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[AlanL]

The first time I ate a real mushroom, I was quite a bit younger. I threw up all over the store floor. Now I have a gag reflex whenever I see a mushroom even near my mouth.

Anyhow, I tend to be fairly omnivorous. Usually I prefer to eat meat (quite a bit at times), but I've been cutting back with that lately due to health reasons. I have nothing against vegans or vegetarians, and respect their right to choose as they please, although it doesn't help should they try to force their ways upon me.

[yggiz]

Mushrooms always go in the jambalaya pot with the smoked sausage, chicken breast, jumbo shrimp, and jimmy dean breakfast sausage(i swear, you brown some of that sausage, then add it to a rice dish, it is some of the best tasting animal that I have ever had, try it!), sure bell peppers and whole garlic cloves too, generous olive oil.

Eat like a king for weeks with that pot.

The vegans can help keep demand for meat products down. My question, how about pesticides/genetically modified/etc. vs organic. My opinion is anything that increases crop yield is a Good thing, anything that costs 10 times as much for less is a Bad thing.

I also fully support PETA, PeopleEatingTastyAnimals!

[bigmcstrongmuscle]

Mushrooms also = win in meatloaf, especially with Romano cheese, ketchup, and a little garlic for company.

[Koji]

quote:Originally posted by gimli:
<STRONG>

I am not sure that what is the point in being vegetarian. You wont live any longer, just because you dont eat meat. Idiotism I would say.    :roll:</STRONG>

I'm always confused when people get ANGRY about vegetarians. Is there some level of shame or guilt driving you to feel agressive?
 :roll:

I've spent plenty of time on both sides of the fence and this might sound shocking, but it doesn't actually make any difference. People get plenty of protein from the grains they eat, and the fact that most vegetarians/vegans eat soy products occasionally doesn't hurt. I've never gotten sick because meat is the devil and you can't digest it nor have I ever had a problem with a meatless diet driving me to the brink of death.

I suspect that diet actually plays a very very tiny role in a person's overall health, and your body will adapt to eat whatever you feed it. That's why humans were able to spread from the sands of mesopotamia to the arctic ice floes. Food is food.

That said, the reason I became a vegetarian was because I realized that I live in a society where it is no longer necessary to press Z, A, and B to get my food. I don't go around bothering people when they eat meat, I have just decided that killing is not something I want to be a part of. Who's that hurting?

And yes, plants are alive too, and you have to kill many of them to get their food, but a) screw plants, and b) a cow has to be fed for its entire life before it can be eaten one time. The amount of grain they eat is disproportionate to the amount of food they provide. Therefore, going straight to the source reduces the impact you're having by a large amount.

Oh, and plump helmets! I imagine that if they contain enough sugar to be brewed into wine, and serve as a perfectly good staple for dwarves, they must actually have more nutrition than the mushrooms we humans like to eat. Maybe they are more flavorful and filling. I think the only alcoholic thing we've figured out how to make with them is Kombucha tea, which isn't high enough proof to even register to a dwarven palate.

[Hypcso]

This reminds me of the first time I loaded up Dwarf Fortress and started a fortress... I figured my dwarves could do without fluffy helmets, that steel helmets were probably just fine and embarked with zero plump helmets.

[dreiche2]

Another vegetarian (eating fish nowadays), hailing from Germany!

For me, it's ethical and ecological (as explained above) reasons.

I know I shouldn't get the discussion going, but what the hell..

quote:Originally posted by Nadaka:
<STRONG>

I don't buy that either. Broccoli and other plants have a central nervous systems and many plants are known to "scream" as they die, producing a "fear" like response in nearby plants that detect it.
</STRONG>

Aha... a central nervous system. That sounds... wrong. Also, what are the other plants going to do with that "fear", run away? Fear and pain make only sense evolutionary if the organism can actually do something with it.

quote:Originally posted by Nadaka:
<STRONG>
I as a human was born and bred to hunt and kill. It is in my canines, it is in my bifocal color vision, it is in my grasping talons, it is in my pack behavior, it is in my intellect and cunning. These are all hallmarks of a predator. Humans are omnivorous and we are predators, as are all our nearest relatives. There is nothing immoral about killing for food.</STRONG>

Aha, then maybe you should get back to hunting gazelles in the steppes instead of posting into computer games internet forums? Who cares about what is natural.

Most importantly, what has nature to do with morals. Murdering and raping is a pretty natural behaviour, I assume, but that doesn't mean it's ethical.

Also, plump helmets.

[Asehujiko]

quote:Originally posted by Koji:
<STRONG>And yes, plants are alive too, and you have to kill many of them to get their food, but a) screw plants, and b) a cow has to be fed for its entire life before it can be eaten one time. The amount of grain they eat is disproportionate to the amount of food they provide. Therefore, going straight to the source reduces the impact you're having by a large amount.</STRONG>

Some parts of plants humans can't use but cows can and they turn it into something we can use as well so the net gain/loss is still fairly close to zero and that's why these debates last forever.

Untill we are all cyborgs and are all powered by fusion reactor backpacks, wannabe herbivores will exist, and talking against or for them will just be as effective as telling gravity to work the other way arround because you think your ceiling is wasted space.

[brainfire]

quote:Originally posted by dreiche2:
<STRONG>Also, what are the other plants going to do with that "fear", run away?</STRONG>

I don't know about whatever that guy was talking about, but I'm pretty sure I've heard of trees that can excrete bug-killing chemicals, on an appropriate time scale.

I personally don't eat meat because it's gross. I'm not really sure why I think cow flesh is gross but not mushrooms, which aren't even an animal or a plant, but there you go. People are weird.

Not sure if I would eat a purple mushroom though. Depends on the shade of purple I guess.

[numerobis]

I've seen edible purple mushrooms but never tasted any.

[numerobis]

quote:Originally posted by brainfire:
<STRONG>I don't know about whatever that guy was talking about, but I'm pretty sure I've heard of trees that can excrete bug-killing chemicals, on an appropriate time scale.</STRONG>

There's within-plant signaling to fight off pathogens, and across-plant, most of which is pretty recent research.  But the "trees scream when evil lumberjacks chop them down" story that came out a while (decade?) ago has been pretty much as debunked as possible.

[Kagus]

He was joking...   He was making that comment about "screaming" plants to attack the "I don't eat meat because something had to feel pain for it" reasoning.

I base my diet the way I do because I damned well feel like it, and because commercial meat these days just isn't healthy.  Game meat, sure, but nobody actually eats game anymore now do they?   No, they go to a restaurant or the supermarket and buy that big beef steak, and then talk about the health benefits and just the "natural"-ness of eating meat, even though the hunk of flesh they're eating does not come from a natural animal, and was not processed in a natural fashion.

If you're going to talk about being a natural-born carnivore, and not just being some guy who eats meat because he wants to, then I suggest you change your eating habits.  Go out, kill an elk, and then either cook the meat yourself or eat it raw.  That's natural.  That's healthy.

[Nadaka]

quote:Originally posted by dreiche2:
<STRONG>Another vegetarian (eating fish nowadays), hailing from Germany!

For me, it's ethical and ecological (as explained above) reasons.

I know I shouldn't get the discussion going, but what the hell..

Aha, then maybe you should get back to hunting gazelles in the steppes instead of posting into computer games internet forums? Who cares about what is natural.

Most importantly, what has nature to do with morals. Murdering and raping is a pretty natural behaviour, I assume, but that doesn't mean it's ethical.

Also, plump helmets.</STRONG>

Actually, its how I grew up. I grew up dirt poor. The only meat we could afford is the meat we killed ourselves. I have eaten mountain goat, mule deer, antelope, white tail deer, rabbit, wild turkey, salmon, rattle snake, water moccasin and more. My parents even used to grow our vegetables in a garden and buy animal feed grain and ground it themselves to make bread.

I still go out and kill my own food on occasion, but mostly I have to spend to much of my time earning a living. And living in a city with a well paying job, the opportunity cost of hunting has risen to the point where hunting just isn't practical anymore.

dwarf fortress related: the other day I had a dwarf fall off a 9 story cliff. He was hunting hoary marmot at the time.

[Nadaka]

doh: hit quote button! lol?

[ March 24, 2008: Message edited by: Nadaka ]

[PTTG??]

quote:Originally posted by benoit.hudson:
<STRONG>So, except for the carnivore and a couple germans, most of us are vegetarians from Wisconsin?</STRONG>

DF is really big in socialist areas: the Swedish countries, some south america, and west coast US.

Well, no, that statment was bigoted ,ignorant and wrong. But I'm a west coast socialist! demi-Vegitarian. pacifist. hippie.

But I'm pretty sure Armok isn't vegan, so there has to be some exceptions.

By the way; Pickerel, I'm making a mega food mod in the mod section and I'd love to have your mushrooms in it.

[numerobis]

quote:Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>Game meat, sure, but nobody actually eats game anymore now do they?</STRONG>

Chronic wasting disease anyone?  The symptoms are much like those of a dwarf running around babbling.

Friend of mine switched from "dinner is a slab of beef, bread optional; chicken is a vegetable" to nearly-vegetarian upon moving to the US.  Seems that not only is our meat dangerous, it also doesn't taste good.  Not that US vegetables are that great either.  That's why I'm a breatharian.