Not gettin' it!!!

daithi666

Hi,

I just been thinking a bit about vegetarianism 'cause my dad is one. He and my mam used to make their own tofu and all. But I don't get it at all.

Here are my reasons:

1.) If we're able to digest it then it makes sense to eat it.

2.) We need various means of getting food and it makes sense to hunt/slaughter animals for that reason. With increasing droughts people need to get food from all means to insure food supply. Just like energy for a country I suppose.

3.) For inhospitable corners of the world people depend on wildlife for food. E.g. The Inuit People.

4.) If we didn't have a meat industry we wouldn't have the by-products associated with it. Milk, cheese, yogurt, lard, wool, animal food(cats and dogs) and various other products. These are only made viable by the meat industry. The cost of these products would rise without meat being consumed.

5.) Animals recycle food that is unsuitable for human consumption, e.g. waste bread. This returns for human consumption through pig meat.

6.) Meat provides certain nutrients in abundance that are harder to attain from other means. Iron, fat and protein.

7.) We would have to work harder and clear forest for more arable land to attain enough food for the world if we were all to be vegetarian.

8.) Animals can live in areas that are unsuitable for the growing of crops making the land productive for food supply.

9.) They say vegetarianism makes sense because we have the choice and the mental capability to do it but in my opinion it's the abundance of food and money in the Western World that has brought about vegetarianism. Try convincing the people of Africa, or indeed anywhere there is a shortage of food, to take on vegetarianism.


Anyways, they are my reasons. I have no problem with vegetarianism at all! In fact, I embrace it as part of a balanced diet. I would say 3/4 of 7 dinners a week are vegetarian. The food is tasty! One of my favorite places to eat is Govinda's on George's St. where the food is cheap, tasty and healthy. But I love meat and the reasons above are why I think vegetarians should not look down on those that do eat meat 'cause it is a logical thing to do. To change habits now would be an enormous undertaking!

Would love to hear your thoughts on it....

Tar.Aldarion

Hello Daithi666. Welcome to the forum.

daithi666 wrote: »

Hi,

I just been thinking a bit about vegetarianism 'cause my dad is one. He and my mam used to make their own tofu and all. But I don't get it at all.

Here are my reasons:

1.) If we're able to digest it then it makes sense to eat it.

We can digest cardboard, that does not mean we should it it. Should we also eat humans? I do not agree with this, there are a lot of things we can digest but we should ot eat. It is also an ethical choice for most, not a 'can we digest it one'. Hence you do not eat a person.

2.) We need various means of getting food and it makes sense to hunt/slaughter animals for that reason. With increasing droughts people need to get food from all means to insure food supply. Just like energy for a country I suppose.

To ensure food supple is it not best to use themost efficient means of getting good possible? It is incredibly inefficient to farm animals compared to plants. The animals theseleves eat a huge amount of food and a huge amount of water is needed to rear them. Half of all water used in America is used to feed animals, this does not make sense in a woerld with 'increasing droughts'?

3.) For inhospitable corners of the world people depend on wildlife for food. E.g. The Inuit People.

I don't have a problem with poeple eating to stay alive, however we do not have to. If resources were used correctly everybody in the world would have enough food at the moment, without meat. In fact meat production is hugely wasteful so is adding to starvation in theory. In reality governments do not do enough to help starving countries so although we would have neough food, I din't see how it would get to these countries without change.

4.) If we didn't have a meat industry we wouldn't have the by-products associated with it. Milk, cheese, yogurt, lard, wool, animal food(cats and dogs) and various other products. These are only made viable by the meat industry. The cost of these products would rise without meat being consumed.

Um, that's obvious, why is the price important? We won't eat meat so meat and meat byproducts prices go up? Uh...

The idea, for me anyway, is that these eventually things become impossible to buy in time. Tasty, certainly, but not ethical or efficient. First meat consumption, then byproducts.

5.) Animals recycle food that is unsuitable for human consumption, e.g. waste bread. This returns for human consumption through pig meat.

Maybe popele should eat the bread? Anyway, you hit a point there, we waste so much food, we use ineffiecient means of producing food, people die. that alone justifies me not eating meat on principle, aside from the ethical point of not killing things that feel pain for my pleasure.

6.) Meat provides certain nutrients in abundance that are harder to attain from other means. Iron, fat and protein.

It's quite easy to obtain those things from a vegetarian diet. If you know what is in food and cook for yourself, you will come to know this.

7.) We would have to work harder and clear forest for more arable land to attain enough food for the world if we were all to be vegetarian.

Again, we feed countless billions of animals plant food already, not ourselves. If we feed it to ourselves it would be far more efficient.

8.) Animals can live in areas that are unsuitable for the growing of crops making the land productive for food supply.

Yes they can, and that land can be used for other things too. While they are using this land to graze they are also being feed the food that is grown on arable land so they may as well just be standing on it eating it anyway. If you want animals for everybody, we need a lot of animals, and they have to be feed grains, soy, whatever.

9.) They say vegetarianism makes sense because we have the choice and the mental capability to do it but in my opinion it's the abundance of food and money in the Western World that has brought about vegetarianism. Try convincing the people of Africa, or indeed anywhere there is a shortage of food, to take on vegetarianism.

This is a fault of humans, and apathy. We could feed everyboy but we are consumerist and not socialist. A ridiculous amount of food is wasted every day. People look out for themselves, people do not care about people they do not have to look at, let alone animals. ~155,000+ people die a day, a lot of that is starvation yet people still produce food inefficiently, still waste food etc. It's tasty and humans do not care, but for themselves.
There have been vegetarians for thousands of years, many from poor societies, many from rich, it has not just come about because of the western world. That just makes it easier for us.

Anyways, they are my reasons. I have no problem with vegetarianism at all! In fact, I embrace it as part of a balanced diet. I would say 3/4 of 7 dinners a week are vegetarian. The food is tasty! One of my favorite places to eat is Govinda's on George's St. where the food is cheap, tasty and healthy. But I love meat and the reasons above are why I think vegetarians should not look down on those that do eat meat 'cause it is a logical thing to do. To change habits now would be an enormous undertaking!

Would love to hear your thoughts on it....

Thank you for your thoughts, I just disagree.
Govindas food is ok, their stall in galway is a lot better. I wouldn't call it the healthiest food min the world but it is not too bad.
Not killing an animal means a lot to me, something that we kill simply because it tastes good when we do not have to. Poeple may have to but we do not, and I would be supporting barbaric upbringings and skilling of billions of animals per year, animals that feel the same things we do.
Apart from that I also mentioned I do not feel they are the best way to use our resources.

sweet-rasmus

You seem to have gone through main points with yourself and if you are happy to be a meat eater, then no one can persuade you otherwise. There are plenty of fact filled websites out there, that would list other reasons why one might be veggie.

e.g. http://www.viva.org.uk/goingveggie/index.php

I can tell you that the inside few pages of the animal free shopper list a fair few points worth reading if you have one to peek at.

rockbeer

I will just pick you up on your point 7, which is so wrong that it's scary. You really should read up on the inefficiency of meat production as a way of feeding people. I can't remember the exact numbers but I think something in the order of seven times as many people can be fed from an area of land if it is used for crops rather than livestock production.

Edit: just done a bit of quick research and the figure commonly suggested is that it takes between seven and ten ties as much land to feed a meat eater as a vegetarian. Can't provide a reputable source for now I'm afraid, but I'll keep looking.

Farmed meat is a luxury food of the wealthy west, not the efficient food solution you seem to imagine it to be.

ztoical

daithi666 wrote: »

1.) If we're able to digest it then it makes sense to eat it.

75% of the worlds adults are lactose intolerent so by this logic we shouldn't be eating diary. We don't have the same digestive system as we had millions of years ago and people around the world have developed differently depending on what food is around. Europeans have an easier time digesting meat and diary as we've had more access to it for longer and bodies have evolved to digest it but most people in other areas of the world can't take large amounts of meat or diary in their diets.

daithi666 wrote: »

2.) We need various means of getting food and it makes sense to hunt/slaughter animals for that reason. With increasing droughts people need to get food from all means to insure food supply. Just like energy for a country I suppose.

If they were was a huge food shortage in this country and my only option was to eat meat or die then yes I would eat meat, but that isn't an issue so I'm not going to eat meat as long as there are other options open to me.

daithi666 wrote: »

3.) For inhospitable corners of the world people depend on wildlife for food. E.g. The Inuit People.

And those people hunt for their food, people in Ireland wander down to Dunnes and pick up factory farmed animals at discount prices. For most native people living off the land there is respect for the animals that they hunt. They take only what they need to live on and use every part of the animal, here most people couldn't tell you what part of the animal the chunk of meat on their plate came from and we throw away so much food each year its depressing.

daithi666 wrote: »

4.) If we didn't have a meat industry we wouldn't have the by-products associated with it. Milk, cheese, yogurt, lard, wool, animal food(cats and dogs) and various other products. These are only made viable by the meat industry. The cost of these products would rise without meat being consumed.

For most people not eating meat means not consuming meat by-products as well. Why wouldn't we have wool without meat production? If the framer is paid enough for the wool he will raise the sheep, we simple wouldn't the high numbers of animals we have now as we wouldn't be forcing animals to over breed.

daithi666 wrote: »

5.) Animals recycle food that is unsuitable for human consumption, e.g. waste bread. This returns for human consumption through pig meat.

Again why wouldn't this continue without a meat industry? Are you implying without the meat industry there wouldn't be any domestic animals at all? If we didn't waste as much food as we did there would be very little food to recycle and most waste food can be used as compost for growing more food.

daithi666 wrote: »

6.) Meat provides certain nutrients in abundance that are harder to attain from other means. Iron, fat and protein.

Been veggie for 15 years and have never had any health issues - my iron count is above average according to my GP.

daithi666 wrote: »

7.) We would have to work harder and clear forest for more arable land to attain enough food for the world if we were all to be vegetarian.

As several people have already commented this is a not true at all. It takes alot more land to produce one pound of meat then it takes to produce one pound of veggies.

daithi666 wrote: »

8.) Animals can live in areas that are unsuitable for the growing of crops making the land productive for food supply.

Any land that is not suitable for crops but for raising animals is most likely in the ass end of no where with very few people living on it - places like Tibet for example and if I lived somewhere like that then I'd prob eat meat in my diet but I live here where there is no shortage of land for raising crops.

daithi666 wrote: »

9.) They say vegetarianism makes sense because we have the choice and the mental capability to do it but in my opinion it's the abundance of food and money in the Western World that has brought about vegetarianism. Try convincing the people of Africa, or indeed anywhere there is a shortage of food, to take on vegetarianism.

The earliest records of vegetarianism as a concept and practice amongst a significant number of people came from ancient India not the western world. It is a major part of religions such as Hinduisim and Janisim - it is not part of any major western religions moral ideal. As I've said if there were a shortage of food I would eat meat, I have the choice not to so I have chosen not to. If I were stuck on the side of a mountain and had to eat dead humans or die I'd do it and not have an moral issue with it.

What about the companies that make people grow cash crops like coffee rather then food? If we stopped that then there wouldn't be food shortages in some poorer countries.

daithi666 wrote: »

the reasons above are why I think vegetarians should not look down on those that do eat meat 'cause it is a logical thing to do. To change habits now would be an enormous undertaking!

who said anyone was looking down on people for eating meat - again it is a choice. I do think people should be more aware of where their food comes from [both veggies and meat eaters] but I wouldn't look down on people for their dietary choices and would hope they would do that same for me.