Random Question, Vegans?
 

So, random time.

I happen to be a rather health oriented person, nothing in the crazy or fanatical side but I'm aware of my health and work to improve it. Always an on-going project.

Recently I've spoken to many of my friends who happen to be Vegetarians, because it interests me. Note, these friends are the level headed type of Vegetarians, not the the kind that damage their health by not eating properly or such.

After talking with them, I wanted to see what everyone's opinion -here- was. Think it's crazy? Think the basic premise has merit? What do you think about being a Vegetarian?

I think it's pretty damn great. I'm not one myself... I've considered it but have been unable.
(Can't give up Taco Bell, that's for sure...) Came a lot easier to my cousin cause she saw Babe when she was little. I don't recall ever seeing all of it.

But if somebody can do it, then props to em. Just as long as they still get enough protein from beans and such.

If animals want rights, they should fight harder for them.

I was raised as a partial vegetarian -- I do not eat (and have never eaten) any form of red meat. I only eat poultry and seafood. I am a strong supporter of animal rights, and at some point in my life, I fully intend to give up meat entirely. The vegetarian lifestyle appeals to me for many reasons, health included.

Frickin' hippy get off my lawn.

Sure thing.

You better not have been chewin' on it.

Strangely I'm not big on most fruits or vegetables. I hate salad, for instance.

...what will you eat, then?

I hear the novelty of lentils wears off once you realize they taste like shit.

Same thing with me. My parents just don't eat red meat at all, and rarely eat poultry or fish, so naturally I followed suit. Unfortunately they always try to force-feed me salad, but I don't hate it too much so I'm okay.

Well it did for me.

What infuriates me are celebrities who claim to be vegetarian and always campaign, then you see them strutting around in their genuine fur coats and their leopard skin thigh boots.

I like meat. Animals eat eachother, I don't see why these vegetarians don't go as far as to prevent this. And what makes people say "oh I only eat poultry and fish"? As though they have any less "rights" than other animals?

To each his own imo.

The ideal thing to do would be to grow meat from stem cells without producing a living animal, like on Eureka.
... then again, in Eureka it was given a growth hormone that made people who ate it stupid...

But yeah, animals eat each other in the wild. I'm sure animals farmed for meat are probably the most apathetic things in existence.

Seems like a split between opinions.. love all the discussion though!

I think I'll be dropping any red meat from my diet and moving onto a more vegetarian approach myself, it just seems 'right', for some reason. *shrug*

Good for you, sir. I have a great respect for that.

Go for it mate, and good luck to you as well. I hope it goes well.

I eat like a fat man and therefore would find it impossible to give up meat, even if I wanted to. Not that I understand why one would want to, but ive never even considered this for a second.

As soon as I hear the word I also immediately think of those protestors etc. which is another reason not to go for it.

I really never understood it before looking into it heavily as of late, besides the whole plethora of health reasons friends had spoken to me about.

After seeing what is done to process most of our meat, AND what it does to your health.. yeeah.. <sick>

Wasn't that hard to decide, but we'll see how it is auctually living the lifestyle is. Thanks again for the support guys. :)

What exactly does it do to your health?

I mean, it's fattening, but still...?

I'm vegan when it comes to pizza. I only eat pizza w/ onions and bell peppers on top. My one teacher called me a freak when I told her this. Rude, eh?

Any time! Best of luck with it.

That's completely invalid. Don't use the term "vegan" like that -- it can't be applied to a single food item. That's like saying "I never eat lettuce. On chicken sandwiches." The term "vegan" does not allow for a qualifier.

Fattening is one of the major ones, red meat / meat is also hard on your digestive system.

Yet another is if you don't eat meat, no risk in catching the diseases that are spread that way. Here's some clips of the other health related issues.


So unless your meat is from a very good farm where the animals are treated correctly, not mass penned in a farm and fed grain instead of grass.. and they're not loaded up with drugs.. yeah. You're getting all of that into your system.

Along with meat having very well researched and documented ties to cancer and heart disease.. yeah.

/shudder

... *twitch*

Well, whenever I do eat beef it's not by itself (I am no fan of steaks), and not dangerously frequent I would hope. (usually part of a burger, soup, or burrito or something.)

I'll keep all that in mind... Glad to know fish doesn't have that problem.

No, quite accurate, actually.

What about the part called "Cheese"?

I don't know why a lot of vegans don't eat dairy products. Milking actually relieves a cow quite a bit.
And I've seen footage of dairy farms that treat the cows well.

Can't see me doing this in the future but I have no problem with vegetarians.

I also very rarely eat red meat, although in recent weeks I have been eating beef a lot (not often, just more). Three years ago, I wouldn't have touched it.

I can't eat pork yet I love bacon and ham.....strange eh?

Vegetarian food can taste very nice too, so the arguement about it tasting shit is ignorable. In fact, some of the nicest meals I've ever had were veggie meals.

Lulz same here except I hate ham too.

I've got something to say:

What is "Turkey-ham" and what is the point in it?

And I have something else to say:

What is "West-Ham" and what is the point?

it's a football team isn't it?

Yes, but what's the point in it? :P

To give mindless articulate thugs reason to trash their own towns of course.

Not like Arsenal fans, who are always well behaved and never cause trouble. If they wanted to trash Islington, they at least have a state of the art stadium to do it in.

Way to go off topic guys....WHAT IS THE POINT IN TURKEY HAM!!!!

To give the people at West Ham something to eat.

<posh, gravelly voice>Kensington and Chelsea!</posh, gravelly voice>

OK... I'll just say I like the idea of being a vegan but meat's to dang good!:D

Thus we can conclude you do not, in fact, like the idea of being a vegan.

I can't find any conclusive facts for or against the ability of humans to survive without meat with a properly planned diet. I mean, obviously they can survive, or all the vegetarians would be dead-- but I mean survive and live well.

I've been having a debate in my head over the treatment of the animals. It is a fact that farm animals are not emotionless biological machines, this is just something that we tried to convince ourselves to justify their treatment. They do think, we just don't know how life is from their perspective.
But would animals being treated well before their deaths be better? I suppose the resulting meat and milk and eggs and such would be better, but it may be emotionally taxing on the farmer. If a farmer has the concience to treat them well, the fact that they're going to die for our food later on may not set very well with them. However, I've seen a fully automated milk farm that was a very hospitable environment for the cows. They were even milked when they chose to be.(unless another cow was on the milker at the moment)

And from the animal's prospective... an animal who is living a very good life will naturally want to live more, but that's obviously not going to happen. They need to enjoy themselves with what little time they would have. On the other hand, an animal that has been very horribly treated and has had a horrible life would probably view the slaughter as a relief. So typical awfully treated farm animals may welcome death's cold embrace to relieve them of their pain.

Either way, if humans can indeed survive and live well without meat with a properly planned diet, then most of humanity is simply not ready for a major conversion from meat to no meat. Especially in America. I'm not saying we never will be, we just need to allow our way of thinking to evolve more.
This is why I'm not taking part in vegetarianism. Our minds are not yet primed to the point where such a thing would be helpful, and I have not seen enough conclusive proof to take me off meat for personal reasons. And of course, if we do get off meat what then are we going to use all the animals we bred for the purpose of meat for? They can't survive in the wild at all, they're bred to be what they are. Though I suppose they'd be ok as pets. (I've kind of entertained the idea of a pet chicken.) Pigs are proven to be able to be kept as pets.

I think we should just genetically engineer braindead animals and slaughter those.

Problem solved.