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I call for a worldwide ban on the consumption of frogs legs.

2

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 423 ✭✭timesnap


    Food poisoning is unpleasant but very rarely fatal, just the same way as it is for carnivorous predators in the animal kingdom. A dose of the ****s or a day vomiting is debilitating, but doesn't qualify as seriously ill, I'm afraid.

    Why not try eating raw animals for even a week like cats and dogs do and come back and tell us how it worked out for you?:)


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,109 ✭✭✭Cavehill Red


    timesnap wrote: »
    Why not try eating raw animals for even a week like cats and dogs do and come back and tell us how it worked out for you?:)

    I've eaten raw meat many, many times. Venison carpaccio, steak tartare, sushi, etc. Never had a problem yet. If you know where your food is coming from, then you can eat safely.

    It's this all-or-nothing ideology of some vegetarians I object to - that, and their disingenuous bad science. It's clear that we have developed to eat some meat in our diet. It's a valuable source of protein and minerals. We didn't develop to eat burgers three times a day. I think vegetarianism is akin to a religion or a belief system. That's fine by me whatever you choose to believe, but I'll be guided by the science, and eating meat moderately two or three times a week is perfectly in keeping with an optimal diet. I think vegetarians might get closer to their aims of lowering meat consumption if that's what they suggested to those of us who do eat meat - to eat less of it, in keeping with our actual digestive systems.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,743 ✭✭✭blatantrereg


    Bone marrow remains a delicacy in many cuisines. And in Cro-Magnon times, it was top of the desired food list for both our ancestors and the neanderthals. Every prehistoric settlement is littered with cracked bones. Not, I hasten to add, cracked by a dogs jaw, but carefully cracked straight along the long side to maximise the amount of marrow accessible.



    More herbivoral than what? Than extracting energy from the air via osmosis? We eat to gain energy. Most of what we could access to eat was vegetal, a small valuable proportion was meat. Hence we are omnivorous. We have a short, simple digestive system designed for digesting meat. Herbivores like cows require multiple stomachs. Our intestines run to about 8 times the length of our torsos (mouth to anus). That compares to 3.5 times or so for pure meat eaters like the big cats, and 12-20 times as long for herbivores like horses and cows. Conclusion? We're in the middle. We're omnivores.


    Yes, this is terrible science on a number of levels. Plenty of chimp colonies are meat eaters, and they are our closest relatives. Furthermore, that 99.99% needs to be seen in the context that we share 99% of our genes with mice.



    We cook to eradicate the danger of infection from food poisoning, because we're smart and sentient and we learn stuff. If lions were sentient, they'd cook too. As for seriously ill? I don't think so. Food poisoning is unpleasant but very rarely fatal, just the same way as it is for carnivorous predators in the animal kingdom. A dose of the ****s or a day vomiting is debilitating, but doesn't qualify as seriously ill, I'm afraid.

    You've been drinking the veggie kool-aid. It's selective reasoning and bad science. The reality is that we are omnivores, like our closest relatives, and have been for many thousands of years. That doesn't mean you personally have to eat meat. But it doesn't mean I shouldn't either.
    A lot of what you say here is contradcited by the article I've already linked. As already pointed out - you obviously are replying without reading.

    We dont share 99% of genes with mice. We share about 75%. A lot mroe of our genes have analogues, whcih is a completely different thing. [Funny that you would argue this at the same time as suggesting I'm cherry picking facts.] Chimps have up to 99.99% the same genes as humans - with the type reaching that remarkably high figure being pygmy chimps, which mainly eat fruit. Chimps hunting and eating meat is weird behaviour, that is at odds with all other primates except for humans. It was only observed pretty recently, and is not really explained by nutritional needs. It is tied to the development of more aggressive and violent chimp societies also, and might be more to do with status than with food. Something like: "Would you like to share my food? I killed it myself. [evil chimp laugh] I think I should be the boss here dont you?" Maybe the development of meat eating in human society was more akin to that than to do with survival too...
    Here is a pretty long article about it if you're interested

    http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~stanford/chimphunt.html

    The prehistoric people you refer to ate a lot of reindeer, which tend to live in cold climates, and woolly mammoths, which sound pretty well adapted for the same. This would suggest they did so when it was cold - which would support my suggestion that it grew out of a need when normal foodstuffs were scarce.

    All your other points are bluntly contradicted by the article I already linked, if you bothered to read it. Lions dont need to cook because they are carnivores for example. Their stomach contains much stronger acid than herbivorous stomachs which kills the dangerous bacteria etc. Saying we dont have the same digestive system as a cow is irritating in the esxtreme, not just because it indicates you arent actually reading what I am saying before you seek to argue. Not all herbivores have multi-chambered stoamchs.

    Food poisoning is rarely fatal? It can make you extremely sick to the point where you might wish it was tbh. Hardly an indicator of a healthy food if it makes you extremely sick I'd have thought, but it's grand if you survive the ordeal yeah?

    Anyway you've clearly doemnstrated that you arent actually reading what I'm saying so pursuing an argument with you would be aggravating and pointless.

    edit:
    I've eaten raw meat many, many times. Venison carpaccio, steak tartare, sushi, etc. Never had a problem yet. If you know where your food is coming from, then you can eat safely.

    It's this all-or-nothing ideology of some vegetarians I object to - that, and their disingenuous bad science. It's clear that we have developed to eat some meat in our diet.

    More selective editing. Beef and so on is safe to eat raw from the PoV of avoiding posioning. The reason the outside is normallty cooked before consumption is not because of properties of the meat itself, but because it is likely to have been splattered with sh!t when the animal ws slaughtered. mmm yummy huh? Other meat such as poultry is guaranteed to make you extremely sick if you consume even a tiny amount of it raw. Pork and lamb is also very dangerous.

    Not sure where anybody said we didn't adapt to gave some meat in our diet. I said we're herbivores who adapted to tolerate some meat. It's not ideal as a foodstuff. Vegetarians have amuch much lower incidence of dying young than meat eaters and avoid all sorts of health problems. But it is an option.

    You've some cheek saying disingenuous bad science after saying mice share 99% of genes with humans and not even reading most of what you argued against.

    edit 2:

    Prehistoric humans may have gnawed on each other's bones, researchers now suggest.


  • Registered Users Posts: 253 ✭✭Hector Mildew


    According to this, http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/dn4122-meat-eating-is-an-old-human-habit.html , humans and our ancestors have been eating meat for 2.5 million years.

    Saying that, I avoid eating meat from animals which have been treated badly.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 423 ✭✭timesnap


    According to this, http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/dn4122-meat-eating-is-an-old-human-habit.html , humans and our ancestors have been eating meat for 2.5 million years.

    Saying that, I avoid eating meat from animals which have been treated badly.

    With respect Hector Mildrew i do not see how your link contradicts blatantrereg points and links.
    we are all just trying to get to the best known facts arn't we?
    it is difficult to click on links that lead to lengthy articles and actually read them i know,i am as guilty as anybody else of trying to get the jist of an article but missing some of its more subtle points.

    seems to me the links when fully read amount to more or less the same conclusions?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 213 ✭✭wetdogsmell


    theres some very interesting posts on this thread, i love when people make up their own facts, (humans are herbivores, ha ha) does the op realy think all the people in the world that eat frog legs care about your opinion? i think i'll start a petition to stop all wars, i think it might work


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,645 ✭✭✭Worztron


    Whispered wrote: »
    In my opinion you wont ever be able to ban any type of meat. I think you'd get much much further petitioning for more humane conditions and deaths. By calling for an all out ban you'd be dismissed, but asking for something more reasonable you might get people to listen to you.

    Okay, maybe I should have asked for a mass boycott instead of a worldwide ban in the title.

    Mitch Hedberg: "Rice is great if you're really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something."



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,645 ✭✭✭Worztron


    Mitch Hedberg: "Rice is great if you're really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something."



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,645 ✭✭✭Worztron


    timesnap wrote: »
    Does not really matter if the OP is a wind up or not.
    assuming humankind continues to exist, i feel certain that we will be viewed as arrogant barbarians by future generations for how we treat other creatures, long after we found other sources of protein.

    Ignore kippy, this is not a wind up.

    There are many quality sources of protein cheaply available - beans being the most obvious.

    Mitch Hedberg: "Rice is great if you're really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something."



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,062 ✭✭✭al28283


    Worztron wrote: »
    Okay, maybe I should gave asked for a mass boycott instead of a worldwide ban in the title.

    Why? It still won't happen.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 17,736 ✭✭✭✭kylith


    All I'm really seeing is a case for the regulation of producing frogs legs. I think that, as I said earlier, there is no reason at all to deprive some of the poorest people in the world of a cheap and accessable form of protein.

    From a quick google I can see that it's recommended to give the frogs a sharp knock on the head to kill them. This makes much more logical sense to me; it's rather difficult to cut the legs off of something that's struggling.

    Others have said there are other forms of protein than animal available, however many of the people who rely on foods such as frogs and snails have no access to these other forms of protein, and if the rest of us just flat out don't want to use them then that's our business.

    Humans are, as evidenced by our truncated guts and our canine teeth, omnivores, like our chimpanzee relatives. Studies have shown that an adult human could not obtain their calorific needs eating a 'natural', raw, herbivorous diet without spending about 18 hours a day doing nothing but eating. Eating meat that has given us our large, calorie hogging, brain.


  • Registered Users Posts: 689 ✭✭✭Evac101


    timesnap wrote: »
    No i eat meat,but as i said future generations will view us as barbarians for eating meat once we had found other sources of protein.
    we are supposed to be evolving are we not?
    we are carnivores? i wish i knew that before i got addicted to let-us.

    Just as an observation, why do so many people equate evolving with developing along the moral/social lines which they approve of? Evolution isn't (generally) a guided process, it's organic and, by my limited understanding, necessarily a chaotic process(mutate - succeed/fail, next mutation). If you're speaking about the development of societies morals then, pretty please, refer to is as societies evolution and don't imply that you're referring to our biological evolution ;) On that subject I would guess that there were very few/no accurate predictions of what our society would resemble today from even 100 years ago, I find it fairly unlikely that any of us can even guess what our society will resemble in 200 years or 500 years time and I wonder at the faith someone has in their own vision of the future where they feel they can accurately judge how those humans will feel about us. Perhaps we'll simply develop meat that wants to be eaten?1

    Perhaps our evolution will involve us moving to a purely 'critter free' diet, perhaps it will involve us moving to an entirely 'critter based' diet - what our bodies develop to consume and what our societies mores are don't necessarily need to compliment each our, though obviously they can affect each other to a certain extent. Until we start mucking around with the human genome much more then we current are capable/morally allow, our biological evolution will continue to be ungoverned by our view of what we should be.

    All of this bearing in mind the caveat that if no animal protein was available that eventually our bodies would adapt to that. This would come under the 'forced evolution' though and would take centuries at the very least to force through. Yes, there are protein sources other then meat, but what will do versus what the body evolved for are two separate things.

    Or maybe I'm just full of it *shrug*

    1 Credit to Mr Adams where credit is due


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,719 ✭✭✭pawrick


    Can't see how asking for a ban in a country which doesn't really eat them is going to affect anything. I have tried them, thought they tasted ok, I'm a meat eater but usually wouldn't eat meat most weeks for no particular reason.

    I'd be far more concerned with genetically modified soya and wheat crops compared to a ban on eating frogs. Have GM crops been tested enough to avoid risks to health and wildlife and are the checks in place to avoid cross contamination with non modified crops? There is also the issue surrounding poor regions which become reliant on purchasing seeds from companies associated with such crops resulting in local varieties becoming extinct which may be better suited to the land and the resultant increase in use of artificial fertiliser plus farmers being tied to a company for new seeds.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,783 ✭✭✭✭Discodog


    Within 50 years real meat will be the price of caviare. Most of us will be eating meat that is artificially grown. Small pieces of meat are already being grown in labs & the first "hamburger" is on it's way - with an enormous price tag :D

    The scientists working on this are convinced that it will be the norm because, with mass production, it will be cheaper than "real meat" & more environmentally friendly. It also involves no animals so existing veggies could eat it. Because of the huge demand from the new rich in China & India meat prices are set to rocket. Traditionally their diets have featured little meat but tastes are changing.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,617 ✭✭✭kildare.17hmr


    Discodog wrote: »
    Within 50 years real meat will be the price of caviare. Most of us will be eating meat that is artificially grown.
    Not me anyway!


  • Registered Users Posts: 253 ✭✭Hector Mildew


    timesnap wrote: »
    With respect Hector Mildrew i do not see how your link contradicts blatantrereg points and links.
    we are all just trying to get to the best known facts arn't we?
    it is difficult to click on links that lead to lengthy articles and actually read them i know,i am as guilty as anybody else of trying to get the jist of an article but missing some of its more subtle points.

    seems to me the links when fully read amount to more or less the same conclusions?

    With respect timesnap, I read both articles and I don't agree that they share the same conclusions..

    The vegsource article linked by blatantrereg (http://www.vegsource.com/news/2009/11/the-comparative-anatomy-of-eating.html) states that herbivores evolved from carnivores (via omnivores). It compares anatomies and concludes that we are herbivores who eat meat.

    The article I linked suggests the opposite, based on differences between teeth, that the first humans evolved to eat meat from their vegetarian ancestors.

    I thought that was interesting, but even more interesting is why we evolved they way we did. One theory is that that meat eating enabled the development of our large brain.. http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/04/eating-meat-led-to-smaller-stomachs-bigger-brains/

    Interesting also that the vegsource article makes lots of comparisons between the jaws, teeth, and head muscles of carnivores and ours. However it does not recognise our ability to use our hands, and therefore tools, to help us hunt and prepare meat - negating the need for the wider jaws and sharper teeth of carnivores.

    Back on topic, I don't believe that it's acceptable to treat animals, intended as food or otherwise, in a cruel manner. We have evolved far beyond that.. I think


  • Registered Users Posts: 213 ✭✭wetdogsmell


    Discodog wrote: »
    Within 50 years real meat will be the price of caviare. Most of us will be eating meat that is artificially grown. Small pieces of meat are already being grown in labs & the first "hamburger" is on it's way - with an enormous price tag :D

    this will never happen, meat is too cheap to produce, plus theres plenty of free wild meat just strolling around the place


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,772 ✭✭✭✭Whispered


    Discodog wrote: »
    It also involves no animals so existing veggies could eat it.

    It depends on their reasons for being veggie - many don't eat meat replacement products because they dislike anything resembling meat, never mind lab grown flesh.

    Others, would happily eat it once the animal suffering and death part was taken out.

    Put 10 veggies in a room and you'll probably get 10 different reasons for their diet choice.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,783 ✭✭✭✭Discodog


    this will never happen, meat is too cheap to produce, plus theres plenty of free wild meat just strolling around the place

    The whole reason for the research into cloning meat is that meat is very expensive to produce. The land & feed cost is huge plus the world is running out of land. The "free" meat will either be protected or it will become extinct. It won't be an endless supply.

    Given some of the standards in world farming & the increasing reliance of genetics & drugs, cloned meat may be much healthier.


  • Registered Users Posts: 213 ✭✭wetdogsmell


    Discodog wrote: »
    The whole reason for the research into cloning meat is that meat is very expensive to produce. The land & feed cost is huge plus the world is running out of land. The "free" meat will either be protected or it will become extinct. It won't be an endless supply.

    Given some of the standards in world farming & the increasing reliance of genetics & drugs, cloned meat may be much healthier.


    i'd imagine that cloning meat cost alot more than growing it naturaly, if anything people are getting more into growing their own meat, and eating free range food, plus were not running out of land in this country,
    to repeat myself THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN


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  • Registered Users Posts: 15,783 ✭✭✭✭Discodog


    i'd imagine that cloning meat cost alot more than growing it naturaly, if anything people are getting more into growing their own meat, and eating free range food, plus were not running out of land in this country,
    to repeat myself THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN

    We will not run out of land for a while but as meat prices rise our meat will be exported. We deal in World markets so when meat becomes expensive elsewhere it does here as well. We will also reach a point where deforestation has to stop so it will become harder to clear land. Also farm animals are claimed have an impact on climate.

    The research is incredibly expensive. The scientists joke that the first burger will of cost 200k to produce. But they are doing this because they are certain that it will become cost effective. The two obvious answers are cloning meat & using insects.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,617 ✭✭✭kildare.17hmr


    Our meat is already exported, every cow a friend of mine sells ends up in the east europian market.

    I watched a documentery on food for the future and they were saying similar to what you are saying but not because of price. They were saying because the worlds population is set to rise signifigently in the next 80 years we will have to start looking at other food sources like insects and this cloned meat your talking about because the supply will not be enough to feed the demand. Will that effect price? Possibly but i dont know.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,800 ✭✭✭Demonique


    paddyandy wrote: »
    I worked in the high end of catering years ago and they had the practice of boiling alive Crabs and Lobsters starting with cold water heating up and i remember watching the creatures struggling in the pots with elastic bands on their claws . It has to be done that way to destroy the natural poison in them .That's High Class Haute Cuisine for you .I'm out of it a long time .The excessive frippery and nonsense disgusted me .

    I thought they were killed by being dropped into boiling water


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,772 ✭✭✭✭Whispered


    Not always as far as I know, a chef friend of mine told me about how they regularly kick each others legs off when cooking - laughed about it too :(


  • Registered Users Posts: 689 ✭✭✭Evac101


    Was always boiling water when my mum prepared crabs I know.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,743 ✭✭✭blatantrereg


    The vegsource article linked by blatantrereg (http://www.vegsource.com/news/2009/1...of-eating.html) states that herbivores evolved from carnivores (via omnivores). It compares anatomies and concludes that we are herbivores who eat meat.

    The article I linked suggests the opposite, based on differences between teeth, that the first humans evolved to eat meat from their vegetarian ancestors.

    I dont think that's the opposite at all. I think that is the same thing being expressed differently.
    What I said was that we adapted to tolerate meat in a limited manner.
    What the article I linked says is that we are physically more suited to vegetarian diet, and provides plenty of evidence to support this.
    Both your source and mine agree that we were herbivores who adapted to tolerate meat.
    nteresting also that the vegsource article makes lots of comparisons between the jaws, teeth, and head muscles of carnivores and ours. However it does not recognise our ability to use our hands, and therefore tools, to help us hunt and prepare meat - negating the need for the wider jaws and sharper teeth of carnivores.

    That is also not recognised by the article you linked, or by what others are arguing here: The argument that we needed meat to satisfy our caloric requirements. That fails to recognise that we could cook and prepare vegetable food to achieve the same ends....In any case the evindence is that we did spend pretty much all day eating and getting food before civilization developed. The development of the first civilization was thanks to fertile farmland for crops in the Nile basin incidentally. Their diet was primarily vegetarian. Meat was an indulgence for feast days or for the rich (which supports the idea that meat and hunting in humans and chimps is lots to do with status and little to do with nutrition).

    The suggested link between intelligence and meat consumption is simplistic imo. Carnivorous land mammals tend to be more intelligent than their prey, by necessity for successful hunting. However if you consider the most intelligent land animals, herbivores (or animals consuming very little meat) are top. Apes are remarkably intelligent. There are studies of the mental abilities of gorillas and orangutans that are amazing - both of which are herbivores I believe. Probably more surprising is the level of intelligence possessed by elephants, which is ranked alongside apes and dolphins. Elephants are herbivores too.
    One theory is that that meat eating enabled the development of our large brain.. http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...bigger-brains/

    That article is highly speculative tbh. Occams razor comes to mind. Our bodies are very much like herbivores' bodies, nothing like carnivores'. The animals most similar to us dont eat meat (or dont require it if they do). Vegetarians as a whole are significantly healthier than meat eaters. Sure there are complex theories that explain how we are in fact designed to eat lots of meat. The simple facts really indicate otherwise though.


  • Registered Users Posts: 689 ✭✭✭Evac101


    However if you consider the most intelligent land animals, herbivores (or animals consuming very little meat) are top. Apes are remarkably intelligent. There are studies of the mental abilities of gorillas and orangutans that are amazing - both of which are herbivores I believe. Probably more surprising is the level of intelligence possessed by elephants, which is ranked alongside apes and dolphins. Elephants are herbivores too.

    Just as a point, there's an increasing number of science folk who consider that dogs may actually have one of the highest demonstrated levels of intelligence amongst mammals because of some of the abilities they've developed from human interaction. For further details have a watch of the BBC documentary "The secret life of the dog" which was linked a few weeks ago in another thread in this forum (with a better link too).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,743 ✭✭✭blatantrereg


    Evac101 wrote: »
    Just as a point, there's an increasing number of science folk who consider that dogs may actually have one of the highest demonstrated levels of intelligence amongst mammals because of some of the abilities they've developed from human interaction. For further details have a watch of the BBC documentary "The secret life of the dog" which was linked a few weeks ago in another thread in this forum (with a better link too).
    I've seen it and it's brilliant :) I was actually thinking of that documentary in a previous post here, when I said dogs were key in the development of human society.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,783 ✭✭✭✭Discodog


    The recent two hour series The World's Smartest Animals also had some mind blowing examples. I think that attitudes will change as we begin to understand more about animal intelligence. And I think that the research will greatly increase as more is discovered. We have always assumed that man is the only species capable of sophisticated conversation & this is clearly untrue.

    The strange thing is that we continue to learn more about animals like dogs & horses despite them have a close relationship with man for thousands of years. For example Monty Roberts is convinced that horses have a huge range of communications that are so subtle that we miss them. He believes that we will learn to have sophisticated conversations with horses.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 99 ✭✭Evac105


    I suspect that any herd/pack animal necessarily has a large range of social interaction signals to facilitate communication, regardless of whether those are noticeable for most humans (and I've seen the amazing Monty in Martin Clunes Horses series). I'm not altogether convinced though that horses have the same level of behaviour/capabilities developed specifically through interaction with humans which dogs appear to have.

    As always I'm not a person who studies this so I'm open to being proven wrong but my viewings/readings so far bring me to the conclusion above ; )


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