About vegans

[The Grand Nudger]

I think grainfed beef tastes better too..was more a comment on being able to free up and develop land for other things - that and grassfed is sustainable.

[Yonadav]

Wasn't disagreeing with you. I was just sharing.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, I noticed, we both like grainfed beef and farmed fish.  I really wish I could get more people onboard with the latter, lol.  I think the whole catfish boom in the 80's and 90's soured perception. Obviously just an intuition..lol, I don't know,..I spent the 80's and 90's eating crappie almost exclusively, lol.

[bennyboy]

Life is brutal. That's how it goes. Something has to die in order for me to live. Human beings were not meant to be vegans. They would be extinct, if they were not meat meat eaters.

Appealing to naturalism can justify a lot of behaviors.  Try these on for size:
"We were not meant to be peaceful." --justify war
"We were meant to be tribal." --justify racism
"We were meant to live about 30 years." --justify forced "euthanasia" of senior citizens

I think the idea of modern society is that we are attempting to supplant our natural inclinations in favor of a more idealistic reality.  Humane treatment of animals seems like a valid candidate to me.

---

I think grainfed beef tastes better too..was more a comment on being able to free up and develop land for other things - that and grassfed is sustainable.

The idea that we need large tracts of farmable land is false, btw.  A lot of food can be grown in a much more vertical form-- huge solar buildings with algae cultures, for example.  Then there are bodies of water, which can provide seaweed and marine animals.

In order to better understand this, we really have to understand the whole process: mineral composition of soil or water, photosynthesis, and the texturing of various kinds of plant and animal cells.  Maybe not now, but I think with science we can provide food that actually appeals to the palate and doesn't require the unnecessary suffering or killing of living beings.

I've had textured soy meats in Korea, quite a lot.  They are not meat, and don't taste like meat.  But they have a similar fat / protein content, lots of vitamins, and so on.  Their texture is complex enough (a mix of stringy, juicy, etc.) that I don't much regret that I won't be eating a Big Mac any time soon.

[The Grand Nudger]

IDK if it's a justification so much as a statement of fact.  There are no free lunches.  Human beings can only decide what is going to die so that they can live, and....maybe.. the manner of it's death and quality of it's life.  Not -whether- something dies so they can live. It's just not something we have the sort of mastery over we'd like.

I'm raising my kids not to eat anything they wouldn't kill..anything they wouldn't touch, and grab, and dig into, and slice into chunks..etc etc etc.  To eat their consciences, as it were.  For my youngest daughter, that's looking something like pescetarianism.  The girl just loves fish.  She's from florida, I've always had fish, she loves fish. She's merciless to fish. Not too keen on hurting or killing or eating other animals.

[bennyboy]

Yeah, I noticed, we both like grainfed beef and farmed fish.  I really wish I could get more people onboard with the latter, lol.  I think the whole catfish boom in the 80's and 90's soured perception.  Obviously just an intuition..lol, I don't know,..I spent the 80's and 90's eating crappie almost exclusively, lol.

A lot of people say, "Oh, we neeeeeed meat.  I couldn't live without it.  Because people are omnivores."  But I'd contend that you prefer those foods because you grew up with them.  Your body is used to them.

My daughter is now in the second grade of middle school.  She loves eating-- a little too much, in my opinion.  But the idea of eating meat does NOT trigger any instinctive dietary need in her.

[The Grand Nudger]

Life is brutal. That's how it goes. Something has to die in order for me to live. Human beings were not meant to be vegans. They would be extinct, if they were not meat meat eaters.

Appealing to naturalism can justify a lot of behaviors.  Try these on for size:
"We were not meant to be peaceful." --justify war
"We were meant to be tribal." --justify racism
"We were meant to live about 30 years." --justify forced "euthanasia" of senior citizens

I think the idea of modern society is that we are attempting to supplant our natural inclinations in favor of a more idealistic reality.  Humane treatment of animals seems like a valid candidate to me.

---

I think grainfed beef tastes better too..was more a comment on being able to free up and develop land for other things - that and grassfed is sustainable.

The idea that we need large tracts of farmable land is false, btw.  A lot of food can be grown in a much more vertical form-- huge solar buildings with algae cultures, for example.  Then there are bodies of water, which can provide seaweed and marine animals.

I know....I'm involved in that movement.  Balls deep, everything I own, lol.  I utilize tilapia growout and water soluble effluent to grow veggies in an assortment of troughs, racks, and towers. Mostly troughs.

In order to better understand this, we really have to understand the whole process: mineral composition of soil or water, photosynthesis, and the texturing of various kinds of plant and animal cells.  Maybe not now, but I think with science we can provide food that actually appeals to the palate and doesn't require the unnecessary suffering or killing of living beings.

I've had textured soy meats in Korea, quite a lot.  They are not meat, and don't taste like meat.  But they have a similar fat / protein content, lots of vitamins, and so on.  Their texture is complex enough (a mix of stringy, juicy, etc.) that I don't much regret that I won't be eating a Big Mac any time soon.

Right now the problem for vertical farms is fertigation.  Both in the source and the level of processing required to compete head to head with conventionals.

[bennyboy]

IDK if it's a justification so much as a statement of fact.  There are no free lunches.  Human beings can only decide what is going to die so that they can live, and....maybe.. the manner of it's death and quality of it's life.  Not -whether- something dies so they can live.  It's just not something we have the sort of mastery over we'd like.

I'm raising my kids not to eat anything they wouldn't kill..anything they wouldn't touch, and grab, and dig into, and slice into chunks..etc etc etc.  To eat their consciences, as it were.  For my youngest daughter, that's looking something like pescetarianism.  The girl just loves fish.  She's from florida, I've always had fish, she loves fish.  She's merciless to fish.  Not too keen on hurting or killing or eating other animals.

As a vegan, I'd be happy if people just stopped eating more meat than is dietarily beneficial.  When a 300-lb guy tells me he needs that Big Mac, I feel that's selfish-- it's an insult to the cow that died for him to be 301 lbs.

See, we talk about whether we could feed the world.  But when we have about 100 million obese motherfuckers in the states-- how many starving African families would all that extra food feed?  Like. . . all of them, right there, I'm guessing.

--edit--
My kids eat fish too. I used to call them "fish killers" sometimes to see if I could make them feel guilty enough to take a break, but this particular issue is clearly never going to gain traction.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, I noticed, we both like grainfed beef and farmed fish.  I really wish I could get more people onboard with the latter, lol.  I think the whole catfish boom in the 80's and 90's soured perception.  Obviously just an intuition..lol, I don't know,..I spent the 80's and 90's eating crappie almost exclusively, lol.

A lot of people say, "Oh, we neeeeeed meat.  I couldn't live without it.  Because people are omnivores."  But I'd contend that you prefer those foods because you grew up with them.  Your body is used to them.

My daughter is now in the second grade of middle school.  She loves eating-- a little too much, in my opinion.  But the idea of eating meat does NOT trigger any instinctive dietary need in her.

Meh, I'm more of a "we need livestock" kind of guy.  Different reasons for different cases.

[bennyboy]

Right now the problem for vertical farms is fertigation.  Both in the source and the level of processing required to compete head to head with conventionals.

Yeah, I think you'd have to have a city-sized megaplant with input processing and output drawn into a feedback loop: input being some outside soil or food, processing being the living of human lives in the city, output being all the garbage and human waste which would need to be efficiently processed. The problem with the vertical farms is all the nutrition in the fertilizer is probably exported outside the region and never expected to come back to re-feed them.

I personally think cities will be modeled on animal systems in this way, but not yet. . . maybe 100 or 150 years from now, when there are like 40 billion people.