Vegetarianism/Veganism/etc.

[Vyraura]

Eggs have a lot of protein. I remember when I went off meat for a while, I was craving eggs like a mother. o.O Other than that, I dunno. I just thought I'd throw eggs in there.

craving eggs because you have a severe lack of a natural thing in your diet called meat


although I thought they treated egg-chickens like shit too meaning that eggs are just as evil as chicken, right? (Unless they give them free range and fast death once out of use like organic meats)

 

[Time Psyduck]

I am vegetarian for multiple reasons:

1) I just don't care about meat
2) Eating vegetables is a lot more energy efficient than eating meat
3) Animals have a nervous system, so they feel pain, so killing them is unfair
4) WARNING RELIGION FOLLOWS: The simplest way to 'abstain from belld' is not to eat meat.

I know the last point won't apply to many people and some of you hate religion, but it is only included for completeness.

 

[Vyraura]

1) this is a retarded reason how is this even a reason I don't care about a lot of things does this mean I don't eat them (I don't eat losers at my school for example)
2)no it isn't
3)correctly killed animals feel no pain by not eating meat you are supporting the bigger industry and therefore inhumane killing you terrible person you however can we stop all this world suffering
4)religion cannot validate any argument ever

the only /mildly/ debatable point is #2 because if done wrong it's just as harmful as ethanol corn but done correctly it's more efficient than regular crop growing and in that case the debate is over whether faggot countries like america are going to man up and do it anytime soon.

 

[Time Psyduck]

1) this is a retarded reason how is this even a reason I don't care about a lot of things does this mean I don't eat them (I don't eat losers at my school for example)
2)no it isn't
3)correctly killed animals feel no pain by not eating meat you are supporting the bigger industry and therefore inhumane killing you terrible person you however can we stop all this world suffering
4)religion cannot validate any argument ever

the only /mildly/ debatable point is #2 because if done wrong it's just as harmful as ethanol corn but done correctly it's more efficient than regular crop growing and in that case the debate is over whether faggot countries like america are going to man up and do it anytime soon.

How can it ever be more efficient energy wise? Meat may possible make it easier to get certain nutrients but in simple energy transfer allong a food chain it cannot be more effective than eating the original plant.

1) However bad you feel the reason is it's used a lot.
2) See above
3) You think the animal wants to die? Why should something die to provide food which isn't needed (however good you think meat is you could survive without it)
4) It was never meant to.

 

[Eevee]

What? A cow (or whatever) has eaten a lot of plants, stored much of that energy, and by eating the cow you are consuming all that storage.

I guess if the alternative to eating a steak is to go graze for four hours then, sure, strictly speaking, you get more energy from the latter..

 

[Ruby]

We keep coming back to the same point. It's certain that, when usual farming methods are used, vegetarianism is SEVERAL TIMES MORE EFFICIENT and better for the environment than eating meat.

I think Vyraura's point is that usual farming methods are bunk.

 

[opaltiger]

What? A cow (or whatever) has eaten a lot of plants, stored much of that energy, and by eating the cow you are consuming all that storage.

No, Time Psyduck's right. Strictly speaking, eating meat is less efficient because the cow uses some of the energy it gains from the food to, well, live. So you get only a fraction of the energy it got from the food.

However, seeing as humans cannot digest cellulose and cows can (well, the bacteria in their stomach can break it down), and seeing as something like 30% of plant matter is cellulose, I imagine that the end result is different from what the theory alone would indicate. I don't know the exact figures, but it's not as simple as Time Psyduck's post indicates.

 

[Eevee]

The conclusion may be right, but the reasoning sounds like it came from a fifth-grade science book.

This has nothing to do with how much energy the cow uses; the only thing that matters is the energy density of plant matter compared to animal tissue. Energy used by the cow would only be relevant at all if neither the cow nor the plant produced waste and you were comparing eating an entire cow to eating all the plant matter it would have eaten.

It is, for example, entirely plausible that a cow has twice the energy density of any vegetable. I'm sure this is not the case, but it is possible, and not refuted by Time Psyduck's argument at all. The cow would simply have to eat a lot of grass, and would conveniently compress all that energy into a more compact form for us to eat.

If this were about efficiency in the sense of the energy chain, we would be slathering ourselves in chlorophyll.


As for environmental/financial/etc efficiency, well, that sucks. Fix the process, then. Trying to stick it to the farming industry isn't going to change anything.

And if you just don't feel comfortable eating cows, don't pull out all these other incidentals.

 

[Ruby]

Eevee, I don't understand your post. In the first four sections, you're talking about the amount of energy going into the human who eats meat, are you? And in the fifth section are you talking about the environmental efficiency of adding cows to the food chain?

 

[Eevee]

Yes :B

 

[Ruby]

But I think it's a good idea to stick it to the farming industry!

 

[Eevee]

Why spite a problem instead of working to fix it? :V Unless SEVEN BILLION people go vegetarian, the farming industry isn't going to change.

 

[Ruby]

This brings us back to what I was arguing with Vyraura about. Whenever a number of people give up meat, the meat industry loses money, its market becomes smaller, and surely it decides to make less meat, and so does less damage to the environment. That's the very principle of a boycott, isn't it?

 

[Ruby]

Whether or not one person's giving up meat will 'work' depends on what his goal is. If his goal is to end current farming practices across the world, then his giving up meat will not work. If his goal is to lessen his share of damage to the environment, it will work.

 

[Alexi]

>> It's more efficent for our bodies to process and absorb vitamins and energy from meat than it is from vegitables, because our bodies need to use more energy to break down the plant before it can get to the energy and vitamins, if at all.

People will cheer that raw veg has more vitamins than cooked. But...our bodies don't have the enzimes (sp?) to break down the cell walls, so it all passes through our systems and down the toilet. Unless you either chew for HOURS or cook it until the cell walls break down (for example, a 15-20 minute steam for a crown of broccoli) keeps most of the vitamins and such in the plant and you can eat it.

But that doesn't make meat any less efficient. It's still easier for us to process it than veg. PLUS, we're meant to eat meat. That's why we have canines. For eating meat. Cows and chickens are raised to be eaten (not all, I know). So, I say, yum yum!

BTW, buffalo pwns cow in every way.

 

[Ruby]

I'm talking about the efficiency of the food chain, not about the human body's efficiency.

 

[Alexi]

Time Psyduck was and I think Eevee was.

 

[Ruby]

Sorry, it looked as though you were replying to me.

 

[Vyraura]

This brings us back to what I was arguing with Vyraura about. Whenever a number of people give up meat, the meat industry loses money, its market becomes smaller, and surely it decides to make less meat, and so does less damage to the environment. That's the very principle of a boycott, isn't it?

finally getting back to this I am

the meat market it not becoming smaller until you become a fair majority, because more 'standard' (meat eating being the standard) children are becoming consumers than vegetarians. The amount of meat consumption has soared in the past few years, contrary to any vegetarian movement/boycott/whatever you're calling it. A boycott only works when those refusing the product are a significant enough proportion that the industry notices a difference.

Also vee thanks for explaining what I've failed to get across about 'efficiency' and all that. Humans digest meat very efficiently and all, much moreso than many vegetables. (That's why you have to cook heavy grains for an extremely long time to be edible compared to meat. One could argue this process alone takes as much energy as the additional feeding of the cow.)

Also, even if everyone stopped eating meat, everyone, we wouldn't exactly have gained anything. The resources used to create farm food (water, sunlight, unfortunately pesticides) are not in short supply at all, and most (for sure america at least) first world countries already grow an enormous surplus of food (counting meat, so after they've been fed).

 

[Eclipse]

Generally vegetarians seem to contradict themselves.

"Meat = murder."
"Predators eat other animals."
"But they're ANIMALS!"
"Well, guess what. We're animals."
"... Shut-up!"

A conversation between me and a vegetarian. :|