Meat Eater vs. Vegetarian debate

[Nuke]

boxed dinners are a scam. they put a few pennies of noodles and some mystery powder in a box and have the gall to charge $3.50 a box. once you learn how to make the sauces everything else gets easier. and bulk packages of cheap noodles is all you need.

ultimately i found out the trick was to use olive oil for frying. it burns at a much higher tempurature than other oils. asian cooking also sometimes uses peanut or sesame oil, but olive oil has worked great for me. if you are frying vegies a mix of oil and water is nice and will keep the veggies from sticking. i learned this trick by watching the cooks at a mongolian bbq. lots of recipes involve dredging your meat in corn starch and frying it in oil prior to adding it to veggies, noodles, etc and throwing some sauce on it. so learn how to make sauces. im kind of out of practice, i cook for a bunch of people who dont eat their veggies and cant afford to make separate meals for everybody.

Edited April 23, 2014 by Nuke

[dharak1]

My motto is generally "If it tastes good I'll eat it." That said I'm sure there are plenty of horrible things that taste good. Meat generally isn't one of them when cooked. I know you are supposed to eat it in moderation but most effects are long term. My response to some animals being smart is wait until they are smart enough to get out.

[Red Iron Crown]

Being edible by humans tends to make species very successful, because we generally make sure they reproduce a lot.

[Duxwing]

Both sides are wrong: food is the problem. We should stop eating living things and instead drink artificial glucose laced with artificial nutrients and artificial flavors and three-dimensionally printed and textured into meals. With enough conviction, we could change the world in the three weeks needed to habituate ourselves to the new diet, which would become more palatable with each improvement in flavoring and printing.

-Duxwing

[KASASpace]

It was increased brain size and intelligence that permitted the mastery of fire. Our ancestors were eating meat long before fire.

Yes, but it increased more after fire cooked the meat, which made it safer to eat than it was previously.

[mrfox]

It's OK to eat other humans?

I believe that killing and eating self-aware, sentient beings (such as humans, dolphins, apes, elephants, and maybe even a handful of bird species) is an affront to the sanctity and dignity of intelligent beings everywhere. No intelligent being should be killed by another intelligent being JUST TO BE SERVED UP ON A DINNER PLATE. It's revolting. It is also displaying of an utter lack of regard to the suffering of those beings. Why kill an intelligent being when it would be so much easier to just kill a stupid one? I used to live on a farm. Cows are STUPID. They have personalities, they have a limited sentience, yes, but it is not even close to the level displayed by the self-aware animal species. The ability for cows to suffer is much reduced compared to the ability for a human to suffer.

Anyway, if you kill intelligent species for nothing more than their flesh (or their tusks, or fur, or whatever), you would really have no moral standing AT ALL to complain if, like, aliens landed and decided to dine on YOU. You'd be a total hypocrite to object on moral grounds to being eaten.

Intelligent, self-aware beings deserve protection, NO MATTER THE SPECIES. We need to step up our efforts to protect our ape cousins; we need to stop the barbaric slaughter of whales and dolphins by the Japanese, and we need to closely examine the intelligent animals we keep in captivity, and determine if it is really humane and necessary to keep them. We need to do these things because it's the right thing to do.

But you never know- with the potential advent of machine intelligences in the coming decades, we might find OURSELVES to be an "inferior" species on this planet in the not-too-distant future. In case that comes to pass, I think it is IMPORTANT to set the moral high ground now, while there is still time. We should treat our "inferiors" as we would want our "superiors" to treat us!!!

Anyway, I'm hungry. I think I'll go grab a cheeseburger

There is a big difference between humans and the other animals mentioned - between humans, there is an implicite (or explicite) agreement for us not to eat each other. We cannot make the same compact with dolphins/apes/etc.

Along this same line of thinking, there is a distinct difference between eating dogs/cats/pigs domesticated as pets (trained not to harm their human owners - hence, a mutual compact exists) vs those same animals bred for food.

[TheDataMiner]

Both sides are wrong: food is the problem. We should stop eating living things and instead drink artificial glucose laced with artificial nutrients and artificial flavors and three-dimensionally printed and textured into meals. With enough conviction, we could change the world in the three weeks needed to habituate ourselves to the new diet, which would become more palatable with each improvement in flavoring and printing.

-Duxwing

You should be ashamed for even thinking we should do that.

Anyway, cattle are pretty bad for the environment, but I think that that problem will solve itself when we can grow meat in the lab effectively.

As long as it tastes like it was made in a cow, it's fine with me.

[Red Iron Crown]

Yes, but it increased more after fire cooked the meat, which made it safer to eat than it was previously.

Yeah, a bit of a virtuous cycle there. Fire also made a greater variety of plants edible to humans, too, so I guess it improved both the carnivorous and herbivorous portions of the diet. Gave new options for preservation as well.

Mastery of fire would eventually lead us to boosters, the sign of any truly evolved species.

[Sillychris]

You can't make strawberry bacon smoothies without meat... just sayin'.

[jwenting]

Yes, but it increased more after fire cooked the meat, which made it safer to eat than it was previously.

mostly because it allowed the food to be stored longer, allowing the human groups to build up stockpiles, reducing starvation.

[Unit327]

The main culprit seems to be cows, not meat in general. They fart.... a LOT. And Methane has a lot more potency to do damage than CO2

You also need to factor in the energy consumption and CO2 emissions from growing the animals' feed. I think a large portion of this energy cost comes from fertilizer production.

Cows also require quite a lot of land to be cleared, leading to deforestation and therefore less CO2 absorption. Other animals require far less land, but if you go too far you end up with factory farming and its ethical concerns.

[Nuke]

You can't make strawberry bacon smoothies without meat... just sayin'.

or maple bacon doughnuts

[Simon Ross]

If God didn't mean us to eat animals. why did he make them so delicious :-)

[78stonewobble]

I'm not prepared to give up meat anymore than most everyone else in the industrialised world is prepared to give up having kids or their own life. Because it uses x amount of ressources more, that could let an even bigger amount of humans in the third world survive.

No, beyond a certain point. I just don't care much, just like everyone else.

[KerikBalm]

It wasn't an argument, it was a joke - laced with some truth. Maybe it is just the peoples' personalities I've encountered that feel the fact to bring up repeatedly they are vegetarian.

As far as post 14, you're free to make that statement, and I will simply say you aren't looking at it close enough. Think it through, to the logical and and you'll see it.

Hmmm, so here's how I perceive your joke: Ridiculing vegetarians for being arrogant and self- righteous.

Then you come with "I will simply say you aren't looking at it close enough. Think it through, to the logical and and you'll see it."

When what you posted was complete and utter garbage, I could vomit a better argument than that.

How hypocritical of you.

But since you insist on looking closely at it, prepare for defeat in detail:

There is no winning this argument, but I present two biological traits we share with all terrestrial predators:

1) Binocular vision for hunting prey. You don't need depth perception to eat plants.

2) Canines for tearing into tasty delicious meat.

I present to you two biological traits we share with all terrestrial predators:

1) A sleep cycle, you don't need to sleep to eat plants

2) A sense of smell, you don't need to smell to eat plants

Of course, you find both of these traits in herbivores as well.... just like you find canines and binocular vision in herbivores.

Here is basic logic for you: If P then Q does not mean if Q then P

Additionally:

There are many terrestrial predators without canines, and without binocular vision.

So, in summary:

Both the statements you made were false.

Even if the statements were true, your conclusion does not even logically follow.

[Nuke]

im not buying the whole 'meat uses more resources' bit. there are a lot of places you can only grow hay, which is only useful as animal feed. sometimes you need to grow hay as part of your crop rotation. also a lot of animal feed products are derived from agricultural wastes that would otherwise be useless to us, things like corn husks and wheat chaff. likewise the animal wastes go back into the crops, since they are full of nutrients that plants need. if you banned livestock farming, then crops would suffer increased rates of failure due to a shortage of manure. livestock and crops complement each other.

Edited April 24, 2014 by Nuke

[MedwedianPresident]

Meat is also not only food to the people who eat it - if the whole world would suddenly become vegetarian, then thousands of farmers, hunters and butchers would suddenly lose their jobs.

[szputnyik]

Meat is also not only food to the people who eat it - if the whole world would suddenly become vegetarian, then thousands of farmers, hunters and butchers would suddenly lose their jobs.

There are also people for whom meat is almost their whole diet, for example the Inuit, who still live in traditional ways. What would they do? Lick lichens?

[Unit327]

im not buying the whole 'meat uses more resources' bit. there are a lot of places you can only grow hay

There is an argument to be made for mixed mode farms to utilize the available resources, but that isn't where your food is coming from. 85% of the worlds soybeans are ground into meal, and 95% of that meal is fed to livestock (source). If you live in a western country, the animals that end up on your plate aren't grazing in marginal farmlands, they are produced and fed industrially.

Meat is also not only food to the people who eat it - if the whole world would suddenly become vegetarian, then thousands of farmers, hunters and butchers would suddenly lose their jobs.

Do you think I can just click my fingers and make the whole world go veg instantly? If at some point in the future everyone is a vegetarian, it will be the result of a gradual shift.

[Nuke]

ive read that in modern hunter-gatherer societies, diabetes is almost completely unheard of. as for the inuit, its moose, caribou, seal, and whale. i ate a lot of that stuff when i dated one of their women.

[vetrox]

Personally the ethical/moral problems couldnt concern me less. I eat meat, my ancestors ate meat, so on and so forth. There is meat on my supermarket shelf so I'm gonna buy it. If tomorrow meat were made illegal and insects became the new protien source and they were available packaged on my supermarket shelf then I would buy those too without hesitation

All I know is I am an extremely active person, I bench 70kg (nothing special), I exercise alot with the dog, do sports, I very occasionally hunt rabbit (although this is rare as I dont have much time). I like to think if aliens invaded to farm humans as a meat source and use the males for sport, I would be used for breeding purposes.

Being the epitome of human perfection that I am, I eat a heck of alot of calories a day and need nutrients (protiens, carbs, acids etc) and yes I can do it without meat but its alot more work. Nuts are just as expensive as meat, cheese is really high in fats (and sometimes really full of salts) quorn is just gross and eating baked potatoes and cheese every day is hard work. Plus eating meat just makes me feel a whole lot better. Do a good 40 minute work out (and i mean bust a proper sweat on, not go for a jog on the treadmill) and tell me meat doesn't make you feel better.

From an evolutionary standpoint I'm going to assume we used tools and wit to hunt our food which is why we dont have massive canine teeth like cats and dogs?

Edited April 24, 2014 by vetrox

[szputnyik]

The problem with cows farting methane and chewing out the root system of grasslands could be fixed with replacing cows with kangaroos. They require less food, because they have a lower body temperature, don't fart as much methane and only eat the part of the grass above the surface, leaving the root system intact.

[Nuke]

well before we invented the atlatl, we were mostly persistence hunters. we would follow an animal for days until it was exhausted, then just walk up and spear it. the atlatl on the other hand was a weapon of mass destruction, it allowed us to accurately shoot a light spear much longer distances than you could otherwise throw one, so we could approach an animal without scaring it and kill it from a distance. then came the bow which made us even more dangerous. we had other techniques like trapping to catch smaller prey as well. there are still tribes out there that do things the hard way.

[KerbMav]

Hi, my name is Kerbmav, and I am a hipocrit.

Meat from animals raised and held well, not pumped with medication and growth hormones, not genetically engineered to produce more body weight than it is able to carry unimpaired etc. and only eaten in reasonable amounts to ensure the possibilty of a "production" not harmful to the animals (apart from the killing and stuff) ... all this would be preferable, even for ourselves in the end.

-----

Physical characteristics are no absolute indication for an animals diet. If it uses other senses to find and hunt its prey then its eyes, depth perception might not be that important.

Depending on the nature of its prey canines might not be necessary and an animal living of carrion would most likely depend on its smell for food gathering.

Our digestive system evolved to handle different kinds of food, the need for natural weapons was replaced by the use of tools, as a tool using species we can kill and chop our food without large canines and sharp claws.

-----

The neck of giraffes did not become long because they reached for higher leaves, but because those ancestors of our giraffes who were able to eat leaves from higher trees had an advantage in the search for food and could procreate more successfully.

Our brain did not grow because we ate meat, but the available amounts of protein made it possible for our ancestors with bigger/hungrier brains to survive.

(And peasant did not not become kings because they ate less meat, the ate less meat because they were not kings!)

-----

Pictures on cave walls tell us one thing: Humans did hunt and it was a great event for them.

What it does not tell us is, wheather humans did hunt and eat meat every day!

Given the risks and dangers of a hunt back than it is somewhat unlikely.

-----

Now that we know what we would have to eat to supply our body with what it needs, we could substitute meat with other things (vitamine B12 is also readily available in eggs or cabbage/sourkraut (because it is fermented and the bacteria in question produce B12).

Humans can live very well without eating meat - a varied diet is advised even when not being a vegetarian, they just have to go an extra mile.

-----

Ancient hunters got off their behinds and moved a lot more than from sofa to car to shelve to car to sofa!

It is not the plants we eat that give us diabetes, it is loads of pure sugar, fat all around our body and sitting all day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Nations_and_diabetes

Edited April 24, 2014 by KerbMav

[Comrade Jenkens]

Though I love eating meat I have to admit it would be a lot more efficient to replace the majority of beef farms with grain. While a cow will feed maybe 10 people, the grain that it is fed on throughout its life could feed hundreds.