass.

[daywane]

I am at least as concerned with the environmental impact of consuming meat as the inhumane conditions the animals are subjected to.

[SirPeale]

fertilizer. best there is.

Problem is there is just *too* much of it.  People have tried solutions like methane collection to generate power (which is actually very successful, but not anywhere in wide enough use), drying it and burning it for fuel, or just burning it in general (no one likes this option, it smells awful).

And believe it or not, faeces from factory animal farms are not ideal for fertilizer without processing it to a degree.  It's for the same reason that using dog/cat faeces isn't: the inclusion of animal protein in the stool makes it unsuitable until it's broken down.  How does animal protein get into cow/pig poop?  Because they grind up their unfortunate friends and feed that resulting slurry to them.

[shmokes]

fertilizer. best there is.

If this were true, farmers would not have mountains of feces with nothing to do with it.  Farmers cannot sell anywhere near enough fertilizer to make a dent in the problem.  And the mountains of crap cause other serious issues, like the lovely scent it creates and the lovely things its runoff introduces to streams and groundwater, and therefore to wildlife and people who drink the water.

Here's an example of one, by the way.  It's on fire (or was).

[jbox]

I don't feel bad about it because it doesn't contribute directly to the leather industry.

Then why wear it at all?    Surely non-leather items are just as cheap in the thrift shop? I can think of several reasons why you shouldn't do this:

Economics: healthy 2nd hand markets tend to encourage the 1st hand market to continue.
Ethics: 'out of site, out of mind' principle.
Fashion: why make other people think *you* think leather products look good.
Mathematics: that "second hand" leather jacket you 'don't feel bad' about buying five years from now is probably a cow *today*.

I'm not saying you have to retro-actively release a cow into the wild for each cow you previously 'murdered', but surely you are drawing a line in the sand today? This is why moral vegetarianism is the hardest of the two to be. I could never spend all that time examining my toothpaste brand to make sure it doesn't use any animal products four or five steps back. 

And the shock factor of organisations like PETA tend to stem directly from the 'trade secret' attitude of too many businesses. Make transparency legally mandatory and you will get more mundane stories from CNN and less fantastic stories from PETA. 

[gprime]

hehe

but seriously, im not much of a meat eater myself.

[shmokes]

That Maddox guy is from Utah of all places. 

[DrewKaree]

i almost want to become one but the dark side becons!

Dontcha mean "bacons"?

Ethics play a role, but a person who is a hardcore vegetarian for moral reasons is necessarily a hypocrit because that person is still wearing leather shoes and drinking milk and eating eggs and cheese, etc.

You're assuming an awful lot about someone and stating that they HAVE TO be a hypocrite based on something that may or may not be true.  Are all shoes leather?  Are they still ingesting milk/eggs/cheese?  Maybe other examples would work better, but those are extremely poor ones and are simply unfounded and wildly speculative.

That Maddox guy is from Utah of all places. 

I didn't know that!  I haven't read much of his stuff, but I kinda dig the folks he links with....good humor....unless you hate their humor, then they're just jerks

[danny_galaga]

I feel like a steak tonight...

thats funny- you dont LOOK like a steak!!

BOOM!! BOOM!!

[SirPeale]

Then why wear it at all?    Surely non-leather items are just as cheap in the thrift shop? I can think of several reasons why you shouldn't do this:

Because I already own it.  Because the animal has already paid the ultimate price.  I wouldn't buy something new, but if I buy from a thrift store it keeps that item (if it doesn't sell) from ending up in a landfill.

That said, I'm not big on leather anyway.  I've got a jacket I've had for about 15 years, and some shoes that once they wear out I won't be replacing with leather ones.  As for the coat I found, I saved it from the landfill.

Edit: spelling

[quarterback]

Because the animal has already paid the ultimate price.

[DemonBrew]

I have this crazy theory - if humans could hear carrots screaming as they got ripped out of the ground, does that mean vegans / vegetarians would have to starve to death?

I mean.... we once thought the world was flat. How do we know vegetables don't feel pain?

Think about that the next time you make mashed potatoes. "AHHH! STOP! OWWWWW!"


hehehe. But that's just me.

[SirPeale]

Because the animal has already paid the ultimate price.

The ground beef at my grocery store has already paid the ultimate price as well.  I'm not sure that's the best argument for being an animal-rights-supporter who wants to wear leather.

I'm saying that I'm not supporting the leather industry.  I already own leather shoes and a jacket.  I'm not about to toss them.  They won't be replaced with new counterparts when they finally wear out, though.  Purchasing second hand items doesn't support the industry.

As for the coat I found, I saved it from the landfill.

Or you 'saved it' from somebody else's back.  If you would sell it or give it away, then the new owner might not feel the need to buy a new one. 

No, I literally saved it from the landfill.  I found it in a Staples dumpster.  What it was doing in there, I dunno. 

[shmokes]

Ethics play a role, but a person who is a hardcore vegetarian for moral reasons is necessarily a hypocrit because that person is still wearing leather shoes and drinking milk and eating eggs and cheese, etc.

You're assuming an awful lot about someone and stating that they HAVE TO be a hypocrite based on something that may or may not be true.  Are all shoes leather?  Are they still ingesting milk/eggs/cheese?  Maybe other examples would work better, but those are extremely poor ones and are simply unfounded and wildly speculative.

A vegetarian who quits consuming all animal products is a vegan.  That's what I mean.  If you're a vegetarian solely for ethical reasons the moment you quit being a hypocrit you also cease to be a vegetarian.  You become a vegan.  I don't think it's that big a deal, though.  I think that stealing is bad, but I occassionally use my printer at work to print personal things.  I download the occassional mp3 and I steal Xbox games like they were going out of style (I not entirely sure what that means, but I mean that I have about 40-50 games that I never payed for).  That doesn't mean that I should change my views about stealing.  I should probably just work toward the goal of not stealing at all.     

...and so on.  I stand by what I said.

I also think, though, that no matter how valid or true your beliefs are, you undermine them and often negate them entirely when you become rigid and/or dogmatic in your adherence to them.

"People of zee world, Relax!"

[Sephroth57]

[Dartful Dodger]

a person who is a hardcore vegetarian for moral reasons is necessarily a hypocrit because that person is still wearing leather shoes and drinking milk and eating eggs and cheese, etc.
- - - -
If you're a vegetarian solely for ethical reasons the moment you quit being a hypocrit you also cease to be a vegetarian.

[shmokes]

That's true.  But if you believe that you should stop eating animals because they are treated horribly, then it only makes sense to stop consuming any animal product that comes from a place where they are treated horribly.  If you believe that killing a sentient animal is wrong, then you should stop any and all practices that contribute to the killing of sentient animals instead of selectively stopping the easy ones.

I don't think a little hypocricy is that big a deal.  Obviously anyone who believes that God is literally watching us at all times is a little guilty of this.  But if a person is has the ethical beliefs of a vegan, but only goes so far as to become a vegetarian there is an inherent hypocricy there.  If you are a vegetarian because you think meat is gross or unhealthy that isn't the case.  And if you are a hypocritical vegetarian you still have taken a step in the right direction so it can still be looked at in a good light to some degree.  But it's impossible to avoid hypocricy and embrace vegetarianism rather than veganism for moral/ethical reasons.

And yes, I eat meat of all kinds.  Just not very much of it.  And yes, I think people should eat no meat that comes from most of the places I almost always get my meat.  And yes that is hypocritical.

[Chemixtry]

I think Ron White sums it up for me-
"I didn't rise to the top of the food chain to eat f**kin' carrots."

I certainly respect people who want to be vegetarian but I have met some people who are militant about it that drive me nuts. Man was built to be an omnivore. My grandfather is a rancher who raises cattle for beef. They are raised in pastures and taken good care of. It is not any more immoral for me to eat meat then any other animal on the planet that does so.

[Dartful Dodger]

But it's impossible to avoid hypocricy and embrace vegetarianism rather than veganism for moral/ethical reasons.

Using that logic it's impossible to avoid hypocricy and embrace veganism rather than Photosynthesism for moral/ethical reasons.

[shmokes]

I trust that secretly you can see for yourself what is so retarded about that argument, Dartful.  There are a couple things actually, but either one will do.

[Dartful Dodger]

I trust that secretly you can see for yourself what is so retarded about that argument, Dartful.

[SirPeale]

You have commited the ultimate sacrilige.  An Iron Chef, using Ketchup?!?

[SirPeale]

If a cow isn't milked, it dies. You are doing the cow a favor by taking its milk.

The cows milk is meant for one being only: it's baby calf.  As with any creature, the calf determines the amount of milk it needs, and the mother's body adjusts accordingly.  Eventually, the calf will wean itself, and the mother will stop producing milk for it.

OTOH, when you have a factory farm, the cows are milked many times a day, far more than a calf would ever take in.  So if you were to suddenly stop milking it, it would either die, or be *very* uncomfortable.

So by milking a cow you aren't doing it any favors, sorry.

[Zakk]

Here's an example of one, by the way.

[shmokes]

I trust that secretly you can see for yourself what is so retarded about that argument, Dartful.  There are a couple things actually, but either one will do.

I'm not making that argument, you are/were.

But I'm glad you see how wrong your argument was.

Okay...so maybe I overestimated you.  Let's see...

Practicing vegetarianism = Humanly possible
Practicing Veganism = Humanly possible
Practicing Photosythesisiism = Not humanly possible

One of these isms is doing it's own thing....