Is becoming a vegetarian/vegan worth it?

[SvennoJ]

scrapking said:

SvennoJ said:
I've always followed what my body craves, which has served me well. Except that fish has become so expensive we hardly ever buy it anymore. My father in law sometimes goes fishing in summer which he shares. Yet who knows what those fish eat. Meat is easy and quick to prepare, tastes great and provides most of what I need.

As for morality, sure it's bad to kill another (maybe) sentient being for food. Yet compared to nature cows live a relatively relaxed safe life. Seeing them lounge in a meadow compared to the horrible squealing I sometimes hear at night along the river, ending up as roadkill, freezing or starving to death. Being spared old age or getting eaten alive doesn't seem so bad to me :/

Economically, well as long as I can afford it I'll keep eating meat. It's not that vegetables, nuts and what not are any more affordable. If meat is so much more expensive to 'make' how come a vegan lifestyle is more expensive...
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Following what your body craves serves you well...  until it doesn't.  I have friends of the family who seemed to do great eating mostly hamburgers and hotdogs...  until they all started getting by-pass surgeries.  Following one's cravings is a bad strategy in general:  a heroin addict craves heroin, but that's not because their body needs more heroin for optimal health!  There's lots of evidence that the process of digestion creates compounds that triggers cravings in the body, and that this mechanism has nothing to do with the body's nutrient needs whatsoever.

As for the morality, a very small number of animals are living a relaxed and safe life roaming meadows.  Humans have about 70 billion animals in the animal agriculture system at any given time, and the overwhelming majority of those are factory farmed in cramped and squalid conditions that are so bad they have to pump them full of antibiotics just to keep them alive.

How is a vegan lifestyle more expensive?  I can get a gigantic bounty of fruits and vegetables for a pittance.  The only time veing vegan is expensive is when you choose to incorporate processed foods like imitation meats, and such like.  Fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds are ridiculous cheap compared to meat, especially when comparing organic produce vs. organic/grass-fed/freerange meat!  In an apples to apples comparison, being vegan is distinctly cheaper, especially when one considers how nutrient poor meat/dairy/eggs are per calorie.  When I went plant-based, my food bill dropped precipitously (despite the fact that I was eating more food in total).

I live in Canada. Most of the year fruit and veggies come from far far away. I try to buy what's local which severly limits options for variation in vegetables and fruit. And nuts are rediculously expensive here imo. I don't eat meat every day, but some other animal products like eggs and cheese sure. 
My diet is fine I think, I wouldn't know I don't pay much attention to it. I'm in the best shape of my life thanks to regular excercise. I'm  rarely sick even with my young kids bringing all kinds of crap home from school, and if I get sick it usually only lasts a day. Don't fix what aint broken.

Btw you cited a study comparing deficiences between omnivours and vegans, both list cacium as a deficieny. Can't win! :p