Vegan bullying :-(

[SteveStrummerUK]

Just the other day, my vegan mate started questioning me about my dietary and lifestyle choices ...

 

"Why do you even eat meat?"

"Do you think it's ethical to consume animal products?"

"Why should animals have to suffer and die just so you can eat a steak or a pork chop?"

"Don't you know that global warming is in part caused by livestock farming and the transport of animals and their products?"

"Do you realise that studies have shown that the human body can get all the nourishment, protein, minerals and vitamins it requires from food not sourced from the animal kingdom"?

"You do know that animals feel pain too, don't you?"

"Wouldn't you rather see a lamb happily gambolling and frolicking about in a meadow than lying dead on your plate in a pool of gravy"?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.... Jeez, I wasn't expecting some sort of spinach inquisition.

 

 

[craigb]

[craigb]

I'd like to see a vegan ask those questions to a tiger...

[Michael Vogel]

5 hours ago, SteveStrummerUK said:

Just the other day, my vegan mate started questioning me about my dietary and lifestyle choices ...

 

"Why do you even eat meat?"

"Do you think it's ethical to consume animal products?"

"Why should animals have to suffer and die just so you can eat a steak or a pork chop?"

"Don't you know that global warming is in part caused by livestock farming and the transport of animals and their products?"

"Do you realise that studies have shown that the human body can get all the nourishment, protein, minerals and vitamins it requires from food not sourced from the animal kingdom"?

"You do know that animals feel pain too, don't you?"

"Wouldn't you rather see a lamb happily gambolling and frolicking about in a meadow than lying dead on your plate in a pool of gravy"?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.... Jeez, I wasn't expecting some sort of spinach inquisition.

 

 

A ?? up on the missus and me scale. 

[paulo]

9 hours ago, SteveStrummerUK said:

I wasn't expecting some sort of spinach inquisition.

Careful making fun of the vegetablists mate. Another guitarist I knew pushed too far and one of them killed him using two root vegetables and one of his guitar strings..........

 

 

 

 

He was carroted.

[Notes_Norton]

1.  My glands secrete enzymes for digesting both plant and animal food - therefore I feel I should eat both
2.  My entire digestive system is typical of an omnivore. Plants are difficult to digest, cows and sheep have several stomachs to ferment it first --- horses have an alimentary canal that is very, very, verry long and even so the food is so poorly digested that other animals eat horse feces --- rabbits and deer eat their own feces because one pass isn't enough to digest the plant matter (I for one is not going to do that) ;)
3. If you eat 100% grass fed beef it's actually better than veggies for the environment. The cows can live on  grasslands consuming nothing but what mother nature provides. Conversely: To grow crops on grasslands it takes huge amounts of precious water, cancerous herbicides and artificial fertilizer. In addition to that, according to Cornell University and the Environmental Defense Fund the fertilizer industry emits 100 times more methane than all the cow burps and farts combined. --- When you "finish" the beef on feed lots full of corn, it's the corn farming that hurts the planet, not the cows https://earther.gizmodo.com/just-one-tiny-industry-may-emit-more-methane-than-epa-h-1835376030
4. Seven essential nutrients humans can't get from plants (1) Vitamin B12 (2) Creatine (3) Carnosine (4) Vitamin D3 (5) Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) - the omega 3 fatty acids you get from plants don't convert to this (6) Heme iron - your digestive system doesn't absorb the iron from plants and (7) Taurine --- you can look these up here https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-nutrients-you-cant-get-from-plants?slot_pos=article_1&utm_source=Sailthru%20Email&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=authoritynutrition&utm_content=2019-11-07&apid=#11
5. If it weren't for predators, there would be no animal life left on the planet. We wouldn't be here. The herbivores would have eaten us out of house and home. Take the Marine Iguana in the Galapagos for an example. It once ate terrestrial plants. But there were no predators on their island to keep the numbers in check so they ate 100% of the food on the island that they could digest. And when new seedlings sprouted they were immediately eaten. Rather than starving to death, they started eating seaweed. The water is cold, and the iguanas are cold blooded. They ate and then laid in the sun to dry. Pretty soon all the close to shore seaweed had been eaten so the iguanas have to dive deeper and deeper to get food. Then they have to sit in the sun until their body temperatures rise enough to do it again. Those who can't hold their breath long enough and those who are down long enough for their system to get too cold both die, and this controls their numbers. Luckily there are predators in the ocean or all the seaweed would have been eaten by the herbivore fish, but the carnivorous fish keep their numbers in check.

But of course there are those who believe the propaganda about veggie diets being healthier, and I suppose for some that might be. After all if one diet book worked for everybody, there would only need to be one diet book. These people are usually not prozeletyzers.

Then there are those who are on a well meaning but misguided mission to save the animals. Some of these are the ones who try to diet shame you. Like all religious zealots, they want the entire world to abide by their set of values.

I have some vegan friends who don't preach. I'm on a very meat heavy diet (was Atkins and now called Keto). We can meet in restaurants that server both and there is no preaching going on from either side. We both recognize each other for what we truly are, picky eaters.

IMO the media propaganda is being spread by the corporate farming industries. They would love to plow up the grasslands to increase their profits. After all, they know the US Government will buy enough of their product to keep the prices up (price supports). The Everglades in Florida is a very poor place to grow sugar cane. I read in the Palm Beach Post that the US government pays them $4 billion of our tax dollars every year to buy enough "surplus" sugar to keep the retail prices for sugar in the US the highest in the world.

We need to fight back against the vegan propaganda or there will eventually be no more meat to keep us healty.

Insights and incites by Notes

[bitman]

You eat meat so you can have some pudding!

[bayoubill]

[S.L.I.P.]

[InstrEd]

1 hour ago, S.L.I.P. said:

Now that is a cool looking jacket!

[Notes_Norton]

2 hours ago, S.L.I.P. said:

It's what you wear when the boss holds a meeting

[Tezza]

8 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

1.  My glands secrete enzymes for digesting both plant and animal food - therefore I feel I should eat both
2.  My entire digestive system is typical of an omnivore. Plants are difficult to digest, cows and sheep have several stomachs to ferment it first --- horses have an alimentary canal that is very, very, verry long and even so the food is so poorly digested that other animals eat horse feces --- rabbits and deer eat their own feces because one pass isn't enough to digest the plant matter (I for one is not going to do that)
3. If you eat 100% grass fed beef it's actually better than veggies for the environment. The cows can live on  grasslands consuming nothing but what mother nature provides. Conversely: To grow crops on grasslands it takes huge amounts of precious water, cancerous herbicides and artificial fertilizer. In addition to that, according to Cornell University and the Environmental Defense Fund the fertilizer industry emits 100 times more methane than all the cow burps and farts combined. --- When you "finish" the beef on feed lots full of corn, it's the corn farming that hurts the planet, not the cows https://earther.gizmodo.com/just-one-tiny-industry-may-emit-more-methane-than-epa-h-1835376030
4. Seven essential nutrients humans can't get from plants (1) Vitamin B12 (2) Creatine (3) Carnosine (4) Vitamin D3 (5) Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) - the omega 3 fatty acids you get from plants don't convert to this (6) Heme iron - your digestive system doesn't absorb the iron from plants and (7) Taurine --- you can look these up here https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-nutrients-you-cant-get-from-plants?slot_pos=article_1&utm_source=Sailthru Email&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=authoritynutrition&utm_content=2019-11-07&apid=#11
5. If it weren't for predators, there would be no animal life left on the planet. We wouldn't be here. The herbivores would have eaten us out of house and home. Take the Marine Iguana in the Galapagos for an example. It once ate terrestrial plants. But there were no predators on their island to keep the numbers in check so they ate 100% of the food on the island that they could digest. And when new seedlings sprouted they were immediately eaten. Rather than starving to death, they started eating seaweed. The water is cold, and the iguanas are cold blooded. They ate and then laid in the sun to dry. Pretty soon all the close to shore seaweed had been eaten so the iguanas have to dive deeper and deeper to get food. Then they have to sit in the sun until their body temperatures rise enough to do it again. Those who can't hold their breath long enough and those who are down long enough for their system to get too cold both die, and this controls their numbers. Luckily there are predators in the ocean or all the seaweed would have been eaten by the herbivore fish, but the carnivorous fish keep their numbers in check.

But of course there are those who believe the propaganda about veggie diets being healthier, and I suppose for some that might be. After all if one diet book worked for everybody, there would only need to be one diet book. These people are usually not prozeletyzers.

Then there are those who are on a well meaning but misguided mission to save the animals. Some of these are the ones who try to diet shame you. Like all religious zealots, they want the entire world to abide by their set of values.

I have some vegan friends who don't preach. I'm on a very meat heavy diet (was Atkins and now called Keto). We can meet in restaurants that server both and there is no preaching going on from either side. We both recognize each other for what we truly are, picky eaters.

IMO the media propaganda is being spread by the corporate farming industries. They would love to plow up the grasslands to increase their profits. After all, they know the US Government will buy enough of their product to keep the prices up (price supports). The Everglades in Florida is a very poor place to grow sugar cane. I read in the Palm Beach Post that the US government pays them $4 billion of our tax dollars every year to buy enough "surplus" sugar to keep the retail prices for sugar in the US the highest in the world.

We need to fight back against the vegan propaganda or there will eventually be no more meat to keep us healty.

Insights and incites by Notes

I don't agree with this at all. All you are doing is regurgitating propaganda from the meat industry. It is complete rubbish. Being Vegan isn't about eating plants and grass. You can be Vegan and have a very healthy diet, in fact, it is on the rise which is why the meat industry is responding with utter rubbish dressed up as "facts". The first thing is that it is not about Vegans vs Meateaters. This is what is being put out there in an attempt to portray Vegans as left wing loonies etc. to alienate them, to set up a "war" with them as the enemy. It's just typical capitalist rubbish where any threat to currently established industries is demonized and it seems you've fallen for it.

I am predominantly vegetarian although I do have dairy like milk and cheese, no red meat of any kind, occasional fish or chicken. I have been Vegan and was quite healthy with that diet but you do have to supplement with various nuts, beans and grains, cereals and yogurt and no you don't run deficient on nutrients if you do this.  Most people are deficient in something any way unless they have a perfect diet, whether meat eaters or vegans. If you run low on B12, you can take a supplement but I never had a problem with it.  A much greater threat to health is the relationship between red meat, processed carbohydrates and cancer.

I used to be a meat eater but was forced on to a Vegan diet for 2 years because I got a guts ache that wouldn't go away. It was like someone had punched me in the stomach and their fist remained pushed up under my diaphragm, unbearable situation that just sits there while useless doctors run tests but are unable to diagnose anything other than Irritable Bowel Syndrome. That is all rubbish. I stopped eating for a long time and found my stomach would only accept certain Vegan foods, no meat, no dairy, no processed foods like bread or cake etc  So I stayed on that diet and got better. Then my tastes changed so I never went back to a full meat, dairy or processed foods diet. If I get a guts ache, I know what to do.

The only reason I went from Vegan to mainly vegetarian was more about the availability of foods and cooking preparation times etc As more Vegan foods come on the market and are readily available at a good price I buy them. For example, I gave up fast food 20 years ago but now I am happy to have a Hungry Jacks vegan burger or rebel burger with orange juice occasionally and there are more vegan products coming on to the supermarkets that I buy.

It is also nice knowing that some poor tortured animal has not had to suffer or at least I am trying to minimize that in my diet. It's not just about what happens at the abbatoirs. The farming of animals is torture for them their whole lives. I live in a regional area, sheep and cows left out in dry paddocks in mid 40 degree heat day after day with no shade and sometimes no water. Farmers only care about them when they start dying because they are losing "product". Put on ships in small cages and shipped overseas where many die before they get there. And when they get there they are stabbed in the eyes with knives, have their legs broken with sledge hammers and shoved into the boot of a car still alive (to keep them fresh) while they are driven to the family home where they then have their throats  slit and are chopped up. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2019 by Tezza

[S.L.I.P.]

[Notes_Norton]

15 minutes ago, Tezza said:

I don't agree with this at all. All you are doing is regurgitating propaganda from the meat industry. <...snip...>

I am predominantly vegetarian although I do have dairy like milk and cheese, no red meat of any kind, occasional fish or chicken.<...snip...>

It is also nice knowing that some poor tortured animal has not had to suffer or at least I am trying to minimize that in my diet. <...snip...>

First of all, I'm glad your diet is working for you. If there were one best diet for everyone, there would only need to be one diet book.

I'll take the selected points above in order:

1) It's not propaganda. I have done serious scientific inquiry on this, mostly from peer reviewed scientific studies published in reputable medical journals. In addition  my brother-in-law is a surgeon, my sister-in-law is an operating room nurse and they help me know where to look plus offer their own opinions.  The 7 nutrients vegans can't get on a veggie diet are facts. The enzymes that are in human bodies are facts, and some are for digesting meat.

You say you can take B12 supplements? Doesn't that prove to yourself that eating meat is normal? If if weren't for supplements, which haven't been around that long, they would all have a B12 deficiency, which is serious and could be fatal.  So when you take your B12 to stay alive, you are taking something that only naturally occurs in meat and dairy.

I might add that there are only two studies that prolong the life of apes, monkeys and rats in the lab that can be reproduced by others (that's what peer review is about). The first is a very low carbohydrate and low calorie diet. You can't be low carb eating most fruits and root veggies. The idea behind this diet is for your pancreas to excrete minimal amounts of insulin (which is necessary but bad for you).

The second is using Alpha Lipoic Acid along with Acetys L-Carnitine, both meat products. It adds up to 14% to the life span of  apes, monkey,s and lab rats. If you substitute the plant version, Alpha Linoleic Acid, it doesn't extend anything and there is no substitute for Carnitine..

2) if you eat dairy, fish or chicken you are not really a vegetarian but an omnivore. Which plant does the milk, cheese, fish, or chicken grow on?

3) I totally agree with you on not torturing animals. I do not eat chicken as they are penned in tiny cages with beak and nails removed, nor do I eat lobster in those tanks with their claws taped shut. I eat 100% grass fed beef, so they live a peaceful life without out wild predators, and then killed in a humane way.

I know ranchers here in Florida. One does 100% grass fed beef, and he is both a good steward and an ecologist.  His cows graze on the range for their entire lives and when sent to a slaughterhouse designed by Temple Grandin. There is no stress, the kill is instant and painless, and the other cows don't see it. Google her.

BTW The cows wouldn't have a life at all if nobody wanted to eat them. If there was no profit, there would be no cows. So rather than taking a life, we are giving millions of them lives.

Humans have been eating meat since before we were evev human. ***** Erectus and others had tools to hunt and eat animals.

The thing I would never do is try to tell a vegetarian that they should change their diet. But plenty of veggie people tell omnivores that they need to become a vegetarian. Why is that?

I eat what I think is good for me, and you can do the same. Don't tell me my diet is wrong, please.

I'm an omnivore, a picky eater, and I eat a balanced diet for my needs. I'm 73 years old, on zero prescription medications, and a heart doctor says I have the circulatory system of a 50 year old. I caught a cold this year on an airplane. It resulted in one day of runny nose and one day of coughing. On the third day I was back to normal. The last time I got sick at all was another mild cold about 15-20 years ago. Low carb, moderate protein, high fat omnivorous diet is obviously working for me.

The thread is titled vegan bullying - and I interpret it as veggie people trying to tell me how to eat. My post gives the reasons why I eat an omnivorous diet. It is my defense to veggie people telling me I should stop eating meat. My posts are not intended to tell any vegetarian how to eat.

I have 3 vegan friends and one who is married to a vegan but needs to eat meat, we can go out to dinner together and nobody criticizes the others. We all know we are just picky eaters, and if the subject comes up, there is never preaching, just curiosity and good friendly conversation.

Notes

[craigb]

Most of the real issues has little to do with meat or no-meat and everything to do with what has been brain-washed into people as "healthy."  The notion of breakfast being the most important meal of the day (nominally consisting of tons of grains and sugars with the grains turning into sugars as well) is completely wrong.  It originated with an advertiser in the 1920's.  

There's a lot more than this of course, but I had some serious gut issues and removing almost all grains and drastically lowering my sugar intact solved them.  It's basically a war between the "good" gut bugs and the bad.

[Base 57]

1 hour ago, Tezza said:

All you are doing is regurgitating

My favorite part of this whole thread.

[SteveStrummerUK]

Some really interesting stuff here.

I'll be honest, I always find the 'humans have evolved to be omnivorous' argument a little unconvincing. In saying that I'm not dismissing the obvious fact that we can eat and digest animal-based food in addition to plant-based nutrition.

Rather I believe humans have more or less 'guided' our evolutionary path with respect to our diet to have arrived at our current state of omnivorousness.

Without a doubt in my opinion, the over-riding evolutionary impetus in our species' history was our mastery of fire. Ignoring for this discussion the obvious heating and animal-repelling advantages of control of fire, important as they were, I believe the most significant benefit was the use of fire to cook.

Cooking food, aside from (usually) making it taste nicer (although it could be argued that cooked food tastes nice because of evolutionary pressures), also makes it more nutritious and more digestible than (pound-for-pound) the raw ingredients.

Another massive advantage that cooking their food conferred on early humans was an incredible saving of time and to a lesser extent, effort. This benefit manifested itself in two ways; firstly that requiring lesser amounts of food to obtain the same nutritional value  meant less time spent hunting and gathering, and secondly that cooked food can also be eaten and digested much more quickly than most raw food.

I would argue that current humans (especially those in the west) wouldn't be that well adapted to consuming raw meat; not just because we would need to eat a lot of it but that it would take us hours to physically masticate and swallow it. Hence my initial statement regarding our omnivorousness.

 

[Starise]

The truth is somewhere in the middle really and that isn't some kind of cop out. 

Vegetables are good, some meat is good. I go to the grocery store. I buy what is the most healthy as far as I can tell. 

We just has a run of bad salads here in my area where they had to recall a bunch of bagged salad because it was infected with bacteria. 

Is this a political, moral or simply an issue of health? Some people make it all three. The first two mean nothing to me. I've never been politically correct and never will.

I buy healthy food........ok over the holidays cookies were available and I took advantage of a few of them. Should I feel guilty?  I don't

 

[Tezza]

49 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said:

First of all, I'm glad your diet is working for you. If there were one best diet for everyone, there would only need to be one diet book.

I'll take the selected points above in order:

1) It's not propaganda. I have done serious scientific inquiry on this, mostly from peer reviewed scientific studies published in reputable medical journals. In addition  my brother-in-law is a surgeon, my sister-in-law is an operating room nurse and they help me know where to look plus offer their own opinions.  The 7 nutrients vegans can't get on a veggie diet are facts. The enzymes that are in human bodies are facts, and some are for digesting meat.

You say you can take B12 supplements? Doesn't that prove to yourself that eating meat is normal? If if weren't for supplements, which haven't been around that long, they would all have a B12 deficiency, which is serious and could be fatal.  So when you take your B12 to stay alive, you are taking something that only naturally occurs in meat and dairy.

I might add that there are only two studies that prolong the life of apes, monkeys and rats in the lab that can be reproduced by others (that's what peer review is about). The first is a very low carbohydrate and low calorie diet. You can't be low carb eating most fruits and root veggies. The idea behind this diet is for your pancreas to excrete minimal amounts of insulin (which is necessary but bad for you).

The second is using Alpha Lipoic Acid along with Acetys L-Carnitine, both meat products. It adds up to 14% to the life span of  apes, monkey,s and lab rats. If you substitute the plant version, Alpha Linoleic Acid, it doesn't extend anything and there is no substitute for Carnitine..

You can do whatever scientific study you like, but I was strict Vegan for 2 years and I never had any problems, in fact it cured my problems.

49 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said:

2) if you eat dairy, fish or chicken you are not really a vegetarian but an omnivore. Which plant does the milk, cheese, fish, or chicken grow on?

I don't like the term Omnivore, I don't eat red meat at all and there are other things I don't eat. I eat free range chicken once or twice every 2 - 3 weeks sometimes less, it's not something that is necessary for me. Thinking about when I last had fish, that would be over 6 months ago.  I describe myself as "mainly vegetarian", as I lean that way and intend to move more in that direction. Please don't dictate to me what I should call my own eating habits.

49 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said:

3) I totally agree with you on not torturing animals. I do not eat chicken as they are penned in tiny cages with beak and nails removed, nor do I eat lobster in those tanks with their claws taped shut. I eat 100% grass fed beef, so they live a peaceful life without out wild predators, and then killed in a humane way.

I know ranchers here in Florida. One does 100% grass fed beef, and he is both a good steward and an ecologist.  His cows graze on the range for their entire lives and when sent to a slaughterhouse designed by Temple Grandin. There is no stress, the kill is instant and painless, and the other cows don't see it. Google her.

BTW The cows wouldn't have a life at all if nobody wanted to eat them. If there was no profit, there would be no cows. So rather than taking a life, we are giving millions of them lives.

Just because you know one good rancher is not an indication of the rest. You don't seem to understand how bad commercial farming practices really are.

49 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said:

The thing I would never do is try to tell a vegetarian that they should change their diet. But plenty of veggie people tell omnivores that they need to become a vegetarian. Why is that?

Because commercial farming practices are so bad, I at least try to get my meat eating mates to reduce red meat intake. Just because your 73 and a meat eater doesn't mean anything. I've got a grandfather that was 98 when he died, he smoked like a train, he used to brag about how smoking had extended his life. However, there were 4 others in the family that died from cancer from smoking....36 to 60.  You have to look at the overall statistics which say red meat and especially processed red meat kills.

49 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said:

The thread is titled vegan bullying - and I interpret it as veggie people trying to tell me how to eat. My post gives the reasons why I eat an omnivorous diet. It is my defense to veggie people telling me I should stop eating meat. My posts are not intended to tell any vegetarian how to eat.

I have 3 vegan friends and one who is married to a vegan but needs to eat meat, we can go out to dinner together and nobody criticizes the others. We all know we are just picky eaters, and if the subject comes up, there is never preaching, just curiosity and good friendly conversation.

Notes

If they are Vegans, it is amazing they can stand the smell of meat on your plate. My experience with other Vegans is that they are a different social group,  If I go out with them then we will go to a vegan or mainly vegetarian restaurant like Mexican for example where there are good vegan alternative meals. I personally won't go out to places where people are sitting there eating large slabs of meat, the smell disgusts me and watching them eat it and chew it is also disgusting. I would say over time I have drifted away from full on meat eaters because I can't enjoy things with them. I won't go to family barbeques where there are sausages on the grill for example.

 

[kennywtelejazz]

Oh my ?

 

Kenny