Debate: Don't eat anything with a face

[Cottie]

This is a very long debate. I'm only 15 minutes in and haven't gotten to the part where they question each other. Expecting much anthropomorphism and pseudo-science.

http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debate ... ith-a-face

 

[Zab]

Oh I'm not going into that debate right now.. But feel free to share the highlights.

But when you've watched that, cheer up and watch this (on the note of eating stuff with a face, 28 seconds in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWnNrqX-mo0 I love that part.

 

[akane]

It's very easy to prove we are meant to have some animal products in our diet. We lack the ability to absorb vitamins like b12 from any other source. It is created by our digestive tract after it passes the section that can absorb it. This is why herbivores have multiple stomachs, chew cud, have cecums, or ingest their own droppings. They all have ways to get such vitamins. Carnivores and most omnivores then get the vitamins from the herbivores. OF course in a society with vitamin supplements and fortified foods we can manage a vegetarian/vegan diet but biology says that's not what we evolved for. There's a reason attempts at an all vegan society have failed and resulted in the children becoming ill and even dying. You don't need much of vitamins like b12 though because they are stored well in the body so much less animal products are needed than we actually consume even if we didn't have fortified foods and it takes many years to end up with a deficiency if you started out eating a diet with animal products and became vegan later. Unless you have malabsorption disorders like me and end up researching this stuff because you come up with a vitamin deficiency despite a normal diet.

 

[Frecs]

:yeahthat:

I messed myself up royally doing a raw vegan diet for 2 years....really really did a number on myself...

just sayin'

 

[akane]

Yea b12 is needed for the entire nervous system to develop and function properly. If you don't have enough stored up and you don't include fortified foods you can get quite sick very quickly.

 

[Dood]

The discussion is pointless - the veggies are clumping all animal farmers togeather as giant factory farms.

I completely agree that factory farms are not my idea of humane but my family has been lovingly raising their own meat for several generations and offering the extra to the public when available.

We cannot meet the demand but we won't get bigger because we cannot humanely manage that many criiters without switching from mostly pasture raised to mostly bought feeds and hiring help. It's a viscous vicious circle that isn't getting easier with urban sprawl encroaching and cities banning people from raising their own food, making it harder not to buy Franken food.

 

[Frecs]

Yea b12 is needed for the entire nervous system to develop and function properly. If you don't have enough stored up and you don't include fortified foods you can get quite sick very quickly.

Not just B12...that seems to be the nutrient everyone highlights with vegans but it is not the only one...

Zinc...
Calcium...

and I don't seem to assimilate magnesium well...

AND, I was on a fruit and veggie rich vegan diet...not a junk food vegan diet.

oh, and protein...I started dumping albumin in my urine...my doctor freaked...

 

[Cottie]

The discussion is pointless - the veggies are clumping all animal farmers togeather as giant factory farms.

I completely agree that factory farms are not my idea of humane but my family has been lovingly raising their own meat for several generations and offering the extra to the public when available.

We cannot meet the demand but we won't get bigger because we cannot humanely manage that many criiters without switching from mostly pasture raised to mostly bought feeds and hiring help. It's a viscous circle that isn't getting easier with urban sprawl encroaching and cities banning people from raising their own food, making it harder not to buy Franken food.

:goodpost:

Except...

It's a viscous circle
:sorry:

 

[TMTex]

Reminds me of a Big Bang Theory quote (Penny).

I'm a vegetarian, except for fish, and the occasional steak. I LOVE STEAK!!!

 

[Frecs]

Except...

It's a viscous circle
:sorry:

The viscosity of the circle is quite vicious! :x

 

[DogCatMom]

Our dentition (teeth) is also that of an omnivore: we have teeth for tearing at meat as well as masticating vegetable foods. No anthropological studies of remaining traditional cultures (I'm reading Jared Diamond's The World Until Yesterday) have ever discovered such cultures to be vegetarian, but their diets are varied and complete.

Seeing that Joel Salatin is on the "Against" side of the proposed debate question--as if any of us needed a reason--is yet another reason to support an omnivorous diet. Salatin was out in front very early on small-scale farming.

 

[Zass]

Our dentition (teeth) is also that of an omnivore: we have teeth for tearing at meat as well as masticating vegetable foods. No anthropological studies of remaining traditional cultures (I'm reading Jared Diamond's The World Until Yesterday) have ever discovered such cultures to be vegetarian, but their diets are varied and complete.

Seeing that Joel Salatin is on the "Against" side of the proposed debate question--as if any of us needed a reason--is yet another reason to support an omnivorous diet. Salatin was out in front very early on small-scale farming.

I'm not refuting you, but I realized something about human dentition a while back I wanted to add.
Our dentition is minimized for TALKING. Our vocal range and thus our main survival strategy(the ability to organize in ever larger groups) wouldn't have been possible with ordinary omnivore fangs or heavy herbivore molars. We have hands and the intelligence to process whatever we feel like eating into small and tender enough bits to chew. We have short digestive tracts, which means we are intended to take in smaller amounts of easy to digest calories.
Historically there have been near vegetarian and near carnivorous human societies. It's just a matter of geography and availability of calories.

 

[AmysMacdog]

Never got the vegan thing, chickens don't mind giving eggs but they think your eating the chick that could've been??? Goats don't mind being milked or at least mind don't. In fact I have one who insist I get my butt out there and milk NOW! LOL
I can understand if you don't want to kill an animal or be responsible for animals deaths by eating meat, that's up to you and I'm cool with that but let the rest of us have our burger and eat it too!
My dad and my step mother became at least vegetarians, maybe vegan. My dad still died of bladder cancer and diabetes. I don't think we were meant to be strictly vegetarians.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I don't eat anything with a face... that part is removed before it hits my plate. :twisted:

Although, I must admit that the head of our steer is in the freezer, so it is only a matter of time before I do... :dinner:

... but does that really count, since the cute furry part is removed, leaving only a glistening expanse of muscle and glaring eyeballs? :hmm: He is far from cute now, I can tell you that. :roll:

 

[Frecs]

Never got the vegan thing, chickens don't mind giving eggs but they think your eating the chick that could've been??? Goats don't mind being milked or at least mind don't. In fact I have one who insist I get my butt out there and milk NOW! LOL
I can understand if you don't want to kill an animal or be responsible for animals deaths by eating meat, that's up to you and I'm cool with that but let the rest of us have our burger and eat it too!
My dad and my step mother became at least vegetarians, maybe vegan. My dad still died of bladder cancer and diabetes. I don't think we were meant to be strictly vegetarians.

For the record, my venture into raw veganism was not about being against the eating of meat, it was an effort to get (catch the irony here) to get healthy and lose weight. I did lose weight -- 130# in 15 months and thought I was getting healthy (felt healthy for 12 months of the 15) but then it all got very viscous and vicious and bit me on my backside.

If you believe Weston A Price's research (which I do...now), the healthiest people eat fermented foods, animal proteins including dairy, and fats--lots of real butter and animal fat.

 

[Cottie]

Our dentition (teeth) is also that of an omnivore: we have teeth for tearing at meat as well as masticating vegetable foods. No anthropological studies of remaining traditional cultures (I'm reading Jared Diamond's The World Until Yesterday) have ever discovered such cultures to be vegetarian, but their diets are varied and complete.

Seeing that Joel Salatin is on the "Against" side of the proposed debate question--as if any of us needed a reason--is yet another reason to support an omnivorous diet. Salatin was out in front very early on small-scale farming.

Their cherry-picking of science was possibly the most frustrating part of the "for" argument. Not only did they present decades old science that has been debunked (repeatedly and thoroughly) and cite The China Study (which has also been debunked scientifically, statistically, and the work itself doesn't support its own data), they repeatedly interrupted and changed the goal posts. And the moderator allowed it to happen!! Salatin provided several points - such as all the studies cited rely on factory-farmed, mass-slaughtered and/or processed meats, and therefore cannot be considered a basis for "meat eating" in a natural state - which were largely ignored.

I'm not refuting you, but I realized something about human dentition a while back I wanted to add.
Our dentition is minimized for TALKING. Our vocal range and thus our main survival strategy(the ability to organize in ever larger groups) wouldn't have been possible with ordinary omnivore fangs or heavy herbivore molars. We have hands and the intelligence to process whatever we feel like eating into small and tender enough bits to chew. We have short digestive tracts, which means we are intended to take in smaller amounts of easy to digest calories.
Historically there have been near vegetarian and near carnivorous human societies. It's just a matter of geography and availability of calories.

A shorter digestive tract (lacking a rumen) is also a hallmark of a carnivore/omnivore. We push food through extremely quickly, in a highly acidic environment. And all those other hallmarks of carnivorous/omnivorous like forward facing eyes.

__________ Thu Dec 05, 2013 2:27 pm __________

I'm listening to these vegans try to lecture Salatin on farming. It's really rather hilarious. They're screaming, "no, no, you're wrong!" and he's providing decades of experience to the contrary. They keep ignoring him. :duel:

And more of this discussion of them having a face, brutality of slaughter, preventing harm, yada yada.

 

[akane]

Somewhere on netflix I watched an interesting show where twin brothers, both doctors, explored various cultures. Often by using their similar biology to test 2 different lifestyles. One was natives in the far north of our continent where vegetables and grains couldn't be grown. They lived almost exclusively on very fatty partially or fully aquatic animals. They even fermented the blubber layers in to a spongy meal. All had low cholesterol and rarely suffered the chronic illnesses we see in the 48 states. The 2 exceptions were found to indulge a lot in shipped in processed foods. So 1 of them ate the native diet and 1 of them ate the shipped in food for a few months and then they did blood tests and checked weight changes. They found a huge difference in health from eating fatty meat all the time which led to very good blood tests, energy, and no weight gain to eating packaged food all the time which caused weight gain, high cholesterol, and a higher potential for diabetes just after a few months. They proved that a diet of meat and not even lean meat could actually not only sustain someone but lead to a very healthy group of people.

They also went and ate a diet of fruit and insects with occasional fish and honey somewhere for several months and did a few non food related things like testing pain tolerance in a culture that liked to do a lot of large piercings. Using themselves as guinea pigs most of the time. It was interesting to see all the different native diets, generally based around meat even if that was insects or fish, that led to healthier people as well as the other cultural stuff they explored. Nowhere did they find a mostly vegetarian culture except when there were influences that were not native. Vegetables, breads, and shipped in processed foods(not available most places they went) were the backup if the hunting/fishing parties didn't get enough meat. Although I know some places that do rely on more rice than meat and are also healthier than most people in the states.

 

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

Never got the vegan thing, chickens don't mind giving eggs but they think your eating the chick that could've been??? Goats don't mind being milked or at least mind don't. In fact I have one who insist I get my butt out there and milk NOW! LOL
I can understand if you don't want to kill an animal or be responsible for animals deaths by eating meat, that's up to you and I'm cool with that but let the rest of us have our burger and eat it too!
My dad and my step mother became at least vegetarians, maybe vegan. My dad still died of bladder cancer and diabetes. I don't think we were meant to be strictly vegetarians.

For the record, my venture into raw veganism was not about being against the eating of meat, it was an effort to get (catch the irony here) to get healthy and lose weight. I did lose weight -- 130# in 15 months and thought I was getting healthy (felt healthy for 12 months of the 15) but then it all got very viscous and vicious and bit me on my backside.

If you believe Weston A Price's research (which I do...now), the healthiest people eat fermented foods, animal proteins including dairy, and fats--lots of real butter and animal fat.

I just have to ask... what happen to you .. that was viscous and vicious.. Only if you care to share.. or pm me

 

[AmysMacdog]

Frecs :sorry: bless your heart, I'm sorry that happened to you and please don't take anything I said personally. I didn't mean it that way. I tried the diet myself but was just to hypoglycemic to be able to do it. I made it a month. My dad and stepmom swore by it but ultimately its just not for everyone. They were kinda harsh toward those of us who didn't want to switch to that diet. Sadly that didn't help an already strained relationship with my dad. You all know the deal, my stepmom was the younger other woman....
Anyway didn't mean to give the wrong idea.

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

Never got the vegan thing, chickens don't mind giving eggs but they think your eating the chick that could've been??? Goats don't mind being milked or at least mind don't. In fact I have one who insist I get my butt out there and milk NOW! LOL
I can understand if you don't want to kill an animal or be responsible for animals deaths by eating meat, that's up to you and I'm cool with that but let the rest of us have our burger and eat it too!
My dad and my step mother became at least vegetarians, maybe vegan. My dad still died of bladder cancer and diabetes. I don't think we were meant to be strictly vegetarians.

Based on the information Ive gotten, veganism is used to prevent animal suffering. Ie, factory anything. So majority of the vegans would eat farm milk, farm eggs, farm wool, etc. since the animals aren't hurt, and even a lactose intolerant person can drink raw goats milk, or raw cows milk (most of the time). My friend is a vegan, and she does own ducks and such, but she doesn't eat eggs period - I think she either hatches most of the eggs, or eggs in general make her sick. Honestly, she's such a sweet hearted person, but I wish she'd eat meat she's always sick, and I think if she ate meat she'd feel better. But she's so sweet she couldn't harm a fly. I think it's cause she doesn't eat enough beans and such. But she's been feeling better lately, so lets hope it stays that way.
That said, I've seen a couple vegans who own chickens and feed they're eggs back to they're chickens 'because I don't want them to have a job'. Uh, ok.