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[G-Flex]

Another reason it's not a major concern is because I'm not advocating a meatless diet in the first place. Jeez.

You keep saying that, but you also keep defending Vegans, who according to you deserve respect, and they ARE advocating a meatless diet in the first place. There's nothing wrong with not eating any meat! Wait, I'm not saying that there's nothing wrong with not eating any meat!

Yes, sure, you personally aren't, but then you say that Vegans do, and there's nothing wrong and it's perfectly valid. Therefore, you ARE advocating it.

I'm sorry if the arguments are getting confused here. I was defending the ethical tenets of vegetarianism earlier, yeah, but then the argument segued into factory farming, and the better treatment of animals making meat more expensive and that sort of thing.

So yeah, I'm saying different things because multiple lines of discussion have been going on. I apologize if it's unclear, but in the recent posts I've just been advocating the idea that people should maybe eat less meat in the US.

In which case why in the hell are you participating in a discussion about Veganism?

See my reply above. I'm sorry if something wasn't clear somewhere, or some wires got crossed, or whatever the hell happened, but my original post about Americans eating less meat was in response to someone saying that if we treat animals better, meat might get more expensive. I was pointing out that this isn't as huge a problem as it seems, because we eat too much meat anyhow.


However, if you WANT me to, I could extend this to defend veganism anyway! After all, as I've said previously, there's not a single nutrient found in animal products (aside from B12, which can be found in supplements) that can't be found in entirely sufficient quantities in plants, regardless of whether you're talking about amino acids, protein in general, fats, vitamins, or minerals. Find a proportion of nutrients meant for your average human and you can probably find a diet that satisfies them. Of course, this is going back to a line of discussion we already had.

[Wiles]

Well no shit; too much water is unhealthy; it leads to drowning. This does not mean that water should be excised from one's diet entirely.

Arguing with fallacies like that isn't conducive to a strong position. Attacking another's argument by reducing it to the absurd makes your argument look weak. I didn't state anywhere that I advocated for anyone to cut meat completely out of their diet, and comparing eating meat to drowning is rather silly. North Americans in general eat too much meat on a regular basis, yet drowning by drinking too much water is not something that is so common.

[Neruz]

So apparently nobody has actually been reading anyone else's posts, which explains why some of the arguments i've seen put forward seemed so nonsensical;

As far as i was aware, this had segued into a discussion of Veganism; the practice of removing meat and animal products entirely from one's diet. I was responding that this is not a very good idea by any stretch of the word 'good', whereupon it appears that an argument started up between one side saying "Removing meat entirely from one's diet is a bad idea" and the other side saying "Eating less meat isn't a bad idea".


Jesus, no wonder half of G-Flex's posts didn't make sense.

[G-Flex]

Even if you remove meat from your diet entirely, though, the problems you presented can be worked around, provided you have the resources to do so. I'm rehashing old points here, but to me, the actual, LEGITIMATE problems associated with veganism are:

• It takes more effort to formulate a nutritionally-sound diet when you aren't using animal products. It's not impossible, but it's harder, and requires you to have certain things available. It's especially harder since our culture doesn't have as much of a precedent for it, so what's "healthy" in a vegan diet is less-common knowledge than what's healthy in a non-vegan diet.
• It's more heavily situational for the above reason. Like I've said, any vegan who says that poor people should either be vegan or malnourished isn't one I'd listen to, and certainly aren't the ones I've known.
• We aren't omniscient, so there are certain things we might not know about vegan diet that could wind up putting a person at higher risks for certain things in the long-term. However, we currently don't know of any, the experts MOSTLY seem to think it's nutritionally adequate, and studies have concluded that in some ways, they're often healthier (although there is a correlation-causation problem here, potentially). Vegan diets have also been around long enough that any clearly health-threatening situations caused by them would likely be exposed by now.
• Infants, the elderly, prenatal children, etc. sometimes require special dietary needs that, while they may not be IMPOSSIBLE on a vegan diet, might be difficult to satisfy if you don't know precisely what you're doing. Again, this is almost certainly possible to circumvent, and the problem probably just lies in what I've stated above (the need to plan a vegan diet carefully around such things, and lack of established cultural knowledge surrounding them).

[ChairmanPoo]

*shrug* There is nothing wrong with vegans being vegans. For all I care they can try to eat rocks, so long as they dont want to force their taboos upon me.

That being said...

[G-Flex]

You are being so clever and edgy by posting an image from a maddox article from seven to eight years ago.

This has been a heated enough discussion. If you have nothing to contribute but trollish images and apathy, then why the hell are you even posting? Go find a thread you actually have something to say in.

[ChairmanPoo]

Who died and made you mod? Go bother someone else. If you feel my post is so bad, report it.

Before that I'd like to point out that I did make a comment above the image. Learn to read people's messages before going into knee-jerk lawful stupid mode.

[Realmfighter]

He did say something.

"*shrug* There is nothing wrong with vegans being vegans. For all I care they can try to eat rocks, so long as they dont want to force their taboos upon me."

That is something.

[Footkerchief]

Before that I'd like to point out that I did make a comment above the image. Learn to read people's messages before going into knee-jerk lawful stupid mode.

"If you have nothing to contribute but trollish images and apathy" -- who's not reading again?  Also, yeah, if you're going to post dumb pictures in discussion threads, please at least try to make sure they're funny ones, whether or not you have a thoughtful post to go with them.

[ChairmanPoo]

The point is good, though. There seems to be a lot of hostility about those who follow the vegan lifestyle. Now, I am not a vegan or even a vegetarian, and I love meat as much as MORE than the next man. But whatever vegans (or anyone else) choses to eat concerns me fairly little. Veganism doesn't seem particularily healthy (although they can fix the worst with supplements, as pointed out), but, unlike some other habits I could name, doesn't actually hurt bystanderds

[Nadaka]

The point is good, though. There seems to be a lot of hostility about those who follow the vegan lifestyle. Now, I am not a vegan or even a vegetarian, and I love meat as much as MORE than the next man. But whatever vegans (or anyone else) choses to eat concerns me fairly little. Veganism doesn't seem particularily healthy (although they can fix the worst with supplements, as pointed out), but, unlike some other habits I could name, doesn't actually hurt bystanderds

Some of us baby killing, meat eating, murderous heathens do know vegetarians/vegans. And the "hostility" I see here is at most a bluntness and absolutely nothing compared to what I have personally received from some of them.

[ChairmanPoo]

I dont know. The ones I do know were more of the "personal choice" than "moral imperative" sort.

Barring one would-be-buddhist guy who refused to share his meat ration (which he wasn't eating) at the dorm's dining room, despite I had shared with him the vegetables I was not eating. What a rude ass.

[DJ]

So even if we assume that the claim is true, and that the Japanese became healthier after eating more Western food, and even if we conclude that it's due to the presence of more meat, and even if we jump to FURTHER conclusions and say that the increase of height means they're healthier (ignoring other effects, like potentially higher incidence of heart disease)

Taller people tend to have more heart problems because their hearts have a harder job. I still prefer to be as tall as I am (6'5") to being a midget and living 5-6 years longer. Being tall has a lot of advantages in life, not the least of which is more success with women.

[ChairmanPoo]

you know that's an urban legend, right? the height bit, I mean

[DJ]

Which part? Being tall makes you more susceptible to heart disease, or being tall has a lot of advantages?

As for height being related to diet, I think there's something to it. I think it has more to do with dairy products than meat, though, because IIRC dairy products are the best source of calcium which is needed for bone growth. I googled for a dairy consumption per country chart, but I couldn't find one to see if it's similar to the human height per country chart that's on Wikipedia.