A compelling reason not to become a vegetarian

[Denny Crane!]

I can think of a multitude of good compelling reasons to become a vegetarian but I cannot for the life of my come up with a good reason to be a meat eater beyond the fact that it tastes good and I like it.

That is not to say that personal pleasure should not be considered, I am not ascetic. Personal pleasure however, is as much a matter of programming and conditioning therefore it is not a good enough reason to be a meat eater instead of a vegetarian.

[rez]

I would agree entirely as long as we are talking about people within the developed world. In some areas it is not a simple matter to survive healthily and affordably without meat and animal products.

Fortunately we live in an affluent country.

I also find this quite thread incredibly awesome. Although to be honest I am eating a meat dish at the moment because my housemate couldn't finish it and was going to throw it away.

Its fine to eat meat if it would otherwise go to waste. Waste is bad.

[Phier]

Its far easier to eat a healthy diet WITH meat included than without. We need fats, like Omega-3's, we need vit b-12, we need iron, we need zinc, all of which are very hard to get and require extra effort in a vegetarian diet and vitamin supplements are only 'so-so' for absorption.

I'm currently working out quite a bit, I need quite a bit of complete protein in an easy digestible form. Its going to be very hard for me (not to mention boring) to do so as a vegetarian and god help me if I were a vegan. I'm looking to gain 15-20 lbs of muscle, thats all protein.

Meat proteins are perfectly healthy, most of our health problems are better linked to carbohydrates than meat, and there is no compelling reason NOT to eat them unless you have a moral issue, which I don't have.

Ready access to meat is why we are bigger and stronger than our great grandparents (maybe great great for the younger ones). Today I had 1.5 lbs of beef at lunch, tonight I will have another 12 oz of beef or catfish depending on what I decide, and I'm healthier now than I've ever been in the last 15 years.

[conon394]

I can think of a multitude of good compelling reasons to become a vegetarian but I cannot for the life of my come up with a good reason to be a meat eater beyond the fact that it tastes good and I like it.

How about because you know people did not go through all the trouble to domesticate animals for just shats and giggles...

Take cattle aside from the dairy and leather, cattle provide and effect element in farming without being dependent on petrochemicals and mined nitrogen fertilizer. You can't rotate much economically in Iowa but beans and corn - you do that long enough and you have a field fulL of corn and Soy bean pests and weeds resistant to you pesticides (not to mention the fertilizer run off issues, sea dead zones, and soil loss and erosion etc) . A 5-7 year cycle into pasture with cattle provides a market buffer, recovers the soil and provides helps reduce all the things waiting to eat your corn and beans...

Also some land is just not suitable for agriculture much at all but can support limited grazing.

Or take chickens - I won't defend how they are industrially raised now day in the US - but with only a minimal amount of land there is no reason you can't efficiently raise chicks who mostly sell feed or eat human scraps, and off the old red rooster...

So what better sending those food scraps down you disposal or to the land fill or feeding a rooster you eat?

[rez]

But if it was comfortably easy for you (not saying it is) to access the nutrients you need to live healthily then could you still say that going veggie wasn't a fine idea? What I'm saying is that i find it easy to eat healthily as a vegan so logically it makes sense to give up foods that cause fear and pain as well as damage my planet.

I don't subscribe to the idea that finding protein is very difficult without meat. By and large the huge market for protein supplements actually makes it quicker and simpler to gain needed weight with these supplements than with large quantities of meat. More often than not even meat eaters will be using the same protein supplements that veggies do for their workouts.

At the moment your suggesting that fear and death are ok because it makes your life slightly easier. Or that you are simply indifferent to the suffering of anything that isn't human. Which is cool if thats what works for you.

There are of course environmental issues to consider as well. Perhaps the most compelling reason to go green is the reduction of our dependence on animals and thus the rediuction of the damage we are doing to the planet.

Again I don't believe everyone should go veggie. I believe a person should only go veggie if they care about animal suffering or the environment. If they genuinely sport indifference or it is uncomfortable then it makes no logical sense for them to be Veggie.

I should stress as well that at no point do I subscribe to the idea that veggies are going to save the world. It is simply a personal attempt at righteousness to satisfy my own selfish morality.

Crusader vegetarians are just a bunch of .


Edit: @Conon - I'm not sure Cowen was suggesting mass abandonment of the meat industry. I certainly am not.

[Phier]

But if it was comfortably easy for you (not saying it is) to access the nutrients you need to live healthily then could you still say that going veggie wasn't a fine idea? What I'm saying is that i find it easy to eat healthily as a vegan so logically it makes sense to give up foods that cause fear and pain as well as damage my planet.

I dont' care about the opinions of cows and chickens in this equation, so fear and pain goes with the territory. I dont' argue my place in the food chain. I also don't buy the damage to the planet argument. I'm a former ecologist and an AGW skeptic.

I don't subscribe to the idea that finding protein is very difficult without meat. By and large the huge market for protein supplements actually makes it quicker and simpler to gain needed weight with these supplements than with large quantities of meat. More often than not even meat eaters will be using the same protein supplements that veggies do for their workouts.

I dont' use the supplements because they taste like crap. About the only complete veggie protein would be soy and it still isn't as 'good' a complete protein as an animal product.

At the moment your suggesting that fear and death are ok because it makes your life slightly easier. Or that you are simply indifferent to the suffering of anything that isn't human. Which is cool if thats what works for you.

Yep. They wouldn't exist without out us and they only exist to feed us (livestock that is). Maybe in the future we can genetically modify them to want to be eaten ala the Hitchhikers guide.

There are of course environmental issues to consider as well. Perhaps the most compelling reason to go green is the reduction of our dependence on animals and thus the rediuction of the damage we are doing to the planet.

As I said, I don't agree with the hypothesis. Added this is one of those political tools being used in the AGW debate. Its also not really the argument. The biggest issue is methane production, so then eat more fish. Fish is the healthiest of the meats and many species can be farmed quite easily and environmentally friendly.

Again I don't believe everyone should go veggie. I believe a person should only go veggie if they care about animal suffering or the environment. If they genuinely sport indifference or it is uncomfortable then it makes no logical sense for them to be Veggie.

Agreed but you phrase it as a loaded question. I do care about the environment, I just don't think we are killing it with cows. I do care about animal suffering, but to be quite honest thats pretty minimal these days. I don't want them to suffer for sufferings sake, but a life of heavy eating followed by a quick electric shock doesn't worry me.

I should stress as well that at no point do I subscribe to the idea that veggies are going to save the world. It is simply a personal attempt at righteousness to satisfy my own selfish morality.

Fair enough.

[rez]

I dont' care about the opinions of cows and chickens in this equation, so fear and pain goes with the territory. I dont' argue my place in the food chain. I also don't buy the damage to the planet argument. I'm a former ecologist and an AGW skeptic.

Sounds fair to me. I don't entirely agree on the environmental impact but more below.

I dont' use the supplements because they taste like crap. About the only complete veggie protein would be soy and it still isn't as 'good' a complete protein as an animal product.

Coming back to the idea that veggie is only logical if it works to a certain degree of comfort this again is a perfectly reasonable rejection. It does, however, rely on you wanting to gain body mass.

Yep. They wouldn't exist without out us and they only exist to feed us (livestock that is). Maybe in the future we can genetically modify them to want to be eaten ala the Hitchhikers guide.

It is true that the main meat farmed animals exist in the state that they do because of us but to say they only exist to feed us is to look entirely subjectively on the matter. Again if as you say you don't value animal suffering it doesn't matter anyway. I realise how loaded that sounds but I honestly don't mean in that way. I am struggling to find a way of putting where our values lie objectively.

As I said, I don't agree with the hypothesis. Added this is one of those political tools being used in the AGW debate. Its also not really the argument. The biggest issue is methane production, so then eat more fish. Fish is the healthiest of the meats and many species can be farmed quite easily and environmentally friendly.

Methane production being quite a massive issue though. Looking from the point of reduction rather than eradication, lessening the demand for fish will make the environmentally friendly form of fish farming a lot more prevalent than it is now. This again is simply coming back to my selfish morality.

Agreed but you phrase it as a loaded question. I do care about the environment, I just don't think we are killing it with cows. I do care about animal suffering, but to be quite honest thats pretty minimal these days. I don't want them to suffer for sufferings sake, but a life of heavy eating followed by a quick electric shock doesn't worry me.

Again apologies for the loaded style of the question. I find it insanely irritating to hear veggies imply that meat eaters are entirely indifferent to environmental protection. Having re-read what I wrote I can see I did just that!

Having looked into the state of animal rearing and execution it appears that the good life followed by quick and easy deaths aren't as prevalent as I would have liked to imagine. I don't mean to suggest that every slaughterhouse is a horror story but by no means can we pretend that they are all as humane as we'd like. This is doubly true for animals killed for their skin and triply for those slaughtered in the Kosher fashion. Kosher is just plain awful.

Avoiding meat entirely is an easy (again I stress - for me) way for me to blanket boycott the undesirable elements of animal rearing and satisfy my morality. It is also plainly better for the environment than if I were adding to the demand. Not by much; but enough, again, to satisfy me.

Fair enough.

Im just sick of listening to preachy Vegetarian hippies go on about how superior they are.

[BNS]

Like Pheir said meat is an easy way of maintaining a balanced diet. What is remotely unnatural are these hi carb post agricultural revolution diets we are accustomed to eating. Biologically we as a species haven't had enough time to adjust to the new diet.

I personally live on a high protein diet and try to avoid the carbs (only when it's not inconvenient ). That coupled with regular exercise has made me the healthiest I've ever been.

[rez]

I personally live on a high protein diet and try to avoid the carbs (only when it's not inconvenient ). That coupled with regular exercise has made me the healthiest I've ever been.

I actually feel the same way. But its only because I've been forced to examine my diet by my decision that I'm taking an active interest in eating healthily to compliment my workout.

Again this isn't any sort of reason to give up meat but it has been one of the perks for me since I was a very unhealthy eater before.

[empr guy]

I dont' care about the opinions of cows and chickens in this equation, so fear and pain goes with the territory. I dont' argue my place in the food chain. I also don't buy the damage to the planet argument. I'm a former ecologist and an AGW skeptic. .

cows produce a load of methane, so wouldnt the best way to get rid of them and stop AGW be to eat them?



personaly, i probably would have alot of trouble giving up meat, most of my meals are mainly meat and i do enjoy it.... still, i have no idea for arguments for eating meat. This one time in my history class, we were studying egypt when the teacher mentioned the creation of make-up made from animales, and everybody started teasing the vegitarian girl that was wearing make-up, but im not sure thats really an argument...

[Denny Crane!]

Its far easier to eat a healthy diet WITH meat included than without. We need fats, like Omega-3's, we need vit b-12, we need iron, we need zinc, all of which are very hard to get and require extra effort in a vegetarian diet and vitamin supplements are only 'so-so' for absorption.

Zinc: Tofu, any whole grain and bran.

Fats and Omega3s: Most essential fats and omega 3s are actually made in plants and processed into them. The parents of these like linoleic acid and alpha linolenic acid which is available in nuts, flax, hemp, soya and green veg.

B12: Eggs. Strictly speaking that may not be veggie but I don't view it in the same way as in the UK you can get free range eggs, they don't harm the environment, it is cost effective and Eggs are a superfood. I can't see a good reason to give up eggs at all.

I'm currently working out quite a bit, I need quite a bit of complete protein in an easy digestible form. Its going to be very hard for me (not to mention boring) to do so as a vegetarian and god help me if I were a vegan. I'm looking to gain 15-20 lbs of muscle, thats all protein.

http://vegetarianbodybuilder.com/94.html

There are some beans and things in the same family that are very high in protein, they are also amazing glycemic regulators and the best energy sources.

The link kind of proves you don't need to eat meat to bodybuild and most people do not want to put on that much muscle

Meat proteins are perfectly healthy, most of our health problems are better linked to carbohydrates than meat, and there is no compelling reason NOT to eat them unless you have a moral issue, which I don't have.

Ready access to meat is why we are bigger and stronger than our great grandparents (maybe great great for the younger ones). Today I had 1.5 lbs of beef at lunch, tonight I will have another 12 oz of beef or catfish depending on what I decide, and I'm healthier now than I've ever been in the last 15 years.

I don't have a moral problem with it since I don't believe animals have rights.

These are the reasons I think there is a case to go vegetarian.

1. It seems from my research to have health benefits, you can be healthy on meat as well but most people aren't in a like for like comparison with a vegetarian.

2. Meat production is bad for the environment, you know I don't particularly believe in man made climate change, I lean towards wanting to see more research and don't trust government sponsored science. There are massive problems with meat farming though, deforestation, desertification and massive amounts of methane.

3. Cost - not as big an issue for the Americans, meat is quite expensive in the UK and it is a lot cheaper to be a veggie in the UK.

4. I don't believe in animal rights but if there isn't a good reason to eat meat then causing suffering to animals purely based on the fact that I like the taste is not a good reason.


Here is one very good reason why I'll probably never turn veggie. Time. I don't have it, meat is a quick and easy filling way to eat and I work inordinate amounts of hours and don't have time to prepare food. But I could cut down my consumption considerably by taking up the quick easy veggie things like consuming more nuts and fruit as part of my snacking.

How about because you know people did not go through all the trouble to domesticate animals for just shats and giggles...

Wow that is just fantastically logical. Hey why don't we go to war, it isn't like we made all these tanks for nothing...

Take cattle aside from the dairy and leather, cattle provide and effect element in farming without being dependent on petrochemicals and mined nitrogen fertilizer. You can't rotate much economically in Iowa but beans and corn - you do that long enough and you have a field fulL of corn and Soy bean pests and weeds resistant to you pesticides (not to mention the fertilizer run off issues, sea dead zones, and soil loss and erosion etc) . A 5-7 year cycle into pasture with cattle provides a market buffer, recovers the soil and provides helps reduce all the things waiting to eat your corn and beans...

With crop rotation and occasional fallow field rotation then it is fine. There are less intensive ways to farm that still make high yields, some crop rotation puts nitrogen back in the soil meaning fertilisers aren't as necessary. Farming is improving even more thanks to GM.

Also some land is just not suitable for agriculture much at all but can support limited grazing.

Quite a lot of rainforest We aren't actually running that short on food in the world that we must utilise every last piece of land.

Or take chickens - I won't defend how they are industrially raised now day in the US - but with only a minimal amount of land there is no reason you can't efficiently raise chicks who mostly sell feed or eat human scraps, and off the old red rooster...

So what better sending those food scraps down you disposal or to the land fill or feeding a rooster you eat?

Like Pheir said meat is an easy way of maintaining a balanced diet. What is remotely unnatural are these hi carb post agricultural revolution diets we are accustomed to eating. Biologically we as a species haven't had enough time to adjust to the new diet.

I personally live on a high protein diet and try to avoid the carbs (only when it's not inconvenient ). That coupled with regular exercise has made me the healthiest I've ever been.

I actually feel the same way. But its only because I've been forced to examine my diet by my decision that I'm taking an active interest in eating healthily to compliment my workout.

Again this isn't any sort of reason to give up meat but it has been one of the perks for me since I was a very unhealthy eater before.

Nothing wrong with high protein low carbs. Complex carbs generally means junk.

[Phier]

Zinc: Tofu, any whole grain and bran.

Men need 9.5mg a day. Tofu is not a major source. The best source would be chickpeas and you would need 23+ oz a DAY to get 9.5mg. On the other hand I had MORE than my required zinc BEFORE I finished my beefy lunch.

Fats and Omega3s: Most essential fats and omega 3s are actually made in plants and processed into them. The parents of these like linoleic acid and alpha linolenic acid which is available in nuts, flax, hemp, soya and green veg.

The best source is flax and hemp so forget the rest unless you want to really eat a bushel full. My wife who doesn't eat fish thought SHE got enough in her normal meat eating diet too. She looked, she didn't. She now takes fishoil. Now since adding the flaxseed oil isn't hard its not as big a deal, but its still an added step and expensive.

B12: Eggs. Strictly speaking that may not be veggie but I don't view it in the same way as in the UK you can get free range eggs, they don't harm the environment, it is cost effective and Eggs are a superfood. I can't see a good reason to give up eggs at all.

Free range eggs are expensive. We have 6.5 billion people or so on the planet, as such intensive farming is the only way in the future.

There are some beans and things in the same family that are very high in protein, they are also amazing glycemic regulators and the best energy sources.

Thats why I have a bag of black beans for next month, once I'm off the high protein portion of my work out (I just finished arms and shoulders before typing this, I'm sure you were interested ).

The link kind of proves you don't need to eat meat to bodybuild and most people do not want to put on that much muscle

Dont' need sure, but its a easier, and not to mention taster. I'm sure you can get quite buff on a vegetarian diet but it would be an effort to be sure you got everything. That or I could eat beef/chicken/fish and veggies.

Most vegans (not the same I know) I know are complete weaklings, but its hard to know if its a personality trait with being vegan or if being vegan makes them a weak. One female instructor I had was a vegan and I've never met anyone so low energy, but that of course in anecdotal too.

1. It seems from my research to have health benefits, you can be healthy on meat as well but most people aren't in a like for like comparison with a vegetarian.

Most people don't bother me though. Most people just have a horrible diet. People who choose to be vegetarian are, as a rule, going to be more diet conscious, they have to be. Its really an apples an oranges thing. I don't think you are going to run into too many slobs, at least who choose to be vegetarian in the west who eat crap but just not meat crap. It just doesn't fit the mindset.

2. Meat production is bad for the environment, you know I don't particularly believe in man made climate change, I lean towards wanting to see more research and don't trust government sponsored science. There are massive problems with meat farming though, deforestation, desertification and massive amounts of methane.

Well if you are with me on AGW then we can both forget the methane. As for the deforestation, maybe thats a problem in Brazil or wherever but not so much in the US. We have it down to a fine science, literally. We actually have more forest now than pretty much any time in our history (not in the same areas mind you).

3. Cost - not as big an issue for the Americans, meat is quite expensive in the UK and it is a lot cheaper to be a veggie in the UK.

Well that I could see and its understandable, but its also understandable why its not an issue for me. Fresh catfish 4.99 lb, Choice tenderloin 6.99 lb, PRIME 9.99, salmon 8.99 lb, hell even fresh walleye the other day was 9.99 a lb. Sadly I'm no where near an ocean

4. I don't believe in animal rights but if there isn't a good reason to eat meat then causing suffering to animals purely based on the fact that I like the taste is not a good reason.

But again, not my only reason.

Here is one very good reason why I'll probably never turn veggie. Time. I don't have it, meat is a quick and easy filling way to eat and I work inordinate amounts of hours and don't have time to prepare food. But I could cut down my consumption considerably by taking up the quick easy veggie things like consuming more nuts and fruit as part of my snacking.

Try cooking veggie. I've become a pretty damn good cook in my older age. Making vegetarian dishes kinda sucks if they are going to have any flavor. Perhaps that is part of why India is so well known for spices. I'd end up suicidal if I had to do vegan, no cheese eggs or milk makes life not worth living. I know its a taste thing so 'not valid' to your reasoning, but dear god the monotony.

[Nietzsche]

I'll need some time to find the studies, but I've read a few that indicate the environmental impact of agriculture and the production of gases by bacteria on plants is comparable to the impact and emissions of animal husbandry. The vegetarians have long sought the moral high ground in this regard. I think it's because the science hasn't really been investigated. I'll post more on it later. Busy week.

[Phier]

I'll need some time to find the studies, but I've read a few that indicate the environmental impact of agriculture and the production of gases by bacteria on plants is comparable to the impact and emissions of animal husbandry. The vegetarians have long sought the moral high ground in this regard. I think it's because the science hasn't really been investigated. I'll post more on it later. Busy week.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1008130203.htm

[vopohame]

Ever try bison phier? I try personally to stay away from as much processed pre packaged stuff personally. I try to stick with a vegetable/meat diet. I find wild game seems to give me much more energy than meat from domesticated animals.

Also in agreement with phier I have found most vegetarians to be sickly, weak or just plain low energy.

[Phier]

Ever try bison phier? I try personally to stay away from as much processed pre packaged stuff personally. I try to stick with a vegetable/meat diet. I find wild game seems to give me much more energy than meat from domesticated animals.

Also in agreement with phier I have found most vegetarians to be sickly, weak or just plain low energy.

Yea its very nice. Trick is not to over cook it due to how little fat is in the muscle.

Its more of a cost thing though. I can only get it at whole foods which means bucco dollars.

[roy34543]

I really dont see how eating less meat will reduce the number of animals that exist, If we stop eating them then farmers will just become apathetic about them and let them roam about and starve, they will just end up living a more misrable life while still harming the enviroment.
Unless you want them to become extinct of course, but is anyone going to go through the effort to make sure they go extinct?
Besides, If your a vegetarian you have at "most" one alternative, what if your allergic or heavily dislike one of those alternatives. Allergic to eggs or soy? Your screwed then. Besides, some of these foods are even more fattening then any meat in the amounts you would need for a "healthy" diet.
Eating lots of meat is the natural and default diet for humans, its vegetarianism thats unnatural. In order to eat healthy as a vegetarian in the past you would basically have to pick up an assortment of foods from all over the world, something that just wasnt possible.

[Lord Rahl]

Take, for example, Inuit people in Alaska. They basically live on animal food, especially in the winter, and their plant intake is minuscule. Even though this is the case, there are no adverse effects.

[conon394]

Wow that is just fantastically logical. Hey why don't we go to war, it isn't like we made all these tanks for nothing...

However the fact remains useful to keep in mind. The thing is most people for most of human history lived quite close to the edge and they found animals a critical part of establishing effective agricultural systems.

With crop rotation and occasional fallow field rotation then it is fine. There are less intensive ways to farm that still make high yields, some crop rotation puts nitrogen back in the soil meaning fertilisers aren't as necessary. Farming is improving even more thanks to GM.

GM is overrated and tends to be mostly focused on a few industrial crops that are farmed based a high intensity, petroleum driven system that is more or less not sustainable.

The thing most GM crops are not yield driven but resistance driven and have a yield cost. a simple fallow does not do much for you but leave you with a field that is not making money - that's the key with grazing or haying it a long cycle and it provides a economic diversification for the farmer (something that should be recalled if you want to actually have farms of any kind that can reasonably make money and survive).

Quite a lot of rainforest We aren't actually running that short on food in the world that we must utilise every last piece of land.

For some what who is so quick to be a prat in responding - you answer here is actually worse than mine that you snaked at above.

Depends we are actually running out of land in many ways. In Kansas for example dry land wheat farming is coming because the aquifer that has sustained intensive irrigation is fast being depleted, in Iowa soil erosion due to current high intensity corn and bean only rotations is a real problem.

But I was not in fact talking about rain forest ore even the problems I just pointed out - rather take the palouse region (I am sure you can manage to look that up - its not a rain forest) It produces some of the highest wheat yields in the world. Yet some land here is simply not suitable for wheat farming - too rocky, soil to thin or to exposed to erosion, to steep etc. What you can do on a lot of that land is keep it in pasture - and raise cattle on it (or sheep, or what not). The Palouse is both hilly and dry farming - that means a bare fallow for water conservation , that in turn means you need a long term fallow for you hill tops for soil recovery. Again the fallow is simply lost productivity without animals to graze it. Similarly you really cannot farm much of West/Central Texas but you can graze animals on it

2. Meat production is bad for the environment, you know I don't particularly believe in man made climate change, I lean towards wanting to see more research and don't trust government sponsored science. There are massive problems with meat farming though, deforestation, desertification and massive amounts of methane.

3. Cost - not as big an issue for the Americans, meat is quite expensive in the UK and it is a lot cheaper to be a veggie in the UK.

4. I don't believe in animal rights but if there isn't a good reason to eat meat then causing suffering to animals purely based on the fact that I like the taste is not a good reason.

Problem here is confusing the industrialized animal industry and poorly run slaughter houses with other ways of integrating animals into an effective and humane agriculture system. There is no doubt say that the the way industrial chicken raising is handed now is both very environmentally costly and grossly inhumane (in the US) and rather brutal to the farmer as well, but that does not mean chicken raising cannot be both efficient and humane.


--------------

Free range eggs are expensive. We have 6.5 billion people or so on the planet, as such intensive farming is the only way in the future.

Only if you but them at the Green-mart/whole foods etc. Keeping a few hens is rather inexpensive.

[Phier]

Only if you but them at the Green-mart/whole foods etc. Keeping a few hens is rather inexpensive.

Yes, yes it is, for those with the land available.