DRFseven

They could certainly be healthy if a vegetarian diet was provided for them, but it's not. That's my point.

Because this is what their parents have learned to do. Why do we set up our lives so that we drive everywhere instead of walking, which is healthier? Why do we keep trying to get suntans when we know it's not healthy? Why do we eat chocolate cake instead of apples? We just do whatever we happen to think is appropriate to do and that is a result of what we've learned to like. There is a great deal of the "comfort factor" in foods; likes and dislikes are determined mostly by exposure. For instance, most young children, the world over, dislike hot peppers, but most adults in hot-pepper-eating cultures love hot peppers. It's a cultural thing, like all food preferences.

People don't understand that vegetarian diets are healthy; don't you get it? We've all been taught, for generations until just lately, that we needed so many servings of meat per day; it takes a while for new information to be accepted. The only reason for talking about other health issues is to illustrate that people don't practice those, either.

Really? You really thought all human beings considered the deliberate killing of animals to be the same thing as the murder of people? Well, that's pretty strange.

I disagree. I don't think it's wrong or right.

voltaire321

The OP's posted definition of need is indeed correct.

need n. A condition or situation in which something is required or wanted

Based on this definition I need to kill animals so that I may eat them (yum!)

In all seriousness though, I think the reality of the situation is that most people in the world apply different morality to the killing of animals than to the killing of humans. Personally I would state my views on killing humans as follows:

It is wrong to kill humans except to defend your body or the body of another.

However, my views on killing animals is a little more complex:

1) It is wrong to kill animals without using the majority of their corpse for some purpose.

2) It is wrong to kill animals to the point of endangering the continuity of the species.

3) It is wrong to kill animals in a way that intentionally causes excessive pain to the animal (i.e. I used to beat up the kids in the neighborhood that tortured animals)


So I guess that I can't agree with the OP's basic moral premise. As a race humans have hunted since our evolution from other species that hunted. We have been omnivores for quite a long time. Furthermore many, many, many, other omnivorous species hunt for food as well. While I don't believe in god I do like to take my queues from the way nature works. Nature isn't giving me any signs that is morally wrong to eat flesh, just the opposite. Guess I'm just going with the flow on this one.

droolian

Here are my personal opinions on why it’s wrong to eat meat. I hope I can convey this to make sense---forgive me if I babble.

I’m a vegan. Many people are vegan just for health or environmental reasons, and stealing this line for Dr. Klaper, “it’s the diet for all reasons.”

It’s bad for the environment. The Environmental Protection agency claims that the waste from hog, cattle, and chicken farming has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in the 22 states and contaminated the ground water of 17 states. <a href="http://lists.sierraclub.org/SCRIPTS/WA.EXE?A2=ind9909&L=ce-scnews-releases&F=&S=&P=1367" target="_blank">http://lists.sierraclub.org/SCRIPTS/WA.EXE?A2=ind9909&L=ce-scnews-releases&F=&S=&P=1367</a>

The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Center for a Livable Future. <a href="http://www.jhsph.edu/environment/CLF_Initiatives/Spira-IAParticles.html#Anchor-6296" target="_blank">http://www.jhsph.edu/environment/CLF_Initiatives/Spira-IAParticles.html#Anchor-6296</a>

Dr. Klaper in the video A Diet for All Reasons made me really start thinking about American obesity and health problems. We drink and eat more dairy than most countries but we’re leaders in osteoporosis. That includes all the calcium supplements we take!
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1083000/1083066.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1083000/1083066.stm</a>
<a href="http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/6_26_99/fob2.htm" target="_blank">http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/6_26_99/fob2.htm</a>

There is no nutritional requirement for meat. The ADA is not a vegan or animal rights group that I know of.

Here’s the ADA’s position on going vegan ---
“Scientific data suggest positive relationships
between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for
several chronic degenerative diseases and
conditions, including obesity, coronary artery
disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and
some types of cancer. Vegetarian diets, like all
diets, need to be planned appropriately to be
nutritionally adequate.”
<a href="http://www.eatright.org/adap1197.html" target="_blank">http://www.eatright.org/adap1197.html</a>

Pernicious anemia through a b12 deficit can take decades to come about. Even meat eaters can benefit from eating more fortified foods. Some studies have shown that nearly 40% of the U.S is lacking in b12, so it’s not only vegans that need to supplement. Vegetarians can get it from eggs or milk so shamon is correct that killing isn’t needed. I don’t eat eggs or dairy, because of the health risk.

It comes from bacteria, b12 and was first isolated in 1948. It’s argued by some that humans had once possibly had b12 as a natural intestinal flora. But many factors of modern life may add to the destruction of friendly/beneficial---antibiotics kill bacteria indiscriminately---beef is often loaded with antibiotics. It has also been said that perhaps man derived enough b12 from eating unwashed fruits and veggies from natural bacterial contamination. Either way it’s the only supplement I take and vegans need it if they don’t eat foods fortified with it.
I know guys that hunt that love to kill. When they aren’t hunting, they watch videos of hunt trips and watch the arrow go through a deer in slow motion---it’s as if it’s their porn. I can no longer go around these guys, and one of them told me when I went vegetarian that I’d be “queer” next. All that happened years ago. Hunting is regarded as a “sport” though and they surely enjoy it. So some people will say they get pleasure from killing.

Bad Cholesterol only comes from other animals—we make what we need. How often do you hear that? I’ve never heard it growing up. Now you see young people and sometimes teenagers having to have their gallbladder removed. Stones form when a person can’t metabolize all that excess cholesterol. That was once a disease only thought to effect fat women over 40. Heart attacks and strokes are the cause of 50% of deaths in America.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be a jerk on this, and I was once the worst---I just saw a hamburger as a product. I didn’t want to know about the rest. I want people to know what I didn’t and that’s the truth. I want them to know that the food pyramids children see hanging in their lunchroom is nonsense. It bugs me that people aren’t presented with the truth. For example, chicken and fish are sometimes touted as a healthier alternative to beef. They each have as much dietary cholesterol as beef.

I use to grasp for reasons not to go vegan---I was addicted to meat and couldn’t imagine life without it. After about two weeks I never missed it, and I felt physically much better. It’s condiments like mustard and ketchup that I missed, but there’s plenty of good meat substitutes out there with much less fat and of course no cholesterol. I may have a vegan “hotdog” or “hamburger” once a month. In a few weeks I developed a taste for vegetables that I had never had.

My mother’s dad raised chickens that were allowed to roam free, but isn’t it still a betrayal to kill something you’ve raised and nurtured? By feeding these animals you’ve taken responsibly for their lives and then to take away life from something that depends on you and eat it?

Even if I could catch a cow in my teeth, I couldn’t eat it raw and would be repulsed by the blood. I’d also get salmonella, which true carnivores have no problem with. Cooked food is not natural, so the natural argument goes out the window.
“Human beings and herbivorous animals have little mouths in
relation to their head sizes, unlike carnivores, whose big mouths are all the better for “seizing, killing and dismembering prey,”--- Cardiologist William C. Roberts
<a href="http://www.emagazine.com/january-february_2002/0102feat1sb1.html" target="_blank">http://www.emagazine.com/january-february_2002/0102feat1sb1.html</a>

I think John Robbins is a great man. He was to inherit the Baskin-Robbins fortune and set out for a different, more compassionate life. He also has no ego problems with correcting any mistakes made in his books. Dr. Stephan Walsh of the UK Vegan Society corrected him, and not in public, and Robbins wrote him back to thank him.

The Food Revolution has been written since Diet for a New America, which had 777 footnotes. It sited hundreds of articles from important medical journals and studies that link diabetes, heart attacks, cancer, strokes, high blood pressure, gout, kidney stones, gallstones, asthma and more diseases to the consumption of animal products. Get a hold of a copy of The Merck Manual if you don’t trust Robbins and see how many problems the SAD creates.

If this issue does concern you, go to the library and grab The Food Revolution and look up the very valid research involved yourself. Also try reading a former farmers book called Mad Cowboy. Howard Lyman, a 4th generation cattle man wrote this.

Here’s some of Tom Regan’s stuff
<a href="http://www.cultureandanimals.org/animalrights.htm" target="_blank">http://www.cultureandanimals.org/animalrights.htm</a>

And here’s a sight that shows some misery
<a href="http://www.luckydayinhell.com/cows.html" target="_blank">http://www.luckydayinhell.com/cows.html</a>

tronvillain

It doesn't follow from rejecting the principle "It is wrong to kill something if you do not need to" that one accepts the principle "It is right to kill something if you do not need to."

Now, why would I consider it wrong to kill something? Well, the primary reason would seem to be the empathy I would feel for it, since while there are potentially other reasons that could be more important, they don't always apply.

Now, why would I consider it right to kill something? Something would have to overcome whatever empathy I would feel for whatever is being killed. In the case of killing for meat, this could theoretically be my desire to stay alive, but generally it is the enjoyment I derive from eating meat.

Apparently this is not true in your case and you may consider me immoral as a result. Still, this does not mean that I should consider myself immoral or stop eating meat.

Yellow3

The question as posed by shamon, though (at least, insofar as I can tell from his starvation examples) is not 'would the quality of my life really suck if I was not killing animals'. It's more along the lines of 'would I drop dead if I didn't?' And the answer is no, I wouldn't. I'd probably have psychological problems in no short order; in fact, I probably already do, since a tendency towards cleanliness has shifted up several gears to 'compulsion' due to those six-legged little sonsabitches. But I'd live. Unless I'm missing some information here, they're not carrying anything lethal like bubonic plague or hantavirus, here.

People can live through a lot of conditions and on diets ranging from exclusive meat to pure vegetarian. That we can do so does not make any of these conditions some sort of moral obligation, however.

- Jen

DRFseven

Actually, shamon said you don't have to eat animal products to get it, but eggs, milk and cheese are animal products. I thought about mentioning that you could get it from eggs and dairy products without killing animals, but decided that s/he would probably think life as a commercial egg-layer or milk-producer was worse than death! But nothing has ever been shown to be wrong with the supplements, anyway.

Correct and correct (assuming access to required nutrients). The American Dietetic Association is a very conservative institution and they waited a long time before publishing their favorable position on vegetarianism. Soon after, the FDA issued a statement saying vegetarian diets had been shown to reduce the risk of cardiac disease, and in 1998, Dr. Benjamin Spock endorsed a vegan diet for children over the age of two.

I agree with you about vegetarianism being a healthy way to eat, but not about meat-eating being immoral. Neither you nor shamon have explained why killing another animal would be wrong. What is it wrong for?

shamon

1 g Carbohydrates: 4 calories
1 g Protein: 4 calories
1 g Fat: 9 calories

<a href="http://www.vegsource.com/nutrition/" target="_blank">http://www.vegsource.com/nutrition/</a>

Is there ANY meat listed above that ISN'T mostly protein and fat? The vast majority of all calories are from fat and protein (including lean and cooked meats).

shamon

If you disagree with my statement, what do you agree with? The needless killing of animals? You’ve written a lot about what you don’t agree with but none about what you agree with.

shamon

You can eat red meat RAW? I understand fish. We have teeth that support the eating of raw fish and generally it won’t make us sick. You’re the first person I’ve ever heard of (with the exception of the Inuit and related indigenous groups) that could eat RAW meat. I’m truly stunned. How often do you eat raw meat?

brighid

Sorry Jen – but you are wrong! Perhaps you wouldn't drop dead today, but eventually you would. If you ate a strictly vegetarian diet, as found in nature without the benefit of supplementation of B-12 from a synthesized source you would die. If you were pregnant and did not get any B-12 (folate) you child would likely suffer from birth defects. That is why it is recommended to make sure you are getting adequate B-12 in your diet prior to becoming pregnant and all through your pregnancy. While pregnant your need for iron doubles and because the human body does not absorb iron or amino acids (the building blocks of life) very well from plant sources (1-8% absorbtion rate vs. 22-23% from animal protein) a naturally occurring vegetarian diet (without the benefit of synthesized supplementation) can be very detrimental to the health of the mother and the unborn baby.

Therefore, prior to the advent of certain technology within this last century the human animal would have been unable to survive well (if at all) if it didn’t eat meat. Perhaps someday our bodies may evolve to better use vegetable protein and no longer require B-12 for proper muscular, organ and neural function but I am afraid we won’t live to see that day. Regardless of the spin to the contrary, the human body is designed to obtain its necessary nutrients from animal AND plant sources. The most important nutrients (amino acids, and other aforementioned nutrients) are all found in a piece of meat (fish, chicken, beef, pork, shellfish) and are absorbed at a significantly higher rate then the same nutrients found in non-animal sources. Dairy products are not sufficient sources of those nutrients, nor are they absorbed as well as a strictly animal meat source. Without those essential nutrients we would eventually become weak, more susceptible to illness and succumb to the diseases caused by the lack of, or insufficient amounts of those nutrients in our diet. There would be more children born with life threatening birth defects, more naturally aborted pregnancies, more women dieing during or after child birth, more children dieing young, and all of this is counter productive to the continuation of the species.

Even though plant sources are rich in many of those vital nutrients the human body cannot process it efficiently and as evidenced by the poor absorbtion rates, the lack of complete protein and the absence of B-12 in all plant sources – MEAT is necessary for every human being to be healthy, hence we are going to have to kill some animals – even if we think they are cute and fuzzy. Therefore, even if we have enormous empathy for those animals it is NOT immoral to kill an animal for nutrients and it’s NOT murder. It’s truly unfortunate that the human animal did not evolve with some of the more fabulous survival mechanisms that the crocodile has. A crocodile can go approximately one year without eating and its body produces a natural antibiotic that heals its body amazingly well. But alas, out of the evolutionary goop we somehow managed to either turn that genetic benefit into junk DNA or we just weren’t lucky enough to get it. That is also another example of the poor design the alleged Creator of the Universe “designed” us with!

So, although in modern society that has access to the proper supplements and fortifications to the human diet, one can be healthy on a vegetarian diet and a primarily vegetarian diet should be encouraged but meat should not be perceived as the enemy. TOO much of anything is bad for the human body, so moderation is the key. And if you are sedentary you should eat sparingly so you don’t become obese!