Veganism/vegetarianism and "ethical" lifestyle choices

[murphythecat]

How do you know what suffering I inflict by eating dead food? How do you know the food I eat suffers at all? It seems pretty dead to me when I eat it.

nuff said.
lol

 

[What 23]

God there is so much stupidity in some of these posts. Eating meat is not wrong. And my family is certainly of higher average intelligence than another's down the street. Maybe less than another. Races are like families. They all may have among them very intelligent people but they are not fucking equal in all respects.

I wish I could turn all of you diversity and all is one (it makes no sense) people into the first life. And man... The worms... Don't they realize they are in unity with bacteria? The snails? We are all ONE! Unity! So heartfelt goodness! And the toads, don't they realize they are the same as the crickets? We are all one and it is all EQUAL!
Fuck.

The human races, or families, developed in isolation for many thousands of years. They are different. Families are different.

 

[Journyman16]

Just some thoughts on the subject - earlier it was mentioned about eating too much fat - this is not why we have an obesity issue and we need fat in our diets AND our bodies know what to do with it. 15% is the daily minimum we need. The problem is sugars, processed varieties and things like high fructose corn syrup.

There is another elephant in the room as well - while it takes much less land to produce a kg of veggies, fruit etc than 1kg of meat, the normal consideration in how to produce more food involves grains. There is increasing data and evidence that grains are specifically bad for us and that many of our endemic problems come from eating way too much of them. Grain-fed cattle for example, have a much higher fat content than grass-fed. While we have different systems, it isn't hard to consider there may be similar issues with how much we consume, particularly of the processed varieties found in almost all our foods.

Cutting carbs from a diet can give some excellent health benefits, but cutting protein or fat can kill you, quickly.

There are two very different issues being discussed here. One is whether it is a good thing to cut out meat eating, the other is about treating animals badly. Using the one to try to justify the other is not a sound argument.

If a vegan claims it is ethically better to not kill for food because animals are so poorly treated, then the logical first step would be to improve the treatment of the animals being used. Once the ethics of animal husbandry are improved, we can look at whether we should keep up the practice.

If a meat eater claims it is fine to eat meat but the animals are being badly treated, then acting to improve their lives is a clear step to follow, and that can be as easy as asking your supplier where the meat came from and how it is farmed. If enough people do that the suppliers will quickly make choices to ensure their customers get what they want. Rogue producers can be reported and fined or even shut down if they fail to adhere to health requirements.

Animals well treated are actually better for us than those that aren't - try a free range chook as compared to a caged chook and you will see the difference. We can influence the food we are offered with our wallets - pay a little more for the good stuff and the shops WILL notice. Failing to note what their customers want affects profits.

Is it more ethical to go vegan? As per my post before, I don't think so - the web of life exists and everything plays a part. But I am damn sure it is not ethical to treat animals so disgustingly and I make efforts to ensure my supplies come from decent places.

And if we're going to eat animals we should be mindful of them - acknowledge, even if silently, that this beast is contributing to your health by dying and stay aware of it while you eat. Treat eating as a positive experience and focus on it. Don't eat mindlessly while watching TV or performing other activities.

 

[turkalurk]

missing the point, if an animal suffers its over by the time it gets to my plate. So, I was not the one who inflicted the suffering if it suffered at all. Maybe the animal was killed instantly. Its not my responsibility so that guilt belongs with the person who took the life or the company who maintained the inhumane policies. Does that mean none of you drive cars because of the harm they do to the environment and all the people that die from car wrecks?

If the alternative for these animals is nonexistence then how do you know they wouldn't choose their life over nothing? I would rather experience a life of suffering than to not exist at all. Never been one to contemplate suicide.

 

[ForEverAfter]

God there is so much stupidity in some of these posts. Eating meat is not wrong. I'll stop there.

Since you're an openly racist member of this forum, I find it impossible to engage with you morally.
It's weird to say that eating meat is obviously not wrong, when you clearly don't think racism is wrong.

Eating meat is wrong, assuming that it comes from a source that contributes to the suffering of animals, which it most likely does.

It makes no sense to say "yeah the industry is wrong" but "eating meat isn't"... ?
They're one and the same, practically speaking.

 

[ForEverAfter]

missing the point, if an animal suffers its over by the time it gets to my plate. So, I was not the one who inflicted the suffering if it suffered at all. Maybe the animal was killed instantly.

Suffering doesn't necessarily happen at the moment of death... Sounds like you're lying to yourself.

Its not my responsibility so that guilt belongs with the person who took the life or the company who maintained the inhumane policies.

It is your responsibility.

Does that mean none of you drive cars because of the harm they do to the environment and all the people that die from car wrecks?

The logic isn't quite right. You're only responsible for your own car accidents, assuming they're your fault.
I still drive, unfortunately... I stopped for many years... I know it is wrong, though: I'm not denying that.

If the alternative for these animals is nonexistence then how do you know they wouldn't choose their life over nothing? I would rather experience a life of suffering than to not exist at all. Never been one to contemplate suicide.

This is an interesting question, although I take it you haven't ever suffered from a horrifying fatal disease that slowly eats away at you or spend more than a decade incarcerated? My point being: there are situations that might change your perspective on suicide... you haven't been an animal bred for slaughter, so you can't really say whether or not it will be more of a tolerable existence than non-existence..

But, like I said, it's an interesting question. I think, personally, I would rather live a life of suffering rather than no life at all... although that is having been born a human and come into suffering very gradually, over a long period of time... rather than being born a chicken into extreme suffering for my entire existence that remains at that level and doesn't change.

 

[What 23]

I think what people tend to blanket with the term "racism", that much of it is perfectly natural, and healthy.

Eating meat is not wrong.

Life is suffering. We can only seek to minimize it. But that doesn't mean making ourselves suffer so much to do so. I mean you can.. That is your choice... But don't ask others to. Say you do things for yourself... Because you feel better this way. Saying it is wrong is just baseless when it gets down to it. You are basing it off of the human condition currently, which is out of balance. It is messed up. Our population is too high, and this is why these big factories/factory farms exist. This is one reason I dislike the mass immigration into resource rich places like Europe. I'd rather my closer relatives have access to this. I'd rather my relatives, who don't have 4 kids per couple like the Pakistanis or Africans might, who have barely replacement numbers of children- my closer relatives, to have access to these resources. Africa's population as a continent will boom this century and where are they gonna go? Probably try to go to Europe. And this will reduce the resources available for those closer to me in time, culture, sound, art, language, Etc. Frankly I'd build a wall if I could and sentries to control borders and keep the place sustainable for my family, or closer family.

Maybe soon we will get lab grown protein, or lab grown perfect food. I don't know.

 

[ForEverAfter]

Stop trying to justify racism.

Eating meat is wrong, assuming that it comes from factory farms and it does.
There isn't enough meat produced otherwise to feed the population.
Therefore, practically, it is wrong.

You can argue that it doesn't have to be wrong, practically.
That we could change the industry. And, maybe we can.
But that doesn't mean it has happened already.

Life isn't suffering, by the way.
Life exists on a spectrum spanning from joy to suffering.
There is a Buddhist saying that is often mistranslated into "life is suffering", but it's not so.

But that doesn't mean making ourselves suffer so much to do so.

How does letting a controlled number of refugees into your country or not eating meat cause us "so much" suffering? I think I'm missing something, here.

 

[What 23]

Your existence is wrong. Kill yourself.

 

[ForEverAfter]

No thanks... ?

 

[swilow]

God there is so much stupidity in some of these posts. Eating meat is not wrong. And my family is certainly of higher average intelligence than another's down the street. Maybe less than another. Races are like families. They all may have among them very intelligent people but they are not fucking equal in all respects.

I wish I could turn all of you diversity and all is one (it makes no sense) people into the first life. And man... The worms... Don't they realize they are in unity with bacteria? The snails? We are all ONE! Unity! So heartfelt goodness! And the toads, don't they realize they are the same as the crickets? We are all one and it is all EQUAL!
Fuck.

The human races, or families, developed in isolation for many thousands of years. They are different. Families are different.

Um... I think you missed the point. Not a surprise. I think Foreverafter's reply to you was great.

Yes, different things exist, but it is humans who created the categorical speciation we see. Diversity is a fact of life on Earth, but we merely observed; we haven't specifically elucidated an objective truth of life, we have only organised it to examine it better. So I mean to say that all lifeforms share commonalities, some more then others. This is a temporal issue too. In essence, despite the fact that life forms on earth appear vastly different to one another in one frame of reference; examined in another, they must be seen as an expression of one essential DNA based language.

 

[turkalurk]

Since you're an openly racist member of this forum, I find it impossible to engage with you morally.
It's weird to say that eating meat is obviously not wrong, when you clearly don't think racism is wrong.

Eating meat is wrong, assuming that it comes from a source that contributes to the suffering of animals, which it most likely does.

It makes no sense to say "yeah the industry is wrong" but "eating meat isn't"... ?
They're one and the same, practically speaking.

I don't think eating meat is inherently wrong. Like others have said, it is the treatment of the animals involved. I am from the midwest and the cows don't seem to have it too bad where I'm from. I admit I am a little ignorant about the actual statistics of how many animals are inhumanely raised. I don't look into how my meat is treated and maybe I ought to. Which is why I said I admire the people that have that much moral fiber. It would seem too exhausting for me.

I have never seen the overcrowded cattle ranches you speak of. I see them grazing all over. Where do all these cows I see grazing go?

 

[What 23]

My point is that my true north includes the fact that I require B-12, and that practically, this is only found in animal sources. Much of what I do here is wrong. Buddha said everything is, but I have to disagree in respects even while accepting that wisdom as certain truth, definitely.

Watch your wording. Why isn't it a surprise? Because I think differently and am not a firm believer in civilization with just anyone? That I don't base my own ethics on what humans can provide, such as vitamins in the form of white powders which require processes and equipment that I may or may not be able to master or create? I KNOW that I can hunt fish, and animals. I know what I as an individual can do, which would allow my survival.

What ultimately is more harmful? Me murdering a chicken to feed my family, or catching fish... Or buying with money something that requires electricity to make, probably a constant flow of it with production figured in....something that is shipped in one of many trucks... Trains.. Plains... Made of plastic the containers, with offgassed particles now I'm swallowing... Right... What is more harmful?
What is more wrong or right?
I'm saying that by myself, I can hypothetically survive and with that, I would need to eat animals. It is not "wrong". At a basic level, and that matters to me, I need animal products. If that is wrong, then my very existence is wrong.

As for diversity... I like diversity of Europeans as is. Blond, red, brown, light to dark skin and eyes, blue green brown hazel amber eyes. They've got the spectrum. I don't think the traits are only superficial, either. I think attention getting can be good. Sexual signalling perhaps, not that it ends there, why different traits exist as they do. But, flood a bunch of black flowers into a smaller patch of white red and yellow flowers though and you'll have ... You got it... Less diversity in ways. A lot more "black". Less white and others, by proportion. Every other race, largely brown and brown. If White blends in, traits of the White will be less. Just look at most AA-White coupling's children. The negroid traits are very strong, and to me, undesirable much of the time. I'm simply not attracted and don't feel the connection.

I consider Whites to be more "colored" than "brown" and "black" people.

Don't get me wrong... I've got a little crush on a black girl where I buy my food. I don't really think people or anything is defined by its race, family, Etc... But a cat will often act like a cat. And the frequencies that exist in places differ from others, and this may mean difference in more ways... Difference that may not have translated to Nazis building rockets in the 30s if mass immigration from the "third world", such as SubSaharan Africa would have happened in 1403, and let's say 70% of the genetic code would have come from there instead of central Europe. May not. I kind of doubt it...

My ideas don't imply inherent superiority/inferiority, but Europe/Eurasia was awash for thousands of years with various cultures peoples wars technologies, gradually merging and splitting and merging again... That made it the place it is. Africa was cut off more so. Subsaharan. They didn't even have written language in the South. This is not to say they are stupid... But certainly different. Perhaps not a big place for aviation engineers. I don't know for sure. But trends.

 

[ForEverAfter]

I admit I am a little ignorant about the actual statistics of how many animals are inhumanely raised. I don't look into how my meat is treated and maybe I ought to. Which is why I said I admire the people that have that much moral fiber. It would seem too exhausting for me.

Yes, you ought to.
And saying it's exhausting is a poor excuse.
It's not remotely difficult to seek the truth, if you want to.
It sounds like you're intentionally maintaining delusion for convenience sake... And, as I said earlier, I think that creates more problems in the long run.... Lying to yourself (whether or not it's about the meat industry, your sexuality, or how exhausting it is to live by your morals) will always interfere with your potential happiness. IMO, It is more exhausting to eat meat than it is to not do so. The exhaustion is just repressed, so you recognize it as something else. Depression, sluggishness, addiction, rage, self-harm, lack of appetite, lack of sexual appetite, etc.

My point is that my true north includes the fact that I require B-12, and that practically, this is only found in animal sources.

Then your point is downright untrue. B12 is quite easily obtainable without contributing to the suffering of animals. Supplements (that aren't made from animals), sauerkraut & the meat of non sentient lifeforms (like molluscs) are all practical sources of B12... It is only found - naturally - in animals and fermented vegetables, but it can be produced - practically - for little cost, in a highly bio-available supplemental form.

Watch your wording.

See: above.

 

[Ninae]

Veganism/vegetarianism is rarely about trying to save lives or create dramatic, revolutionary change; its about trying to make the individual feel better about their life. As a vegan, the impact I have is utterly minimal, in terms of lives saved/carbon footprint/etc.

If only you do, yes, but there are millions of you and together we make a great impact.

 

[What 23]

Sauerkraut etc does not contain B-12.
Last time I had molluscs I had a reaction and just about died. That's exaggerating a bit (a lot, it was a sore throat, headache, and chills). But as I have similar reactions to other seafood, I'm assuming I may be hypersensitive. If I am, eating these would make me suffer. Over time, repeated exposure might increase sensitivity, increasing the chance that I will have a life threatening reaction.

And supplements require raw materials to make. They are not simply made. Controlled environments, equipment... Electricity.

I'm not denying the ground, that is very possibly where I may fall.

 

[ForEverAfter]

Veganism/vegetarianism is rarely about trying to save lives or create dramatic, revolutionary change; its about trying to make the individual feel better about their life.

You can't split actions into selfish / selfless categories.
Everything has a selfish element to it.
All morality functions as you described.

People don't rob their neighbors, in part, because they don't want to feel guilt or - potentially - be arrested.
But there is also the empathetic element, which overlaps with the guilt and the formation of laws.
You can't separate selfish and selfless, because there is no self. They/We are permanently entwined.

 

[ForEverAfter]

Sauerkraut etc does not contain B-12.
Last time I had molluscs I had a reaction and just about died. That's exaggerating a bit (a lot, it was a sore throat, headache, and chills). But as I have similar reactions to other seafood, I'm assuming I may be hypersensitive. If I am, eating these would make me suffer. Over time, repeated exposure might increase sensitivity, increasing the chance that I will have a life threatening reaction.

Take supplements.
Don't go around telling people that there is no practical source of B12, aside from meat, when it's widely known that there is.
There is B12 in sauerkraut, whether or not it is sufficiently bio-available to sustain healthy dietary levels is up for debate ATM.

 

[What 23]

You haven't been reading my posts.
I am not basing my ethics on an idea that humans can -- but I don't know how to -- synthesize vitamins to supplement an inadequate diet, or a highly questionable claim (at best) that fermented cabbage contains B-12 in significant levels. In a post apocalyptic world or whatever I could thrive eating organ meats and wearing fur in winter (though I might head south), and a vegan would still be trying to browse aisles at an abandoned Whole Foods that has already been looted.

I like to know where I am, and that involves knowing where the ground is. The ground is not supplements.

 

[Ninae]

It is our nature, and not all of us possess the will to sacrifice practicality, and the strength to overcome our humanity.

But it's no sacrifice...it's all in your mind. I just stopped and after 3 weeks I never looked back. The food people eat is shitty compared to homemade vegetarian food anyway. It's ignorance and laziness more than anything else. People are too lazy to learn how to cook and take the time to prepare their own meals. They're too lazy to study nutrition and make sure they get all they need. And what do most men eat? Cheap take-aways and junk food most of the time. Most people are severly malnourished on the kind of typical diet they cling to.