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Forums - General Discussion - Is becoming a vegetarian/vegan worth it?

Eagle367 said:
TechnoHobbit said:

Sheesh. I'm not thinking you are some cannibal or psychopath, stop being so defensive and assuming. Yes, I personally think it is more moral to eat only plants. That doesn't mean I think meat eaters are horrible people, I just disagree with them and hope that they may some day see things my way. I'm sure you think a number of common things are immoral, but does that mean you think everyone who do such things are by default evil and psychopathic? Hopefully not.

Anyway, with that out of the way. Wait, so is the reason you think human life is more valuable than the life of other species simply because you are one? It's not the most common standpoint, but that would explain your argument. 

I think you need a major paradigm shift. Judging by your wording it sounds as though you only see animals as mobile plants that feel pain or something. This is not the case, the sense in which animals and plants are "alive" is fundamentally different in almost every way. I don't want keep going around in circles, but let me reword a question from my past post, can you seriously not see the difference between how say a dog or cat and a pineapple plant are "alive"? If you can't, well, just know that the majority of people can.

As for how veganism still makes sense even for someone with your unique viewpoint. Livestock would almost certainly would not multiply if we didn't eat them. In a modern farm environment the livestock is impregnated beyond their natural limits to meet the demand for meat and other products. Should the demand for meat go down the number of cows, pigs, goats, chickens and so on will drop from their current ridiculous levels as will the waste of crops, land, and water. Also it isn't the animals themselves causing the deforestation of the amazon, it's us humans clearing the forest to make grazing land for the livestock due to the currently increasing demand for meat. It's a horrible unneeded waste.

It is your believe that eating plants is more moral than animals but I could argue that like I feel sympathy for my species you feel sympathy for your kingdom or perhaps mammals I don't know. The only thing non living is a virus otherwise even bacteria and fungi are living. And other than my food and animals and beings that harm me I try to avoid killing anything be they ants spiders etc. Senseless killing is what I am against and I hate deforestation. And studies are going on on plants feeling more than we presume they do. If feelings is a standard by which I judge what to eat then sure your argument makes sense, but otherwise not so much. If I was a lion then I would have no problem killing goats or humans as well. If I was a goat no problem eating grass and plants. Perhaps if plants belonged to our kingdom you would feel differently. Anyway let's agree to disagree.

Fungi is living, as is bacteria. Like plants the sense in which they are "alive" is different than animals, but they are in fact living (fungi is in kingdom fungi and bacteria under the current 6 kingdom set up is under eubacteria & archaebacteria). Bacteria are pretty simple, but fungi are fairly advanced and on par with plants in a lot of ways, though really weird. You are correct about viruses, though, they are not living according to our current understanding.

Anyway, far enough, I'll agree to disagree as well. Nice debating with you.



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Almost every stats show that vegetarians and vegans are healthier and live longer than meat eaters.



TechnoHobbit said:
Eagle367 said:

It is your believe that eating plants is more moral than animals but I could argue that like I feel sympathy for my species you feel sympathy for your kingdom or perhaps mammals I don't know. The only thing non living is a virus otherwise even bacteria and fungi are living. And other than my food and animals and beings that harm me I try to avoid killing anything be they ants spiders etc. Senseless killing is what I am against and I hate deforestation. And studies are going on on plants feeling more than we presume they do. If feelings is a standard by which I judge what to eat then sure your argument makes sense, but otherwise not so much. If I was a lion then I would have no problem killing goats or humans as well. If I was a goat no problem eating grass and plants. Perhaps if plants belonged to our kingdom you would feel differently. Anyway let's agree to disagree.

Fungi is living, as is bacteria. Like plants the sense in which they are "alive" is different than animals, but they are in fact living (fungi is in kingdom fungi and bacteria under the current 6 kingdom set up is under eubacteria & archaebacteria). Bacteria are pretty simple, but fungi are fairly advanced and on par with plants in a lot of ways, though really weird. You are correct about viruses, though, they are not living according to our current understanding.

Anyway, far enough, I'll agree to disagree as well. Nice debating with you.

Nice debate. Hope to hear from you on other thought provoking topics



Just a guy who doesn't want to be bored. Also

I tried it for about a week back when I was a naive kid, I gave up by eating a plate of nothing but bacon.



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Eagle367 said:
TechnoHobbit said:

By your logic, I would assume yes, "we don't get to decide which life is precious." Personally? No, as absurd as it may seem to you I value human life over that of animals and animal life over that of plants. 

That is part of it yes, but that is only part of it. As I mentioned, you should take a basic biology course, the differences between life in the kingdom plantae and the kingdom animalia are quite significant. Just focusing on the morality of the subject, the scientific consensus is that plants lack consciousness (awareness) in the way even the most basic of animals do. As I mentioned before plants lack brains, nervous systems, and even basic organs, the way they have life is completely different from that of animals. Animals clearly (lots that we eat startlingly so) all have some degree of consciousness, ability to feel things (from the basics like pain to complex emotion like fear and sadness), the ability to think, and intelligence. Plants, on the other hand, completely lack these things. If you can't see the difference between the two and why one is a lot better than the other, yikes.

Also, if you do care about the well being of plants, going vegan makes the most sense. I titled the point "least amount of suffering and killing", and that would stand true even if plants somehow did have the things mentioned above that animals do (which they almost certainly don't). Vegans actually cause a lot less plants to die than meat eaters because guess what? Farm animals eat plants and a lot of them. World wide over 50% of grains are fed to livestock and in the US 70% of all crops are, not to mention we would have a ton more free land for plants to grow freely as the grazing lands would be freed up. Also along those lines animal agriculture is reasonable for 91% of Amazon deforestation. That is a lot of plants wasted to feed you and others (especially since that food could to help end world hunger, back in the 90s the US alone could feed 800 million with the amount we grow and I'm sure it has only grown since then).

No. By my logic me and my species come first. I am not a cannibal or psychopath like you assume. I am simply stating that we are animals and we eat to live. I don't understand why eating goats should be any different from eating carrots. And we cannot get rid of livestock even if all of humanity becomes herbivorous because goats and sheep would still exist and keep causing deforestation even if let them be. They might even multiply and cause other problems because this is the cycle of life. Goats eat plants wolves eat goats and humans eat both plants and goats. It is what it is. There is no higher morality in eating plants only is what I am saying. Its all the same its a hoax a fraud an unstable illusion of higher morality and it lacks substance and cannot stand up in a logical debate. It has almost no merit and saying well one has consciousness while the other is just there and cannot move so..... yeah! Is not good enough. I might argue that plants are more innocent since animals can move and defend while plants don't have that ability. Its like killing a baby compared to killing a teen I.e the animals. I don't care if my food is sentient and can talk. It is still part of my natural food cycle and I won't change that over such a foolish reason or explanation.

@Eagle367 - You are making terrible straw man arguments and misrepresenting his points. Because you are giving up on the actual debate, TechnoHobbit wins as a result.



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Jumpin said:
Eagle367 said:

No. By my logic me and my species come first. I am not a cannibal or psychopath like you assume. I am simply stating that we are animals and we eat to live. I don't understand why eating goats should be any different from eating carrots. And we cannot get rid of livestock even if all of humanity becomes herbivorous because goats and sheep would still exist and keep causing deforestation even if let them be. They might even multiply and cause other problems because this is the cycle of life. Goats eat plants wolves eat goats and humans eat both plants and goats. It is what it is. There is no higher morality in eating plants only is what I am saying. Its all the same its a hoax a fraud an unstable illusion of higher morality and it lacks substance and cannot stand up in a logical debate. It has almost no merit and saying well one has consciousness while the other is just there and cannot move so..... yeah! Is not good enough. I might argue that plants are more innocent since animals can move and defend while plants don't have that ability. Its like killing a baby compared to killing a teen I.e the animals. I don't care if my food is sentient and can talk. It is still part of my natural food cycle and I won't change that over such a foolish reason or explanation.

@Eagle367 - You are making terrible straw man arguments and misrepresenting his points. Because you are giving up on the actual debate, TechnoHobbit wins as a result.

According to you atleast



Just a guy who doesn't want to be bored. Also

Veknoid_Outcast said:
[...]But you have to be extra careful about your diet. You're losing a lot of essential protein, iron, etc. when you remove meat from your diet. So you need to replace those things wisely.

That's correct, or incorrect, depending on your diet.  Animals get essential proteins, iron, etc., from eating plants (or eating animals that eat plants).  Plants are the source of almost every nutrient on the planet.  The exceptions are things that are synthesized from bacteria that we can produce in our own bodies so long as we have the right flora.  When I went vegan, my protein, calcium, and iron counts during my physicals went up as I was eating lots of buckwheat and hemp.  The majority of people on the "western" diet consume too much protein (more than their bodies can even absorb), but consume far, far, far too little fibre (which comes only from plants).

AZWification said:

I've thinking about trying the paleo diet. I think it's better than a vegan diet because you're not really losing anything of substance.

The paleo diet isn't very paleo.  When we were hunter gatherers, most humans had diets that were about 99% vegan.  We gathered way more than we hunted, which makes sense as plants didn't run away or fight back, and nor did they spoil as quickly.  They've analyzed fossilized human stool and found it to contain almost entirely plant matter (despite the fact that plants are more readily absorbed by the body, and meat less so, meaning a greater proportion of the meat you eat leaves as waste).

d21lewis said:
It's unnatural. [...]

 

Stefan.De.Machtige said:

I have no plans to try vegan or vegetarian. Meat is just too natural. Your brain itself is even mostly fat.[...]

There's nothing natural about eating meat.  There's strong evidence that we are descended from herbivores.  Carnivores and omnivores have sharper teeth, stronger nails/claws, the ability to eat raw meat on a regular basis without getting sick, shorter intestines so that they can absorb proteins without absorbing all the cholesterol, throats that are larger in relation to their mouths than ours so that they can swallow meat with minimal chewing (if any), jaws that are offset so that they can clamp down on bone and break it, etc.  We are biologically poorly suited to eating meat, which is why so many diseases only come from eating meat.  In one study, only 0.06% of people on whole food vegan diets got heart disease, but it's the #1 killer of omnivores.  There's no nutrient you can't get from a plant-based diet.  There are recommended daily values for calcium, iron, vitamin C, and a hundred other things, but there's no recommended daily value for meat.  So not eating meat is *extremly* natural for humans.

Fei-Hung said:
If you are worried about your health, better than being a vegetarian is having a good balanced diet and some fitness in your daily schedule. [...]

I'm curious why you believe this.  It seems to me that a good, balanced vegan diet is healthier than a balanced ominvorous diet.  Omnivorous diets are associated with heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimers, Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis, and many other diseases (some there appears to be a causal link, others a correlated link).  People on plant-based diets tend not to get any of those diseases, and that list is far from comprehensive.  People with those diseases can typically reduce their symptoms if they switch to whole food, plant-based diets (but tend to have symptoms continue to advance if they stay on an omnivorous diet).

Chevinator123 said:
I'm no expert or anything and i got nothing against vegans/vegetarians that dont want to eat animals anymore but doing it for diet purposes seems strange to me. Although not a necessity im pretty sure meat is good for you. You can still have a healthy diet that involves meat.

See above.  There are no diseases associated with whole food, plant-based diets where you eat known to be safe plants (ie. not just going into the woods and eating mushrooms you aren't familiar with! :P ).  However, there are many diseases that are caused by, or at least strongly correlated with, eating animal products.

Please note with all of the above that I'm not talking about ethics, or environmental concerns.  There were many posts I disagreed with, but didn't reply to because they were opinion.  However, there is strong evidence that all of the things I did reply to are factually incorrect.



iNathan said:
No. Just eat less meat like i do and eat more veggies nuts and stuff but still eat some meat, you need it.

You do not need meat.  I don't know of any government health authority that has a recommended daily amount of meat you should eat.  There's no nutrient that's exclusive to meat, as animals themselves get their nutrients from eating plants (or eating animals that eat plants), save for those nutrients that come from neither animals nor plants (such as vitamin B12, which is synthesized from soil bacteria).  Consume animal products if you wish, but it's important not to spread misinformation about it and suggesting humans need meat is absolutely incorrect.

AlfredoTurkey said: 

[...]Losing weight has nothing to do with meat or no meat. It's about how many calories you're ingesting.

I agree that losing weight is not simply about eating meat or not doing so.  If you become a "junk food vegan" then you may gain weight (Oreo cookies are vegan, but not a good way to lose weight).  That said, you are incorrect to say it's simply about how many calories you're ingesting.  Not all calories are created equal since they are absorbed at different rates, have different glycemic indexes, may contain obesogens, among many other factors.  It's not just "calories in, calories out", whatever the soft drink industry would like you to believe.  That said, when you look at population studies, only vegans on average are in the healthy weight range.  Vegetarians, pescatarians, an omnivores on average are overweight (and omnivores on average are the most overweight).  It seems that vegans have the most success crafting diets that allow them to successfully manage their weight (in populations as a whole, on average, so anecdotes to the contrary are therefore irrelevant).

vivster said:
What you should do is ask people who do not sacrifice meat and are still being healthy and losing weight. The notion that a vegetarian lifestyle is inherently better or healthier is pure bullshit. It's all about moderation.

When heart disease is the number one killer of omnivores, and people on whole food, plant-based diets essentialy don't get heart disease, I think that is at least a strong case for a whole food, plant-based diet being better for health, if not absolute proof.  And see above about weight management, only vegan populations average in the recommended BMI range (and looking at large populations smoothes out the exceptions to BMI, such as body builders). 

vivster said:

Me too, even without lots of exercise. Just eating a bit less than you normally do makes you drop weight like crazy.

Just eating a bit less than normal *may* help you successfully manage your weight.  It does for me!  But it doesn't for everyone, because of obesogens and other considerations.



TechnoHobbit said:
Eagle367 said:

Your last point about suffering makes me angry because you also "torture and kill" plants brutally for vegan diets. You chop them up rip them apart just because no blood does not mean a plant's life is any worth more than an animal. If you don't want to kill then eat only fruits and without harming the seeds.Vegans also participate in killing and 'murdering' living beings. Stop being self righteous you kill to eat like any animal. Only plants are exempt from this because they are producers. Tell me are plants not living also. This is in no way a valid argument for being vegan and it is irritating as hell when vegans assume so. According to your own words you also torture and murder plants. Deal with it

Plants don't have brains (or organs) or feel pain in the sense the species in the kingdom animalia do. They aren't sentient.

Yet, some develop defenses against being eaten or bait insects to eat them. Or make fruits to be eaten by animals so their seed gets the nutrition and place it needs to grow.

 

Stupid plants.



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