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[Guy Montag]

Man, people are omnivores, and our bodies are meant for consumption of meat. We have canines and everything. I can assure your our evolution didn't bring about canines so that we could seriously eviscerate a stalk of celery.

We are designed around a balanced diet, and I think its practical that most people eat a VERY limited amount of meat as part of their diet. You can acheive alot with even very basic diets like beans and rice. A lot of people eat almost nothing but beans, rice and tortillas. They do, actually have nutrition-related problems because they do not have a good source of the amino acids and proteins they need for developments. Its just they way we are made.

try giving a dog or cat a vegetarian/ vegan diet. The poor animal will wither away and die. People are no different.

[inaluct]

try giving a dog or cat a vegetarian/ vegan diet. The poor animal will wither away and die. People are no different.

Yeah, except that neither dogs nor cats are omnivorous. :|

[Paul]

Mmm, kittens.

It's surprising how many people are buying into this, though. It's a tabloid!

We might as well be complaining that people in New Mexico are eating Aliens, I saw that headline on a tabloid once.

-edit- I'd also like to note that my forum avatar is INCREDIBLY relevant to this discussion.

[Vaftrudner]

Man, people are omnivores, and our bodies are meant for consumption of meat. We have canines and everything. I can assure your our evolution didn't bring about canines so that we could seriously eviscerate a stalk of celery.

We are designed around a balanced diet, and I think its practical that most people eat a VERY limited amount of meat as part of their diet. You can acheive alot with even very basic diets like beans and rice. A lot of people eat almost nothing but beans, rice and tortillas. They do, actually have nutrition-related problems because they do not have a good source of the amino acids and proteins they need for developments. Its just they way we are made.

try giving a dog or cat a vegetarian/ vegan diet. The poor animal will wither away and die. People are no different.

Well, you are entitled to an opinion, but scientific research claims that vegetarians and vegans who plan their diet have no problems with finding the necessary nutrients, and in many cases, a vegetarian/vegan diet can even be more healthy, including lower BMI, cholesterol and blood pressure, less risk of heart attacks and diabetes. There are some indications that a vegetarian diet may have a positive effect in regards to Alzheimers and similar diseases, but this has no conclusive evidence. Unlike you, I have some sources too. Here are a few of them.

http://www.mypyramid.gov/tips_resources/vegetarian_diets.html
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=814540
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=567472
http://eatright.org/ada/files/veg.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1412238.stm

(please note that I am still not preaching vegetarianism and I don't want to change anyone here, it just irritates me when someone starts arguing without knowing the facts)

[Ezuku]

Man, people are omnivores, and our bodies are meant for consumption of meat. We have canines and everything. I can assure your our evolution didn't bring about canines so that we could seriously eviscerate a stalk of celery.

We are designed around a balanced diet, and I think its practical that most people eat a VERY limited amount of meat as part of their diet. You can acheive alot with even very basic diets like beans and rice. A lot of people eat almost nothing but beans, rice and tortillas. They do, actually have nutrition-related problems because they do not have a good source of the amino acids and proteins they need for developments. Its just they way we are made.

try giving a dog or cat a vegetarian/ vegan diet. The poor animal will wither away and die. People are no different.

Well, you are entitled to an opinion, but scientific research claims that vegetarians and vegans who plan their diet have no problems with finding the necessary nutrients, and in many cases, a vegetarian/vegan diet can even be more healthy, including lower BMI, cholesterol and blood pressure, less risk of heart attacks and diabetes. There are some indications that a vegetarian diet may have a positive effect in regards to Alzheimers and similar diseases, but this has no conclusive evidence. Unlike you, I have some sources too. Here are a few of them.

http://www.mypyramid.gov/tips_resources/vegetarian_diets.html
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=814540
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=567472
http://eatright.org/ada/files/veg.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1412238.stm

(please note that I am still not preaching vegetarianism and I don't want to change anyone here, it just irritates me when someone starts arguing without knowing the facts)

Huh? How can you get B12 as a vegan (without artificially supplementing it)? You can't, which is why you can't have a balanced diet as a vegan (without artificial supplementation that is).

Regarding the links, I didn't read the ADA one I'm afraid (TL;DR), but I had a quick read through of the "Health effects of vegetarian and vegan diets" article, the one to do a direct evaluation of the health of vegetarians and containing the highest level of evidence. I’m afraid that if you say that vegetarians are just healthier, you’re cherry picking things out of the article.
Really, the important thing with this article isn’t the risk of actually dying from one thing or another, but the “all cause mortality”. From the article:

Total mortality appears to be similar in vegetarians and comparable non-vegetarians...

Hence you can’t really make the comment that vegetarians are any healthier than non-vegetarians.

Also, as mentioned in the conclusions of the article, the population groups are different. Vegetarians tend to be more health conscious than average, for example, by not smoking and eating less fat.
A much more reasonable comparison if you wanted to be fair would be to compare a proper healthy diet of the recommended amount of meat a week (which most people eat too much of) against vegetarianism. That said, I can’t be bothered to find an article of this nature.

_{Edited when I could be bothered to read the article}

[Vaftrudner]

Man, people are omnivores, and our bodies are meant for consumption of meat. We have canines and everything. I can assure your our evolution didn't bring about canines so that we could seriously eviscerate a stalk of celery.

We are designed around a balanced diet, and I think its practical that most people eat a VERY limited amount of meat as part of their diet. You can acheive alot with even very basic diets like beans and rice. A lot of people eat almost nothing but beans, rice and tortillas. They do, actually have nutrition-related problems because they do not have a good source of the amino acids and proteins they need for developments. Its just they way we are made.

try giving a dog or cat a vegetarian/ vegan diet. The poor animal will wither away and die. People are no different.

Well, you are entitled to an opinion, but scientific research claims that vegetarians and vegans who plan their diet have no problems with finding the necessary nutrients, and in many cases, a vegetarian/vegan diet can even be more healthy, including lower BMI, cholesterol and blood pressure, less risk of heart attacks and diabetes. There are some indications that a vegetarian diet may have a positive effect in regards to Alzheimers and similar diseases, but this has no conclusive evidence. Unlike you, I have some sources too. Here are a few of them.

http://www.mypyramid.gov/tips_resources/vegetarian_diets.html
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=814540
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=567472
http://eatright.org/ada/files/veg.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1412238.stm

(please note that I am still not preaching vegetarianism and I don't want to change anyone here, it just irritates me when someone starts arguing without knowing the facts)

Huh? How can you get B12 as a vegan (without artificially supplementing it)? You can't, which is why you can't have a balanced diet as a vegan (without artificial supplementation that is). Also, if I'm not mistaken, I didn't check the links, that's comparisons between typical eating of red meat (which is too much) and vegetarianism. A much better example would be to look at eating the actual recommended amount of red meet and vegetarianism, which I think would put the omnivores ahead.

Check one page back. B12 can be synthesized.

And an advice: Checking links before arguing about them is usually a good idea unless you're psychic Eating more vegetables equals more antioxidants and other healthy stuff. It's not just about removing the meat, it's also a question of what you replace it with.

[Ezuku]

Ack, yeah, my bad... seconds after I typed that up I realised how stupid it was and read through them. I edited my previous post almost as soon as I posted. Apologies for ninja edit.

Also, B12 can be synthesised by human gut bacteria, but not absorbed. Unless you meant synthesised artificially, in which it's slightly cheating for the purposes of a "blanaced diet".

[DJ]

Our ancestors worked hard so we can be at the top of the food chain, and by not eating meat you're basically pissing on their graves.
(I'm not serious, in case you can't tell).

Anyway, all farms cause immense amounts of death and suffering. Ploughing is utter destruction of entire ecosystems for the purpose of replacing them with monocultures that offer horrible life conditions to the local animal life. Just think of it this way: for every slice of bread you eat, a vole had to starve to death. So, the only way to be truly environmentally friendly is to commit suicide.

[ChJees]

We have luxury of `Choice´ of what to eat now these days :3. Compared to 100 years ago.

Be a vegetarian if you want, or vegan. That food can be really tasty . (I lived at a family which had their mother as a vegetarian.)

As long as the food is tasty it is good .

[Pilsu]

I'd also like to point out that even if drinking milk is bad morally in some way, it's still better than drinking milk AND eating meat

Not really, cows only produce milk after having kids (much like humans) and to maintain the production calves must be made. You have to deal with the calves somehow and if you just murder them without eating them, then it becomes purposefully cruel

Those people "not trying to die of malnutrition" would overall be better off if not so many resources would be wasted towards the luxury of meat production...

Not really, it's our soil. Since we'd be more efficient, we'd get bigger amounts of food out of it and the third world farmers would be screwed by the dropping produce prices. The farmers would probably also be screwed by the lowered returns

[Ezuku]

I'd also like to point out that even if drinking milk is bad morally in some way, it's still better than drinking milk AND eating meat

Not really, cows only produce milk after having kids (much like humans) and to maintain the production calves must be made. You have to deal with the calves somehow and if you just murder them without eating them, then it becomes purposefully cruel

That's an incredebly interesting point that never occured to me. What do vegetarian farmers do?

[Guy Montag]

I'd also like to point out that even if drinking milk is bad morally in some way, it's still better than drinking milk AND eating meat

Not really, cows only produce milk after having kids (much like humans) and to maintain the production calves must be made. You have to deal with the calves somehow and if you just murder them without eating them, then it becomes purposefully cruel

That's an incredebly interesting point that never occured to me. What do vegetarian farmers do?

Grow and eat nothing but lentils on an organic co-op farm or something?

[dreiche2]

Total mortality appears to be similar in vegetarians and comparable non-vegetarians...

Hence you can’t really make the comment that vegetarians are any healthier than non-vegetarians.

Well, but at least saying you're destined to die if you're a vegetarian is a wee bit far fetched, as being claimed in the post Vaftrudner replied to.

Anyway, all farms cause immense amounts of death and suffering. Ploughing is utter destruction of entire ecosystems for the purpose of replacing them with monocultures that offer horrible life conditions to the local animal life. Just think of it this way: for every slice of bread you eat, a vole had to starve to death. So, the only way to be truly environmentally friendly is to commit suicide.

Wildlife population is limited by the amount of food/resources available. If you take some of that away, there will be initial starvation, but then things come into an equilibrium and there are no more "voles starving" than before.. not mentioning the fact that you need more farms overall for meat production anyway.

I stopped eating bread after I realized it was made of ground up wheat fetuses.

Damn, that is signature material.

Not really. If you really think the treatment of animals is equivalent to the treatment to corn, then congratulations (do you?).

I've seen a documentary on TV once (reliable program). Somewhere in China, they would keep a large amount of alive cats  (20?) in a closed bag, then toss the whole thing into boiling water. You could see the cats jump around frantically in the bag. Note that personally I don't care about the cuteness factor, so the point is not that it was cats and not some less cuddly animal.

So, equivalent to cooking corn or not?

[Pilsu]

How do you know plants don't feel pain?

I don't see why they'd boil the hairballs alive. It's somewhat understandable when it comes to lobsters but hairy critters? Eww

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

To be entirely honest, I don't care what I eat as long as it tastes nice.
Ok, perhaps eating people is pushing it a bit.
Well, a lot.
I like chicken though.