Any Vegetarians/Vegans here?

[My imaginary friend is GOD]

Sorry darlin'. That's not enough for me. Thanks for taking the time, though.

I don't know why I bothered. I don't actually care if one person accepts my premises or not.

[bennyboy]

What I am saying is rushing onto what is possible now is rash if there is good reason to think doing what can be possible with comparatively little developmental risk promise to be much more economical ethical and nutritious.

FIFY

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Sorry darlin'. That's not enough for me. Thanks for taking the time, though.

Wow, from hysterical to condescending in just one thread. You're all over the board-- darlin'.

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I don't know why I bothered. I don't actually care if one person accepts my premises or not.

You bothered because this is a thread for Vegetarians/Vegans, and you are one. Go figure.

[rexbeccarox]

Huh. Projection much, Benny?

[Anomalocaris]

What I am saying is rushing onto what is possible now is rash if there is good reason to think doing what can be possible with comparatively little developmental risk promise to be much more economical ethical and nutritious.

You ethics is not mine. Your use of the word nutritious is nothing but a subterfuge to help impose your personal infantile squeamishness upon others.

So please don't rewrite my posts for me again.

[Aractus]

I kind of agree to a degree. I think simulated "meats" are basically vegetarian porn-- it's not the real thing, but it stimulates enough of those neurons to make it pleasurable in its own way. But the fact that vegans eat anything formed to look like meat is a pretty obvious acknowledgement that meat-eating is part of our nature, at least on an instinct level.

The problem isn't that it's formed to look like meat, but rather that it's formed to taste like meat. To achieve this the foods are usually high in salt and contain msg.

Daiya "vean cheese" also contains MSG. Doesn't matter if it's naturally derived or not, MSG is bad for you. Just like many other things you shouldn't eat. Just like say tobacco, or death cap mushrooms. Both of those are 100% natural too.

As for MSG and artificial flavors-- I've never heard of vegan foods being full of garbage.

Well now you have.

That seems antithetical to the "purity" of controlling your food intake. I always check ingredients on everything, and if there are chemical names, I have to look them up, and if they can be animal sourced, I have to contact the company and specifically ask if they can guarantee a vegetable source.

Well the packet can say "flavour enhancer 621" or "yeast extract" and either way it means MSG.

While we're on the topic the "Daiya" fake-cheese is way less healthy:

Bega Light Cheese (shredded):
Per 28g serving.
Calories: 78
Protein: 9.6g
Fat (total): 4.3g
Fat (saturated): 2.7g
Carbohydrate: 0g
Sugars: 0g
Sodium: 159.6mg
Calcium: 278.6
Contains no MSG

Compare this to the fake product:
Per 28g serving.
Calories: 90
Protein: 1g
Fat (total): 6g
Fat (saturated): 2g
Carbohydrate: 7g
Sugars: 0g
Sodium: 250mg
Contains MSG!

[Anomalocaris]

Right now, there's a simple solution: eat healthy foods, with not much red meat, and exercise. I'm not sure how you're going to show us a better solution than that.

The world mostly do not work well when operating on the principle of imposing some people's half baked ideas of better solutions upon others by fiat. The world works better on the principle being responsible for the cost of your personal choice upon other humans.

I don't care if eating meat is a better or worse solution than any other in your opinion. If it is my solution of choice, then so long as I pay my share of the cost of that solution to other humans, then it is none of your business what my choice of solution is.

[Aractus]

When it comes to grass fed beef, yes it will be better for the animals and it will not entail wasteful use of crops. However the animals will grow considerably slower, reducing productivity, and increasing the amount of methane and carbon dioxide production from the animals as they digest food. Additionally as the land becomes increasingly marginal, this will dramatically increase the amount of energy used to herd the animals, which will have to be dispersed over a large area. All this means that this can in fact INCREASE the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted by grass fed beef compared to feedlot fed.

Most Australian beef is primarily grass-fed, so I don't know why we're talking in terms of conjecture "if they're grass fed they grow slower" etc, no they grow "less" not "slower", the weight of the animal is reduced at the time of slaughter. This is why most cattle (about 80%) is actually fattened on grain. But it's a supplement to their diet, so yes if the cattle were to stop eating grass entirely it would take 7 pounds of feed to produce each additional pound of meat, but this is not the case when they continue eating grass as it is. So 80% of Cattle raised for beef eat grass and some grain, and 20% eat only grass. I'm not aware that we have any cattle that is fed grain exclusively.

Indeed as this study comparing grass-fed vs feedlot cattle says, grass-fed beef is so much worse for the environment that "increasing proportion of lot-fed beef in Australia is favourable, since this production system generates lower total GHG emissions than grass-fed production; the additional effort in producing and transporting feeds is effectively offset by the increased efficiency of meat production in feedlots."

Your solution is more factory farming? You can't be serious.

Cattle in feedlots are still raised on traditional farms before being sent ot the feedlot you know.

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If one never consumes animal fat, they can never have a heart attack or stroke.

Well I suppose don't let the facts get in the way of your opinion then?

[bennyboy]

What I am saying is rushing onto what is possible now is rash if there is good reason to think doing what can be possible with comparatively little developmental risk promise to be much more economical ethical and nutritious.

You ethics is not mine. Your use of the word nutritious is nothing but a subterfuge to help impose your personal infantile squeamishness upon others.

So please don't rewrite my posts for me again.

What you're saying about taking the easy way out applies equally to being vegetarian or meat-eating. There's a simple solution for reducing heart attack and stroke risk: moderate fatty foods, especially red meat. But you want to subject people to regular testing, potential medical treatment, etc. as a way to just keep eating the same foods. There's no reason for it.

As for nutrition, I'm saying that many of the dietary issues with being vegetarian are solved easily enough-- they are not even very challenging. We've already got fortified wheat, cereal, and milk. Instead of insisting that certain vitamins can only be gotten from meat, we could guarantee that people of ANY dietary choice could get all the nutrition they need.

So please accept that when I rewrite your post, it's because what you've just said about going vegetarian applies equally to your suggested medical solution to a problem that already has easy solutions.

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The problem isn't that it's formed to look like meat, but rather that it's formed to taste like meat. To achieve this the foods are usually high in salt and contain msg.

What can I say except ewww. I also would argue that at least these burgers would likely be no more healthy than natural meat.

However, that's seriously anecdotal. I've had plenty of vegetarian/vegan food that doesn't have additives. For me, it again comes down to mass-production: big companies trying to get products to survive longer on the shelves, and making the foods less healthy in the process.

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Right now, there's a simple solution: eat healthy foods, with not much red meat, and exercise. I'm not sure how you're going to show us a better solution than that.

The world mostly do not work well when operating on the principle of imposing some people's half baked ideas of better solutions upon others by fiat. The world works better on the principle being responsible for the cost of your personal choice upon other humans.

I don't care if eating meat is a better or worse solution than any other in your opinion. If it is my solution of choice, then so long as I pay my share of the cost of that solution to other humans, then it is none of your business what my choice of solution is.

This is a noble sentiment, and who knows? it may be true in your case. But over the whole population, having a high amount of obesity leads to a medical burden that ends up being shouldered by the society as a whole. Anyone who willingly engages in practices that are unhealthy to himself is indirectly posing a burden on others, whether he thinks he's paying his fair share of taxes, or insurance premiums, or whatever.

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If one never consumes animal fat, they can never have a heart attack or stroke.

Well I suppose don't let the facts get in the way of your opinion then?

Yeah, I agree with this. For sure, vegetarians can have heart attacks or strokes, especially if they have dietary deficiencies that they may be unaware of, or if what they are eating affects blood pressure.

That being said, you have to go with the numbers (which I don't have). I'm pretty sure that a 300-lb hamburger eater has a greater risk of heart or stroke risk than a 150-lb vegetarian.

[là bạn điên]

Vegans have a vastly lower rate of heart disease than people who eat red meat.

[bennyboy]

Let's try some links, with clear, short comments (the way I suggested earlier):
WCRF Findings (article)
Conclusion:
-lower cancer risk among vegetarians and fish-eaters than red-meat eaters

Caveat:
-those groups also correlate with OTHER behaviors: general fitness interest, etc. which could be responsible, so no causal link proven

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Vegan Health
Reading at "Meta-Analysis 1999")
Conclusion:
-vegetarians, Fish-eaters and Lacto-Ovo vegetarians had significantly lower specific death rates (certain cancers etc.)
-vegans did no better than regular meat eaters in any category
-vegans' #1 single cause of death was heart disease (sorry futilethewinds!)

Caveat:
-in 1999, issues with vitamin B12 were not well-known, so newer studies may show improvements for vegans, at least relative to 1999. Note that even in the 1999 study, vegans (not other vegetarians) were not WORSE off than regular meat eaters in any measure of mortality, which seems to debunk the idea that eating red meat is necessary.

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(Reading at "Epic-Oxford: Preliminary Results 2003")
Conclusion
-vegans have greater rate of bone fractures than meat-eaters

Caveat:
-those vegans whose calcium intake was adequate did not suffer a greater rate of bone fractures.

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Overall Conclusion:

In summary, not enough is yet known about vegan mortality to draw any conclusions other than that vegans do not have unusually high rates of mortality and they probably do better than the average person due either to diet or a healthier lifestyle.

Re B12:
B12 sources
Vegetarians are 100% fine for both B12 and protein, if they consume dairy. The link claims "Marmite," a yeast-based spread, has 8% of DV B12 / 100g, so you'd need about 3 pounds a day! Many breakfast cereals are fortified with vitamins, including B12. I've found some that list all ingredients, and taste great with soya milk (which is also often fortified).

Caveat: none of the vegan sources of B12 I could find are natural, except maybe for some kinds of algae/seaweed. They all require working with bacterial cultures and extracting the B12 in an industrial setting in order to produce useable supplements.

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http://chriskresser.com/what-everyone-es...deficiency
Conclusion: According to this article (which I didn't read), more reliable tests for B12 deficiency are quite damning, both for lacto-ovo vegetarians and especially for vegans.

Caveat: None mentioned