Dr. Doug Graham (80-10-10 raw vegan)

[miniboes]

Yes, the physiological difference is that we're getting fatter which is due to hormonal imbalance, i.e. "leptin resistance". There are some interesting hypothesise about how this happens, and one is that we're not eating enough fat because we're eating too much added sugars. Other research is looking at the roles that genes play in this. But ultimately no one knows for sure what causes it or how to prevent it at this time.

Sure, and how is that relevant when talking about vitamin b12 or the effect of milk on bone health?

Something else I want to say on the whole B12 thing, but why would you stack up a documented cure for our #1 killer against that one vitamin that you can take a supplement for? Also keep in mind that almost all physicians that recommend the plant-based (vegan) diet, like Neal Barnard and Michael Greger, actually recommend a B12 fortified plant-based diet. Whoever really listens to their advice will not have B12 deficiency.

I'll quote my textbook for you:

"It is true that hereditary and dietary factors can elevate blood cholesterol to dangerously high levels. ... Only about 15% of our cholesterol comes from the diet; the other 85% is internally synthesized, primarily by the liver."

It is as I mentioned saturated fat that causes blood cholesterol levels to rise, not dietary cholesterol.

Did you even look at what I send you? How does your book contradict it?

As I understand it, it's only trace amounts in meat, not 1-5%.

Then your understanding does not correspond to the facts.

Because we require meat for balanced nutrition.

What do you mean with 'balanced'?

Well you should, becuase no one should follow a diet that has negative health consequences for them. Wouldn't you agree that anyone wanting to try veganisim should also put their health first?

Your anecdotes don't prove anything about a larger group of people, that's the very nature of anecdotes. For many health is the very reason to follow a vegan diet actually, it is the best way to deal with diabetes and CVD.

I'm not interested in IPCC's recommendation. They're directed to make those reconsiderations by politicians. Thus their motives are political in nature.

Yeah, I would agree if their findings would actually benefit politicians, but they don't. Most politicians would prefer human-caused GHGs to be a non issue, because then they wouldn't have to do anything. The IPCC recommendations mean that politicians should be telling the largest companies of their nations to reduce emissions, something few of these politicians are prepared to do. However, to take responsibility for our actions here is well, the responsible thing to do. Here's what the people at the Nation Academy of Sciences have to say:

(p1) "there is a strong, credible body of evidence, based on multiple lines of research, documenting that climate is changing and that these changes are in large part caused by human activities. While much remains to be learned, the core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly and have stood firm in the face of serious scientific debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations."
(p21-22) "Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities."

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12782&page=1

Why? Are you really saying that people who experience problems on a vegan diet do not matter?

No, I am saying anecdotes do not actually prove anything. It's called the anecdotal fallacy.

See also

---

You ready for a long and disappointing discussion?

Well, I'm not just going to take your word for it you know. So sure.

My money also goes to people who hurt people - there's no sense candy coating what my money may be or is being used for. Thing is, I don't have a whole lot of control over what happens to money when it is no longer mine. (...) I'm content, personally, to pursue what I feel to be the best possible outcome given the reality of a situation. If more is required.

You can be pretty damn certain that the money you give to your local butcher is causing animals to suffer. Therefore, pursuing the best possible outcome, as in causing the least suffering, necessarily includes not buying meat.

You mean how, other than replacing a non-renewable input that is responsible for global environmental devastation, chronic political upheaval, and widespread social exploitation?

The suffering of the animals, how does it reduce the suffering of the animals?

Oh? You get ahold of one of my grocery receipts? You do some investigate work into the products that I buy? Thought not. But so what if I were? Do I have a choice?/quote]

Since you're having this discussion with me I assumed you are not vegan. Am I not correct? And yes, you have a choice, it is not buying the damn meat.

[quote='Rhythm' pid='789521' dateline='1415118289']For you, any of the bacterial supplementals should be off the table

There's a fundamental difference between bacteria and most animals; the animals are sentient, bacteria are not. Animals have an interest to live, bacteria do not. If something cannot suffer, if something cannot even want anything, then I have no problem with eating it. However, if it can suffer, and it does have a will to live, then it is in our circumstances not justifiable. That is, unless you are allergic to all plant foods, which I doubt.

[The Grand Nudger]

You can be pretty damn certain that the money you give to your local butcher is causing animals to suffer. Therefore, pursuing the best possible outcome, as in causing the least suffering, necessarily includes not buying meat.

I grow alot of my own, but more often the not I buy the majority from someone else (up to and including the grocery store)...no matter who the supplier is, animals suffer.

-and I can be pretty damned certain that the money I pay in taxes is causing animals to suffer. I'm pretty sure the money I don't spend on this or that is causing animals to suffer. My very existence....causes animals to suffer. Obligate parasite, in context. Neither you nor I actually have control over this, and our relative dietary choices are not sufficient grounds to elicit a change in this situation.

But we've already been here, this ground has been covered. All of the above applies to my money hurting people as well, and yours too, ofc.

(I want to mention here that something ought to pop out at you. You can, without having seen what I buy reasonably assume that something on that list causes harm/suffering/death to animals....have you ever thought to go down that same rabbit hole with regards to AG -et al.....how many critters die to get us a head of lettuce or to keep the lights on at our houses?)

The suffering of the animals, how does it reduce the suffering of the animals?

You're asking how a reduction in fossil fuel use and dependence would reduce animal suffering? Just sum up for me the state you feel the fossil fuel industry is in regarding the suffering of animals (including ourselves..of course)?

Since you're having this discussion with me I assumed you are not vegan. Am I not correct? And yes, you have a choice, it is not buying the damn meat.

Nope, not a vegan. I am a picky eater though with much wider leeway than yourself for reliably sourcing my own food in a manner that I can be certain is consistent with my principles. Even so, I can't honestly claim that my freedom of dietary choice relative to yourself actually reduces the suffering of animals - or gives me any moral or ethical purchase.

There's a fundamental difference between bacteria and most animals; the animals are sentient, bacteria are not.

Speciesist. How convenient for your pleasure.

Animals have an interest to live, bacteria do not.

LOL, of all the things about sentience and how it seems to lead to differences in life that -are- easy to quantify, that's not one of them. All life, by any consistent metric, has "interest to live". Not immediately relevant but it's just something I had to opine upon when I saw it.

If something cannot suffer, if something cannot even want anything, then I have no problem with eating it. However, if it can suffer, and it does have a will to live, then it is in our circumstances not justifiable.

Because.......? Also, so long as we're not eating it but are hurting or impeding it in some other way...are we then in a similar position - or will we only extend this criticism to omnivory?

(the short version of that long disappointing convo is that were are simply not at a point in ag where it's even possible to feed people without suffering and harm being done to animals..and that's best or worst case scenarios. We're might not even be in a position where reduction is feasible if possible...as any suffering alleviated on one side will simply be absorbed by the other)

[Aractus]

Sure, and how is that relevant when talking about vitamin b12 or the effect of milk on bone health?

Something else I want to say on the whole B12 thing, but why would you stack up a documented cure for our #1 killer against that one vitamin that you can take a supplement for? Also keep in mind that almost all physicians that recommend the plant-based (vegan) diet, like Neal Barnard and Michael Greger, actually recommend a B12 fortified plant-based diet. Whoever really listens to their advice will not have B12 deficiency.

That is just not true. There are a lot of people who take B12 oral supplements on a vegan diet and find they develop B12 deficiencies anyway. Then they resort to injecting B12; and a huge number of vegans now recognise this and recommend IV B12!

What do you mean with 'balanced'?

Balanced in the sense that you're not trying to make your body produce excessive amounts of things (eg vitamins and cholesterol and other steroids like insulin) that you can get from the diet.

Your anecdotes don't prove anything about a larger group of people, that's the very nature of anecdotes. For many health is the very reason to follow a vegan diet actually, it is the best way to deal with diabetes and CVD.

That wasn't my question, my question was whether a person should stop following a diet that is unhealthy for them?

And Alex Jamieson, as much as you don't want to admit this, is aware of a very large number of people who have encountered health problems when following veganisim and felt judged and betrayed by the vegan community and have told their stories to her. In fact you can even see some of them in the comments section on her blog: "I cannot possibly applaud you enough. I was a long time vegetarian that had terrible health issues so I went vegan hoping to heal myself. I healed some issues, and greatly aggravated others with the enormous amounts of soy and wheat in my diet. It was very difficult to admit that veganism didn’t work for me after three years."

The problem is that you don't know for certain whether veganisim long term will be a healthy or unhealthy choice for an individual person. I'm not arguing that everyone experiences problems long-term, although many do. I'm arguing that people who do experience problems should put their health first, and shouldn't feel judged by those in the vegan community for doing so.

Yeah, I would agree if their findings would actually benefit politicians, but they don't. Most politicians would prefer human-caused GHGs to be a non issue, because then they wouldn't have to do anything.

We're going to have to agree to disagree. There are a huge number of politicians who deliberately use this as an excuse to generate higher tax revenue from essential power supplies, and ultimately that disproportionately disadvantages the poor.

The fact is that around 2007 or 2009 the Hadley Centre assessed the cost and benefit of the impact of the UK government's rather ambitious CO2 emissions cuts would have on long-term climate change, and it came back showing the effect was so small it would not even be measurable with today's climate equipment (it was a tiny fraction of a degree). I know I should have looked up the facts, but I'm not lying about this and you can easily verify this.

No, I am saying anecdotes do not actually prove anything. It's called the anecdotal fallacy.

See also

And I say to you again that you do not know whether veganisim will be healthy or not for individual people.

[KichigaiNeko]

Ummm
Quick interjection.

Without bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, humans would not be able to digest any food at all.

At least this is my understanding of biology.

---

Great discussion.

[Aractus]

No, humans would still digest food (saliva begins the process in the mouth), and some absorption of the digested food would still take place, but yes bacteria is required as part of the normal digestive process in humans, and other animals.

[miniboes]

-and I can be pretty damned certain that the money I pay in taxes is causing animals to suffer. I'm pretty sure the money I don't spend on this or that is causing animals to suffer. My very existence....causes animals to suffer. Obligate parasite, in context. Neither you nor I actually have control over this, and our relative dietary choices are not sufficient grounds to elicit a change in this situation.

Note that I said minimize suffering, not eliminate suffering. To say that because you can't eliminate animal suffering you might as well not try is like saying you can't stop all sexual abuse so you might as well buy child porn and rape the next woman you meet.

You're asking how a reduction in fossil fuel use and dependence would reduce animal suffering? Just sum up for me the state you feel the fossil fuel industry is in regarding the suffering of animals (including ourselves..of course)?

I do feel like the fossil fuel industry is causing animal suffering, but it is nowhere near the scale of animal suffering caused by the dairy and meat industry. I don't see how you can possibly think that integrating livestock production into our overall food production is somehow better than getting rid of livestock production.

Speciesist. How convenient for your pleasure.

Sure, I don't see what is inherently wrong with speciesism if it does not mean claiming superiority of humanity over other sentient beings.

LOL, of all the things about sentience and how it seems to lead to differences in life that -are- easy to quantify, that's not one of them. All life, by any consistent metric, has "interest to live". Not immediately relevant but it's just something I had to opine upon when I saw it.

How can something not conscious have an interest in anything? Come to think of it, how is that even relevant if it is not sentient?

If something cannot suffer, if something cannot even want anything, then I have no problem with eating it. However, if it can suffer, and it does have a will to live, then it is in our circumstances not justifiable.

Because.......? Also, so long as we're not eating it but are hurting or impeding it in some other way...are we then in a similar position - or will we only extend this criticism to omnivory?

Sorry, I don't understand your latter question, could you rephrase? As to why, I believe in a morality based on the minimization of suffering, as Sam Harris has constructed it in his book The Moral Landscape. Do you think we should not seek to minimize suffering?

(the short version of that long disappointing convo is that were are simply not at a point in ag where it's even possible to feed people without suffering and harm being done to animals..and that's best or worst case scenarios. We're might not even be in a position where reduction is feasible if possible...as any suffering alleviated on one side will simply be absorbed by the other)

How did you determine that?

---

Sure, and how is that relevant when talking about vitamin b12 or the effect of milk on bone health?

Something else I want to say on the whole B12 thing, but why would you stack up a documented cure for our #1 killer against that one vitamin that you can take a supplement for? Also keep in mind that almost all physicians that recommend the plant-based (vegan) diet, like Neal Barnard and Michael Greger, actually recommend a B12 fortified plant-based diet. Whoever really listens to their advice will not have B12 deficiency.

That is just not true. There are a lot of people who take B12 oral supplements on a vegan diet and find they develop B12 deficiencies anyway. Then they resort to injecting B12; and a huge number of vegans now recognise this and recommend IV B12!

What is your evidence?

Balanced in the sense that you're not trying to make your body produce excessive amounts of things (eg vitamins and cholesterol and other steroids like insulin) that you can get from the diet.

You should avoid cholesterol, saturated fat, trans fats and animal protein by that definition. All of these things are only found in animals naturally (except for saturated fat) and can make your body produce excessive amounts of things you can get from diet; CVD, Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, and the list goes on.

That wasn't my question, my question was whether a person should stop following a diet that is unhealthy for them?

Sure, or improve the diet so it is no longer unhealthy. The case however, is that for most people a B12 fortified plant-based diet rich in legumes and vegetables is an extremely healthy diet. I would also argue that a diet that causes the greatest killer in the world, the standard meat-eater diet, is unhealthy.

And Alex Jamieson, as much as you don't want to admit this, is aware of a very large number of people who have encountered health problems when following veganisim and felt judged and betrayed by the vegan community and have told their stories to her. In fact you can even see some of them in the comments section on her blog: "I cannot possibly applaud you enough. I was a long time vegetarian that had terrible health issues so I went vegan hoping to heal myself. I healed some issues, and greatly aggravated others with the enormous amounts of soy and wheat in my diet. It was very difficult to admit that veganism didn’t work for me after three years."

That doesn't tell us anything about how healthy veganism is. All these people could be eating oreos all day and call it a vegan diet.

The problem is that you don't know for certain whether veganisim long term will be a healthy or unhealthy choice for an individual person. I'm not arguing that everyone experiences problems long-term, although many do. I'm arguing that people who do experience problems should put their health first, and shouldn't feel judged by those in the vegan community for doing so.

Hey, how about the 17.3 million people that die of CVD each year? 30% of global deaths worldwide? How is your "balanced" diet treating them? How can you possibly stack up your anecdotal examples of people having problems with a possibly faulty vegan diet to the greatest causes of death in the world?

We're going to have to agree to disagree. There are a huge number of politicians who deliberately use this as an excuse to generate higher tax revenue from essential power supplies, and ultimately that disproportionately disadvantages the poor.

What other cause for global warming do you propose?

And I say to you again that you do not know whether veganisim will be healthy or not for individual people.

We know it's healthy for the great mass of people, therefore for most individuals.

[Aractus]

You should avoid cholesterol, saturated fat, trans fats and animal protein by that definition. All of these things are only found in animals naturally (except for saturated fat) and can make your body produce excessive amounts of things you can get from diet; CVD, Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, and the list goes on.

No, you shouldn't. You didn't even know what cholesterol is.

Now you know that it's the parent hormone from which all other hormones are made. I've also made you aware that under normal dietary conditions, humans source about 15% of their cholesterol from the diet and sythesise the remaining 85%.

Vegan diets often lead to cholesterol deficiency, but even if it doesn't, you're still causing your liver to produce about 18% more cholesterol than normal. Like I said, the human body does cope as best as it can with abnormal conditions, but that's not a valid reason to put your body through these stresses to see how it copes.

Sure, or improve the diet so it is no longer unhealthy. The case however, is that for most people a B12 fortified plant-based diet rich in legumes and vegetables is an extremely healthy diet. I would also argue that a diet that causes the greatest killer in the world, the standard meat-eater diet, is unhealthy.

...

Hey, how about the 17.3 million people that die of CVD each year? 30% of global deaths worldwide? How is your "balanced" diet treating them? How can you possibly stack up your anecdotal examples of people having problems with a possibly faulty vegan diet to the greatest causes of death in the world?

Everyone has to die eventually. I have a feeling you're intentionally misusing the data to fit your agenda. Just because somebody dies from CVD doesn't necessarily mean that death was premature. Even if you had a society in which 100% of people died from CVD, it wouldn't necessarily mean that you had any premature deaths.

Here's the statistics for CVD prevalence in Australia by age group:





As you can clearly see, the condition is much more prevalent among older people. And this is just people with the condition, not necessarily people that go on to die from that particular condition. Of people aged 45-54, 23% had CVD. Of people with CVD, only 33% reported their health as bad/poor - which is three times higher than the non-CVD population. So only 7.7% of people aged 45-54 both had CVD and reported their health as being bad. That's a lot less than the 30% figure you came up with.

High blood pressure was a bigger risk factor than blood cholesterol, in fact: "In 2004-05, 7% of the population reported having been told by a doctor or nurse that they have high blood cholesterol. The rate for those aged over 65 years was higher at 22%; Of Australians reporting a cardiovascular condition, 40% also reported having high blood cholesterol."

Here is the complete list of risk factors:

"Major preventable risk factors for cardiovascular disease include tobacco smoking, hypertensive disease (high blood pressure), high blood cholesterol, inadequate physical activity, overweight and obesity, poor nutrition and diabetes (AIHW 2004)."

So, now we know that only 22% of people aged 65 or over had high blood cholesterol. There's scientific debate on this even though in the peer-review literature because research is now suggesting that it's a normal part of the aging process to have higher cholesterol in old age. Again way lower than the 30% figure you claimed.

I have a second source also saying that high blood pressure is the main risk factor for CVD:

"Around 6% of the burden of disease and injury in Australia in 2003 was attributed to high blood cholesterol, placing it fifth out of the 14 risk factors examined (Begg et al. 2007). High blood cholesterol, at 35%, was the second highest contributor to the burden of CVD after high blood pressure (Begg et al. 2007)."


And once again, that 6% figure is way way lower than your 30% figure, and as to how much of that 6% results in premature death hasn't even been assessed.

From that same report:

"Based on self-reports from the 2007–08 National Health Survey (NHS), an estimated 3.4 million Australians (17% of the population) had one or more long-term cardiovascular diseases (AIHW 2010a). Similarly, estimates from the 2007 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (NSMHWB) show that 3.5 million Australians aged 16-85 years had a chronic CVD condition. The NHS ranked CVD fourth in prevalence after diseases of the eye and adnexa, the musculoskeletal system, connective tissue and the respiratory system."

So 17% of Australians have CVD - that's only half of the 30% figure which you came up with.

Ah, finally I think I've found your figure: "In 2008, CVD was the cause of 48,456 (34%) of all deaths—responsible for more deaths than any other disease group. CVD was followed as a cause of death by cancer (29%), diseases of the respiratory system (8%) and external causes (6%), with mental and behavioural problems and diseases of the nervous and endocrine systems each accounting for a further 4% (Figure 3.9)."



34%, but hardly any of them were premature.

And here's the downward trend:

We know it's healthy for the great mass of people, therefore for most individuals.

No, you don't. When I pressed you to answer whether someone should continue veganism if they find that it's bad for their health, you gave me some nonsense about CVD, and then claimed once again that cholesterol is bad showing once again that you're stigmatising one of the body's most important chemicals with your bronze-aged understanding of it.

Of people who promote and advocate for "ethical veganism", the vast majority have never studied human nutrition, human biology, human anatomy, or even medicine. They then make the kinds of claims that you've been making "we know veganism is good", etc.

Let's go back to when you asked me "how do I know we're designed by nature to eat meat"?

Firstly there are an estimated 8.7 million species of flowering plants, of those only 195,000 produce edible parts for humans. Of that number, just 17 species provide an estimated 90% of mankind's food supply, with domesticated grass seed being the most consumed plant-based foods. "Eight cereal grains: wheat, maize, rice, barley, sorghum, oats, rye, and millet provide 56% of the food energy and 50% of the protein consumed on earth [1]. Three cereals: wheat, maize and rice together comprise at least 75% of the world’s grain production (table 1)." (Cordian, 1999).

The simple fact is that that a much greater proportion of animals are edible by humans - in fact even animals which we generally have other uses for and generally do not eat: cats, dogs, horses, donkeys, alpacas, etc. are still edible, and available to provide nourishment if we find ourselves in a situation where we needed to eat such animals. Unlike domesticated grains, the original wild forms of these domestic animals (wolf, wildcat, wild boars, etc) are edible as well. Of course when thinking about land animals it is the herbivorous which are healthiest, but we can eat just about any of them. We can, and do, also eat a range of marine life.

A study done found that humans also consume 87 species of marine mammals (dolphins, whales, seals, etc. see here). I certainly disagree, ethically, with eating dolphins - because they are very intelligent. I have no problem with minke whales, seals or most other mammals that are not endangered.

In addition, of course, then there's fish, insects and grubs. They all too can provide a range of nutrition and again there are a lot of species to be found that are edible, and a few that are not.

And finally, human teeth are designed for meat. I see vegans often wrongly claiming that they aren't, but they are - we have teeth designed to shear the meat from the bone, and teeth designed to chew. Furthermore, the archaeological record has shown that people who ate large amounts of meat had little to no cavities in their teeth, but those who ate large amounts of grain had more cavities.

[The Grand Nudger]

Note that I said minimize suffering, not eliminate suffering. To say that because you can't eliminate animal suffering you might as well not try is like saying you can't stop all sexual abuse so you might as well buy child porn and rape the next woman you meet.

Except that nobody said that we shouldn't try except yourself, right here, nubcakes. :hugs: I'm commenting on the likelihood of success in the current environment.

I do feel like the fossil fuel industry is causing animal suffering, but it is nowhere near the scale of animal suffering caused by the dairy and meat industry. I don't see how you can possibly think that integrating livestock production into our overall food production is somehow better than getting rid of livestock production.

Because food production requires a vast amount of chemical inputs that livestock can provide (as well as shallow tilling, pest control, storage etc). Because livestock can be grown in places and times where mixed veg cannot - reducing the cost of transportation (energy cost, mind you). Because livestock can process things which are not useful to us into that which is useful to us (like all of that corn which our livestock industry is currently a byproduct of- or grass). Because I don't have to build offshore rigs, deep wells or strip mines to grow livestock. Because livestock is not a weapon with which countries can wage war, or tinpot dictators can prop themselves up with. Hopefully you've deigned to include not just the environmental destruction of fossil fuels and ag - but also the human conflict over the same...because hey, we're animals too...but even if you don't think we belong in the animal category, we still suffer. As far as the suffering of animals goes, on this rock. Ag and fossil fuels would be my #1 and #2 (and that's unsurprising, since they're currently tied at the hip) with regards to human activities which have caused the most suffering in this word. Something tells me a free range chicken operation isn't approaching their combined and projected death tolls. But you disagree? Perhaps we should quantify that with some numbers? How many heads of cattle do you think suffer on a pasture operation following best practice (preventative vet, captive bolt, inter station screening, etc)? I'd be willing to wager there would be 0 animals suffering - aside from scrapes, bruises, cuts, illness...just usual life stuff (though even here, the livestock will be better offf...since we'll be there to treat them, and have an "interest" in doing so). I'm willing to line up the best practices in livestock vs best practices in non-livestock based ag and best practices in fossil fuel production and see how the chips fall. What would you accept as evidence or a reputable source of the same for lining up some numbers?

Sure, I don't see what is inherently wrong with speciesism if it does not mean claiming superiority of humanity over other sentient beings.

Except that you've conveniently defined your criteria for what you have to be nice to by reference to your own experience or attributes so that you can make an argument about how some experience or attribute of your own is "moral". Again, convenient. I don't have a problem with that, personally...but I'm not taking you to task for eating. You're tossing around moral condemnation so I'd suggest that you screw your shit down extra tight. Tighter than any speciesist excuse is going to allow, anyway.

How can something not conscious have an interest in anything? Come to think of it, how is that even relevant if it is not sentient?

Are you sure that your "interest to live" arises from your conscious...and if it did, how do we explain the startling similarities between ourselves and "non-conscious" life regarding the avoidance of death and harm? Anything you might reference as an example of an animals "interest to live" -including our own- is most likely going to apply to a rage of creatures that you would not attribute sentience to. Go ahead, try to come up with an example. It's wasn't immediately relevant...as I said, it's just a side interest of mine - an area in which people habitually take things for granted (consciousness/sentience/behavior). I could describe to you the interests -even preferences- of plants. I could describe to you how they communicate (even between species and even to animals), cooperate, and how they attempt to reactively defend themselves against predation (sometimes in wondrously complicated ways that defy explanation given the things we assume about plants relative to ourselves). All of this, with no "sentience" to speak of. Fascinating stuff. Now look up at the question and response above again, with new eyes......

Sorry, I don't understand your latter question, could you rephrase? As to why, I believe in a morality based on the minimization of suffering, as Sam Harris has constructed it in his book The Moral Landscape. Do you think we should not seek to minimize suffering?

Nope, I would agree that we should minimize suffering. My second question asked whether or not we're only going to be appraising what we eat with all of this, whether or not this same criteria of suffering is applied equally to any human activity. If so...I'm mystified by your comments about fossil fuels being less deleterious and harmful than livestock production.

How did you determine that?

Simple enough. People are still starving, as we speak - so reducing food sources available to us as a population isn't going to help that (nor do starving human beings do much good for the animal life in their immediate vicinity). Human animals will suffer. Lets say we ramped up our mixed veggie production (to cover the gaps left by livestock - in addition to those already starving) - we'd require more water and more fossil fuel based inputs (as well as an increase in suitable cropland read: clearcutting). Animals (human and none) will suffer en mass - as life as a bloc is already suffering due to water and fossil fuel based issues (let alone environmental destruction). Speaking of which, have you considered the suffering that would be wrought by such economic hardship being imposed? Exacerbating those issues seems unlikely to ameliorate the suffering they cause. Or, hail mary - we could lean on livestock to produce the chemical inputs (we'll still need more water - more production means more water) and remove the death timer that's currently on ag. However.. I don't imagine this is going to be acceptable to you as it will still lead to "the suffering of animals". Damned from all sides on this one and it just stings...because I'm a problem solver, at heart (and more specifically it's what I do for a living - touching on the suffering of my hungry little mouths no matter what angle we come from, lol). I fear that if we consistently applied your criticism to any method of food production available to us we would fall short of the bar you've set for "moral" or "humane". This is an incredibly complicated issue that you've reduced to a one liner...you realize? In any case, to begin explaining food production (either veg or livestock), it is essentially energy capture, processing, and storage. There's a disparity between what we have and what we need (for a wide variety of reasons..not all of which have ready made solutions - they are currently intractable- some of which do, but they are compromises down to the last offering with regards to subject we're discussing). The disparity -could be- quantified by an amount of suffering. We either suffer, or we shove that off on other creatures. Sometimes were deciding to increase or lesson the relative suffering between two groups of animals in the pursuit of minimizing our own. We're in a shitty position on this one (as are a great many other animals) in that we are not among the autotrophs, forced to compromise in a manner that suits our conscience. You and I want the same thing (I assume). We want to have a solution that feeds people in an ethical manner, a manner in which fewer things suffer. I say "fewer" because "no" is plainly off the table. Perhaps someday in the future "no" could be applied, but today is not the day (if it ever comes at all).

How do you propose that we meet our nutrient requirements (both in production and consumption), since you've taken away the one manner in which we know we can rely on indefinitely - the manner in which fertility is built "in the wild" and has been since time immemorial as causing more suffering....than fossil fuels. Is there an alternative to these two....have you told anyone about this alternative? A great many people would appreciate this information, myself included. Tell you what, I'll even cut you in on the trillions of dollars (and subsequent nobel prize) such a solution could rake in. Deal?

That last bit would be a good way to narrow in on the problems that ag faces currently, there aren't any "free lunches" in this world...especially when it comes to lunch, lol. I'll make a little list of the areas where we currently have a problem with ag as regards the suffering of animals. Pick any you like, perhaps offer a solution (not required)- and I'll babble on about the current state of affairs, limitations of knowledge/tech/economic feasability etc. Will give us a more focused convo.
1. Procurement of inputs
2. Development and maintenance of production space
3. Production and post harvest handling/processing of agricultural commodity
4. Transportation and sale of finished goods.

[Cyberman]

Note that I said minimize suffering, not eliminate suffering. To say that because you can't eliminate animal suffering you might as well not try is like saying you can't stop all sexual abuse so you might as well buy child porn and rape the next woman you meet.

Seriously?

Even if that was an accurate summation of what Rhythm said (hint: it's not) it would still be a blatantly obvious false equivocation. You are equating a lack of motivation to act on one side with proactively working to exacerbate the problem on the other.

In order to balance the equation, you need to reword either the left side as "because you can't eliminate animal suffering you might as well promote animal cruelty and maim the next animal you meet"; or the right side as "you can't stop sexual abuse so you might as well not try".

[The Grand Nudger]

Indeed. I aim to minimize suffering where I can (without making some arbitrary/convenient dividing line, ignoring some other suffering that my "solution" to suffering would entail) - and continue to look into areas where I currently cannot. I don't condemn others for not having an answer to the latter. None of chose to be born here, as were are, as this place is. It's not as though I'm calling anyone a moral midget for deciding to be vegan or for having had the blessing/curse to have been born a human being here in the present. I'm clearly handing out exemptions......lol.