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A Vegan No More

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Re: A Vegan No More

#211

Post by Tichy »

zaphar wrote: post #204
dejb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of the story is that not everyone can do a Vegan diet and still be healthy. When you hear a story about how some substance 'cured cancer' do you instantly conclude that the claims are necessarily correct - even for the cured person in the story? Would you expect the story to become popular on HN? The problem with one-off anecdotes like this is that they don't even conclusively demonstrate anything. > I so…

> Dude that is a really ignorant and insulting thing to say. Why? We have it within our power to prevent that particular form of animal suffering. Give me enough money and political power and I could round up all the antelope and lions and keep em seperated. How is ignoring that form of animal suffering any different than ignoring animal farming? > And here you demonstrate your limited grasp of evolution which a reso…

"Either way you still have to work harder"

Since the production of meat uses up more resources (energy) than plant based food, I think your claim does not hold up.

It is easier to produce plant based food, so why should it be harder to buy plant based food?

I also doubt that you automatically eat healthy by simply adding meat to your diet.

Re: A Vegan No More

#212

Post by kwantam »

I was glad to see the food miles metric[1] tangentially mentioned in this post (when she talked about importing exotic foods to keep herself healthy). This is a notion that, in my opinion, doesn't get enough attention: it doesn't matter how great the farming practices are if the food is then shipped three thousand miles to my door. (Yes, the food miles notion is imperfect, but it's at least a reasonable first-order approximation of the environmental impact of your food.)

Besides being fun, one of the best things about hunting is that you can directly observe the cost of transporting and processing food from animal to table. On top of that, the animal I hunt most frequently (feral hog) is a depredating pest in most of the southeastern US, doing substantial damage to farm and ranch land. Most of my hunting is done on land where cows are pastured, and I'm only happy to help reduce the population of hogs, protect the grazing lands, and get a little meat out of the deal.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles

Re: A Vegan No More

#213

Post by slackito »

zatara wrote: post #134
lucasjung wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that the most humane way you can get your meat is, in many places, to hunt for it. Because humans have reduced habitats and/or eliminated other predators in many places, wildlife management agencies have to use human hunting as a tool to keep populations at sustainable levels. Example: if there is enough food in a given area for 100 deer to survive the winter, but there are 200 deer, that doesn't mean that…

If you are into hunting, I think you should make things fair for both sides. Leave the gun at home and try something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o

Why should we go for "fairness" when hunting for food? Using our brains isn't fair? Animals won't show any restraint when using their strengths to kill any weaker prey.

Re: A Vegan No More

#214

Post by gregwebs »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #64
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…

I agree with most of what you have to say, but I want to make a note about this: Opting out of meat entirely does nothing to change the industry, because most people will always eat some meat if they can afford it. I think opting out does a few things. It puts pressure on restaurants to offer alternatives to meat, so we're not all forced to eat it because it's the only healthy option. It pushes our culture to give pe…

I think you could actually be doing more harm then good if you are focusing on "meat or no meat". This really still re-enforces factory farmed meat because it acts like the only meat choice is factory farmed. If the choice is between the environmentally destructive technique- grain fed factory meat or sustainably raised grass-fed meat, that would actually make the meat situation better.

Re: A Vegan No More

#215

Post by technomancy »

cubix wrote: post #103
makmanalp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the sentiment that you should know what you eat, but don't understand this mentality that I observe many vegetarian / vegans have. Oh no, gelatin snuck in your food, you're not a proper vegan / vegetarian anymore! Beat yourself up about it! It oddly reminds me of those tiny silly inconsequential rules that you're supposed to pay attention in some religions. Like no alcohol. What does that have anything t…

I thought the lighted hearted mockery of this mentality in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" was pretty funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIXv9N9PHO8&t=0m40s

De-veganizing ray! ZUM!

Re: A Vegan No More

#216

Post by JoachimSchipper »

ckuehne wrote: post #153
abeppu wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm following, your reasoning is that because (a) it's effectively impossible to live in the modern world without benefiting from the deaths of animals that (b) any attempt to limit the number of animals we kill to support our daily lives, or the kind of animals, or how they lived or died, must be pointless. I find that jump from (a) to (b) is unfounded. There's a qualitative difference between (i) a mouse killed…

Not arguing for or against it because the whole thing seems way too muddled for me. But have you ever considered that the difference between your arguments (i) to (v) (with exception of (iii) maybe) is the intention of the humans involved not the suffering or the dead of the respective animals? This kind of moral reasoning is human and can be seen in other areas as well. For example, we care a lot more about the comp…

Yes, human intent makes a difference, to some degree - shooting a tiger that's about to eat you is different from raising an animal in awful conditions to eat it later.

But there's also the issue of scale: while laboratories do kill quite a few animals (ideally in a somewhat humane fashion after a decent life, but that's not nearly always the case), the food industry kills a lot more.

Re: A Vegan No More

#217

Post by cjbprime »

nkurz wrote: post #101
cjbprime wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your "never" makes me uneasy. As a fisherman, I've often killed fish as humanely as possible. Many others do the same. And while commercial standards are likely very poor, for certain species great care is taken regarding the quality of the meat with the side effect of relatively humane treatment. For example, tuna are often stunned and pithed using the "Taniguchi Method": http://wwwx.spc.int/coastfish/Fishing/Sashim…

> As a fisherman, I've often killed fish as humanely as possible.

Thanks! That's a good link. Yes, I should have said "Commercial fish being caught in quantities large enough that you aren't dealing with each one individually immediately (so, using nets, for example) are not killed humanely". I appreciate the correction.

Re: A Vegan No More

#218

Post by cjbprime »

rue wrote: post #176
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…

> Take the whole "meat is murder" slogan. It's ridiculous from the outset and completely ignores our existence within the earth's ecosystem. It is almost as ridiculous to posit that humans should be held to the same standard as your average animal. The moral objection is that being able to comprehend the existence of other beings bestows an obligation to facilitate their well-being in addition to your own. You can di…

Thanks for this. To put it another way -- if you're unwilling to object to causing suffering to other animals because "that's what they do to each other anyway", you lose the ability to make ethical objections to murder, rape, etc., when they're being performed by humans.

We know that other animals don't have the same evolved talent at empathy and compassion (and ethical reasoning) that humans do, so we don't expect them to become vegetarian themselves. The fact that humans are capable of these things introduces a responsibility for us to use them rather than ignoring them.

Re: A Vegan No More

#219

Post by cjbprime »

fleitz wrote: post #130
thret wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All animals are in one way or another a food source for other animals. It is in no way evil if an animal suffers unless that suffering is intentionally caused by a human. Our sin is in the mass production and mis-treatment of livestock while they are alive, not in the actual killing or eating. Not eating mass-produced chicken or wearing leather makes sense, refusing free-range eggs or seafood does not. Not that there…

You're inferring the feelings of an animal to make your judgement. No one actually knows the living preferences of a chicken or a cow. Since you posit that huamn beings can infer the feelings of animals I posit that animals prefer to be factory farmed than spend what existence the animal has being constantly chased by predators. Therefore wearing leather and eating mass-produced chicken makes perfect sense and is in…

> You're inferring the feelings of an animal to make your judgement. No one actually knows the living preferences of a chicken or a cow.

Can you infer the feelings of other humans? If you're willing to accept human communication like speech to answer "no, I don't need to", but are unwilling to accept communication like adult cows being willing to go through physical pain in order to stay with their calves when the calves are being taken away, I think you have a speciesist arbitrary-line problem going on here.

Re: A Vegan No More

#220

Post by Xodarap »

gregwebs wrote: post #214
erikpukinskis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of what you have to say, but I want to make a note about this: Opting out of meat entirely does nothing to change the industry, because most people will always eat some meat if they can afford it. I think opting out does a few things. It puts pressure on restaurants to offer alternatives to meat, so we're not all forced to eat it because it's the only healthy option. It pushes our culture to give pe…

I think you could actually be doing more harm then good if you are focusing on "meat or no meat". This really still re-enforces factory farmed meat because it acts like the only meat choice is factory farmed. If the choice is between the environmentally destructive technique- grain fed factory meat or sustainably raised grass-fed meat, that would actually make the meat situation better.

Grass-fed meat is often worse for the environment. See e.g. http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2010/04/08/grass-fed-be...

In any case, consider an analogy: suppose you wanted to end human slavery. Would supporting "sustainable" slavery end it more quickly, or not supporting any slavery at all?

I realize that slavery is not the moral equivalent of eating meat, but in terms of the effectiveness of boycotts, they are pretty similar. I can't really imagine a way in which the boycott to buy only "sustainably" slave-made goods would hasten the end of slavery more quickly.

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