Loosing weight as a vegetarian

Meat production takes up FAAAAAR more land than a group that is what, perhaps 3% of the population in North America. You haven't proved that at all

WEll, if all meat is farmed in a building with no place to go as you claim, then how can they be taking up space?

Keep looking at the Americas while ignoring Asia..

Exactly. Dont forget Europe. A squirrel used to be able to run from portucal, to trukey without ever having to touch the ground. To bad we ripped down the forest to farm food...... Think of how many animals died to do that? And the majority then wouldve been plants, becasue they kept smaller amounts of animals per village, and beef was a delicasy, they ate chicken and foul more.

t's also true that farming destroys narutal environment and wipes out the native animals. The moralistic stance is baseless. Any nomadic people need to eat meat and any eskimo or desert dweller and actually any indigenous tribal culture eats meat.

Even humans eating each other was pretty common until recently.

Exactly. Sometimes you have to eat whats available. the inuit, its meat, seal and whale meat BTW. For tibes in the rainforest, its mostly fruits and plants. For us becasue we choose to wipe out entire strands of old growth forest to farm food, can eat what ever we want.

When you grow your won food, or have to fend for yourself, vegans wont have much of a chance. Its the same as the small breed dogs, if humans dissapeared, more then 70% of our dog breeds will dissapear due to the fact they arent evolved tos urvive, and cant run , or get food. Theyd be eaten by the bigger dogs....

Thats the big thing. Nature doesnt care. There are reports of deer eating meat in the UK. And yes, deer are strickly herbavores ( or so we thought). IF an animal refuses to eat the food available, they either have to move, or die. Thats life unfortunatly. Even though we now have a choice, and the means to a choice, but what happens if say, martial law is ensued, and you get meat for food. WOuld you turn it down and starve? Instincts will kick in...

I'm going to do this last 'post' as a two parter folks, and then I'm going to go away for a while (which I'm very sure many will be glad to hear). But in response to Times continuous mentions of The Vegetarian Myth as espoused by Lierre Keith, I did give a listen to her and here are some of my thoughts on the ensuing comments. I don't know if Chrysaetos and Time have bothered to read the article that I linked to a while back that was highly skeptical of the authors book, but that is neither here nor there is it. All I can say is that intellectual curiousity and honesty compelled me to listen to both sides. So here goes with part one:

In listening to Ms. Keith's interview on the following link: http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/64995

several things quickly became apparent. First she says that she binged weekly on dairy and eggs and further claims that all vegans do the same compulsively. Sweeping generalization and a lie to justify her own compulsiveness. My question, if she is so dishonest on two counts, in this regard, how can anything else she says be trusted.

She also makes the statement that infanticide is worthy of consideration in the effort to maintain populations at a reasonable level. Nice woman, Casey Anthony might want to join her club because apparently both women feel tht children are disposable.

She claims to have destroyed her body by veganism but other than making the claim that it was the cause of degenerating bones in her spine, I have not heard any further details. Personally, I am always suspicious of someone who makes these kind of 'poor health' statements but never gives followup information. I would point out that there are in all likelihood a host of meat eaters who have degenerating disks in the spine, so really......

When challenged by a caller on whether or not she 'did veganism right', she failed to answer, instead going back to harping on how agriculture has caused planetary devastation, while not acknowledging the contribution of animal ag to that situation.

She makes reference to the UN reworking their study, entitled Livestocks Long Shadow. I did a search to that effect and the only reference that I could come up with was that they've backpeddled on the statement that animal production is more detrimental than our use of cars, but they still stand by the global figure of 18% greenhouse gases being directly attributable to livestock. But of course she carefully does not elaborate by offering those facts.

When asked for a suggestion as to how to fix the problem, all she has to say is that we have to repair the wetlands and prairies. Nothing more. I am assuming that she expects everyone to start going out and hunting bison on those plains, much like the aboriginal natives did.

My feeling frankly, is that she is being intellectually dishonest and seeks to justify her change by drumming up half truths and innuendo. That is not to say that she doesn't make a few good points like we need to make adjustments to how food is produced for the billions of people that populate the earth. We can always do anything better and it just require the desire.

Well, I'm going to take a break after this. Once again all you kind folks have given me the opportunity to have a say in this apparently never ending debate of meat vs. plants. It's been a great opportunity as well for me to learn, both from some of you directly and from the digging that I've been forced to do as a result of statements that I didn't agree with. So thanks to one and all.

Part two:

In looking for info on how much land is used by meat production compared to vegetable production in the US, I did come across a Wikipedia page that was quite interesting. For example, 1/3 of all land usage goes to raising animals and 1/3 of all cereal production goes to feed them. With the average US consumer eating between 220 and 260 pounds of meat per year, that generates a toxic load of CO2 that the planet cannot afford. What is more according to a document (here: connectingthedots.stanford.edu/files/Beef.pdf) , to increase the amount of grass fed beef to meet current (and future demand) almost 100 million acres would have to be added to grazing lands. Overall, by 2020, a 10% increase in the intensity of cattle production would require an additional 25 million hectares and would result in the additional release of 2.5 to 7.5 billion tons of carbon. Of course switching to a feedlot system saves on land usage, but increases the need for cultivation of croplands to feed cattle and it increases the need for antibiotic usage as well as increasing the concentrated output of animal wastes that invariably find their way into the water system. A feedlot system also increases the strain on water supplies as cattle on grain diets require significantly more water than grass fed.

What isn't taken into account yet is the amount of methane that those billions of animals will emit as they digest all that cereal and including grass that proponents of grass fed beef insist is the better way to go. It is estimated that the cattle and sheep alone that populate the planet will produce 37% of global methane emissions. By comparison, rice fields emit between 6 and 29% of total annual anthropogenic methane emissions http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/docs/...2/004-032.html It has also been shown definitively that grass fed beef are more responsible for methane output than grain fed, feed lot animals. So here again, it is evident that the methane directly attributable to animal production is higher than that from it's closest competitor source, i.e. rice.

The other big atmospheric pollutant is nitrous oxide which has an even worse effect than methane. Sixty five percent of human related emissions of nitrous oxide comes from animal manure. All told, these three, direct carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide combine to achieve the 18% green house gas figure that is directly attributable to animal production. One article that I have read at http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/docs/...2/004-032.html even differentiates between that meat production figure (18%) and dairy production (that being a further 10%).


I also came across an article by the EPA, http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html which contained an interesting table that showed where methane comes from in the US. The latest year shows that enteric fermentation accounts for 139.8 (tons?) of methane compared to rice cultivation which produces a mere 7.3 (tons?) per year. For those who don't like looking things up, enteric fermentation refers to fermentation that takes place in the gut, so I think it can safely be said once again that meat production has cast its long, ugly shadow.


An interesting note is that the last link provided was from an article written by a meat eater. Towards the end of his experiment with veganism, he points out a few health issues. You'll like this Time, after having a couple of health checks, he states that he felt great, cut his body fat from 19% to 15%, lost 4.5 pounds and saw his cholesterol plummet from 5.6 mmol/L to 3.4 mmol/L. He was advised by his doctor that in that month he had not gotten enough B12 or iron, but one month is not enough time to learn to 'do it right' and I'm sure that if he had stuck with the plan, he would have learned to adjust his intakes according to his appropriate needs.

What it all boils down to in my opinion, is that meat production still leads in environmental degradation and while there are a number of other issues that must be tackled (population, methods of food production of all sorts), the fact that meat consumption is expected to double by 2050, the habit and 'want' of meat consumption is one of the single biggest issues facing our planet.

We can learn to drain rice fields between cropping, we can re-learn to let fields lie fallow every seven years, we can learn to manage our tilling of fields more sensibly, but if meat consumption doubles in the next forty years or so, we're still trying to roll that monster boulder uphill and it is getting bigger by the day.

First off, let me post something I posted in the " who would you like to give thanks to on SF"

"Debby - I have never met some one who is as argumentitive as I am. Your one of the very few people who makes me really think about things (vegetarianism). We may butt heads, but I think ive learned some of the most interesting things from you ( mostly because you FORCE me too LOL)"

As for the book,

First she says that she binged weekly on dairy and eggs and further claims that all vegans do the same compulsively.

Actualy, ive read the same thing in other papers years ago, not to mention some of the vegans vegitarians i know have said the same thing. We are all different, and it isnt really fair for her to make a generaization as such, but shes been on both sides, and I can understand where she is comming from.

She also makes the statement that infanticide is worthy of consideration in the effort to maintain populations at a reasonable level.

If i remember right, she isnt talking about culling every single baby alive, shes talking about conrolling our population becasue the earth can only handle so much. its no different from what is still happening in china. Im not saying I agree with it, but something has to be done.

When challenged by a caller on whether or not she 'did veganism right', she failed to answer, instead going back to harping on how agriculture has caused planetary devastation, while not acknowledging the contribution of animal ag to that situation.

Actualy she answeres this int he first and second chapters of her book. And she does actualy state how bad animal farms are, ive seen a few interveiws with her, and read most of her book. You cant just use one interveiw to judge a person.

She makes reference to the UN reworking their study, entitled Livestocks Long Shadow. I did a search to that effect and the only reference that I could come up with was that they've backpeddled on the statement that animal production is more detrimental than our use of cars, but they still stand by the global figure of 18% greenhouse gases being directly attributable to livestock. But of course she carefully does not elaborate by offering those facts

No different then your first 2 comments debs..

When asked for a suggestion as to how to fix the problem, all she has to say is that we have to repair the wetlands and prairies.

this is becasue most of the land we destroyed for farms in N america is just that, wetland and prarie. At least shes thinking of more then just a few species....

My feeling frankly, is that she is being intellectually dishonest and seeks to justify her change by drumming up half truths and innuendo.

Funny, because the very first few pages of her book, she states the same thing about vegetariamism..... so whos right?

I'd recommend sparkpeople.com, or something like it to help track everything you eat. Not only because it can help if you want to lose weight but because being vegetarian/vegan can lead to problems if your not getting all the things you need(which I learned the hard way ).

Not only because it can help if you want to lose weight but because being vegetarian/vegan can lead to problems if your not getting all the things you need

Thats all my main point has been...

I do hope your ok now tree hugger

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by akatreehuggerni

I'd recommend sparkpeople.com, or something like it to help track everything you eat. Not only because it can help if you want to lose weight but because being vegetarian/vegan can lead to problems if your not getting all the things you need(which I learned the hard way ).

What happened to you TH?

I do hope your ok now tree hugger

Yep! :) everything's back in working order.

[Ilush]

The protein myth again...this is the slogan used by animal breeders to sell the meat...the protein need by a human being is 1 gr/2kg..example
A male with 80kg needs 40gr proteins/day.
Example...the 80kilos male eats 2 kilos of fruits, which has at least 3% protein = 60gr proteins, only from fruits.
Example. nuts or soya contains over 40% protein.
I never heard of someone to be ill of less protein or lack of B12.
Top 2 causes of death: heart and cancer.

Think ppl and read more, nut just the media or your doctors tells you.