Making Allowances for Vegetarians/Vegans

[BlueSky]

No I am not Vegan. In fact I simply classify myself as one who doesn't eat meat or fish and who also doesn't intentional kill things.
You are right, thinking only with your heart is as unbalanced as thinking only with your head but I don't do that. I feel that I have a well balanced way of looking at things and making decisions. I trust my heart more than my head though...lol
No where in my head can I find any reason why my life choice decisons talked about here affect the whole in a way that doesn't benefit the whole.
Can you?
In regards to double standards, as I said that is a head game.
Where would it end if you didn't exercise some balance?
My balance is my intentions and my intentions have no problem with eating plants. That decision is a balance between my limited knowledge (as all knowledge is limited) and my heart felt feelings.
If I didn't exercise balance I would sell my motorcycle because I am killing bugs on my headlight or sell my car because I may run over a worm.
You told us what your head says............what does your heart say?
Is your desire to eat meat more important than the life of the animal being allowed to continue?
Just curious...............

[Squatchit]

(Just slightly butting in to say that the vegan chappy did explain in a later programme why he wouldn't prepare meat/dairy/etc for his omnivore guests. It made sense once he'd explained.)

I totaly agree its about balance, that is where my head ( and heart) are at as well. That is why I cannot comprehend the whole " eat plants not meat" mentality, because that isnt balanced at all.

- Plant farming, and animal farming are equily disruptive to the enviroment
- Our bodies cannor break down plant matter, in a strickly vegan diet. Our teeth ( mostly), and our digestive system ( stomach and rectum) arent developed to break down vegitable matter
- We can both agree that life is life, whether its plants insects and what not, yet vegans/vegitarians still give the image of " its cruel to eat animals, but plants dont have a face, so its ok ( yet still say that they are fare to the enviroment?

IMo it isnt about ONE species of animal, or ONE species of plant its about all of them. Life needs life to survive. And whether its a storm, trees rotting and falling, or a car, life "accidently" dies. Its inevitable, and the same goes with our food. Its inevitable that soem harm, whether its from plants or animals, will come to feed us. The real challenge is making sure you arent causeing harm to one over the other, due to us putting a human face to it

[BlueSky]

- Our bodies cannor break down plant matter, in a strickly vegan diet. Our teeth ( mostly), and our digestive system ( stomach and rectum) arent developed to break down vegitable matter..Time

See, i can show you 1,000 articles that will "prove" that our bodies are built for not eating meat and this is why i say knowledge is limited and not of much use to me when it conflicts with the heart.
I understand your point of view Time and i respect it. Thanks for the dialog.
Blessings, James

Time, I would like to recommend you read the World Peace Diet, by Will Tuttle, which will answer many of your questions. It takes a hard look at how food is produced in America, from the horrific treatment of the animals we eat, to studies of how animal products affect our health, to the price that our environment is paying.

The awful truth about what is really in our food is shocking and the cruelty endured by the animals we eat is truly saddening and sickening. The World Peace Diet exposes the truth behind such institutions as the Dairy Council, the Beef Association, the Cancer Institute, the American Medical Association and many other groups and how it affects your health. In The World Peace Diet, author Will Tuttle explains how pesticides and pollutants affect our health and our planet; the energy needed to raise livestock (water, energy, and fossil fuel consumption and waste) and the conditions in which we keep our livestock, how we are causing disease in ourselves, and how by adapting a vegan diet, we can reverse it. I find it maddening that although evidence clearly links diabetes and cancers with consumption of animal foods, millions of dollars are spent every year “searching” for a pharmaceutical “cure” for these diseases. A little known fact is that diabetes is rare among those who eat a plant based diet but it is a significant risk among people who eat flesh, eggs and dairy products. By reducing or eliminating our consumption of animal products we can: reduce dependency on foreign oil; conserve energy and water; and reduce our chances of getting a degenerative disease such as heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, and arthritis.

Many of us don’t ever think about the environmental effect of our steak dinner when we sit down to eat it. The major problem with eating animals foods is that these animals – and there are a lot of them – must eat and eat a lot! Eighty percent of the grain grown in the U.S. and about half the fish hauled in are wasted to grow billions of animals big and fat. Think about it this way: it’s estimated that the amount of land, grain, water, petroleum and pollution required to feed one of us the Standard American Diet could feed fifteen of us eating a plant-based diet. Now if you’re thinking the same thing I am, that is, if all the world was fed a plant based diet, there would be enough food to feed the entire population and starvation (which 40,000 children per day die of) would be a thing of the past.

This book has raised my compassion for not only animals but to our ocean creatures also. The World Peace Diet exposes the truth about fish for those who think it's a healthy thing to eat. There are a lot of misguided people who call themselves vegetarians but eat fish! I admit it, I was one of those people for years! Wild fish are toxic due to pollution and being very high on the food chain (build up of toxins in body fat). Factory farmed fish are also toxic due to doping (necessary to even keep the fish alive when crammed into such close quarters and living in a thick soup of each other's feces). Commercial fishing is environmentally disasterous as fishermen need to fish further and further into the ocean as our fish and ocean life is depleting rapidly at shoreline. Many people believe that fish have no feelings or emotions. Not true, fish are vertebrates and do intensely feel pain. They're alive, same as us! And same as us, they want to stay that way.

A vegan diet is typically low in saturated fat and is high in fibre, benefiting both heart disease and several forms of cancer. Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are excellent sources of many vitamins, minerals, fibre and antioxidants. Now what about eggs and milk? One might give up flesh and continue to eat dairy products and eggs. The dairy industry is no better than the meat industry. These products contain at least as much cruelty, toxins, cholesterol and animal protein as flesh does, so little improvement in health would be noticed, if any.

I am a practicing buddhist and practice ahimsa or non-violence towards animals and ourselves. This is one of our most important teachings in Buddhism and yoga. By harming animals we are harming ourselves. And of course there are those who can’t understand this. Those who believe that because they are not actually killing the animals that they’re not harming animals, they claim to be eating what is already been killed and feel they had no part in the killing. But by eating an animal that has been killed violently, we are eating violence. When we participate in animal-based meals – when we buy them, when we eat them – we’re participating in rituals of brutality, violence, separation, exclusion, predation and exploitation. As Emerson pointed out “You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity”. We'll never find peace as long as we participate in this violence towards animals.

The good news is that our bodies thrive on a plant-based diet, and that this diet is more compassionate to animals and people and more environmentally sustainable than eating animal foods. Any and all of us can adopt a healthy, low-cruelty way of eating today and need never look back! By transforming our diets, our minds, lives, well-being and our planet will also be transformed.

Every day humans cause over thirty million birds and mammals and forty-five million fish to be fatally attacked so we can eat them, and it’s universally accepted. It’s time to stop and think what we are doing to our mother earth, what we are doing to other beings and what we are reaping from what we are doing. Please read this book, another good book is Diet for a New America by John Robbins I apologize for rambling on. I personally and most vegans/vegetarians feel so deeply about this that we really don’t want to serve meat products to anyone!

Peace,
Christine

[BlueSky]

Nice post Christine.............
Do 40,000 children really die each day of starvation?
Why is that so?
Sorry for my ignorance but that number is disturbing.
One would be equally disturbing actually but if we know the number than we know where they are and where help is needed.
I have to assume that there isn't a solution because if there was, it would be done.
James

[Chrysaetos]

Originally Posted by earthy

By reducing or eliminating our consumption of animal products we can: reduce dependency on foreign oil; conserve energy and water; and reduce our chances of getting a degenerative disease such as heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, and arthritis.

And you can develop loss of muscle, anaemia, weak bones and more. That's the other extreme. ;) The safest path is in the middle. As for meat causing cancer? What about the millions of Africans and Asians who eat meat and fish. Many western people don't just eat meat, they eat large amounts of sugars and grains as well. We have to look at the full picture. If meat/fish is always unhealthy our race would've died out a long time ago.

Originally Posted by earthy

Think about it this way: it’s estimated that the amount of land, grain, water, petroleum and pollution required to feed one of us the Standard American Diet could feed fifteen of us eating a plant-based diet. Now if you’re thinking the same thing I am, that is, if all the world was fed a plant based diet, there would be enough food to feed the entire population and starvation (which 40,000 children per day die of) would be a thing of the past.

We can't simply transform all the farmland, it is often not an option. Grains alone won't solve poverty, it may only cause more malnutrition and overpopulation. The Green Revolution of the 70's is also linked to an increase in population. What we ''need'' is solutions that create quality, not quantity.

As for fish being toxic, this depends on the species and where it was taken from. A few bad examples are no reason to say it's all bad. Species often get endangered because humans are multiplying rapidly. The problem is not people eating animals, it's ''there are many people''.
Don't forget that millions of people are dependant on fish. If you forced them to give that up, they would inevitably burn down many forests for farmland so they can get their protein.

Originally Posted by earthy

I am a practicing buddhist and practice ahimsa or non-violence towards animals and ourselves. This is one of our most important teachings in Buddhism and yoga. By harming animals we are harming ourselves.

Then you still harm yourself daily. Many non-meat products are the cause of deforestation. Pretty much all the plants we eat have caused death and pain to animals.
Just because there's no steak on the plate doesn't mean it's all settled.

You call this violence and brutality.. I'm afraid it simply is a part of nature..

[BlueSky]

So here we have it....for every 'fact' stated there is another 'fact' stating against. This tells me that facts go backseat to the heart when making decisions such as not eating meat or fish.
I do appreciate all the facts though............they are interesting but I still have to take them with a grain of salt unless they come from my personal experiences as oppose to books.
I think the balance talked about is important with every decision made in this world and for me the balance is in just doing the best you can with these things of heart.
James

Yes, there are undernourished vegans the same as there are undernourished meat-eaters. Just because one is vegan does not guarantee that they will feed their bodies properly. I agree, we are a nation of too much processed foods and we do not question enough what we are putting into our bodies our temples. I feed my body a diet mostly of raw, organic foods, so my diet is full of enzymes, vitamins, energy and life! In fact, if we all ate a diet consisting of mainly raw foods, disease would become a thing of the past. Unfortunately, there is a huge difference between the meat eaten now and the meat eaten 100 years ago. The rampant use of antibiotics with livestock now are primarily used as a tool to help them grow larger and bigger – and 70% of all antibiotics used in the U.S. is for livestock use. 99% of all beef cattle entering feedlots in the United States are given steroidal hormone implants to promote faster growth. A large percentage of poultry and pigs are also fed these drugs and who knows what else.

UNESCO tells us that every day, forty thousand children in the world die because of a lack of nutrition, of food. Every day, forty thousand children. And the amount of grain that we grow in the West is mostly used to feed our cattle. Eighty percent of the corn grown in this country is to feed the cattle to make meat. Ninety-five percent of the oats produced in this country is not for us to eat, but for the animals raised for food. According to this recent report that we received of all the agricultural land in the US, eighty-seven percent is used to raise animals for food. That is forty-five percent of the total land mass in the US.

More than half of all the water consumed in the US whole purpose is to raise animals for food. It takes 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. A totally vegetarian diet requires 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4000 gallons of water per day.

Raising animals for food causes more water pollution than any other industry in the US because animals raised for food produce one hundred thirty times the excrement of the entire human population. It means 87,000 pounds per second. Much of the waste from factory farms and slaughter houses flows into streams and rivers, contaminating water sources.

Each vegetarian can save one acre of trees per year. More than 260 million acres of US forests have been cleared to grow crops to feed animals raised for meat. And another acre of trees disappears every eight seconds. The tropical rain forests are also being destroyed to create grazing land for cattle.

I certainly don't want to shove my opinion down anyone's throat, but if I can save one animal from a horrifying death, if I can help feed one hungry child, if I can save just one tree per year and if I've made one person on this board think twice about having meat for dinner tonight, than I've accomplished a beautiful thing :-)

[BlueSky]

It's nice to think about the effects on the whole of what we do such as this subject of obstaining from meat.
I feel somewhat lucky in that my sole reason for living this lifestyle of not killing intentionally is a real, deep, pure compassion for animals.
When i see a starving bird in the winter, I become that birds suffering and react as best I can.
To kill it for my eating pleasure is inconceivable even if there is a God and he came down and told me that eating meat was OK............lol
I'd have to respectfully decline..lol
I love the info being presented here...............I'm sure the impact of the choices we make has lasting effects..............in fact to me that is how we live on forever. The effect we had on life.
Thanks for the info friends.................but I wish along with it came what we could do about those 40,000 children a day.
Imagine if in your town, 40,000 children died each day because of starvation!
I'd like to know more about that.
James