DRFseven

We are talking about, as I said, the majority of people in the U.S., Brighid. I'm the one who originally said not everyone in the world had access, remember? I live in the U.S.; I know what is available here (and probably in most comparatively developed countries). Anyone who can afford meat can afford supplements; and anyone who can afford free-range meat and eggs can afford to eat whatever they want! However, for vegetarians, who can eat eggs, cheese, and milk, there is no need for supplements in the first place.

If you really want to get into an argument, I'll do it and you won't like what the findings. Far from being superior, there are so many disadvantageous effects from a meat diet, that, in truth, most people in this country could eat almost any diet without meat and be better off for it. Most people who adopt a vegetarian diet drop some weight, get lower cholesterol readings, have less hypertension, and live longer (and vegans do even better). You may be interested in optimum health, but, I assure you, most people aren't, and they eat way too much meat and not nearly enough fruits, vegetables (esp. dark green), and seeds. The primary deficit in this country is in the fruit and vegetable group; we need to be eating much more of them.

shamon

Is there ANY other species that think this way or ACT as if they think this way? Is there ANY species that has millions of equal options morally? If they way humans need to live is completely subjective, and each option is equal, then how could humans have lasted this long evolutionarily? Does evolution support the idea that a species has an amorphous morality? What other species have amorphous morality (meaning there isn’t just one BEST choice)? Isn’t there always one BEST choice in any given situation – the choice with the highest likelihood of success?

Off-topic really, but it seems like subjectivity is civilization’s mantra. This is idea is not intrinsic to humans. It seems like one of the dominant memes of civilization, and definitely has potential in the area of social control.

brighid

Nature does not imbue vegetable sources with B-12, therefore the only way to get B-12 in ones diet is through animal products – UNLESS a scientist has manufactured a process in which to add B-12 to food – this is call fortification. Therefore, evolution being perfect as you say decided that human are omnivores and that humans need B-12, but nature didn’t see fit to create any non-animal sources with this vital nutrient, therefore a NATURAL vegetarian diet (without the benefit of man-made and synthetically enhanced fortification of non-animal nutrient sources) cannot sustain human life! So, prior to the 20th century and late into that time man could not be a vegetarian and be healthy. And if evolution designed me perfectly then she designed with certain allergies

Here is some good info on B12 and other vitamins – take the quiz and test your knowledge:
<a href="http://asci.uvm.edu/nusc43/vit2.htm#Vitamin" target="_blank">http://asci.uvm.edu/nusc43/vit2.htm#Vitamin</a> B12

and here:
<a href="http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-7e.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-7e.shtml</a>

Lactose intolerance prevents me from getting B12 from dairy sources as I can only tolerate a small amount of dairy products in my diet. Also – on large egg has .5 mcg of B-12, approximately 8% of the RDA (which is 6 mcg), which means I need to eat about 12.5 eggs day to get 100% of the RDA of B12. Do you see a problem with eating 12.5 eggs a day since I can’t get my B12 from milk products? An ounce of cheese has about .2 mcg of B12, 8 oz of yogurt has .9. In comparison 3 oz of beef liver has 60 – I could eat a sliver of beef liver and get my daily requirements. 3 oz of trout of salmon have about 5 mcg and 3 oz of beef has about 2.1 mcg. Tuna is right around that of eggs and yogurt.

Again, meat is the best source of B12, beef liver being a far better source then eggs or dairy products, with salmon and trout coming in behind that.

B

shamon

So, in general, humans have an innate ability to digest raw mammalian flesh? This is what you would recommend to your love ones? In general, you’re saying it IS safe to eat raw meat? Are you recommending that others eat raw meat? How often?

Even the government requires irradiation before meat is safe to eat, before you cook it. They definitely do not recommend eating raw meat, whether you hunt or not.
<a href="http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/pubs/qa_irrad.htm" target="_blank">web page</a>

shamon

You ARE perfect. The reason you have allergies is civilization. It’s primarily the result of your ancestors living indoors for thousands of years.

Are you saying that prior to the 20th Century, humans did not have access to dairy, eggs, or fish? If these things existed prior to the 20th Century then humans could be perfectly healthy vegetarians. If those things did exist, then were they man made?


Why must you be insulting? I never implied that you were in need of a knowledge refresher. I’m aware of nutritional requirements.


B12 RDA:
Life-Stage Men Women
Ages 19+ 2.4 mcg 2.4 mcg
All ages 2.6 mcg 2.8 mcg

Where did you get the 6 mcg figure?
<a href="http://www.cc.nih.gov/ccc/supplements/vitb12.html" target="_blank">http://www.cc.nih.gov/ccc/supplements/vitb12.html</a>

It looks like your numbers are a little off. Vegetarianism easily supports the RDA of B12:

Food Amount Vitamin B12 (Micrograms)
Liver, beef 3 ounces 95
Kidney, beef 3 ounces 19
Liver, chicken 3 ounces 16.5
Salmon, steak 3 ounces 3.0
Tuna, light, packed in water 3 ounces 2.5
Yogurt, nonfat, plain 8 ounces 1.5
Beef, lean 3 ounces 1.4
Pacific Halibut 3 ounces 1.2
Milk, whole 1 cup 0.9
Pork, center loin chop 3.5 ounces 0.6
Swiss cheese 1 ounce 0.5
Egg, whole, raw 1 medium 0.4
Chicken, white meat 3 ounces 0.3
Cheese, American processed 1 ounce 0.2

In fact it looks as though meat provides way too much B12. Liver provides 33 times the RDA of B12.

Trout, rainbow, cooked, 3 oz 5.3mcg of B12 - 90% RDA
Salmon, sockeye, cooked, 3 oz 4.9 mcg of B12 – 80% RDA

Meat cannot be the BEST source of B12. The only thing you’ve attempted to prove is that meat has the MOST B12, not that it’s the best. The best is qualitative, not quantitative. Just eat some saltwater non-mammalian fish or an some eggs if you’re that concerned.

[ April 10, 2002: Message edited by: shamon ]

[ April 10, 2002: Message edited by: shamon ]</p>

Ginseng

After reading this thread, I absolutely had to register because such obviously incorrect things are being written about a non-meat diet.

I've been a vegetarian for over 10 years. I'm not suffering from b-12 deficiency, my cholesterol is under 120, and in fact I can't remember the last time I was sick. I don’t have to worry about my weight, and I feel fantastic! My weekly grocery costs are much less than the average meat-eater.

I read the post about endometriosis with much interest. If your doctor told you to eat chicken for this illness, his/her medical license should be revoked. A vegetarian diet is very helpful for those suffering with endometriosis. There are many women with endometriosis who have become vegetarians because it GREATLY reduces the pain and inflammation of endo. When you eat meat, not only are you eating the animal’s natural hormones, but you’re also eating all of the synthetic hormones/antibiotics that were pumped into the animal before it was killed. Anyone with endo knows that hormones can work against you in the fight to get this disease under control. It is in your best interest to consider the health benefits of a non-meat diet.

And what about the children (now that’s a popular question!!)? Type II diabetes (which is related to a high fat, meat-centric diet) is now, for the first time in history, becoming a significant problem for children. The meat and dairy that people are feeding their kids has serious consequences. With children as young as 10 years old showing signs of HEART DISEASE, you would think we would stop shoving Big Mac’s into their chubby little hands. Ahh, but that would be too difficult, wouldn’t it? Better to let them gorge themselves on fast food in case they need some extra animal fat and synthetic hormones, huh? Vegetarian children are very healthy, and vegetarians LIVE LONGER than meat-eaters! Your child is stronger because he eats meat? It sounds like a nice fantasy, but it simply is not true (although the beef industry would love to hear that you believe such idiocy)! Cancer, heart disease, and type II diabetes are the major consequences of eating a meat-based diet. If you want your child to have the longest, healthiest life possible (which I’m assuming you do), you should at least educate yourself about diet. By the way, do NOT feed yourself or your children raw or bloody meat!! You can become seriously ill, and you could die from ingesting it! Don't you ever read the news?? Children are even more at risk from undercooked meat—their immune systems are not as strong as adults, and they are more likely to die from meat-born illnesses.

It seems a lot of people believe that meat makes you strong—Grr!! I’m a big strong meat-eater—Grrr!! Television commercials might imply that is true, but with just a little thoughtfulness, anyone can see that it is just plain wrong… MANY professional athletes are vegetarians, and vegetarians are well represented in all major sports. You have been misled if you believe vegetarians are in any way less physically capable than their meat-eating counterparts.

How many people have to die of meat-related illnesses before we stop allowing ourselves to be brainwashed by big-moneyed interests?? Factory farming poisons cows (which in turn poisons people who eat the cows), with high amounts of hormones and antibiotics. And lest we forget, e-coli, lysteria, and mad cow disease are some of the other "complications" of a meat-based diet. That doesn’t sound too healthy, does it?

Out of curiosity, does anyone here know what they’re actually getting (nutritionally) from animal flesh? Anyone? Dr. Ornish, anyone?? Meat doesn’t supply the human body with anything that can’t be obtained from primary sources. Meat does have a few things that non-meat sources do not--namely high amounts of animal fat (which causes heart disease and cancer), too much animal protein (which causes osteoporosis), cholesterol (the bad kind), and well, blood. I’m not a vampire, are you?? Do you need to ingest blood to live? Do you WANT to ingest blood if you do not have to do so??

As for the ethical debate—I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Take a trip to the factory farm and ask for a tour of the place. Volunteer to give one of the many doomed cows a silver ‘bullet’ to the head, or better yet, ask if they’ll let you kill one kosher-style! Kosher requires the cow to be bled—yum! It’s obviously unethical to participate in such cruelty, and nobody should have to tell you that either. If you want to behave unethically, then so be it, but you should at least understand that you are making a choice. And before I get accused of appealing to emotion for daring to mention that actual animals suffer and are killed for your voracious meat addiction, let me point out that this issue IS emotional! Ethics must take into account our human-ness—if you dismiss the emotional aspect, you’re denying our very humanity. How in the world do you develop ethics if you’re not allowed to consider your own feelings??

Becoming enlightened enough to understand the importance of being ethical in your food choices is the first and most important step one can take on the road to self-actualization.

Here is a very incomplete list of ETHICAL vegetarians in no particular order. This list contains some of the world’s best thinkers—every single one of them (and MANY others) stopped eating meat for ethical reasons. Shamon, you’re not alone! In fact, we are in great company!


Socrates
Plato
Pythagoras
Hypatia
Plutarch
Epicurus (where we get the word epicure!)
DaVinci
Einstein
Tolstoy
Franz Kafka
Charlotte Bronte
Mahatma Gandhi
Benjamin Franklin
Susan B. Anthony
George Bernard Shaw
Thomas Edison
Nikola Tesla
Mark Twain
Clara Barton
Franz Kafka
Henry Ford
Isaac Newton
Etc., etc.

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." -Thomas Edison

[ April 10, 2002: Message edited by: Ginseng ]</p>

vixstile

-Quote shamon-
Is there ANY other species that think this way or ACT as if they think this way? Is there ANY species that has millions of equal options morally? If they way humans need to live is completely subjective, and each option is equal, then how could humans have lasted this long evolutionarily? Does evolution support the idea that a species has an amorphous morality? What other species have amorphous morality (meaning there isn’t just one BEST choice)? Isn’t there always one BEST choice in any given situation – the choice with the highest likelihood of success?
-------------------------------------------------

I dont quite understand what you are trying to say here.You can go <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000107" target="_blank">here</a> for more on my take on morality.

Rational Ag

I've been there, thanks. I have been to slaughterhouses for both cows and pigs. I have seen the pictures. I know what's involved to get meat to my table.

Unlike you I have no moral or ethical problems with this. So to say that something is "unethical" means that you are trying to impose your sense of ethics on me, as though your personal sense of morality is better than mine.

It's not, and eating meat isn't unethical, unless we're talking on a relativistic scale to people like you.

Judging people based on personal "rights" and "wrongs" and opinions based on feelings is how we end up with discrimination laws against women, homosexuals, and any other group you feel fit to patronize.

Christians feel as though they are "enlightened". They think the first and most important step you can take towards enlightenment is to submit to god, rid yourself of all of your rationality and worldliness, and repent of your wrongdoings.

Let me guess...YOU have it RIGHT. WE (meat eaters) have it WRONG. YOU feel like you have it RIGHT based on a personal subjective morality system based on feelings. You sound like a proselytizing Christian.

By the way, I like your appeal to authority. However, I don't think it would be too difficult to compose a list of some brilliant, freethinking, ethical people in history that (gasp!) eat meat.

-Rational Ag

Ginseng

And how is that relevant?? I didn't say anything about god... Looks like you're trying to insert religion into this discussion... Let me be clear--ethics has nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

Guess again. Ethics are not subjective. Again, why are you so hung up on christianity? Hmm, could you be mentioning religion over and over again to try to relate it to vegetarianism and therefore discredit a vegetarian diet?? That is underhanded and it's a logical fallacy! I would think you would know that... Let me be CLEARER--ethics has nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. At least my appeal to authority has some real authorities!! I rather enjoy knowing that my ethics are sound, and that others with the highest of ethics thought the same as I do.

vixstile

Show me how ethics are not subjective