Watch out, I'm coming at Meat Eaters AND Vegans!

[natsume]

1 hour ago, aring91 said:

I've been slowly trying to cut meat out of my diet for the past several years and am at a 70-30 % ratio on non-meat and meat nowadays and am slowly working on eating less meat as time goes on. It's mainly for personal reasons that I don't feel comfortable getting into and I understand either position but don't particularly care for gatekeeping or elitism that can be associated with vegetarians/vegans. 

 

I use to be a huge meat eater.

Uh so you have a normal diet? The elitism and need to constantly throw digs at vegetarians/vegans that can be associated with meat eaters I don't particularly care for either. 

 

Happens everywhere daily to vegetarians and vegans but I'll use an example from aven, a few days ago I open up aven chat and people are randomly making fun of veganism. This is what you would see every day if people like you weren't on the other side doing this and then publicly complaining about some imaginary "elitism" of vegans (which is really just part of the harassment of vegans and vegetarians). Vegetarians and vegans aren't allowed to make their own choices without being "elitist".

[N8ty L3asT]

11 hours ago, WoodwindWhistler said:

Or, just couldn’t empathize with fish-eyed stares. Treat with understanding and patience. 

Could be said for crickets and even plants. They pain just as much as any other living creature they just can’t express it in way we can’t perceive or don’t notice.

[Phalena]

8 hours ago, WoodwindWhistler said:

1. However, it's not possible for some people to eat 100% vegan, whether because they're in a third world country (where hunting and eating animals/meat is the only way for people in rural areas to survive)

I guess I should have covered that in "hunted meat." But yes, that's sort of a "duh." 

 

2. because they can't afford to see a doctor and/or buy all of the dietary pills they'd need while eating a vegan diet (to prevent anemia.) For some people, eating a bit of meat, dairy, etc. is cheaper, more cost effective, etc. than buying dietary vitamins.

If they can't afford to see a doctor, then plant based is definitely the way to go, seeing as meat causes the majority of chronic illnesses that require intensive, expensive, long term doctor care. 

 

Rice, beans, oatmeal, and potatoes as staples of a diet are WORLDS cheaper than meat. Like, by orders of ten. This is a common myth. That veganism is "expensive," when in fact, statistically half of vegans are below the poverty line and are healthier than moderately wealthy people eating average diets. 

 

3. Excessive worrying about eating only healthy foods, caused me to develop an eating disorder, as a teen, where I wasn't eating much. Also, trying to stick to a vegan diet, eventually, caused my body to develop anemia, due to not having enough B vitamins, etc., in my body from meat or diary products.

 

You had anxiety tendencies that caused your eating disorder. It has nothing to do directly with healthy foods. It's just want you happened to fixate on. People who switch to healthy foods, in fact, again statistically, see vast improvement in mental health. 

 

Your healthcare providers were obviously not informed enough to advise you on a proper vegan diet. MDs are not trained in nutrition. I am sorry the education system failed you so epically, and that you had to go through all that suffering. 

 

4. Eating meat and diary products helped my body, brain, etc. feel better; otherwise, I probably would've died and/or my body would've developed more serious health problems, like others with eating disorders have had, if I'd tried to continue to restrict my diet and try to be 100% vegan, all the time.

 

Again, lack of information. Probably lack of DHA and EPA, which some VEGANS aren't even informed on. 

But why having to be informed about all these (complicated) things not even healthcarers seem to know about when consuming meat does the trick? (And maybe please don't try to diagnose the reasons for anxiety and eating disorders from afar, that's leaning far out of the window.)

[WoodwindWhistler]

12 hours ago, Ace of Mind said:

Squids are frickin' tasty tho

 

I'd be munching them regardless but apparently they're also undergoing a large population explosion due to poor fishing practices so 🍽️ 🦑

Hm, I  don't know much about squids. I don't know if they're toxic or not. Though going by general ecological laws of trophic magnification, they're probably toxic as any other predatory ocean dweller. That basically means that the higher you are on the food chain, the more toxins you accumulate because you're consuming something that already gathered a bunch of toxins on the lower food web rungs. 

 

I also know that octopi are INCREDIBLY emotional and intelligent, though they are a completely different animal clade than squids. 

[WoodwindWhistler]

12 hours ago, SithApprentice said:

Eating meat is natural for humans.

Nope, not at all. Google "Why lions don't get heart disease." 

We can physiologically *tolerate* a little bit of meat in our diets, for sure. But then again, so can horses. Calvary horses of armies of the past were trained to kill and eat people. They still had to get most of their nutrition from grass, naturally. 

 

We are not herbivores, though. We're frugivores. 

 

We can't break down cellulose like herbivores. 

 

Unlike true omnivores, like bears, or carnivores, like lions, our gallbladders easily get overwhelmed by the amount of fat in meat. A certain compound in red meat even contributes to diabetes. 
 

Type 2 diabetes is reversible on a plant based diet. Meanwhile, people are getting nerve damage from eating too much sugar. Sad. 

 

I don't know what doctors you are citing, but as I said in another reply, many MDs have received no nutrition training whatsoever. A dietician with a degree in it is the only one who should actually be consulted in their area of expertise. Just like you wouldn't go to a heart doctor for a kidney problem. You should never consult an MD for nutrition. 

 

There is a program in my area that has reversed diabetes for people with plant based diets. So again, lack of proper information. 

[WoodwindWhistler]

9 hours ago, MiffKeks said:

But why having to be informed about all these (complicated) things not even healthcarers seem to know about when consuming meat does the trick? (And maybe please don't try to diagnose the reasons for anxiety and eating disorders from afar, that's leaning far out of the window.)

Consuming meat 'does the trick' while loading you down with other problems. Fish is ok, health wise. It's just that with the ocean polluted as it is in the modern era, it's not advisable and a headache to find the 'right' ones. 

 

Conveniently, omega-3 supplements have outperformed some anti-depressants in many cases. (whereas farmed meat is laden with omega-6) It's all interrelated. 

[Phalena]

51 minutes ago, WoodwindWhistler said:

Consuming meat 'does the trick' while loading you down with other problems. Fish is ok, health wise. It's just that with the ocean polluted as it is in the modern era, it's not advisable and a headache to find the 'right' ones. 

 

Conveniently, omega-3 supplements have outperformed some anti-depressants in many cases. (whereas farmed meat is laden with omega-6) It's all interrelated. 

So, what you're essentially saying is: no matter what we eat, we'll lose.

[WoodwindWhistler]

16 minutes ago, MiffKeks said:

So, what you're essentially saying is: no matter what we eat, we'll lose.

No, for the third or fourth time, I thought I made a pretty strong case to eat cricket flour products!!

 

Or if you want to put in the legwork, fish. 

[WoodwindWhistler]

13 hours ago, SithApprentice said:

This post seems to just be a holier-than-thou approach to diets.

I mean yes, the tone is snarky. But facts are facts. Vegans objectively do less damage to the planet, animals, and the food supply. Sorry reality is so harsh. Try to cope with it. 

 

@natsume

[WoodwindWhistler]

14 hours ago, CBC said:

You're the one who's asserted ten million times now that women don't desire/enjoy PiV sex, which is bullshit because many do.

Again denying studies is not a good look. 

 

I was attempting to help you, no matter how you take it. 

[WoodwindWhistler]

12 hours ago, N8FALL said:

Could be said for crickets and even plants. They pain just as much as any other living creature they just can’t express it in way we can’t perceive or don’t notice.

I covered this in a previous reply. Some people are naturally less empathetic, so expecting people who may not even feel a lot of empathy for other humans for various reasons is a pretty tall order. So I appeal to logic as much as emotion. 

 

If you are of the type that wishes for plants not to die, check out Jainism. And also realize that veganism kills around ten times less plants than meat eating, because you have to stuff a calf full of A LOT of plants over months, to grow it into adulthood and eat it only once. 

[Phalena]

21 minutes ago, WoodwindWhistler said:

No, for the third or fourth time, I thought I made a pretty strong case to eat cricket flour products!!

 

Or if you want to put in the legwork, fish. 

But not any type of fish is edible. In an actually fair world all peoples would consume the products they can find and produce in relative proximity. I'm living in the middle of the continent. Fishing has never been a big thing here.

The fish industry and what it does can't stay free of objection, either.

[Missing]

1 hour ago, WoodwindWhistler said:

Nope, not at all. Google "Why lions don't get heart disease." 

We can physiologically *tolerate* a little bit of meat in our diets, for sure. But then again, so can horses. Calvary horses of armies of the past were trained to kill and eat people. They still had to get most of their nutrition from grass, naturally. 

Vegetarian human cultures are exceptionally rare. While humans can and do thrive on plant-based diets, the vast majority of human cultures do naturally include meat in their diets. I think ignoring this nearly universal tendency would be a poor observation of the dietary patterns humans naturally develop. Regardless of which other animals’ digestive systems ours most closely resembles, it’s natural for humans to include meat in our diets because the benefits of doing so have more often than not outweighed the costs.

[Skycaptain]

Don't care about all this. I like my meat and that's that 

[Guest]

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, MiffKeks said:

But not any type of fish is edible

Sure they are, probably it'll be a one time experience

[Phalena]

2 minutes ago, Phoenix the II said:

Sure they are, probably it'll be a one time experience

😄😄 Ah, shoot! I forgot! How about combining them with those beautiful, colourful funghi I found in the forest!

[Guest]

Just now, MiffKeks said:

😄😄 Ah, shoot! I forgot! How about combining them with those beautiful, colourful funghi I found in the forest!

[N8ty L3asT]

2 hours ago, WoodwindWhistler said:

Spoiler

I covered this in a previous reply. Some people are naturally less empathetic, so expecting people who may not even feel a lot of empathy for other humans for various reasons is a pretty tall order. So I appeal to logic as much as emotion. 

 

If you are of the type that wishes for plants not to die, check out Jainism. And also realize that veganism kills around ten times less plants than meat eating, because you have to stuff a calf full of A LOT of plants over months, to grow it into adulthood and eat it only once. 

 

I can understand that, I think people should eat how what aligns with they’re preferences. For me personally I cut out all meat if there was a reasonably priced and readily available substitute, I really like tofu but the ones in stores are to rubbery and don’t taste fresh.

 

 

[Janus the Fox]

16 hours ago, Ace of Mind said:

Squids are frickin' tasty tho

Wish it did for me, last time I had Squid was on holiday and the family ordered what looked like Onion Rings, until trying to bite through one.  Squid Rings are a thing so that seems.

[Ace of Mind]

15 minutes ago, Janus DarkFox said:

Wish it did for me, last time I had Squid was on holiday and the family ordered what looked like Onion Rings, until trying to bite through one.  Squid Rings are a thing so that seems.

that's a common preparation of squid. their bodies are tubes! once cleaned and prepped, the part that's eaten is essentially the hollow cone/cylinder on the outside that gives them their distinctive shape, which is then sliced into rings. The tentacles are the other part that's eaten, and are even tastier in my opinion. 

 

Most commercially harvested squids are relatively small in size, short lived, and relatively low on the food chain so the accumulated toxins would likely be comparable or less than most fish options.

[Pandark]

Even though I believe veganism to be appropriate, I have found talking about it hardly worth my breath. People in general don't like Jehovah's witnesses, they don't like aggressive sales people and they don't like persuasive vegans. All the information about human demand, the earth's resources and animal suffering is widely available. Anyone who is interested will simply look it up.

[Philip027]

In the time you took to write this one post, I've eaten three (give or take) of each of the things you listed.  If the post is any indication, I clearly enjoyed myself much more whilst doing so, too.

 

Obviously, the only truly ethical thing for us to do would be for all of us to kill ourselves, because pretty much everything doesn't want to be eaten, and as long as we're alive, we gotta eat stuff.  We don't gotta eat anymore if we're dead.

 

But -- and here's the funny thing -- I pretty much never see any of the people trying to shame/judge others for what they eat adapting that particular train of thought to themselves.  It's almost like they aren't actually Holier Than Thou Rest Of Us as they want everyone else to believe; they can't seem to put their money where their mouth is.  I wonder why that is.

 

(Modly disclaimer, since I know how touchy this place gets: I am not advocating for myself or anyone else to actually kill themselves.  It was purely a theoretical example meant to highlight hypocrisy.  Do Not Try This At Home, etc.)

 

Quote

But honestly, I can’t come up with a lot of ethical defenses for turkeys. They’re pretty dumb.

So if something is "dumb", it's okay to eat/kill.  This at the same time we're being preached at about ethics.

 

 

Quote

Honestly, the people on this site tend to be much more aware of the world at large than your average allosexual, if only because we tend to be nerds and feel out of place in general.

Wow, you picked a very bizarre hill to die on, there.

 

(Modly disclaimer #2: No actual death has occurred or will occur on said hill.  The hill also isn't real.  It is a figure of speech used to refer to one's such fervent/excessive devotion to a cause that they end up tarnishing or destroying their own argument/reputation in the process of defending it.)

[Missing]

4 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

Obviously, the only truly ethical thing for us to do would be for all of us to kill ourselves, because pretty much everything doesn't want to be eaten, and as long as we're alive, we gotta eat stuff.  We don't gotta eat anymore if we're dead.

Couldn’t you use this line of reasoning to justify anything, though? If your argument for why it’s okay to eat meat as opposed to a purely plant-based diet is because purely plant-based diets still cause some harm, couldn’t someone use the same logic and say that the reason it’s okay for them to murder people is because even a lifestyle of not murdering anyone still causes some harm? Is it hypocritical to advocate for people to not murder each other in the interest of harm reduction despite the fact that some harm is unavoidable in life?

[Philip027]

I'll be honest, I don't understand the point you're trying to make.  All I was saying is that if you're going to rag on people for eating stuff because it's "unethical", it's going to fall pretty flat if you're eating stuff too.

[Missing]

5 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

I'll be honest, I don't understand the point you're trying to make.  All I was saying is that if you're going to rag on people for eating stuff because it's "unethical", it's going to fall pretty flat if you're eating stuff too.

The point I’m making is that despite there being some harm associated with any diet, some of those diets cause more harm than others. For example, we could probably agree that killing humans for food is an unethical diet to choose when other, less harmful diets are available, because it causes unnecessary harm to the humans you’re killing for food. If that cannibal said that it’s hypocritical for to rag on them for eating humans because “you’re eating stuff too,” how would their argument be different from yours?

[Philip027]

I'm not trying to make an argument on the basis of harm quantification (what action causes more/less "harm" than another action, which is itself debatable), so I don't see how the cannibal's argument relates to mine at all.  I'm also not the one trying to judge what others eat.

 

So no, I'm still not quite following.

[Missing]

8 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

I'm not trying to make an argument on the basis of harm quantification

Right, you’re making an argument that someone is being hypocritical if they condemn one diet as unethical despite the fact that all diets involve eating things that don’t want to be eaten (though that’s debatable since plants don’t necessarily want anything, but we can ignore that for now). But it’s not hypocritical if they determine what is or is not ethical based on harm reduction, because a vegan diet would result in less harm than one involving animal products. It would be hypocritical if they expected everyone’s diets to be maximally harmless despite no one being able to achieve that, but if they just have a different idea of what’s a tolerable amount of harm to cause, then it’s not hypocritical to rag on people for not meeting that standard if they meet that standard themselves. There are plenty of other issues that can arise with ragging on people for their dietary choices, but hypocrisy isn’t inherently one of them. It can be, but it isn’t always.

[SithLord]

5 hours ago, WoodwindWhistler said:

I mean yes, the tone is snarky. But facts are facts. 

Then I guess there's no reason to bother talking with you since there's literally nothing we can say for you to listen to us. 

 

As for:

6 hours ago, WoodwindWhistler said:

19 hours ago, SithApprentice said:

Eating meat is natural for humans.

Nope, not at all.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/12/23/how-humans-evolved-to-be-natural-omnivores/?sh=5de74a1f7af5

vrg.org/nutshell/omni.htm

https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/51664/what-makes-humans-omnivores-and-not-herbivores

/r/biology, Wikipedia, NPR, and biology textbooks agree we're omnivores, etc. etc. 

 

Most agree that we consume meat by choice, but there's evidence to prove we've evolved to eat both meat and vegetables.

[Philip027]

Quote

It would be hypocritical if they expected everyone’s diets to be maximally harmless

I take this to mean you didn't even read the first post, because pretty much every kind of eating habit listed has some aspect about it that's being critiqued and judged.