Any Vegetarians on This Board?

[Blackthornone]

But the abundance that has engendered America's diet problems is what made possible the capacity of American (and more largely, Western) culture to support life on a scale undreamed of in all of history. Do you know what substance was absolutely integral in raising the poverty ravaged masses of Europe into the ever expanding middle class that became America's laural wreath? The same substance became a symbol of that passage from peasant to independent, self-sustaining man.

The substance was meat. Because you can't build a nation on tofu. Or rice. Or potatoes. It takes too much energy, too much work, too much strength, and too much time. When meat became affordable, industrial America became possible.



Incidentally, the gross excess of leisure people have now been afforded, in which they have the time to invest a college degree's worth of study into planning their nightly meal, only exists because this country is the monster of productivity that it is. That level of productivity exists only on account of the industry that came before it. At root, had it not been for the meat eating culture that this country prides itself on as its origin, there would not be veganism. Maybe there would be a handful of hunter gatherers scattered around the globe, picking through the dirt for dinner due to their limited resources. They would scratch out their lives in small communities and would live out average lifespans. Good for them. However, at this point in time, the world is too populated to live on grass fed beef and hummus (delicious as it may be). A shift to a vegan diet would cause mass starvation on this planet.

And it would be insane for the sole reason that veganism is flat out not necessary. Nor for many is it in the least bit preferable. When we get right down to it, that is all that matters. Unless you intend to begin prescribing the values by which people live their lives, and have designs on converting those who do not share your tastes to tastes which you approve of. If that's the case, I'm reminded of one famous vegetarian in particular. But I'll keep that one to myself.

The thing that made the U.S. so rich was slave labor, which allowed a big kick start the the U.S. economy and industry that otherwise would never have taken place.

Animals are poor converters of plant protein to animal protein, as it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef. It is more energy efficient for human beings to eat the plants to get their protein, as there are less resources used, and less waste.

It is meat production that is a cause of starvation on this planet. Take certain African countries, for example. They use their arable land to grow feed for cattle to export beef for profit, while their people starve. That would not be the case if they fed people with that farmland.

 

[Blackthornone]

Blackthornone,
I do not apologize for not having the sheer amount of spare time you have to write such lengthy posts.

But I assure you and everyone on this board that for every "educated" point you have made, I can rebute them one by one.

You have taken studies and chosen to pick and choose what information fits into your agenda and ignore the data that doesn't.

And the fact that some of your nutritional info can be found on broadcast news is interesting.


But here is what I have time for tonight:




Firstly:
If after 300,000 years you can only name 3 tribes of people, I rest my case.

But Alas! I do not.


Secondly:

Thirdly:

Well, I misspelled Abkhasians and Vilcabambans

 

[Blackthornone]

Blackthornone,


I am posting in this thread because I get tired of the misinformation and hypocrisy that both sides put forth. Once again, a vegan or vegetarian who consumes bread, pasta and even vegetables that are monocultured are just as destructive to the environment as someone who is eating a factory farmed burger...

Wetlands, entire eco-systems, are being destroyed for the soy industry. Believe me, your non-tasty tofu dog has still caused death.

https://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/


Living takes Life. Period.

And my meat is not covered in crap, thank you very much. It was sustainably farmed and nurtured the land before being humanely dispatched.

And please stop making stuff up like colon germs tenderize meat. What bu££$h!t propaganda did you get that from?!
Your soy industry pamplet?

[/IMG]

Most soy is grown to feed livestock.

After the animal is killed, the carcass is hung up and left there for days to allow the colon germs to seep into the carcass to tenderize it. No, they don't spread the stuff around on it, and no, it isn't "covered" in it, it is soaked into the meat. I got the info from Tony Robbins, who got the info from someone else. I think I read it somewhere else, but I remember hearing it from him.

 

[Blackthornone]

Blackthornone,

The enzymes and metabolisms needed to digest proteins are the first thing that matures in a baby. And the last digestive ability to mature is the capability to digest grain.

Our programmed and "conditioned" culture is who has decided that cereal should be a baby's first solid food. And with that decision comes colic and allergies and a whole host of other digestive upsets that our ancestors knew to avoid.

Human breast milk is one of the most cholesterol dense foods on the planet and half of it's fat is saturated. How on earth can it be harmful?

And how do you jump from a cholesterol and fat filled fluid to a carrot???

Of course infants have the ability to digest protein. It is what is in milk.

Babies need a lot of cholesterol in order to grow, because cholesterol is the glue that holds bodies together. more cholesterol is needed during rapid body growth. That is why human breast milk is high in cholesterol. For that matter, it is why all milk is high in cholesterol.
Just because human BABIES need a lot of cholesterol doesn't mean that adults do.

 

[Morbach]

Going to have a steak and shrimp for dinner tomorrow. Just saying.

 

[Blackthornone]

Blackthornone,


Anyway, the majority of your meat substitutes are either made from unfermented soy (hard to digest, naturally high in aluminum, thyroid disrupter, sheesh- it's even cut cows lifespans in half! And, oh yeah, it's that damn ecosystem-killing evil monoculture too...) or it's made from hydrolyzed veggie protein or TVP (that's textured veg. protein to most of you). And guess what? That's the basis for MSG, a powerful neurotoxin.

Take a looksie here:

https://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html

Def not a good meat substitute, if you ask me.

I don't eat TVP, but I thank you for that link. I am anti-MSG, and I have been very careful about that issue since 1991.

 

[Blackthornone]

Blackthornone,


The fact that you are now resorting to "scare tactics" is humorous and enlightening...

I was not using scare tactics, as I was only explaining my personal perception of the that issue.

 

[BadMoon]

Blackthorne I appreciate your information. However I firmly believe that it is nothing but misinformation. You have not made a single logical point in your posts. Although again I appreciate your effort. It is apparent that you have spent time on the topic. It's just none of it seems to make a drop of sense.

 

[Morbach]

Blackthorne I appreciate your information. However I firmly believe that it is nothing but misinformation. You have not made a single logical point in your posts. Although again I appreciate your effort. It is apparent that you have spent time on the topic. It's just none of it seems to make a drop of sense.

It's just like politics. For every point there is a counter point. Just pick a side and stick like me.

 

[devilof76]

The thing that made the U.S. so rich was slave labor, which allowed a big kick start the the U.S. economy and industry that otherwise would never have taken place.

If slave labor was the root, why isn't Sudan rich yet? Slavery became obsolete because of it's inferior productive capacity. This country never approached the stage I'm referring to until after the Civil War, and it became obscenely more productive once slave labor was removed from the equation (Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky trying to play historian, to the contrary).

Animals are poor converters of plant protein to animal protein, as it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef. It is more energy efficient for human beings to eat the plants to get their protein, as there are less resources used, and less waste.

Resources are not finite, except for in Malthusian economic models, and those dim enough to employ such models (Marx, Keynes, Rawls, etc.). Waste is a matter of perspective. No one eats a stack of whole wheat toast for breakfast when they can have a couple of eggs. The question is: energy for whom. I don't consider it a waste when two eggs do the job of half a loaf of bread.

It is meat production that is a cause of starvation on this planet. Take certain African countries, for example. They use their arable land to grow feed for cattle to export beef for profit, while their people starve. That would not be the case if they fed people with that farmland.

It is totalitarian socialist and tribal regimes that are the cause of starvation in Africa. I believe Zimbabwe was doing quite well until Robert Mugabe showed up. That model applies across the board.

It is absolutely insane to consider the production of a single commodity as the cause for economic devastation on the scale you are suggesting. Perhaps 60 books on economics would be an advisable supplement to your 60 books on veganism.

 

[Blackthornone]

Blackthorne I appreciate your information. However I firmly believe that it is nothing but misinformation. You have not made a single logical point in your posts. Although again I appreciate your effort. It is apparent that you have spent time on the topic. It's just none of it seems to make a drop of sense.

Well, none of it is rooted in the conventionalist mindset, which meat eating is a major part of. Therefore, since it is inconsistent with the conventionalist mindset, if one believes conventionalism to be logical or reasonable(which I do not, to a very large degree), then clearly my posts would not seem to be based on logic. I maintain, however, that logic is not determined by consistency with conventionalist beliefs at all. Because of this, because my views are inconsistent with what most people believe, most people automatically view them as illogical. I am not a conventionalist, and could not care less about it. I don't care how many people have done something for how long, because them practicing it doesn't make it valid. My perception is that very few people are intelligent or do the wise and intelligent, or the best thing, and that most people are stupid and corrupt. Not ALL people, just most, but that just means 60%. There are very few Leonardo Da Vinci's in the world. In my mind, only the perceptions of the exceptional people have any real credibility. So what if most people in recorded history have eaten a meat based diet? It doesn't mean that any of them were right. I am mostly interested in the science as it applies to the health of the body, and the environment, and both of these must be considered, because the body needs the environment to live in. By the way, I don't think that the most people I was referring to are the people on this board.

 

[Blackthornone]

Resources are not finite, except for in Malthusian economic models, and those dim enough to employ such models (Marx, Keynes, Rawls, etc.). Waste is a matter of perspective. No one eats a stack of whole wheat toast for breakfast when they can have a couple of eggs. The question is: energy for whom. I don't consider it a waste when two eggs do the job of half a loaf of bread.

Resources certainly are limited, just as space on this planet is limited.

Well, you wouldn't eat a loaf of bread to replace eggs. You would need tofu or seitan, or beans or nuts, or a protein powder to get a protein source for the day. Nevertheless, a chicken had to cause more resources to be consumed, and more waste and methane to be generated, as well as more topsoil to be lost than if you ate a plant based protein. Topsoil is a resource that we all need, and it is being used up at a rate that is totally unsustainable. It is because more crops are being grown to feed animals to produce animal products that there is an unsustainable topsoil loss. Water consumption is critical too. The Ogallala aquifer is being depleted faster than can be replenished with rainfall for the same reason. Looking at the BIG picture, in terms of energy for WHOM, you can see that the plant based diet does allow more resources to be available for humans.
80% of agricultural water usage goes to animal agriculture. That means it causes a drought.

 

[Blackthornone]

I rest my case.

What case were you referring to?

 

[devilof76]

My perception is that very few people are intelligent or do the wise and intelligent, or the best thing, and that most people are stupid and corrupt. Not ALL people, just most, but that just means 60%. There are very few Leonardo Da Vinci's in the world. In my mind, only the perceptions of the exceptional people have any real credibility. So what if most people in recorded history have eaten a meat based diet? It doesn't mean that any of them were right.

While I would not disagree that it is difficult to break people of irrational habits, I would disagree that only the perception of the exceptional is valid. That is the cornerstone of a highly elitist mentality, and was best articulated by Plato in his Republic, where it was posited that the best government was one ruled by the intellectual elite. The Roman Empire comes to mind. His first major heir St. Augustine, and now you have Dark Ages Christianity. His first modern heir was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose work was the single greatestest influence on the French Revolution, and guaranteed the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte. Rousseau's legacy continued through Immanuel Kant, and 19th century German philosophy. The progeny of their work was 20th century totalitarianism from the Bolshevik Revolutionin Russia, to the killing fields of Cambodia.

That is particularly relevant when it comes to this next post...

Resources certainly are limited, just as space on this planet is limited.

It is to a materialist mindset that fails to consider the role of the human mind in the process of producing values for human consumption.

There is limitation to the surface area of the earth. Ignoring the fact that shorlines can be built up and extended, there is only so much acreage. That is true. However, I believe you are neglecting to look in a direction other than down. The buildings of the World Trade Center had their own zip codes. What is the acreage of Manhattan Island? How many people live there? I'm sure that to some, Manhattan was full many decades ago. Short-sighted? Yes.

The same goes for resources. How much petroleum was available for use in 10th century B.C.E.? There was none. No one knew how to use petroleum. It was not until someone did that petroleum became a resource. Not until a human mind entered the equation was oil a value. Apply the same model to fertilizers. None existed until it was learned that certain combinations of substances could be used to enhance the fertility of the soil. Prior to that, humans were constrained by the limits of natural cycles. If they used up the arable land, it was gone. They were at the mercy of nature's limits. Until, of course, they hanged those limits. (Ooops. I'm getting dangerously close to genetically modified food with that comment, aren't I?)

If one assumes that there is no alternative to the same conventionalism that you have been lamenting, then of course there will never be an alternative to the state of available resources. But if there is a real alternative, and people are capable of not being locked into the presumptions of the past, then no, resources are not limited in the least. There will always be something new so long as there is someone with a mind active and original enough to find it (a mind that may or may not belong to one of the intellectual overlords posited in the first part of your post).

Well, you wouldn't eat a loaf of bread to replace eggs. You would need tofu or seitan, or beans or nuts, or a protein powder to get a protein source for the day. Nevertheless, a chicken had to cause more resources to be consumed, and more waste and methane to be generated, as well as more topsoil to be lost than if you ate a plant based protein. Topsoil is a resource that we all need, and it is being used up at a rate that is totally unsustainable. It is because more crops are being grown to feed animals to produce animal products that there is an unsustainable topsoil loss. Water consumption is critical too. The Ogallala aquifer is being depleted faster than can be replenished with rainfall for the same reason. Looking at the BIG picture, in terms of energy for WHOM, you can see that the plant based diet does allow more resources to be available for humans.
80% of agricultural water usage goes to animal agriculture. That means it causes a drought.

Are you still talking about Africa?

The soil of the Ukraine is the most fertile in the world, and the Soviets were unable to feed themsleves. What part of the role played by government do you not understand?

To the best of my knowledge, American farmers don't have the same issues. I'm sure you can construct a panic scenario along the lines of a mean global temperature rising one degree, and indicating catastrophic global warming, but those kinds of arguments are really no different than those which take a strange light in the sky and extrapolate alien invasions. I'll start to worry about the topsoil in the U.S. when I see the government begin to consume the agricultural industry on a scale similar to those industries that it has already expropriated.

Just as there is no need to eat tofu in lieu of eggs, there is no need to farm strictly for vegetarian consumption in lieu of cattle. There is no need because it is unnecessary to farm like the tools who have destroyed Africa's farmland. In 1901, James J. Hill (the greatest railroad builder ever) wrote a series of lectures on how the U.S. would be unable to sustain the population booms looming on the horizon if it permitted the independent farmers to continue destroying farmland one plot at a time. It was guaranteed that it would not be possible.

And here we are. Presumably, those practices ceased, and now large scale, vertically integrated farming has taken us to this point. Compare the populations of America in 1901 and now. Now consider how much of the rest of the world we feed.

 

[devilof76]

Damn it. I can't see the pic because I'm at work.

 

[BadMoon]

Damn it. I can't see the pic because I'm at work.

Me either.

 

[devilof76]

Me either.

I'm home now and really, it's not that funny.

 

[hoodonit00]

Nevertheless, a chicken had to cause more resources to be consumed, and more waste and methane to be generated, as well as more topsoil to be lost than if you ate a plant based protein. It is because more crops are being grown to feed animals to produce animal products that there is an unsustainable topsoil loss.

Let me ask you a question then. Say the world becomes this vegetarian utopia that you are dreaming of. Livestock is not raised for food anymore. What happens to that livestock then? Logically, without us using them for meat anymore their numbers would drastically increase. Meaning more water being drunk more grains being used more land being used. Livestock would be everywhere. What then? Life on this planet is all about checks and balances. Throw something off and the whole cycle gets messed up. Worried about methane? Just imagine how much there would be without the beef industry keeping the herds culled. Think a hen house smells bad? Imagine chickens being everywhere.

 

[Blackthornone]

It is to a materialist mindset that fails to consider the role of the human mind in the process of producing values for human consumption.

There is limitation to the surface area of the earth. Ignoring the fact that shorlines can be built up and extended, there is only so much acreage. That is true. However, I believe you are neglecting to look in a direction other than down. The buildings of the World Trade Center had their own zip codes. What is the acreage of Manhattan Island? How many people live there? I'm sure that to some, Manhattan was full many decades ago. Short-sighted? Yes.

I think that skyscrapers are ridiculous and asinine. They are unsafe, especially in a fire, and because they force people to live up, they inappropriately concentrate population in one area so that you cannot grow food for the people in that area. It forces you to import food, which increases costs, increases the consumption of resources and pollution, and decreases the freshness of food, which, in turn, reduces it's life giving quality. I think that human beings should never live where you can't grow food. Food should be grown as locally as possible, for the sake of the maximum quality of life. I am totally opposed to the existence of skyscrapers. Look at all of the people who jumped out of the windows of the World Trade Center, on Sept 11, 2001. Look at all of the traffic congestion in New York City every day. It's a giant mess. New York city is like a cage over filled with rats. They have garbage on the street all the time. The place is filthy.

 

[BadMoon]

I think that skyscrapers are ridiculous and asinine. They are unsafe, especially in a fire, and because they force people to live up, they inappropriately concentrate population in one area so that you cannot grow food for the people in that area. It forces you to import food, which increases costs, increases the consumption of resources and pollution, and decreases the freshness of food, which, in turn, reduces it's life giving quality. I think that human beings should never live where you can't grow food. Food should be grown as locally as possible, for the sake of the maximum quality of life. I am totally opposed to the existence of skyscrapers. Look at all of the people who jumped out of the windows of the World Trade Center, on Sept 11, 2001. Look at all of the traffic congestion in New York City every day. It's a giant mess. New York city is like a cage over filled with rats. They have garbage on the street all the time. The place is filthy.

I think you and Teemu should go out for dinner.