Is there any benefit to raw milk vs pasteurized milk?

[Creed of Heresy]

Yeah, and while those deficits can be made up through supplements, it pretty much shows that the vegan diet is NOT natural, and is sustainable only through 'human engineering.' Without modern tech for extracting and processing the necessary nutrients and consolidating the amounts needed, vegans would need to eat well past their capacity to eat just for basic nutrients like those listed. I may have been too hasty to state that vegans are ALWAYS deficient in those nutrients, yes...but the fact that vegans NEED to take so many supplements tells me their diet is, frankly, bullshit, at least on its own. If it's all about health, then just eat some meat once in a blue moon to make up some of the deficiencies.

Seriously, I need this whole vegan diet thing explained to me, cuz I'm not seeing the point of being a vegan as opposed to being either a vegetarian or a semi-vegetarian...I mean, hell, from what I was reading, semi-vegetarian diets are more healthy than vegan ones, so why the fundamentalist-levels of self-imposed restrictions??

[Creed of Heresy]

Oh, and, no, I am not saying anyone here has claimed veganism to be more natural or whatever, I do not intend a strawman, I'm just stating that I fail to understand the reasoning behind veganism, is all.

[James2014]

[James2014]

I think it is also important to note what the American Dietetic Association (the largest professional body of nutritionists in the US, and indeed the world) says about vegan diets... and

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes."

[Creed of Heresy]

Well you certainly have a good point just in general, especially about the health benefits which I admit to being a valid reason for vegetarian diets, but at the same time, the ethics part just doesn't click to me. Why is the ability to bind sensory inputs into a biological CPU more important than a decentralized input system? One has less memory capability than the other, in other words, one is of inferior 'intelligence,' for lack of a better word, and ergo less thought need be paid for it than the other. Then why not eat meat? Animals have less 'intelligence' than we do, less awareness, less self-determination [if any]...if having a much simpler 'intellect' is the grounds for your ethics...then why bother sparing animals? And what are the ethical concerns with drinking milk, eating eggs, cheese, that sort of thing? The egg isn't aware in any way whatsoever and the ones that get eaten are not even fertilized, so there is no pain or suffering involved there. Same with milk and cheese. As for fish, well...they're somewhere in that gray area between animals and plants, so I'll leave that up to you whether or not you feel the need to answer that part.

As far as suffering goes...unfortunately, whether we want to or not, we all cause suffering. It's good to minimize the output of it, of course, but...at some point you have to draw the line as to what you will and will not cause. Am I against eating meat that comes from mass-production beef farms, wherein the cattle are treated like shit, stuffed into boxes every day, and mass-fed byproducts? Yup. Am I against eating meat that comes from a farm wherein the livestock are treated well, allowed to roam around, and otherwise led comfortable lives? Nope. To me, I see no ethical compunctions doing that because I know the animal lived a good life, and was likely killed so quickly it never felt a thing...which is necessary for beef, by the way. Adrenaline, which gets pumped through the bloodstream when suddenly faced with mortal danger, is produced to such an extent that it ruins the meat. Flavor, tenderness, all of it. So by necessity of the trade, they HAVE to kill the cattle before they can even feel what killed them. As for chickens, neck snap, instant termination of all neural functions. All organs stop instantly. Consciousness is gone within a couple seconds, and pain is not felt because the nerve endings are completely dead. If the animals lived a good life, and died painlessly and without suffering, what does it matter if I eat its carcass or not? Hell, I have a problem with NOT eating meat ethically. By the numbers, for the most part people will consume meat as part of their diets, and probably always will. We're omnivorous, it's just how our nature tends to be. So there's always gonna be meat lining the shelves. And as long as there's meat lining the shelves, there's gonna be meat expiring. In other words, the reason for the animal's death gets wasted. Hell, at least they serve a purpose in death. More than can be said for most human beings...

[Creed of Heresy]

Addendum: I could, in all honesty, actually do just fine on a vegetarian diet. I couldn't do a vegan diet, though. I tried doing a vegan diet myself about four years back when I went all serious-business about getting healthy. Thought it'd make me feel better. All it did was make me feel lethargic, empty, and cranky. I felt, health-wise, better, but mood-wise, I felt like a dead, cranky, humorless husk. I found no joy in trying to convince myself that tofu could taste decent. I'm a very good cook, if I do say so myself; I can make something mind-blowing from the cheapest ingredients; quality need not go in, but quality does come out. I tried cooking tofu and using it in a variety of dishes, trying to make it taste like something other than unwashed socks. All it ended up tasting like was whatever I had added to it. The flavor was bland, and the texture made it feel like it was oozing down my throat. Vegetables and fruits are all fine and can taste very good, and not to toot my own horn again but I can make them taste really damn good. Chive and garlic butter, poured over steamed asparagus, broccoli, and carrots, for example, with a hollandaise dipping sauce [suddenly doesn't become vegan; you see my problem already]. But, see, that's the problem. Margarine can be used, sure, but the flavor is much different, especially when melted and simmered with herbs, spices, etc, than butter, as its consistency. No matter how hard you try, the flavor of butter just is not capable of being replaced when its flavor needs to be directed. There's things you can replace with margarine, but even then, the taste and consistency changes, and not in ways I consider to be improvements.

I'd also never be able to give up seafood. Ever. Crab, lobster, oysters, salmon...they're all way too good to give up.

[KichigaiNeko]

Creed, it the above that often makes me wonder...
"You are very health conscious, has it ever occurred to you that these foods you love and 'can't give up' are exactly the foods your particular body needs to be healthy?

[Creed of Heresy]

Quite a bit, yes. XD I don't really eat chicken all that much, either. I eat beef fairly consistently, but I always go for lean, and from certain sources...except when I go to McDonald's from time to time. And by time to time, I mean quite a bit since I started working... Not lately, though.

[KichigaiNeko]

I rarely have MacDonald's. Beef and lamb is just once a week, rest of the time it is quite lean chicken & pork with of course the 1(meat):2 ratio of veggies. Pasta and/ or potatoes round out the meal.

My sauces aren't as good as yours but I'm in there experimenting. Zen loves my tarragon and mustard cream sauce! Also my lemon and chilli sauce is a hit too!

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As for non pasteurised milk? I doubt very much there is any "health benefit" at all.

The only "benefit" I can see happening is IF in fact you own said lactating cow, know precisely what it eats, know something regarding veterinary science (to keep said cow healthy) have a scrupulously clean milking area and have the poor dear artificially inseminated so that an over amorous bull doesn't break her back.

[James2014]

Why is the ability to bind sensory inputs into a biological CPU more important than a decentralized input system?

It is the ability to be conscious that means that the activation of pain receptors causes the feeling of pain and suffering. Feeling and suffering is not just a function of activation of pain sensing neurons in the skin, for example. Rather they are the result of integration of those signals within conscious experience created by the binding of multiple sensory inputs in the brain. Its not just a question of the quantity of CPU power, its a structural feature of the way sensory inputs are processed that creates a qualitative change in information processing to allow consciousness to exist or not. Animals have this ability to be conscious, whereas plants do not.

I value the happiness of conscious animals, and wish to reduce suffering, so to me eating meat is wrong. Even if the animal were to be killed painlessly having lived a great life (which is almost never the case), one is still preventing an animal from living a long and happy life. With milking animals, dairy cows are still subject to a very unhappy life, including forced separation from their young, enforced pregnancy, and increased risk of mastitis from mechanical milking. All this produces a significant stain on animals health, which dramatically reduces life expectancy.

With eggs, to maintain a supply of chickens one must allow many of those eggs to hatch, 50% of which will be male chicks. The vast majority of male chicks are then killed because one only needs a few to impregnate females, and having too many together will result in fighting.

More broadly though I am becoming more convinced by the rights based argument rather than just a utilitarian argument. This starts with the acknowledgement that conscious animals have their own conscious desires and interests. When we take an animal as property we are saying that the interests of that animal should be subservient to our own, and that consequentially its life is of inherent less value. But on what basis? One could argue that animals have lesser cognitive abilities, but many humans also lack some cognitive abilities, such as babies or the mentally disabled, and we would not treat them as property (by for example harvesting their organs for transplantation). For me the only thing that matters is the ability to be conscious and have interests, and if one can do this then we should have right not to be treated as property.

Re vegan food etc, sorry to hear you are not into tofu. I only ever eat it when I go to Chinese restaurants, I think they must deep fry it or something, when it try it always turns out a bit soggy and bland. Soya mince can be pretty good though when cooked with plenty of olive oil. Anyhow I tend to get my protein from lots of whole grains, nuts and legumes instead. As for alternatives to hollandaise sauce with vegetables, I find that plenty of olive oil, a bit of salt, +/- balsamic vinegar and garlic is all you need.