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A Vegan No More

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Re: A Vegan No More

#111

Post by wiredfool »

ugh wrote: post #20
dasil003 wrote: post #13

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…

Just a minor point, but what do you mean by “sustainably raised meat”? It seems reasonable to assume that the production of non-industrialized meat needs just as much or even more energy. Meat is cheap because it is efficiently produced, mostly disregarding the animals’ welfare. How can energy consumption go down by shedding efficiency in favor of animal welfare? Is that not what you mean by sustainable?

Probably not more energy. Way more space though. Order of magnitude, at least.

For example, sustainably raised beef winds up needing a bunch of pastureland to rotate through, so that they don't overgraze any one section of grass. Feedlots cram them in and feed them corn or some other grain crop that's had it's own huge energy input.

Poultry needs the same sort of thing, or they will scratch their grass down to mud right quick. Most of the cage-free/free range criteria stop in the 5 sqft/bird range, but they need 10x that to not destroy the ground, if they're not moved every few days. (incidentally, vegetarian feed for chickens is good (hey, it won't contain other chickens), but chickens are _not_ vegetarians. They love bugs. Happiness is a flock of chickens and an ant hill.)

Re: A Vegan No More

#112

Post by [deleted] »

anthonyb wrote: post #79
lambda wrote: 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…

If you live in Australia, you can also get kangaroo in most supermarkets. They're taken from the wild and killed with a high-powered rifle shot to the head (plus they're a native animal == less enivronmental damage) so they're about as guilt-free as you can get and still be eating meat.

[deleted]

Re: A Vegan No More

#113

Post by philwelch »

cjbprime wrote: post #30
Evgeny wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* unnecessary extreme suffering is unjustifiable.* I'm wondering, what is the vegan's position on eating: fish; oysters/mussels; squid, octopus; crabs etc.

> I'm wondering, what is the vegan's position on eating: fish; oysters/mussels; squid, octopus; crabs etc. It's complicated. The largest problem is that all of these animals are killed either by suffocation after they're removed from the water, or by having their organs explode from decompression sickness. Sure seems to me like the least possible humane way to kill an animal. (I guess I'd go with the organ explosion,…

The largest problem is that all of these animals are killed either by suffocation after they're removed from the water, or by having their organs explode from decompression sickness.

I grew up fishing, and that's not necessarily true. You generally try and either kill or stun the fish before they sufficate, largely so the fish doesn't flop around so much. In most cases (average sized salmon, for instance) this is done by bleeding, though often larger fish are clubbed in the head to stun them before bringing them into the boat.

For large fish, like bigger halibut, we actually carried a revolver on board so we could shoot them in the head before we brought them on board. This was a safety measure--100 pounds of halibut flopping around is enough force to break your legs. Unfortunately we never caught a fish that big.

Re: A Vegan No More

#114

Post by philwelch »

cjbprime wrote: post #36
ctdonath wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

On average, dying from even an imperfect shot is more humane for the deer than how it would die naturally in the wild (most likely starvation).

Re: A Vegan No More

#115

Post by sh1mmer »

Reposting my thoughts from Reddit:

As a vegan I'm sad on two fronts.

a) That some vegans see the need to attack someone in this way.

I know some vegans consider (including myself) see it as a deeply moral issue. However, I'd rather be like Ghandi than a fundamentalist. First and foremost, we can't help how we are made. I can't understand how it is immoral to care for oneself first. That said I personally haven't suffered adverse health (quite the reverse).

b) The fact that my choice for me causes some people to want to knock me down.

Time and time again, I find my veganism attacked by people who aren't vegan. Whether they make a joke of waving their meat meals in my face, or attack my moral/ethical/dietary stance. It seems like a lot of people who are omnivorous either feel guilty about it or simply don't like the idea that I have chosen a moral stance stricter than their own. I find it disappointing, both in the title and the comments of this thread that people seem to want to take me down a peg for my beliefs.

Re: A Vegan No More

#116

Post by gcheong »

wiredfool wrote: post #106
cjbprime wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So, don't buy industry. Buy local, humanely raised and killed animals. e.g., our turkey for thursday was processed today, at a family's small farm here. Our eggs come from the back yard. We've gotten pork from another local person who raises a few pigs on the side. FWIW, poultry seems to be the hardest to source for us, and maybe that's because the margins are so damn slim for the factory birds.

Humanely killed from whose perspective, ours or the animals'? I'm guessing if we could ask, most animals would prefer to live regardless of how painless their death would be or how enjoyable their lives were up until that point. I eat meat so I don't have a problem with killing animals for consumption, I'm just trying to understand the whole "humane killing" idea.

Re: A Vegan No More

#117

Post by tomstuart »

Look, veganism is a preference, not a religion.

For me, the salient facts are that eating animals and animal products is a) ethically questionable and b) avoidable.

But it's just a choice. If I go round someone's house and they've cooked me an otherwise vegan meal but put cheese on top, I'm not going to be a dick about it, I'm going to eat it. Food isn't magic. Maybe this makes me not really vegan, or a "bad vegan" or whatever, but I don't know or care what the rules are. I don't even know any other vegans. It's nobody else's business.

I know it's a privilege to be affluent and healthy enough to be able to be selective about what I eat, but I choose to exercise that privilege, just as I choose to exercise other counter-evolutionary privileges like using contraception and not murdering people who annoy me.

Could I do more? Could I be a better person? Certainly. Always. But doing this much is so easy that it's a no-brainer, so that's how much I do. Maybe I'll do better tomorrow.

I feel kind of shocked and alienated by how aggressively negative some of the posters here are being about that choice.

Re: A Vegan No More

#118

Post by philwelch »

colanderman wrote: post #85
zaphar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the story is that not everyone can do a Vegan diet and still be healthy. While this is just one example it does demonstrate the principle that meat is a necessary and vital part of some peoples healthy eating. I sometimes wonder if Vegans worry about Lions on the savannah eating antelope. Do they want prevent that as well. Humans are Omnivores. We are built to get nutrients from both meat and plantlife.…

> I sometimes wonder if Vegans worry about Lions on the savannah eating antelope. Do they want prevent that as well. I think it's safe to assume that you are against rape. Do you worry about dolphins in the ocean raping other dolphins?

Veganism implies a moral consideration for animals; opposition to rape doesn't.

Re: A Vegan No More

#120

Post by jwhitlark »

burgerbrain wrote: post #57
abeppu wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are Omnivores. We are built to get nutrients from both meat and plantlife. Our metabolisms work best when we eat both in moderation. Please let's not resort to "appeal to nature", because that can certainly be abused both ways (and frequently is). There are certainly all sorts of sketchy vegetarian and vegan bogus arguments about why not eating animals is natural (and certainly eating dairy and chicken eggs is…

> We weren't built for anything Swap out built with adapted and I think you'll have a hard time finding a dentist that agrees with that.

Agreed. It seems like many people add a "perfectly" to adapted, and that gets them into trouble.
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