About vegans

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

I think that's one of the strongest arguments a vegan can actually make with regards to meat consumption.  

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.

We could feed the world...right now.  Hunger is a human problem, but it;s a real problem, and the fact that we -could- doesn't eliminate the factors that lead to this failure.  The morbidly obese are less a factor in that than we imagine..because they're not actually eating food that would keep some other person from starving or suffering from malnutrition.  The obese are commonly malnourished themselves.  World hunger and morbid obesity aren't opposites, they're symptoms of the same problem.  

--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.

I call momo my little assassin, lol.

[bennyboy]

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

I can see functional reasons for having animals-- they can convert materials which humans can't process to edible foods. And they can graze on land that cannot be profitably farmed (for example mountain goats).

But personally, I think 7 billion people could be fed, and reasonably happily so, without any meat at all.

[The Grand Nudger]

Probably, but..again, we'd need to develop more land.  It's there...the land exists.   We can do it. We;d have to -stop- creeping ag land with suburban sprawl, too. Takes a hell of along time for the earth to build soil, only takes a few hours for cement to dry.

[bennyboy]

We could feed the world...right now.  Hunger is a human problem, but it;s a real problem, and the fact that we -could- doesn't eliminate the factors that lead to this failure.  The morbidly obese are less a factor in that than we imagine..because they're not actually eating food that would keep some other person from starving or suffering from malnutrition.  The obese are commonly malnourished themselves.  World hunger and morbid obesity aren't opposites, they're symptoms of the same problem.  

I know the obese in America often eat a lot of flour-based foods: cookies, waffles, and so on, and with a lot of high-fructose corn syrup. But all of these foods, while specifically if sent to African might only help them develop diabetes, if those lands were repurposed to produce high-protein varieties of soy, for example, you might actually be able to kill two birds with one stone.

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Probably, but..again, we'd need to develop more land.  It's there...the land exists.   We can do it.  We;d have to -stop- creeping ag land with suburban sprawl, too.  Takes a hell of along time for the earth to build soil, only takes a few hours for cement to dry.

Thanks to global warming, I suspect we're within a century of about 1/4 of the world's land being opened up to farming-- like. . . almost all of Canada and Russia, for example.  Not only that, all that permafrost tundra is probably extremely nutrient-rich (I'm guessing, I don't actually know that).

[The Grand Nudger]

I guess that's what makes the whole thing infuriating to me?  We have multiple avenues out of this problem, but the likelihood of any of them materializing anytime soon is slim to nil.

-global warming. Unfortunately it'll open some and lock other..but I'm looking forward to growing coffee and chocolate in kentucky, for sure. I can actually grow tea here now, like back home..and it's only a matter of time till I can get some citrus planted...

[FlatAssembler]

Anyway, I've made a YouTube video about vegetarianism a few weeks ago:
https://youtu.be/BZe4HO2ziAY

[Jackalope]

And somehow, resurrecting a 9 month old thread on veganism was the best way to announce this, in your mind?

[Aegon]

I've slowly progressed toward vegetarianism. I've cut out red meat, and I only eat meat (chicken) for dinner a few times a week. It's just so easy to grill up some chicken though, I doubt I'll ever be strict about bot eating it. I do think it is healthier getting my protein from other sources though. Maybe I'm wrong. Whatever.

I need to look more into vegetarian meals and options before I decide.

Update: I've been pescetarian for a while now. Cant give up shrimp

Hey! 1 year later and I've been full vegetarian! Cool to see the progress in real time.

[no one]

[The Valkyrie]

Vegan burgers are great.

Though they scream when you put them on the barbecue...