Vegetarianism

nucker

I know this vegetarian constantly berating people who eat meat, yet last night she posted this article claiming that this pink gooey stuff was actually chicken nuggets and other meat products, to which I replied to her "That doesn't look like chicken nugget", she has yet to reply, in fact, she deleted the post

nucker

Admittedly, I did have a severe cold recently, my metabolism suddenly went metal so decided to nothing but fruit and veg, while not a vegetarian, and meat isn't bad as some people claim, namely vegetarians

ScumLord

wolfpawnat wrote: »

These discussions usually seem to descend into an argument between the more narrow minded individuals from both sides.

Meat eaters - Not eating meat is not natural. You're weird/going against nature.

Vegetarians - Eating meat is wrong it goes against A,B and C, and on occasion, "Will someone think of the little fluffy bunny's"

Vegetarians do the exact same thing. I think jumping to polar opposites of a debate and sticking to it no matter what is an Irish thing. The facts take second place to winning the argument.

I have no problem with people having a vegetarian diet, I've never argued a meat diet is healthier or better than a purely vegetarian diet. All I've pointed out is that humans have eaten meat for as long as they've been human. The adaptations happened before we even became human.

Comparing humans to carnivores or herbivores will only get you so far. The fact is we didn't need to evolve special adaptations to eat meat because we changed the meat to suit us. Just like we didn't develop two stomachs even though we eat grasses. We changed the grass to suit us.

Humans eat meat in their diet. The reason we know this is because we eat meat and always have eaten meat generally as a species. It's not bad or wrong to eat meat as part of a healthy diet. It's not wrong to kill animals for our own needs and we won't enter some sort of a utopian symbiosis with nature if we all switch to a vegan diet. It won't help the environment in any significant way, it won't protect the animals involved (in fact it would bring about the annihilation of most domestic species).

Nothing humans do is unnatural, we are a part of nature which makes everything we do natural.

wolfpawnat

nucker wrote: »

I know this vegetarian constantly berating people who eat meat, yet last night she posted this article claiming that this pink gooey stuff was actually chicken nuggets and other meat products, to which I replied to her "That doesn't look like chicken nugget", she has yet to reply, in fact, she deleted the post

That sort of thing drives me mad, my partner studies veterinary, they are shown how different meats are created/cut since there are vets involved in the abattoirs, food board, etc. So they are brought out to a few abattoirs themselves. That gunk is nowhere near McDonald's or any other chicken. In Ireland if it says 100% breast, it is 100% breast, they are always checking, hence how they caught the Polish Horse DNA and it's origin so quickly.

Also the animals in Ireland for the most part are kept in good conditions, they experience excellent health checks and are for the most part, able to spend a good portion of their lives outdoors (winters require cattle to stay inside a lot). As consumers it is our duty to ensure this continues, and the best way to do that is to buy free range eggs and chickens, as they are the animal that suffer cruelty in battery farms.

Tar.Aldarion

How do you feel about how pigs are treated in Ireland, is this also a well treated animal?

ScumLord

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

How do you feel about how pigs are treated in Ireland, is this also a well treated animal?

No. Pigs and battery hens get a bad deal. Part of the reason I've heard for why pigs are kept in pens is because they can get quite vicious and even kill their own young. I didn't really see it when my father kept a few pigs. The bore was very shy but friendly surprisingly, the sows were supposedly very hard to manage though.


I think we should pay more for meat so that the animals get a good life and a humane death.

wolfpawnat

ScumLord wrote: »

Vegetarians do the exact same thing. I think jumping to polar opposites of a debate and sticking to it no matter what is an Irish thing. The facts take second place to winning the argument.

I have no problem with people having a vegetarian diet, I've never argued a meat diet is healthier or better than a purely vegetarian diet. All I've pointed out is that humans have eaten meat for as long as they've been human. The adaptations happened before we even became human.

Comparing humans to carnivores or herbivores will only get you so far. The fact is we didn't need to evolve special adaptations to eat meat because we changed the meat to suit us. Just like we didn't develop two stomachs even though we eat grasses. We changed the grass to suit us.

Humans eat meat in their diet. The reason we know this is because we eat meat and always have eaten meat generally as a species. It's not bad or wrong to eat meat as part of a healthy diet. It's not wrong to kill animals for our own needs and we won't enter some sort of a utopian symbiosis with nature if we all switch to a vegan diet. It won't help the environment in any significant way, it won't protect the animals involved (in fact it would bring about the annihilation of most domestic species).

Nothing humans do is unnatural, we are a part of nature which makes everything we do natural.

We are a highly adapted creature, we have a mouth full of teeth telling us we are able to eat almost anything we can literally get our teeth into, and the ability to digest most enzymes. We really are a fascinating animal. We cannot digest sweetcorn and a few other plants, but for the most part, it is clear, we are an Omnivore, and one of the best ones at that.

Human's appear have been eating meat since before we were evolved into this creature we are today. Archaeologists have followed the evolution of man throughout it's development to the homo-sapiens (us). Homo-Habilius (2.3 million years ago) fossils have shown that they too had canines and incisors capable of tearing flesh, so they are able to establish they too, were capable of eating meat. An animal does not develop something before it is needed, it is developed because it is needed. The tools those primitive humans possessed also show spearheads, knives, what else could they have done with them but hunt. Before man settled as farmers, we travelled as nomadic hunters, eating anything we had to to survive, be it mammoth, deer, berries, vegetables, we ate it all. We did not settle as farmers for many thousands of years.

The vegan argument often baffles me. "We cannot exploit our fellow animals" How do they think we got here? Not to mention half the clothes they wear are from animals. I once had a vegan give out to me about the slaughtering of innocent cattle for my steak dinner, when she was wearing a Ralph Lauren top. I thought it ironic, I was exploiting a cow, she was exploiting child labour in South East Asia, yet I was the criminal. NB I know not all vegans/vegetarians are like this, but some can be We are the greatest Apex predator of all time because we have developed a way to manipulate this planet for our use, both animals and elements to suit our needs. We are an absolutely outstanding creature, capable of almost anything. And my personal favourite argument. If we did not use animal products, Meat, milk, etc. Most species we farm would become extinct. We would have to cull the cattle, horses and sheep to use the land for crops. No farmer is going to keep and care for 200 pet cattle. That is insanity. And other animals would be too costly to keep alive for no productive reason.

I don't care what a person does or does not eat, just don't go high and mighty to me about it if yours is different to mine. I am an adult, I know what I am eating, respect my right to eat it and I will respect your right to eat what you like.

wolfpawnat

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

How do you feel about how pigs are treated in Ireland, is this also a well treated animal?

They are treated like that for the welfare of their young, only when they have piglets are kept in those crates. The rest of the time they are allowed wander around. When they are left out of those crates when they have piglets, they roll on them and on many occasion eat them. According to my partner, the veterinary council and Bord Bia is expecting that Ireland will have to import Pork soon as those crates are to be done away with and up to 6 per 10 piglets will die as a result of their mother. The other problem with the pork industry is how susceptible that species is to disease, hence their indoor lives. In large pig farms only PPE covered personnel are allowed near the pigs so to ensure their health. Sadly they do not react as well as other animals to immunisation and are closely bred, so they don't have good survival rates and one bacteria can wipe out an entire farm.

Jester252

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

When is 'back then'? And how was meat rare? Seeing as animals are made of meat and there's generally a lot of us around

Right now if you what a burger all you have to do is walk to a shop. When humans were starting off meat had to be hunted. Even when we first started farming animals weren't kill everyday as they were need to provide other sources of food. If you look at poor villages they only have meat at special events as its not cheep. I'm not trying to fight the pros/cons of meat eatting I just hate arguements against eatting meat like you've made as they are taken out of context.

kupus

Without reading through the whole thread I'll go straight to my point.

The only reason a vegetarian is a vegetarian is because of too much food choices
Think about that one for a minute.

DagneyTaggart

If only there was so much debate on all aspects of our health!

Why Eat Meat:

Taste: Bacon/Steak/Chops etc!

Health:

- Historically, meat eating coincides with increase in brain sizes. This is what utimately separated us from the rest. More recently, people who choose not to eat meat, have been shown to lose more brain cells over 5-10 years.

- As there are examples of no-meat health improvements in people so there are the opposite. E.g. Converts to the Paleo Diet. Or a simple example the guy who wrote "The Meat Fix".

- A kilo of meat is 1.4 more nutritious than a kilo of veg.

- Animal fat is necessary and healthier than veg oil.

- Links to cardiovascular disease yes - but along with pretty much every other food.

Ethics:

Animal Rights:

- It's ok for animals to eat animals. We evolved from animals, so..

- Recent work has shown more suffering to rodents and insets through harvesting and storage of grains.

Animal Welfare:

- Its important to remember that: Farmers want to make a living from selling their livestock to provide for themselves and families. They can only do this if the animal is healthly. A farmer understands that a happy animal grows quicker than a stressed animal.

- Indoor Farming of Chickens & Pigs: The reason for this is that it firstly provides a protected environment for the animals (from weather & prey). Who wants to be outside in weather under 10 degress or over 30. A pig's opitmal enviroment is closer to 20: indoor set up provides this.

- It's also note worthy that they provide the lowest cost form of proteins to humans. Allowing us to buy more: improving our welfare. The indoor set-up allows them to be fed correctly, which allows them to grow at their natural rate of growth ("quicker"!! & better feed to meat ratios!! - is that evil?)

Environmental Ethics:

- Often, under-researched resulting in over-stated costs. For example, the short term carbon cycle. Grains absorb CO2, harvested and fed to animals which then release CO2 back to the atmosphere. No net increase to atmosphere.

- Many animal eats foods that we can not eat and use land which we could not use.

Recommended Reading: "Meat - A Beign Extravagance" by Simon Fairlie.

Where should we really be looking to improve our well-being?

- Wheat? - "Wheat Belly" by William Davis
- Alcohol?
- Processed Food?
- High Fructose Corn?
- Over-thinking life!?

GalwayGuy2

- Animal fat is necessary and healthier than veg oil.

Are you sure? Doesn't animal fat contain far more fats of saturate or insoluble or something like that?

BlaasForRafa

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

How do you feel about how pigs are treated in Ireland, is this also a well treated animal?

They certainly are the tastiest animal anyway, nothing like a nice pork chop or rasher blaa. One would assume that healthier pigs make for tastier pigs so however whoever my local butcher gets them off seems to be doing a pretty good job.

BlaasForRafa

DagneyTaggart wrote: »

- Recent work has shown more suffering to rodents and insets through harvesting and storage of grains.

Thats an important point. Intensive farming of crops causes enormous damage to biodiversity through the use of pesticides and destruction of forests and hedgerows and the use of nitrate fertilisers can do a lot of damage to wildlife in rivers.

DagneyTaggart

From what I have read it is, especially in cooking. Veg oil, once heated releases trans-fats which are bad fats. Fats can be good or bad. Some vitamins are only fat soluble for example.

blatantrereg

Rabidlamb wrote: »

If we weren't meant to eat meat then why is it so tasty & why are cows so slow & stupid.
It demands to be eaten.

They've been selectively bred by humans to optimise their production of meat and/or milk.

The same thing has been done with chickens, and it's more noticeable with them. Layers have been bred to ignore their own eggs. Many would be incapable of reproducing independently of humans as a result. They rely on humans artificially incubating the eggs to hatch them. Most male chicks are destroyed of course. Some broilers now grow so big so fast that they are incapable of supporting their own body weight, and their legs break as a matter of course if they are in conditions to try to.

blatantrereg

DagneyTaggart wrote: »

From what I have read it is, especially in cooking. Veg oil, once heated releases trans-fats which are bad fats. Fats can be good or bad. Some vitamins are only fat soluble for example.

Pretty certain that's incorrect. Trans fats are in hydrogenated vegetable oils and vegetable shortening. Both are oils which have been processed to increase shelf-life. The only non-processed oils they occur in are animal fats - at significantly lower levels.

They are very unhealthy - moreso than saturated fats. There is no "safe" level of consumption for them. They ought to be excluded from the diet completely. It is a good idea to check ingredients of food for hydrogenated oils and shortening. Both are common in baked goods, including bread.

Benny_Cake

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

How do you feel about how pigs are treated in Ireland, is this also a well treated animal?

I read an article about how some American states have started phasing out the use of gestation crates for pigs. Not knowing what a gestation crate was I looked it up. I wish I hadn't. Sows kept in a tiny cage for months on end, so tiny that they can't even turn around. They can still be used in Ireland, although the period that they can be used for is shorter.

You don't have to be a vegetarian to be appalled by that. I do wonder if people would be willing to pay the premium that might be required to ensure that animals are treated humanely though.

wolfpawnat

blatantrereg wrote: »

They've been selectively bred by humans to optimise their production of meat and/or milk.

The same thing has been done with chickens, and it's more noticeable with them. Layers have been bred to ignore their own eggs. Many would be incapable of reproducing independently of humans as a result. They rely on humans artificially incubating the eggs to hatch them. Most male chicks are destroyed of course. Some broilers now grow so big so fast that they are incapable of supporting their own body weight, and their legs break as a matter of course if they are in conditions to try to.

That is why people should only support Free range, In Ireland even our Battery chickens are to a particular standard. But only by buying free range will we eradicate Battery's entirely. As long as there are those who will support cheaper produced battery chickens, they will remain. €2 extra isn't much when a better quality product that tastes better is supported instead.

wolfpawnat

Benny_Cake wrote: »

I read an article about how some American states have started phasing out the use of gestation crates for pigs. Not knowing what a gestation crate was I looked it up. I wish I hadn't. Sows kept in a tiny cage for months on end, so tiny that they can't even turn around. They can still be used in Ireland, although the period that they can be used for is shorter.

You don't have to be a vegetarian to be appalled by that. I do wonder if people would be willing to pay the premium that might be required to ensure that animals are treated humanely though.

As horrible as those crates are they are essential for the survival of the piglets. Pigs roll a lot and suffocate several of their young. They are also known to eat their young, and not from the lack of food. It is a catch 22, treat the mother unfairly, or risk several piglets dying because of her.

They are phasing them out here and it will cause Irish pork to become more expensive and we will be forced to buy in pork because more piglets will die as a result.

Theatricality and deception

GalwayGuy2 wrote: »

Are you sure? Doesn't animal fat contain far more fats of saturate or insoluble or something like that?

Saturated fat is good for you, hydrogenated and trans fats are bad for you.

miss no stars

Benny_Cake wrote: »

I read an article about how some American states have started phasing out the use of gestation crates for pigs. Not knowing what a gestation crate was I looked it up. I wish I hadn't. Sows kept in a tiny cage for months on end, so tiny that they can't even turn around. They can still be used in Ireland, although the period that they can be used for is shorter.

You don't have to be a vegetarian to be appalled by that. I do wonder if people would be willing to pay the premium that might be required to ensure that animals are treated humanely though.

I was on a farm recently. A calf came early in the middle of the night when I was there (before the expectant mothers could be segregated). When we got down in the morning one of the cows had rolled on it and squashed it to death. Sad

If the crates prevent that, then so be it.

DagneyTaggart

"Processing distorts the fatty acids in vegetable oil so thay can no longer assume the typical five - or six-sided geometry. Like Chinese finger traps, our enzymes pick up these distorted fatty acids and then can't let them go, which hampers cellular function so profoundly it can kill your cells. And if you eat enough trans, cellular dysfunction will eventually kill you. Vegetables oils rarely kill children, but they can disrupt normal metabolism so profoundly that a child's dynamic symmetry is lost, and their skeletal proportions become imbalanced.

Good fats (traditional fats can handle the heat involved in cooking):
Olive Oil; Peanut Oil; Butter; Macadamia nut oil; Coconut Oil; Animal Fats; Palm Oil

Bad Fats (industrial-era fats cannot handle the heat involved in processing):
Canola Oil; Soy Oil; Sunflower Oil; Cottonseed Oil; Grapeseed Oil; Safflower Oil; Non-butter spreads."

- Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food. Catherine & Luke Shannahan MD.

Also, from the same source: why eating meat on the bone is good for you. Goodness lies within bones that is, in turn, good for your bones and body. For example, collagen. Used by companies to sell anti aging creams - yet it is available from eating meat on the bone. Food for thought.

Secondly, from Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill: The complete Guide to Fat
"Margarines, shortenings, and partially hydrogenated oils (which contain trans- fatty acids), and fried and deep-fried oils and refined mass-market oils (which contain altered, toxic fatty acid derivates) should all be avoided before conception, during pregnancy, while lactating, and forever."
Uso Erasmus.

blatantrereg

DagneyTaggart wrote: »

"Processing distorts the fatty acids in vegetable oil so thay can no longer assume the typical five - or six-sided geometry. Like Chinese finger traps, our enzymes pick up these distorted fatty acids and then can't let them go, which hampers cellular function so profoundly it can kill your cells. And if you eat enough trans, cellular dysfunction will eventually kill you. Vegetables oils rarely kill children, but they can disrupt normal metabolism so profoundly that a child's dynamic symmetry is lost, and their skeletal proportions become imbalanced.

Good fats (traditional fats can handle the heat involved in cooking):
Olive Oil; Peanut Oil; Butter; Macadamia nut oil; Coconut Oil; Animal Fats; Palm Oil

Bad Fats (industrial-era fats cannot handle the heat involved in processing):
Canola Oil; Soy Oil; Sunflower Oil; Cottonseed Oil; Grapeseed Oil; Safflower Oil; Non-butter spreads."

- Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food. Catherine & Luke Shannahan MD.

Also, from the same source: why eating meat on the bone is good for you. Goodness lies within bones that is, in turn, good for your bones and body. For example, collagen. Used by companies to sell anti aging creams - yet it is available from eating meat on the bone. Food for thought.

Secondly, from Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill: The complete Guide to Fat
"Margarines, shortenings, and partially hydrogenated oils (which contain trans- fatty acids), and fried and deep-fried oils and refined mass-market oils (which contain altered, toxic fatty acid derivates) should all be avoided before conception, during pregnancy, while lactating, and forever."
Uso Erasmus.

Normal cooking temperatures and times are not nearly enough to create any significant amount of trans fats in the foods we cook at home. Reference: Wolff, R. L. 1993. Heat-induced geometric isomerization of alpha-linolenic acid: effect of temperature and heating time on the appearance of individual isomers. Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society 70(4): 425-430

Trans fat as %age of total fat in foods:

Red meat and milk (including butter) - 2-5%
Baking shortening (animal or vegetable) - 30%
Hydrogenated/Partially hydrogentaed oils - 45%
Margarine (unless reformulated to reduce trans fat) - 15%

I agree that margarine should not be consumed. Probably safest and simplest to eliminate all vegetable oil based spreads, though Unilever claim Flora contains very little trans fats. If you want to avoid dairy, non-processed olive oil is a good replacement for butter.

Peanut

DagneyTaggart wrote: »

If only there was so much debate on all aspects of our health!

Why Eat Meat:

Health:

- Historically, meat eating coincides with increase in brain sizes. This is what utimately separated us from the rest. More recently, people who choose not to eat meat, have been shown to lose more brain cells over 5-10 years.

Got any kind of link for that apart from this thread?

DagneyTaggart wrote: »

- As there are examples of no-meat health improvements in people so there are the opposite. E.g. Converts to the Paleo Diet. Or a simple example the guy who wrote "The Meat Fix".

If you're just looking at individual cases you can demonstrate pretty much anything you want.

DagneyTaggart wrote: »

- A kilo of meat is 1.4 more nutritious than a kilo of veg.

1.4???? 1.4 of "nutritiousness"? Well smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast...!

DagneyTaggart wrote: »

- Animal fat is necessary and healthier than veg oil.

This would only be true if humans were obligate carnivores, however we're omnivores.

DagneyTaggart wrote: »

- Links to cardiovascular disease yes - but along with pretty much every other food.

How do you explain this? Just a coincidence, or fussier eating?

Bear in mind that the results also controlled for age, smoking, alcohol intake, physical activity, educational level and socioeconomic background.

BTW I don't think eating meat is inherently unhealthy, it's probably just that in the west, the quantity is too high and the quality is too low. Along with a more sedentary lifestyle, this is a problem.

DagneyTaggart

I don't which one of us is lazy but my answer is: google meat & brain size and take your pick from scholarly articles and papers.

That was my point Peanut: I was putting that forward as an example to posts previous to mine. However, that guy (John Roberson), does go into good detail on how the protein he was eating during his 18 years as a veggie lead to digestive problems with his body due to anti-nutritional factors within the protien. When I get it back I can go into more detail.

That figure is quoted in Fairlie's book quoted in first post. I'm trying to dig it out to substantial what has been said.

There are vitamins that are only fat soluble; so fat is necessary. As there are questions over the health benefits of vegetable oil I worded the sentence like I did due to that.

That's an interesting study. I would say though that vegetarians are people who think about what they eat. That is not the norm for most people, who's eating habits are primarily determined by price and taste.

DagneyTaggart

Interesting reading on heart disease:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.ie/2009/05/coronary-heart-disease-epidemic_16.html - comments also interesting

Factors he suggests: Refined Sugar; Industrial Trans-fats; Lack of Vit D; Smokes; Low intake of Omega 3's.

On trans-fats: "In 2009, even the staunchest opponents of animal fats have to admit that they're healthier than hydrogenated fat."

Frying meat in vegetable oil could disguise the real culprit: not meat, but how it's cooked.

ElvisChrist6

Sam Kade wrote: »

That's more or less the point I was making to the poster I quoted:rolleyes:

... Sarcasm is lost in text. I apologise!

blatantrereg

Vegetarians have higher IQs than non-vegetarians on average though.

Yes trans fats are much worse than saturated fats. Hydrogenated fats are much worse than animal fats because they contain far more of them. However vegetable oil doesn't become hydrogenated from home cooking, nor do trans fats occur in it during the process. If you avoid hydrogenated oils and similarly processed ones, the only trans fats you get are from animal fats.

Peanut

DagneyTaggart wrote:

I don't which one of us is lazy but my answer is: google meat & brain size and take your pick from scholarly articles and papers.

But that wasn't what you were claiming in your post - specifically about losing brain cells, not the evolutionary advantages of an available protein source.

I did actually google it and only found this thread.

DagneyTaggart wrote: »

Interesting reading on heart disease:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.ie/2009/05/coronary-heart-disease-epidemic_16.html - comments also interesting

Factors he suggests: Refined Sugar; Industrial Trans-fats; Lack of Vit D; Smokes; Low intake of Omega 3's.

On trans-fats: "In 2009, even the staunchest opponents of animal fats have to admit that they're healthier than hydrogenated fat."

Frying meat in vegetable oil could disguise the real culprit: not meat, but how it's cooked.

When you're looking at studies about trans-fats, you need to take into account that their usage is much reduced now compared to 10 years ago for example.

So there was a completely justified backlash against them, but it's not at all accurate to extend that to seed or vegetable oils in general.

DagneyTaggart wrote:

That's an interesting study. I would say though that vegetarians are people who think about what they eat. That is not the norm for most people, who's eating habits are primarily determined by price and taste.

I think that could be a factor, however such a large difference doesn't exactly give confidence to the idea that meat-eating is somehow necessary or even preferable for optimal health.