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I think we got about the same idea's.

Originally posted by dragon wench



It takes a lot of land to produce the grain required for one steak......grain that could feed many people.......
.....I am not necessarily advocating a vegetarian diet, but I am saying that moderation in its consumption would, among other benefits, be helpful in reducing world hunger.

the united states alone produces enough food to feed the entire world. there is not a problem with production of food, there is an imbalance in the distribution and consumption of the food. in most cases where an entire country is being effected by starvation, there is usually a dictator of some form or fashion who is obstructing help to his people. even though the varying african countries get the most attention for hunger, north korea has one of the worst problems in the world, but their leader refuses any aid unless he is allowed to tell the people it came from him personally, and then it would be given first to politicians, followed by military, and then citizens.

Originally posted by nael


the united states alone produces enough food to feed the entire world. there is not a problem with production of food, there is an imbalance in the distribution and consumption of the food. in most cases where an entire country is being effected by starvation, there is usually a dictator of some form or fashion who is obstructing help to his people. even though the varying african countries get the most attention for hunger, north korea has one of the worst problems in the world, but their leader refuses any aid unless he is allowed to tell the people it came from him personally, and then it would be given first to politicians, followed by military, and then citizens.

I agree--though US corporations have a huge role to play. When I lived in Honduras (the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere--after Haiti), it was patently obvious that Dole owned most of the good arable land. Since Dole owns so much of the land that is good for farming, the people are forced to farm on the mountains. As a result, Honduras has very little forest left, which is why Hurricane Mitch was so devasting there. I really try to avoid buying Dole products now because of what I saw there. Honduras looked like someone had "shaved" all the hills.
I also feel that our corporations could do a lot to improve the lot of life of people in third world countries. I think it's appalling that Starbucks purchases Guatemalan coffee from the rich families that own 80% of the land there, when they could purchase it from Mayan farming cooperatives. That would do more to change the power structure of Guatemala than any amount of peace initiatives. (I buy my coffee from Ruta Maya--a company based in Austin that buys from cooperatives in Chiapas and gives part of the profit back to the indigenous farmers there.) I have also witnessed forced labor on coffee plantations in Guatemala--and despite the end of their war, that is still going on as far as I know. Land wars are still on ongoing big deal in Central America. A lot of the land there is not even being used, the corporations, military and the wealthy just refuse to redistribute or lease it to the poor. This year, I was really disheartened to hear that people were starving to death in C.A. I gave money to Oxfam. The other thing that really teed me off down there was that I saw many projects underway to improve the infrastructure, usually with the help of foreign countries. Not one project I saw was with the help of the USA. I saw several that were underway with the support of Canada, Holland, etc. I have come to the conclusion that when I hear that we are giving *aid* to another country--what this really means is that we are giving weapons. Guatemala sure has plenty of American-made guns and an unacceptable crime rate to go along with it. Well, that's enough of a rant for now--I encourage everyone in the USA to travel and visit as much of the thirld world as you can, even though our state department discourages it. The only way you can really know what's going on out there is to see it for yourself.

Yes......and the US government has played a significant role in supporting the fascist dictatorships in Cental America....a place where dissent against the government will likely result in death squads dragging you from your home in the middle of the night....torturing you.....and then you simply "dissapear"........

Originally posted by dragon wench

Finally......another problem is that many people believe that one must eat meat in order to live. This is not true. While there are certainly those following a meatless diet that lacks essential nutrients (vitamin B 12 as an example), it is entirely possible to enjoy a healthy existence without consuming animal products, it is a question of being informed....knowing which combination of ingredients will produce the appropriate levels of protein and amino acids etc. This is especially true for vegans (those who do not eat any animal derived protein at all).

The Vitamin B12 deficiency in vegetarians is an interesting issue. The 'normal', 'healthy' levels of B12 are all derived from the meat eating population. A study made of Seventh Day Adventist ministers found that while their B12 levels were around a third of the 'normal', 'healthy' levels there were no apparent adverse health effects. It would appear that 'normal' and 'healthy' levels need to be scrutinised a little more closely especially as it is 'common knowledge' that this is an issue. - Curdis !

So far...

Lots of replies. Lets sum up what we have seen up to now.


Animals do the same argument:

XAN:
"Seriously though - I don't see why mankind shouldn't eat meat, we are an animal, and animals eat animals. (Foodchain and such)
Wouldn't it, if it is morally wrong for humans to eat meat, be morally wrong for any creature to prey/eat another animal??? - this is the way nature works."

>Here we have an examples of an argument that states that since animals eat each other and that there is nothing wrong with humans eating animals.

Dottie:
"What I meant were that WE have the option to stop eating meat, animals have not. therefor we should stop eating animals and what the animals do arent realy relevant until we have power to prevent it in a moraly acceptable way."

>So there is a difference between humans and animals. Namely that humans can distinguish between what is right and wrong while animals cant. When a tiger eats a man we don't put it in jail and think it is a bad tiger. It is just following instincts. But if a human kills and eats another human we either think he is mentally ill or that he has done something morally wrong.

So I don't think we can say that something is morally acceptable just because animals do it.


Plants might feel pain as well Argument:

CE
"But truly, I have never really understood why it is supposed to be more morally correct to eat plants than other living beings. We know virtually nothing about plants - do they perceive pain, do they have some kind of consciousness?"

>Err. What? I am surprised.
Although we have a lot to learn about both pain and consciousness I think we are pretty sure that that both are connected with the brain and the rest of the central nerve system. I am also pretty confident in saying that plants don't have those.


The environment argument:

CE
"Our large agricultural plantations affect the ecosystem of our earth probably more than the farming of animals - think of the huge areas used for agriculture, how rainforests have been cut down and many species extinct, the heavy use of pesticides etc - I'm not sure global vegetarianism/veganism is better."


CURDIS
"Per calorie it takes around ten times the arable land to produce meat than it does to produce vegetable. The rainforests in South America are primarily being cleared to allow for beef farming."

>I don't think I can add anything to this. All environmental groups like green peace etc. recommends less animal farming for a number of reasons but I think curdis mentions the most important one.


The health argument.

Nael
"they never had the right fats in their diet to develop testosterone which needs cholesterol in order to be formed. every one of them is extremely unhealthy looking, boney, bird chested, hairless freaks. and this is probably about 7 guys of varying ethnicity."

As others on this thread have noted it is easily possible to be a healthy vegetarian - it does not require a lot of effort seeking out the right supplements.


I see nothing here that indicates that it is morally acceptable to kill and eat animals. Maybe you can show me I am wrong.

Re: So far...

Originally posted by Tom
<snip>
I see nothing here that indicates that it is morally acceptable to kill and eat animals. Maybe you can show me I am wrong.

I've seen nothing to state that it is morally wrong to eat animals.
What you might percive as morally wrong - I don't neacesarily(sp?) percive as wrong.

(BTW a steak tastes better than a carrot - so that is my main reason )

Re: So far...

@Tom & Curdis: If it has been demonstrated that animal farming is worse for the ecology than farming of vegetables, this is certainly an argument in favour of decreasing (or perhaps even stopping although that's not my opinion) animal production. My perception was based on an article I read about the effect of extensive agriculturing in Asia. Not that I don't believe your word for it, but I would be interested if you could provide some good links that clearly shows a comparison of the effects of animal farming v farming of vegetables It would also be interesting to see calculation of what would happen to the ecosystem in general - too many times have man disrupted the balance both by animal and vegetable farming.

@Tom: "Plants may feel pain etc" - plants have no nervous system, that much is clear. I'm not suggesting plants have a consciousness or can perceive anything (like pain) in the same sense as a mammal does, but it's a fact that we don't know much at all about the meaning of the electrochemical events going on in plants. We don't even know the mechanisms mediating pain or other kind of suffering in animals either. What is known about animal nociceptors, ie pain receptors, only explains a fraction. So what I'm saying is just that we don't have enough knowledge to exclude that plants may perceive something - some people who use the suffering argument simply take for granted that we know a lot of things about plants that we don't know.

posted by Tom
As others on this thread have noted it is easily possible to be a healthy vegetarian - it does not require a lot of effort seeking out the right supplements.

I don't agree with this. I used to be a lacto-vegetarian myself, which is not a problem from a health perspective, especially not for an adult. However, I saw no moral point in lactovegetarianism since the production of dairy products and eggs, at least in Sweden, are done under the same conditions as meat farming.

Eating purely green food is however not effortless, especially not for infants. I can be done, but it requires informed parents, and the Swedish cases of child malnutrition caused by vegan parents, (I mentioned one case, the most severe I know of, but there has also been some less severe cases) are probably the result of lack of understanding of nutrition and child development.

A question to you who have chosen a vegetarian diet for other reasons than your own health: What about other animal products? Leather shoes, gloves and jackets? Cosmetic products like soap and schampoo? Medicines and medical technology developed with animal research?

Personally, eating meat or not is for me a question of man's right to expoit other beings for our own benefit. Whereas I don't think we have any right to expoit anything at all, I don't think it's immoral either as long as benefits and suffering is weighted against each other. Personally, I can't stand to use other animals than humans in research, but it's a personal emotional thing, I don't think it's immoral, I do think it's worth the life of 100000 cats to find a cure for schizophrenia if the cats are taken care of according to the regulations (we have very strict regulations for animal research here). I absolutetly don't think it's worth the life of one single cat to test make-up products.

Unfortunately, I have quite a bad personal experience of vegetarian/vegan people here in Sweden, it's mostly connected to the militant vegan groups who attack labs and farms and kill all the animals by stress. I know all vegatarians are not like that, but let me conclude with this example:

It's a cold day, and my classmate had a fur jacket. In our class, there is this guy who don't eat meat from sheep, pigs and cows (he eats fish and dairy products though, but he constantly nags everybody else about what they are eating). He steps forward to her, points at her fur and exclaims "You have killed an animal!". She replies: "No I haven't, this is a fake fur. But I see you have!". She points on his leather jacket - turns out it's a cow leather jacket. A long discussion followed, and I still don't understand why it is less morally defensible to eat a cow than to wear it's skin?

I have stopped eating meat here, because i don't know if it i cooked in pig fat.
However i believe that every person requires a portion of meat to get the daily need of vitamins and protiens etc.

As for killing animals, it never occured to me.
Do they stay in good conditions i have no clue esp in this part of the world.
In the Third world, they are pretty humanely taken care of.
I mean you don't have 20 in a small room or something.
There are in open spaces and stuff.
But that is to lack of facilities and too much open land for roaming.
Cows etc are not housed in buildings they roam around a greta dela of the time.

Now on to eating, well it is a dog eat dog world.
If animals can eat us, why can't we eat them?
However there is a difference with beasts of burden.
They are mainly vegetarians and don't eat humans.

And oh yeah what CE said.
I only understood half of it, but i bet the rest is just as good.
Esp the moral milk vegi thing!

XAN
(BTW a steak tastes better than a carrot - so that is my main reason )

Sigh - yep steaks do taste good - unfortunately.

CE
plants have no nervous system, that much is clear. I'm not suggesting plants have a consciousness or can perceive anything (like pain) in the same sense as a mammal does, but it's a fact that we don't know much at all about the meaning of the electrochemical events going on in plants. We don't even know the mechanisms mediating pain or other kind of suffering in animals either. What is known about animal nociceptors, ie pain receptors, only explains a fraction. So what I'm saying is just that we don't have enough knowledge to exclude that plants may perceive something - some people who use the suffering argument simply take for granted that we know a lot of things about plants that we don't know.

Hmm I’m still sceptical but I admit that you know more about that stuff than I do.

Ohh and about the links I will try and find some.

I think there are circumstances where it is correct to use animals for the sake of humans for example in medical research. Also I don't think that vegans are correct in wanting to disallow all forms of animal exploitation. I think that we can justify taking milk from cows and eggs from chickens etc. if the animals are kept under extremely good circumstances.

But my point remains CE. You don't think that it is right to kill people, intelligent animals that can feel pain so why do you think it is ok to kill animals that might not be as intelligent but surly also feels pain stress and discomfort?

Ps. I'm sorry if I was a bit sharp yesterday I had a bit of a bad day. London is not fit for any animal.

@C Elegans,

There is much more than this out there but try this El Paso rangelands study an excerpt

Unfortunately modem agriculture in developed countries depends on using increasing amounts of fossil fuels for cultivation, harvesting, fertilizer production, irrigation, processing and distribution. Vegetable and fruit production require higher energy inputs per calorie unit than grains. Livestock production, as currently practiced in North America, is among the most energy extravagant uses of fossil fuel in agriculture. It takes about 8 times more fossil fuel energy to produce a pound of livestock protein than a pound of grain protein. World grain yield increases are now slowing down (Figure 4)

It should be obvious from looking at the prices in your supermarket that meat costs more than vegetables (in general) and grains in particular.

Anyone who knowingly endangers anyone else's health due to an inflexible belief system (your vegans)is culpable and deserves censure. The leather jacket wearer who harrasses beef eaters is a fool and is advertising the fact. The 'lets see how much of a stir we can create by being fanatical brigade' are totally misguided.

Rule one: Don't be a fanatic. You will do more damage to your cause (if it is worthy) than by being passive and calm.

Rule two: There are no rules - Curdis !

Originally posted by Curdis
It should be obvious from looking at the prices in your supermarket that meat costs more than vegetables (in general) and grains in particular.

Per calorie, no, not here. Rice, potatoes and grains are cheaper than meat, but gee, do you know what soybeans cost in Sweden? Not to mention fresh vegetables like aubergine, squash or other to us, "exotic" vegetables. When I was a lactovegetarian, I spent a fortune on food The Swedish climate combined with the import rules and the Swedish agriculture politics, certainly doesn't help vegetarianism.

Thanks for the link, Curdis, I'll check it out in a moment.