Going Vegan

[brandonbaker]

Then don't use how we treat dogs vs cows in the US as your main argument claiming that there's some non-existent double standard.

The double-standard is right in front of your eyes. We venerate dogs and cats in this country and eat steak and eggs in the same breath. The all-american photograph would be of a happy family with their golden retriever eating a steak and potatoes dinner. This wouldn't be possible if we viewed dogs and cows to have the same moral standing.

 

[brandonbaker]

I do consider cows. I've already said they don't know what's going on in the universe and contribute nothing to the world aside from being a part of the food chain. That's why it's morally acceptable to harvest cows for their meat.

They don't know what's going on in the universe compared to what? Compared to a human who uses his iPod and goes online and goes skydiving and reads the Wall Street Journal?

Your definition of "knows what's going on in the universe" is patently human. Humans aren't the only species of animal on this planet. All animals have their own way of getting by in the world.

You know not every slaughterhouse operates like the ones you see in Youtube videos.

There's plenty of reason to believe that they're much worse. These are just the slaughterhouses that somehow didn't notice a hidden camera. I can only imagine the ones that are even more stringent.

Have you ever stepped on a dandelion? Have you stopped to consider the morality in stomping out a living organism? Have you ever bought flowers for someone? If so, did you consider that those flowers are living things that have to be ripped from their life source and then live a short, torturous life where they're starved of nutrients and then die?

Plants are not autonomous beings. The idea of morality doesn't apply to plants because plants don't make choices as to how they want to live their lives. Cows very clearly do.

 

[brandonbaker]

Probably to the delight of mostly everyone here, I'm off to sleep as it's 2AM.

Out of the trillions of websites on the internet, we all happened to spend our time on the same internet marketing forum, which probably makes us all way more similar than we are different. That should be enough reason to treat other people with just a modicum of respect. If I have a different opinion than you, it doesn't make you or me an idiot. Argue the facts, not the person...night y'all.

 

[papajohn56]

Argue the facts, not the person...night y'all.

Except it's impossible to argue facts when the person dismisses facts.

 

[seiux]

just fyi "almost minored in nutrition" guy - calories in vs calories out being the standard for fat loss/when your body uses its fat stores is a gross oversimplification of a much more complicated process - look up leptin, leptin resistance & insulin resistance

 

[el toddler]

The problem with eating meat is the cholesterol. Our livers were not made to handle that type of cholesterol when an animal like the Dog's is. Because of this, we have too much cholesterol building up in our bodies and it's like poison. Why is heart disease the number one killer? one reason is cholesterol building up in the arteries and a lot of the time there are no warning signs. I don't think eating some meat will kill you but going plant based is definitely a lot healthier. Putting heart patients on a no meat diet actually starts to reverse the effects of the cholesterol build up.

I try to eat a plant based diet. Sometimes it's hard if you go out to meet friends at a restaurant or you go up to your girlfriend's mom's house for dinner and they have made meat. I joke I am a "flexitarian," because sometimes I just don't have a choice and will go along with the flow when there really are no options. So I do end up eating *some* meat here and there. Dairy is pretty easy to stay away from though. Soy is not the only thing you can eat. There are sooo many different types of veggie burgers that actually taste 10x better than burgers made with meat.

When you eat plant based you can eat as much as you want and not feel guilty. Try to keep the fats low. You will usually feel full a lot quicker on a plant based diet. You don't feel as heavy and lethargic after meals either. It is a lot easier to digest plant protein than it is animal protein.

Cutting out process foods definitely has helped like some pointed out. But cutting out animal protein gets rid of the cholesterol, you use less energy to digest the protein, and you feel full a lot quicker.

I say to each his own. But if you are interested you should try plant based diet for a few months and see what sort of benefits you notice.

One dvd to check out is Forks Over Knives | Official Website . Also check out Engine 2 Diet, and the McDougal Diet - I have read both books for these.

Bill Clinton is working with the doctors from forksoverknives and has seen really good results. If you start really looking into it and watching these dvds and reading the books there are a lot of people out there with good results. The arguments and science is there and it starts making sense. I would investigate it on my own and read/watch this stuff vs. listening to a nutritionist or an MD. MDs arent really trained in nutrition and our culture is just too stuck on what is sold in super markets and what everyone else is eating and what is considered "normal" for us to eat. When I try to talk to certain family members about this stuff they think I am crazy and are basically unwilling to look at any of the information that is available regarding it. But why is it so crazy when so many diseases are on the rise and so many people overweight? The mayor of NY City want to put a ban on certain sizes of sugary beverages because over 50% of the city is obese? crazy.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3ied_AD4iE]Bill Clinton became a vegan, lost 24 pounds, healing himself by not ingesting any cholesterol. - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Shivadxb]

one thing i've noticed about vegans

they almost without exception appear to be a bunch of uptight defensive fuck nuggets with no sense of humour and a toatl unwillingess to look at actual science when it comes to counter arguments.

now i'm off to eat a fuck off great big paleo lunch after which i'll feel awesome and still have a sense of humor and a grasp of reality.

fucking vegan wankers

 

[nickycakes]

If I have a different opinion than you, it doesn't make you or me an idiot. Argue the facts, not the person...night y'all.

We're arguing the facts, and then calling you an idiot. Nothing wrong there.

 

[mpbiz]

The problem with eating meat is the cholesterol. Our livers were not made to handle that type of cholesterol when an animal like the Dog's is. Because of this, we have too much cholesterol building up in our bodies and it's like poison. Why is heart disease the number one killer? one reason is cholesterol building up in the arteries and a lot of the time there are no warning signs. I don't think eating some meat will kill you but going plant based is definitely a lot healthier. Putting heart patients on a no meat diet actually starts to reverse the effects of the cholesterol build up.

I try to eat a plant based diet. Sometimes it's hard if you go out to meet friends at a restaurant or you go up to your girlfriend's mom's house for dinner and they have made meat. I joke I am a "flexitarian," because sometimes I just don't have a choice and will go along with the flow when there really are no options. So I do end up eating *some* meat here and there. Dairy is pretty easy to stay away from though. Soy is not the only thing you can eat. There are sooo many different types of veggie burgers that actually taste 10x better than burgers made with meat.

When you eat plant based you can eat as much as you want and not feel guilty. Try to keep the fats low. You will usually feel full a lot quicker on a plant based diet. You don't feel as heavy and lethargic after meals either. It is a lot easier to digest plant protein than it is animal protein.

Cutting out process foods definitely has helped like some pointed out. But cutting out animal protein gets rid of the cholesterol, you use less energy to digest the protein, and you feel full a lot quicker.

I say to each his own. But if you are interested you should try plant based diet for a few months and see what sort of benefits you notice.

One dvd to check out is Forks Over Knives | Official Website . Also check out Engine 2 Diet, and the McDougal Diet - I have read both books for these.

Bill Clinton is working with the doctors from forksoverknives and has seen really good results. If you start really looking into it and watching these dvds and reading the books there are a lot of people out there with good results. The arguments and science is there and it starts making sense. I would investigate it on my own and read/watch this stuff vs. listening to a nutritionist or an MD. MDs arent really trained in nutrition and our culture is just too stuck on what is sold in super markets and what everyone else is eating and what is considered "normal" for us to eat. When I try to talk to certain family members about this stuff they think I am crazy and are basically unwilling to look at any of the information that is available regarding it. But why is it so crazy when so many diseases are on the rise and so many people overweight? The mayor of NY City want to put a ban on certain sizes of sugary beverages because over 50% of the city is obese? crazy.

Bill Clinton became a vegan, lost 24 pounds, healing himself by not ingesting any cholesterol. - YouTube

The best part in forks over knives is when, I forget which one but I think it was the taller doctor, and he's talking about how people say this all the time.. "Not eating meat and only eating a plant based diet is weird and crazy."

but then he talks about how it is considered more normal (socially acceptable) for xxx,xxx people every year to have a fucking vein taken out of their leg and moved to their heart.

Look at all the dumshits who are willing to have a lapband put in, but they wont eat some vegetables LOL

AMERICA FTW

 

[seiux]

yo if people just recognized that if the meat is not organic, 100% grass fed it's essentially not really meat, i wouldn't have to read so much of this bullshit

 

[mpbiz]

yo if people just recognized that if the meat is not organic, 100% grass fed it's essentially not really meat, i wouldn't have to read so much of this bullshit

The kids in elementary school right now are fucked.. have you seen the pink slime?

 

[el toddler]

The best part in forks over knives is when, I forget which one but I think it was the taller doctor, and he's talking about how people say this all the time.. "Not eating meat and only eating a plant based diet is weird and crazy."

but then he talks about how it is considered more normal (socially acceptable) for xxx,xxx people every year to have a fucking vein taken out of their leg and moved to their heart.

Look at all the dumshits who are willing to have a lapband put in, but they wont eat some vegetables LOL

AMERICA FTW

I agree 100%.

You find too on this diet once you start, you are less hungry all the time, and you start to forget about needing to eat meat, or dairy, or whatever you were stuck on. It's easy to defend this diet because once you start on it it's easy to forget these things. You notice the people who are promoting these diets are the exact same way. They're just like "nope, we don't miss it."

 

[Ookie]

500g of chicken breast for lunch everyday. 200g of tuna for dinner every night. /thread

 

[clear]

Take my comment in context and you'll understand what I meant. I responded to this:

This is completely untrue. Your body starts digging into its fat stores when it has a deficit in calories in vs. calories out. When it comes to using fat stores, your body responds to calories, not some bullshit measure of meat vs. non-meat.

I was practically a nutrition minor in college. Not saying that makes me an expert, but I know enough.

It means you are a dumbass. Your body sees food intake as protein, carbs, fats etc... not oh I have X amount of energy now.

Question everything, even those who give you answers.

 

[flx89]

you'll feel better after one week...

 

[jsphfcll]

i will once again say... if you eat organic foods... and eat healthy you will still feel the same... meat or no meat. i'm sure many of you prior to being vegan ate like a fat slob... so no wonder you feel better

i used to eat shit food... then i ate really healthy attained everything you people are saying... then i went back to eating shit food.. and felt like a piece of shit...

i'm now going back to eating healthy and organic...

its not rocket science

OP good luck... dont turn into someone who has to remind everyone they are vegan and preach at every meal...like some seem to be in this thread.

you will find yourself with less invitations to hang out

the worst part of meeting a vegan is the fact that they have to remind you they are vegan as much as possible

 

[SEOFrog]

On the whole debate of why it's OK to kill animals.. I have this potentially unpopular answer:

We sometimes tend to forget that we're part of the animal kingdom. Easy to do of course because that grey stuff in our heads makes us feel oh so superior and separate from everything else.

Unfortunately, not all animals are created equal. In the animal kingdom are food chains. The lower an animal is in the food chain, the less value is attached to its life and the more it is consumed for food. Imagine whales crying over the death of a single zooplankton organism... Plankton.. extremely important.. but the life of one isn't valued as much. When you swim in the ocean, are you vegans looking out for them?

Animals have consumed other animals for food because that seems to be nature's way of providing food for her little creatures (us included). It's THAT simple and it really shouldn't be up for moral debate. Let's reserve those for quandaries such as "Should welfare be limited to the sick and disabled?". I digress.

So the golden question.. why is it OK to kill other animals for food? Because that's nature and your intelligence and reasoning ability doesn't exclude you from it. You're part of the animal kingdom all the same. Of course that brain of yours allows you to choose what you eat.. very well then. May your choices not inflate your sense of self worth and allow you to judge others self righteously. Never has it been wrong to eat animals (and all their delicious products) except in the minds of a few. May they continue to eat as many plants as they wish and leave the delicious meat for us.

 

[Hale.Pane]

 

[amateursurgeon]

People have been saying this forever but they always forget about technology. Birth rates are already drastically down in just about every developing nation and as more technological advances are made the amount of humans Earth can hold will go up as the population also goes up.

I really hope you're right.

But personally, I think we're going to see the truly dominant lifeform on earth knocking us back into place: microbes. The one place technology isn't keeping pace is in the discovery of new antibiotics.

We have a hugely inflated sense of our own importance. Humans, and for that matter all other mammals, are mere upstarts in history of the earth.

(from http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/46/2/155.full)

One area where vegans do have it right is that intensive farming is dangerous. Not because of methane though, but because of the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics increasing the rate of resistance.

I personally think that people who get obsessed with the greenhouse effect are barking up the wrong tree. Yes, the climate is changing, but the climate always changes. And we can probably survive a few degrees hotter with technological improvements (GM crops, different building techniques etc). Sea levels will rise gradually over the course of a century, giving us plenty of time to adapt.

A highly virulent, lethal, antibiotic-resistant airborne infection though? That could halve the population of the planet in under 2 years.

Unfortunately, talking about microbes isn't as sexy as talking about saving elephants and building windmills, though, so we'll probably ignore it until we're all fucked.

 

[cardine]

I really hope you're right.

But personally, I think we're going to see the truly dominant lifeform on earth knocking us back into place: microbes. The one place technology isn't keeping pace is in the discovery of new antibiotics.

We have a hugely inflated sense of our own importance. Humans, and for that matter all other mammals, are mere upstarts in history of the earth.

(from The Epidemic of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections: A Call to Action for the Medical Community from the Infectious Diseases Society of America)

One area where vegans do have it right is that intensive farming is dangerous. Not because of methane though, but because of the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics increasing the rate of resistance.

I personally think that people who get obsessed with the greenhouse effect are barking up the wrong tree. Yes, the climate is changing, but the climate always changes. And we can probably survive a few degrees hotter with technological improvements (GM crops, different building techniques etc). Sea levels will rise gradually over the course of a century, giving us plenty of time to adapt.

A highly virulent, lethal, antibiotic-resistant airborne infection though? That could halve the population of the planet in under 2 years.

Unfortunately, talking about microbes isn't as sexy as talking about saving elephants and building windmills, though, so we'll probably ignore it until we're all fucked.

I agree with you, microbes will be a huge problem for us in the not so distant future. The only way I can see us solving the issue of microbes (and drug resistant microbes) is with nanotechnology (microscopic robots) to kill all problematic organisms in my body.

At least DARPA knows what's up: Darpa: Do Away With Antibiotics, Then Destroy All Pathogens