1: Eating and being eaten is a part of natural life process. So while unnecessarily hurting animals is wrong, killing and eating farm animals shouldn't hurt your conscience. These animals are not endangered wild animals but ones bred for food, just as plants are sown and harvested. The more diverse our food choices, less would be the pressure on nature to replenish the same soil nutrients absorbed by us year after year. 2: <discussed in my previous post> 3: The same happens to excess proteins and fat as the excess carbs from grain and sugar - gets stored as fat. So the solution is to avoid overeating any one kind of food. Switch to a diet where you eat variety of veg and meat. 4: <discussed in my previous post> 5: <linked to 4> So now for the million dollars....
1. You didn't get my point about conscience. It was about hurting/not hurting a being that looks like it is living like me. Its got nothing to do with whether it's an endangered species or an artificially created one. 2. But you have not countered it. Since my client is an Indian, whose ancestors have enjoyed the steady food grain supply, he finds it horrendous to kill a "living being" (Living being = the one that he can SEE as living similar to him). It's a taboo for him. 3. Yes, excess carbs from grains. In veg food domain it's only cereals and few tubers that are predominantly rich in digestible carbs. That leads to problem? Yes if in excess. But can you make a blanket statement for the whole vegetable domain? No. Now lets come to meat - whatever you do - unless you are talking exclusively about egg whites or some species of water creatures - meat will contain proteins and fats. So can I make a blanket statement that excess meat will mess up your body composition. Yes. What about the effect of animal fat on the arteries? 4. Not really. You haven't countered what I said. It does take more energy and effort to make meat, and the yields are also less. OVERALL, on earth. Even In place of grasslands (which we cannot consume), if we grow crops - we can have more food than we can ever expect cows and lambs being supported on such a grassland. 5. "We wouldn't be able to support even a tenth of our population if we still lived in the hunter-gatherer mode." You haven't countered my point, but actually agreed with it.
...and there is a vast difference between the feeling of being full in the stomach. If 500 gms of food can cause you to feel full, it will be the same for meat or vegetable at a particular time. Except after 3 hrs or so, the meat is still there, being digested, while the vegetable has probably been digested and into your blood vessels, and the rest might be moving further down ... My point is, if you try to fill your stomach with meat, it might prove harmful in the long run, if you are not keeping track of your energy filling and consumption rate. Same is not the case with vegetable as you can eat as much as what creates that sense of fullness.
3. Meat is a poor source of carbohydrates in the same way that vegetables are a poor source of protein. I mentioned grain under veg diet because most traditional Indian meals replace the energy deficiency due to exclusion of animal fats with extra grain. We do not traditionally use a low calorie soup to whet our appetite. Also, our curries use more oils unlike roasted or grilled meat for main-course. When used right, a high protein, low carb diet (also called Atkin's Diet) is excellent for weight loss while low-protein diets gradually slow down the body's metabolism due to muscle atrophy. Then again, we aren't talking about going overboard because both excess high fat content of meat and low protein/high carb content of vegan food affect health negatively. 4. & 5. To maintain bio-diversity, we cannot go about converting all our grasslands into farms because it is also the habitat of many other animals. Also, if we go about cultivating all available land in a farm, the depletion of nutrients in the soil will lead to reduced produce in subsequent cycles. So within a farm, cattle usually graze on uncultivated/fallow land and the byproducts of harvest like hay, grain husk etc. Another key utility of farm animals is the conversion of waste plant matter back into nutrient rich manure that replenishes the land. I guess unfortunately we are both (quite rightly) supporting a neutral stance/middle path on the topic. Neither veg nor non-veg diet is going to save you from health hazards unless you are going to eat clean and in quantities optimal to your activity level. We do not run after animals and hunt anymore. Neither do we toil away in a farm all day. So our energy requirements are far below what our ancestors found out to be optimal. The use of highly processed and chemically treated food ingredients isn't helping all this either...
The feeling of being full is not exactly related to quantity alone. It is actually a hormonal function... that too controlled by your mood!!! I guess the compound/hormone is called serotonin. You might have heard that reducing your cutlery/plate size will help you cut down on the quantity you eat. That happens due to this reason. Some people find that when they eat food that's more oily than usual, they tend to feel stuffed on smaller quantities. Also tasting/chewing your food and eating slowly lets your brain release serotonin earlier and hence feel full earlier.
Hmm...that's correct.. but for uniform conditions, say a person, having vegetarian lunch one day, and the next day, non-vegetarian? I mean, chew the food as much as you want..what'll be the overall mass consumed? I don't know, well, considering the parameters you put forward. Any ideas?
Sorry, that's as far as my 12th grade Biology will go... Any docs around here? Please comment on this thread...
Using a personal point of view as a yardstick, I find a half pound Filet Mignon steak super heavy while quarter kg of Chicken Biriyani is about a regular serving...
Anyway, this conversation has forced me to think that pure vegetarianism/vegan-ism strictly isn't easy to follow (See Jain Vegetarianism). And that none of them can be considered more ethical than the other. If my conscience asks me not to kill a being in flesh and blood, that will be non-vegetarian for me. So I'm a Lacto-vegetarian... And I know what to say the next time somebody broaches that topic... Give him a link to this thread
If you ask my personal opinion, outside this argument: 1. Eat like a wild animal (large effort yields very less food, and food is available quite infrequently). 2. Carbohydrates are way over-consumed by humans. I believe the steady flow of easy food is the biggest cause of most health problem in the humans. 3. Veg, non-veg, vegan etc are all restrictions that people have placed in order to please someone (perhaps their beliefs, family, society ...). 4. There are way too many humans populating this earth (and unfortunately, veg non-organic food is the only way today for sustenance).
these days it doesnt matter so much what you eat, compared to how the particular food is harvested. i came across an interesting statistic which showed that the death of animals is pretty comparable between the harvesting of veg and non veg food..basically millions of small animals that reside in huge farming fields are killed everytime during a harvesting operation. so if you're vegetarian on moral grounds believing youre not harming animals, you may want to rethink it also i agree with alpha saying that milk isnt vegetarian. the processes they use these days to obtain milk from cows is saddening, to say the least.
I follow it because its a healthier lifestyle for me. I used to develop too much body heat until I stopped non-vegetarian altogether. About moral grounds, only people who have never tasted meat say so. They feel they are virgins or something. And these are the same people who start with chicken after they had 'accidentally' tasted meat in some form. Or eggs under the pretext of gaining weight or muscle. So now their moral grounds are qualified saying that eggs are vegetarian. And I'd disagree with milk (for what reason I don't know). However, many people discard milk for the same reason you said. I believe it's very important for good health. So its vegetarian for me.
Hey what is this "heat" phenomena? I have heard this a lot - this food is hot, that food is cool, this produces heat, that produces cold, this causes gas, that causes acidity ... etc Never experienced it, so I really don't understand what they talk about. Except the bloated feeling that comes after drinking too much milk or overeating specific type of grains/dough (pizza, potato etc) - perhaps that is the gas?
I'm yet to meet such people... p.s. I have even heard people saying that "I'm a vegetarian but i eat fish"
