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A Vegan No More

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31–40 of 275 posts

Re: A Vegan No More

#31
That was kind of eye-opening.

Not because it shows how bullshit veganism is; I knew that already.

But because it reminds me of this friend I have, who is always complaining that she feels tired and weak. She goes to the doctor at least monthly, who diagnosis her with some new deficiency. She's always taking some new pill or food type.

I always thought she was a hypochondriac. But it just occurred to me that she might not be, because she's a vegetarian.

Re: A Vegan No More

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. There are, you'll be pleased to hear, many vegans with stronger ethical arguments than "meat is murder". Such as, in summary: * unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable. * some non-human animals (notably the ones we eat most of) are as capable of suffering at the physical level as humans are. We shouldn't discount their suffering just because they aren't members of homo…

So if animals were raised and killed in humane manner would you be more willing to eat meat? This seems to be the most coherent ethical stance. Otherwise you enter into the "like-us conundrum" wherein the value of a living organism is directly proportional to it's similarity to our species.

> So if animals were raised and killed in humane manner would you be more willing to eat meat?

Yes. It seems plausible to me that I'll start eating meat again within a decade or two, once industry practices improve.

Re: A Vegan No More

#33
post #4

> I never expected this post to get so much attention. There is nothing more popular than an anecdote that appeals to people's pre-existing biases. Unfortunately there will be many for which this one story will provide the same weight of evidence as the entire China Study.

I guess it all depends on whether you'd prefer to be miserable and slowly starve to death starting in your 20s or be happy and energetic before dying at cancer at 60.

Re: A Vegan No More

#34

I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity. Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying…

> Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. There are, you'll be pleased to hear, many vegans with stronger ethical arguments than "meat is murder". Such as, in summary: * unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable. * some non-human animals (notably the ones we eat most of) are as capable of suffering at the physical level as humans are. We shouldn't discount their suffering just because they aren't members of homo…

"finding verifiably humanely-raised meat is difficult"

One word: hunt.

Re: A Vegan No More

#35
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. There are, you'll be pleased to hear, many vegans with stronger ethical arguments than "meat is murder". Such as, in summary: * unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable. * some non-human animals (notably the ones we eat most of) are as capable of suffering at the physical level as humans are. We shouldn't discount their suffering just because they aren't members of homo…

It's difficult to find humanely raised meat? I just go to the farmer's market and buy it straight from the farmer who raises grass-fed free range cows. If I would like to verify, I can head to her farm and see how she raises the cows myself. Or I buy fish that are caught in sustainable ways, which have grown in their natural habitat and not subjected to any suffering beyond the catch (which is a necessary part of con…

I agree with most of what you said (although fish are never killed humanely, so I'm not up for that), but I don't own a car and I live in a city -- the difficulty involved in heading to a farm to see how their animals are raised is just large enough that I don't think the reward is worth it for me. I don't have any quarrel with someone who finds it an acceptable choice, though.

Re: A Vegan No More

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. There are, you'll be pleased to hear, many vegans with stronger ethical arguments than "meat is murder". Such as, in summary: * unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable. * some non-human animals (notably the ones we eat most of) are as capable of suffering at the physical level as humans are. We shouldn't discount their suffering just because they aren't members of homo…

"finding verifiably humanely-raised meat is difficult" One word: hunt.

> One word: hunt.

I know you're probably expecting me to be outraged or something, but I don't have an ethical issue with someone killing an animal painlessly to eat -- it's a vast improvement from life on a factory farm!

One problem is, of course, the painlessly part; I would (and should) feel guilty when, inevitably, I miss my shot and don't manage to kill the animal straight away.

Re: A Vegan No More

#37
I eat meat, I fish and I've hunted. My wife has been a vegetarian for 20 years, since age 19. By vegetarian I mean she eats eggs and drinks milk, but doesn't eat meat of any kind.

It's outright weird how the author swings from one extreme to the other, both emotionally and nutritionally. Why not try adding eggs, milk, cheese and full-cream yoghurt to your diet first? Or even add shellfish or chicken once or twice a week?

She seems to swing from the most militant form of vegetarianism to maniacal flesh gorging with an indictment of the vegan community to boot.

The range of diets that incorporate or exclude meat or animal byproducts is wide as is the impact each variation has on our environment. A productive approach would be to find a meat-veggie balance that works for your nutritional needs and then spend the time to find environmentally friendly and humane sources of the ingredients you need.

Re: A Vegan No More

#38
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to find humanely raised meat? I just go to the farmer's market and buy it straight from the farmer who raises grass-fed free range cows. If I would like to verify, I can head to her farm and see how she raises the cows myself. Or I buy fish that are caught in sustainable ways, which have grown in their natural habitat and not subjected to any suffering beyond the catch (which is a necessary part of con…

I agree with most of what you said (although fish are never killed humanely, so I'm not up for that), but I don't own a car and I live in a city -- the difficulty involved in heading to a farm to see how their animals are raised is just large enough that I don't think the reward is worth it for me. I don't have any quarrel with someone who finds it an acceptable choice, though.

You might be surprised how easy it is to get local farm-raised meat delivered or handed off via a local restaurant or purveyor. It's totally worth it.

Re: A Vegan No More

#39

I'm all for radicalism since radicals are the main force questioning conventional wisdom. But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity. Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. I mean industrialized animal farming is fairly horrific, but the way to stop that is by advocating and paying…

But the size of the vegan movement is totally out of proportion to its veracity.

That's a weird statement. When is "movement size" ever a good indicator of truth?

Anyway, veganism is not about "veracity", it's about a different set of moral beliefs, or a particular diet, or...

You speak of vegans as if it was a monolithic group, and you paint it with a negative brush because of a few crazy individuals. That's like dismissing entire religions and countries because of a handful of fanatics.

Meanwhile, as vegans focus on the elimination of meat from our diets, they practically ignore the industrialized food that wreaks direct reproducible havoc on our metabolisms causing epidemic obesity and diabetes.

Really? All of the vegans I know care a lot about eating a balanced and healthy diet (at least, more than the average non-vegan).

Re: A Vegan No More

#40
post #12

Ginny Messina, who is a dietitian and actually has some qualifications to talk about this stuff, wrote a great response to this blog post - http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/do-ex-vegans%E2%80%99-stor...

> That doesn’t mean I think she has made any of this up. She has an awfully weird way of expressing this. The first few paragraphs of her post are dedicated to implying as hard as she can that this blog post is some sort of meat industry propaganda. For example: > There is so much that is eerily parallel in these stories—not just the vague descriptions of the health-related experiences but also the evolving philosoph…

I think Ginny's saying that the the author of the blog post is simply echoing things she read elsewhere. That doesn't mean it's some sort of propaganda effort on the part of the blog poster.
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