The pseudo-science uncovered!?
Read these articles, what do you think of them? I can assure you they are all scientifically sound, unlike most of the vetarian arguments.
http://www.lloydianaspects.co.uk/opinion. (don't worry, title is sarcastic)
http://www.becomehealthynow.com/article/.
http://www.becomehealthynow.com/article/.
Does this sory of bash the reasons you had of becoming Veggie? (Assuming you aren't one because you don't like the taste or don't like the fact of animals dying (Lloyd hits on that, but I don't personally agree with him on that level, I think that's to do with over sensitivity))
And, for reference, if you are going to try to make a point that has been made in either of the arguments, but from the opposite side, cite evidence or there really is no point.
Answers:
Excellent links!
I went through life oblivious to the 'cause' that is Vegan until a few years ago. I was minding my own business driving around town making sales calls to clients and stopped at KFC for a quick lunch. Thinking the hullabaloo out front was some marketing ploy, I duly ignored it until I was struck in the left temple by a piece of broken concrete the size of a naval orange thrown by a 52 year-old rabid cat-lady!
It seems I had "crossed their line in the sand" and their retribution would be fierce.
Knocked to the ground stunned, I was assisted by several onlookers and within minutes was on my way to the emergency room with a severe concussion.
My attacker was arrested and charged but the state negotiated a plea-bargain with the heavily-medicated Vegan-terrorist and she got off with Community Service.
I have extracted justice from this individual in several ways since, however fear of prosecution prohibits me listing them here. Suffice to say, she has suffered tenfold what I endured with a spliting headache for a few days. I am by nature a patient, plotting, creative and very vengeful person and the injury could not go unpunished.
As to her militant Terrorist-Vegan friends, I was surprised to learn just how organized and how militant this group of self-loathing social misfits and outcasts could be. It seems I have a leader of this violent movement right near my home.. a professor at a public university no less.. and I have made a career of tracking and monitoring this individuals activities and movements.
What I have learned about these people is shocking. Driven by a fierce pathology, they view violence against persons and property justified in their cause. They are criminals of the worst kind and need to be hunted down like Al Quida.
We are designed for a mixed or omnivorous diet. Our teeth are a mix of carnivore and leaf eating teeth. Our digestive system is quite long but with strong stomach acid and no ruminant pouch.
Not all foods are safe or healthy for all people. A general healthy diet consists of a high percentage of green leafy veg, saladstuff, fruit and vegetables, complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, some protein, some fats. How we choose to fill those requirements is a matter of choice.
In the West we have the luxury of choice. We cannot bang on about freedom then bash other people for making their own choice, whichever choice the other person makes.
Intolerance is the biggest problem in Western society today, and our attitudes are having a knock on effect on the rest of the world.
First, I am not a vegetarian. I would like to be a vegetarian. If I were single, and did not have to feed my boyfriend, I would be a vegetarian. Instead, I eat mostly vegetables and a very small amount of lean meat, to compromise between me and my boyfriend's preferred diets. Luckily for my ensuing arguments, I don't actually care whether or not a vegetarian diet is healthy or not. The reason I want to become a vegetarian is more because of the moral qualms I have with the meat industry than because I feel that a vegetarian diet is healthy. I do try to eat healthy by eating vegetables for most of my meal, but then again, health experts often suggest that your meals consist of 50% fruits and vegetables, 25% lean protein (not necessarily meat), 25% whole grains, and a very small amount of fats and oils (which are generally infused in the cooking process anyway). If you're going to start arguing with that, I'm going to have to find a bunch of sources, and I'm lazy so let's just leave it at that.
Really quickly, because I'm not interested in talking about myself, the reason I prefer vegetarianism is because I really like animals. I'm an animal-lover, to put it bluntly. I have pets, in particular, a rabbit with a fun and quirky personality. To me, it seems hypocritical for me to go out to dinner and have a nice rabbit stew and go home and pet my bunny. It strikes me as illogical. You can more or less see where this argument is going. I just don't think that animals are different enough from humans that people can say that it's okay to enclose 50 pigs in a pen so small they can't move an inch unless the whole mass rotates, but you can't kill a baby, which has much less personality than some of these animals. I don't want to have a moral system that says humans are okay to be killed, so I don't think animals should be killed either. If you still don't believe me, go to PETA's website and watch their video (I think it's called something like 50 reasons to become a vegetarian) and keep watching other videos on their site. If that doesn't make you gag, then you don't have enough compassion for me to care about what you think anyway. In the end, I do eat meat, but I think it is possibly wrong to do so.
Now for the arguments that Lloyd makes on your first link. My first thought after reading these were that these were arguments were never made by any vegetarian at all. Instead, they are made by people who assume they know why vegetarians eat what they eat, so basically, this man made a straw argument and knocked it down easily. Nowhere does he address my "humanitarian" concerns. I don't think a vegetarian diet is necessarily healthy -- I know from experience that it's perfectly possible to eat meat and still eat a healthy diet. It's not even very difficult. Also, I don't think that vegetarians are not fat. I know many fat vegetarians. Eat enough pizza, and you'll gain weight, easy. Beer does the trick, too. However, if you were one of those hard-core naturalist vegans that only eats raw food, I suppose you could get pretty dangerously skinny. I don't think that's healthy, however. Lloyd follows this argument with something about bacteria in the gut, which anyone with a brain should know is ridiculous.
The next question gets closer to the heart of the issue. If it is immoral to eat animals, why is it not immoral to eat plants? Sure, plants are alive. I know that. I survived biology in high school. However, everyone draws a line where they think morality lays. Most people draw the line at huamns -- it's okay to eat everything but humans, basically. I draw my line a little lower -- it's okay to eat anything without a nervous system. Plants don't have a nervous system, so I can't be risking eating anything that might be a person. Anyway, I should hope that plants are alive -- otherwise, how could we get any nutrition out of them?
Next there is an argument involving anthropology, which I also don't care about. Of course primitive man would eat meat. First of all, he doesn't care about right and wrong, only about survival. Secondly, meat is packed with nutrition. I'm not arguing that it is without nutrition at all. However, if you believe as I do, that killing animals for food is wrong, then it doesn't matter if they taste good or if they are good source of nutrition -- humans probably taste pretty good, too, like chicken. That doesn't make it okay to eat them.
Next comes a more interesting argument about sustainability. I wish I had my resources here to quote some numbers, but I don't. But people on a vegetarian diet require a lot less land to produce their nutrition than do people on a meat diet. So there would be less destruction of the ecosystem via farming. Also, we already grow lots and lots of vegetables, enough to feed the whole world -- but we feed it to animals instead, so that they are tasty to eat. I'll list a source for this below, you can check the numbers yourself if you are so inclined.
Again, I think it is wrong to kill animals for food, so it is also wrong to use their products because they cannot give their permission. I do it anyway, even though I think it's wrong, because I am essentially lazy and a bad person. Anyway, I have to point out that I disagree with the following statement made by Lloyd: "Being domesticated is one of the best things that can happen to a species." What?! If humans wipe themselves off the face of the planet, domesticated animals will NOT be able to survive. We have interfered with evolution through breeding programs, and these animals can no longer live on their own. I think that's wrong, morally speaking.
Yes, farmers care about the welfare of their animals, but not enough. You may care about the welfare of your children, but would you eat them? I think this is partially a survival mechanism and partially a bonding with the natural world.
I'm skipping a few questions here because Lloyd repeats the substance of his arguments and continues making straw arguments no one but himself believes. Also, I am running out of ranting time here. I'm pretty sure my above arguments are substantial enough.
Apparently Lloyd thinks no one dislikes the taste of meat. If you think it is wrong to kill animals, I assure you, meat can taste pretty gross. On the other hand, everything tastes good when you're hungry.
Lastly, the "real" reason Lloyd thinks that people become vegetarians is to become more pure. He thinks this is a developing trend. I have bad news for Lloyd -- Vegetarianism as a source of purity has been practiced for milennia. Many great thinkers and religious asthetics put themselves on a no-meat diet to become more pure or closer to god. Where is the contradiction here? What's the problem? If eating meat is immoral, then OBVIOUSLY you are going to become a better person by not eating it.
The last line, the one that will send me back to work from lunch laughing my *** off, is the following line: "women use vegetarianism to test men. By requiring men to deny themselves pleasure, they test the resolve of the men, and their loyalty". I can disprove this easily, by pointing to completely unnatached or homosexual men who are also vegetarians. My office mate is one. There you go. Disproved. Also, this is clearly a sexist argument. End of story.
Whew. So, I don't have room or time to debate your other sources, but this Lloyd fellow really has too much time on his hands if he enjoys drawing up straw arguments that are flimsy and easily knocked down.
In the end, it all comes down to personal choice. What is the big threat with someone wanting to be a vegetarian? It doesn't have to affect you, why get so upset about it?
Was Panda cola the worst soft drink in the world?
greggs xmas mince pies marks out of ten?
whats are your favourite alcoholic drinks and why?
mushy peas or curry sauce on yer big fat chips?
Has anyone saved the chicken and mango recipe from last Sunday's YOU magazine?
does your chewing gum lose its flavour on the bedpost overnight?
Nice, countryside pubs in Kent - do you know of any?
hiiiiiiiiiiiii neeeeeed helppppppppppppppppppp nowwwwwwwwwww?
Food & drink i can't find anymore ?
http://www.lloydianaspects.co.uk/opinion. (don't worry, title is sarcastic)
http://www.becomehealthynow.com/article/.
http://www.becomehealthynow.com/article/.
Does this sory of bash the reasons you had of becoming Veggie? (Assuming you aren't one because you don't like the taste or don't like the fact of animals dying (Lloyd hits on that, but I don't personally agree with him on that level, I think that's to do with over sensitivity))
And, for reference, if you are going to try to make a point that has been made in either of the arguments, but from the opposite side, cite evidence or there really is no point.
Answers:
Excellent links!
I went through life oblivious to the 'cause' that is Vegan until a few years ago. I was minding my own business driving around town making sales calls to clients and stopped at KFC for a quick lunch. Thinking the hullabaloo out front was some marketing ploy, I duly ignored it until I was struck in the left temple by a piece of broken concrete the size of a naval orange thrown by a 52 year-old rabid cat-lady!
It seems I had "crossed their line in the sand" and their retribution would be fierce.
Knocked to the ground stunned, I was assisted by several onlookers and within minutes was on my way to the emergency room with a severe concussion.
My attacker was arrested and charged but the state negotiated a plea-bargain with the heavily-medicated Vegan-terrorist and she got off with Community Service.
I have extracted justice from this individual in several ways since, however fear of prosecution prohibits me listing them here. Suffice to say, she has suffered tenfold what I endured with a spliting headache for a few days. I am by nature a patient, plotting, creative and very vengeful person and the injury could not go unpunished.
As to her militant Terrorist-Vegan friends, I was surprised to learn just how organized and how militant this group of self-loathing social misfits and outcasts could be. It seems I have a leader of this violent movement right near my home.. a professor at a public university no less.. and I have made a career of tracking and monitoring this individuals activities and movements.
What I have learned about these people is shocking. Driven by a fierce pathology, they view violence against persons and property justified in their cause. They are criminals of the worst kind and need to be hunted down like Al Quida.
We are designed for a mixed or omnivorous diet. Our teeth are a mix of carnivore and leaf eating teeth. Our digestive system is quite long but with strong stomach acid and no ruminant pouch.
Not all foods are safe or healthy for all people. A general healthy diet consists of a high percentage of green leafy veg, saladstuff, fruit and vegetables, complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, some protein, some fats. How we choose to fill those requirements is a matter of choice.
In the West we have the luxury of choice. We cannot bang on about freedom then bash other people for making their own choice, whichever choice the other person makes.
Intolerance is the biggest problem in Western society today, and our attitudes are having a knock on effect on the rest of the world.
First, I am not a vegetarian. I would like to be a vegetarian. If I were single, and did not have to feed my boyfriend, I would be a vegetarian. Instead, I eat mostly vegetables and a very small amount of lean meat, to compromise between me and my boyfriend's preferred diets. Luckily for my ensuing arguments, I don't actually care whether or not a vegetarian diet is healthy or not. The reason I want to become a vegetarian is more because of the moral qualms I have with the meat industry than because I feel that a vegetarian diet is healthy. I do try to eat healthy by eating vegetables for most of my meal, but then again, health experts often suggest that your meals consist of 50% fruits and vegetables, 25% lean protein (not necessarily meat), 25% whole grains, and a very small amount of fats and oils (which are generally infused in the cooking process anyway). If you're going to start arguing with that, I'm going to have to find a bunch of sources, and I'm lazy so let's just leave it at that.
Really quickly, because I'm not interested in talking about myself, the reason I prefer vegetarianism is because I really like animals. I'm an animal-lover, to put it bluntly. I have pets, in particular, a rabbit with a fun and quirky personality. To me, it seems hypocritical for me to go out to dinner and have a nice rabbit stew and go home and pet my bunny. It strikes me as illogical. You can more or less see where this argument is going. I just don't think that animals are different enough from humans that people can say that it's okay to enclose 50 pigs in a pen so small they can't move an inch unless the whole mass rotates, but you can't kill a baby, which has much less personality than some of these animals. I don't want to have a moral system that says humans are okay to be killed, so I don't think animals should be killed either. If you still don't believe me, go to PETA's website and watch their video (I think it's called something like 50 reasons to become a vegetarian) and keep watching other videos on their site. If that doesn't make you gag, then you don't have enough compassion for me to care about what you think anyway. In the end, I do eat meat, but I think it is possibly wrong to do so.
Now for the arguments that Lloyd makes on your first link. My first thought after reading these were that these were arguments were never made by any vegetarian at all. Instead, they are made by people who assume they know why vegetarians eat what they eat, so basically, this man made a straw argument and knocked it down easily. Nowhere does he address my "humanitarian" concerns. I don't think a vegetarian diet is necessarily healthy -- I know from experience that it's perfectly possible to eat meat and still eat a healthy diet. It's not even very difficult. Also, I don't think that vegetarians are not fat. I know many fat vegetarians. Eat enough pizza, and you'll gain weight, easy. Beer does the trick, too. However, if you were one of those hard-core naturalist vegans that only eats raw food, I suppose you could get pretty dangerously skinny. I don't think that's healthy, however. Lloyd follows this argument with something about bacteria in the gut, which anyone with a brain should know is ridiculous.
The next question gets closer to the heart of the issue. If it is immoral to eat animals, why is it not immoral to eat plants? Sure, plants are alive. I know that. I survived biology in high school. However, everyone draws a line where they think morality lays. Most people draw the line at huamns -- it's okay to eat everything but humans, basically. I draw my line a little lower -- it's okay to eat anything without a nervous system. Plants don't have a nervous system, so I can't be risking eating anything that might be a person. Anyway, I should hope that plants are alive -- otherwise, how could we get any nutrition out of them?
Next there is an argument involving anthropology, which I also don't care about. Of course primitive man would eat meat. First of all, he doesn't care about right and wrong, only about survival. Secondly, meat is packed with nutrition. I'm not arguing that it is without nutrition at all. However, if you believe as I do, that killing animals for food is wrong, then it doesn't matter if they taste good or if they are good source of nutrition -- humans probably taste pretty good, too, like chicken. That doesn't make it okay to eat them.
Next comes a more interesting argument about sustainability. I wish I had my resources here to quote some numbers, but I don't. But people on a vegetarian diet require a lot less land to produce their nutrition than do people on a meat diet. So there would be less destruction of the ecosystem via farming. Also, we already grow lots and lots of vegetables, enough to feed the whole world -- but we feed it to animals instead, so that they are tasty to eat. I'll list a source for this below, you can check the numbers yourself if you are so inclined.
Again, I think it is wrong to kill animals for food, so it is also wrong to use their products because they cannot give their permission. I do it anyway, even though I think it's wrong, because I am essentially lazy and a bad person. Anyway, I have to point out that I disagree with the following statement made by Lloyd: "Being domesticated is one of the best things that can happen to a species." What?! If humans wipe themselves off the face of the planet, domesticated animals will NOT be able to survive. We have interfered with evolution through breeding programs, and these animals can no longer live on their own. I think that's wrong, morally speaking.
Yes, farmers care about the welfare of their animals, but not enough. You may care about the welfare of your children, but would you eat them? I think this is partially a survival mechanism and partially a bonding with the natural world.
I'm skipping a few questions here because Lloyd repeats the substance of his arguments and continues making straw arguments no one but himself believes. Also, I am running out of ranting time here. I'm pretty sure my above arguments are substantial enough.
Apparently Lloyd thinks no one dislikes the taste of meat. If you think it is wrong to kill animals, I assure you, meat can taste pretty gross. On the other hand, everything tastes good when you're hungry.
Lastly, the "real" reason Lloyd thinks that people become vegetarians is to become more pure. He thinks this is a developing trend. I have bad news for Lloyd -- Vegetarianism as a source of purity has been practiced for milennia. Many great thinkers and religious asthetics put themselves on a no-meat diet to become more pure or closer to god. Where is the contradiction here? What's the problem? If eating meat is immoral, then OBVIOUSLY you are going to become a better person by not eating it.
The last line, the one that will send me back to work from lunch laughing my *** off, is the following line: "women use vegetarianism to test men. By requiring men to deny themselves pleasure, they test the resolve of the men, and their loyalty". I can disprove this easily, by pointing to completely unnatached or homosexual men who are also vegetarians. My office mate is one. There you go. Disproved. Also, this is clearly a sexist argument. End of story.
Whew. So, I don't have room or time to debate your other sources, but this Lloyd fellow really has too much time on his hands if he enjoys drawing up straw arguments that are flimsy and easily knocked down.
In the end, it all comes down to personal choice. What is the big threat with someone wanting to be a vegetarian? It doesn't have to affect you, why get so upset about it?
The answers post by the user, for information only, UKQnA.com does not guarantee the right.