Any Vegetarians/Vegans here?

[KUSA]

@jg2014
Where do you get your morals and ethics from?

[StoryBook]

That same link again. Ok then
Meat better for bone heath
http://press.endocrine.org/doi/full/10.1...003-031466
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/89/5/1357.abstract

Blood pressure
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/83/4/780.short

Brain health of children
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10966896

Firstly, great to see some primary references. Secondly all those studies only look at specific diseases, and therefore do not analyse the effect of diet on all-cause mortality. There is no point improving bone health if one then dies of cancer or cardiovascular disease! That is why the study that I posted is so much more relevant. It looks at all causes of death, and veganism decreases mortality.

You missed my other link
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724493/

Now the individual studies... the first two studies look at effect of meat on bone health, but they make no comparisons on how consumption of high amounts of vegan protein could also improve bone health. As they make no comparison between vegan and meat eating diets, one cannot make the assumption that one is healthier than the other.

Yet you do make the assumption.

Next the blood pressure study, again there is no comparison to a vegan protein rich diet making comparison impossible. Additionally the trial only lasted 8 weeks and only looked at a marker of cardiovascular disease (ie blood pressure). Meat eating has been associated with cardiovascular disease, but no one thinks it only takes 8 weeks of a high meat diet to cause it. Therefore the study is too short to see how meat affects cardiovascular disease.

Brain health in children, that study looked at MACROBIOTIC vegans. That means they take no B12 supplements of fortified foods. This is not a well balanced diet. If I were to claim that scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) in meat eaters who happened to not eat enough fruit and veg was due to the fact they were omnivores I would be talking nonsense. It would be incidental to this. similarly, the people in the study had b12 deficiency incidentally to the fact they were vegan but because they were macrobiotic.

You see it depends on the kind of meat,like processed meat
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2885952/

See you have to look at the whole picture here

[James2014]

You missed my other link
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724493/

No I didn't, here is what I wrote again

Here's another link for ya

In that firstly the comparison was not with a vegan diet, which has shown to also produce a significant benefit to diabetics.



Secondly the study also notes that the "Paleolithic diet was markedly lower in cereals and dairy products, and lower in potatoes, beans and bakery, and much higher in fruits, vegetables, meat and eggs"
As the study goes on to explain, many of the benefits were likely due to increased consumption of fruit and veg, decreased consumption of things like sugary sweets, increased protein intake and decreased calorie consumption overall. All these things can be better achieved with a vegan diet without the risks high meat consumption brings over time (ie longer than the 3 months looked at in the trial)

Yet you do make the assumption.

No the mortality study I quoted makes a direct comparison between meat eating and vegan diets, it is therefore not an assumption to say that vegan diets reduce mortality

You see it depends on the kind of meat,like processed meat
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2885952/

See you have to look at the whole picture here

You see the thing about science is that when a study finds that a relationship cannot be found between two things (e.g. cardiovascular disease and meat eating) it does not mean that a link does not exist. It may mean that, or there were confounding factors that introduced an increased amount of variability, or that the sample size was too small. That's why people do new and better controlled studies, such as one ...

"Both unprocessed and processed red meat intakes were associated with an increased risk of total, CVD and cancer mortality in both men and women in the age-adjusted and fully-adjusted models "

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@jg2014
Where do you get your morals and ethics from?

That is a good question, where do we as atheists get our ethics from if we live in fundamentally amoral universe, with no god or nature to guide us?

The first question we could ask is "is there such a thing as an objectively true set of ethics?"

And secondly "is there such a thing as an objectively false set of ethics?"


For me I would argue ethics only have meaning in reference to the basic values we choose to hold. So I would say no to the first question. However, we must be logical, and if we apply a ethics in an illogical or have ethics that contain a contradiction then they must be false. So I would say yes to the second quest above.

What does this mean for where ethics come from? They come from my choice to value the reduction in suffering and an increase in happiness. All ethics start with an assumption, and this is mine. No other justification is required or even possible, other than not to contradict one's self. When ever I say meat eating is wrong, I mean with reference to these utilitarian values.

[bennyboy]

This has turned into a link battle

I agree. Links are good for adding credibility, if they are to research papers or abstracts. However, for the purpose of debate, a short quotation from the linked passages should also be included: perhaps a 3 or 4 sentence summary. Then, if anyone doubts the summary, they can take the burden of reading a whole paper.

[KichigaiNeko]

Silly, you have to read the whole paper to digest the research.

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Still reading

[bennyboy]

Silly, you have to read the whole paper to digest the research.

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Still reading

Nah. I could link dozens of research papers, and triumphantly claim "There it is!"

Given the context of a forum debate, I think it's best to make assertions yourself, then to follow with a cited passage if challenged, and then to give an in-depth run-down of a paper if that's not enough.

[Aractus]

Define 'weed' if you are capable? I don't give a shit where you live.

http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-...resources/

Weed (n) - a prolific and/or hostile plant.

As for your PETA link, you know that PETA has no credibility I'm not going to insult your intelligence by assuming that you don't.

From your link:

• It takes up to 13 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of meat, and even fish on fish farms must be fed up to 5 pounds of wild-caught fish to produce 1 pound of farmed fish flesh.

Try this:

• It Does Not Take 7 kg Of Grain To Make 1 kg Of Beef: Be Very Careful With Your Statistics
  
  The problem with this number is that while it is possible to use 7 kg of grain to make 1 kg of beef it is not necessary to do so. The number has in fact been formulated for one reason and is then being used, hopelessly inaccurately, for entirely another.
  
  http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/...tatistics/

The numbers PETA uses are total fiction.

Consider:

The efficiency with which various animals convert grain into protein varies widely. With cattle in feedlots, it takes roughly 7 kilograms of grain to produce a 1-kilogram gain in live weight. For pork, the figure is close to 4 kilograms of grain per kilogram of weight gain, for poultry it is just over 2, and for herbivorous species of farmed fish (such as carp, tilapia, and catfish), it is less than 2. (source).

So now you know that you can produce each pound of chicken with two pounds of feed - not 7 and certainly not 13.

Furthermore these figures are based on animals fed only by feed in the US:

It is only in US or US style feedlot operations than cattle are fed on this much grain. Thus the equation is useful if you want information about what is going to happen with US cattle and grain futures: for that’s the general production method feeding those cattle futures. But very little of the rest of the world uses these feedlots as their production methods. I’m not certain whether we have any at all in the UK for example, would be surprised if there were many in the EU. Around where I live in Portugal pigs forage for acorns (yes, from the same oak trees that give us cork) or are fed on swill, goats and sheep graze on fields that would support no form of arable farming at all (they can just about, sometimes, support low levels of almond, olive or carob growing). Much beef cattle in the UK is grass fed with perhaps hay or silage in the winters. (Forbes)

The majority of Australian cattle is primarily grass-fed. Here's a link with the numbers. Grain is used for fattening most cattle that are bred for beef, but overall their main diet is grass.

So no, I don't give a shit about what goes on in America and skewing numbers to suit your agenda. Raising cattle and sheep are very efficient uses of land for the yield.

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It is well known that to produce a KG. of meat it need over 10 KG of veg. proteins that is why the natural world is today devastated by clearing the land in order to plant veg. proteins like soia to feed the cattle.
Please tell me where i am wrong.

See my response above - you are completely wrong.

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Our body's are designed to eat BOTH meat and veggies. I'm not going to go against my body's cravings because you say so.

Yes and our bodies give us cravings for certain foods if our diets are missing important nutrients.

[bennyboy]

Yes and our bodies give us cravings for certain foods if our diets are missing important nutrients.

Like fat, sugar and salt.

[Little Rik]

See my response above - you are completely wrong.

Ok. but let me ask you one thing.
Argentina, Brazil among others are deforesting more and more land in order to plant more and more soia to be exported in europe the Us and everywhere in the world.
Now considering that in Europe and the USA most of this soia is destined to become food for animals how can you say that the land is not ravaged to grow food for animals?


http://sourcing.alibaba.com/buying-reque...72282.html

[Aractus]

When are omnivores, not herbivores or even carnivore. Our body's are designed to eat BOTH meat and veggies.

Also, pigs are omnivores (and also cannibals), however it's illegal anywhere civilized to feed them meat. It's also illegal to feed them table scraps commonly called swill (including restaurant scraps) from any meal that had meat even if the meat has been removed due to contamination. Australia is a very clean country, if I was in a country where it is legal to feed pigs swill I wouldn't be willing to eat their pork products. And I would definitely check first and not make the assumption.

Just like pigs we don't need meat, but we do need dairy and/or eggs in our diets if we don't have meat.

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Ok. but let me ask you one thing.
Argentina, Brazil among others are deforesting more and more land in order to plant more and more soia to be exported in europe the Us and everywhere in the world.
Now considering that in Europe and the USA most of this soia is destined to become food for animals how can you say that the land is not ravaged to grow food for animals?


http://sourcing.alibaba.com/buying-reque...72282.html

I think it's wrong for countries to need to import any food. I believe that every country should aim to be neutral on the importation to exportation ratio of food, or to be net importers.

Now the fact is that many countries like the UK have populations way higher than they are able to feed from their own stocks. As you might see in one of my links in the previous post, we export about 45% of our beef. Much of it to the USA and the UK, but also to PNG, Indonesia, etc.

So I actually agree that people in the UK and USA should eat less beef until they can be self-sufficient (this is far more realistic with the USA than the UK which will never be self-sufficient, unless they're willing to accept negative population growth for the next 80 years). If you assholes could actually feed yourself, then perhaps we could actually look into feeding people who are starving and dying of malnutrition in the 3rd world countries with our food instead of fat Americans addicted to hamburgers.