Feel bad about them, don't hurt them

[Aspychata]

I eat meat several times each week and don't feel guilty about it. I was a vegetarian for many years in my 20s but eventually fell off the wagon and started eating meat again. I remember how healthy I felt when I completely avoided meat. I swear I could eat rice and beans every day and be perfectly happy but husband wants meat so I cook it.

I never eat veal. When I was practicing law, I had to foreclose on a veal farm for my client, the bank that held the mortgage on the farm. The farmers had filed bankruptcy and couldn't afford to feed the calves. It was HORRIBLE - darkened barn with little boxes for the starving calves to live in. I've never forgotten it and never ate veal again.

When l found out what veal was, l was so sad. This post is more about just making healthier choices for the planet, not calling people out on their eating choices. Think it's great that you don't eat meat daily. One black bean burger for dinner really does help the planet.

 

[Streetwise]

Just joking, l like cows, l can't hurt cows even if made out of dark chocolate parts.

I wasn’t referring to you I was referring to me in particular

 

[Kalinychta]

Technially, our bodies are specifically evolved to eat meat for protein (though fortunately we dont have to ONLY eat meat and get to choose, so yay). Certainly our teeth are part of the evidence of that. Explains where the urge to do it in the first place came from. It's not a particularly wonderful arguement, but it is a very logical one.


Now that all being said, to me, it is up to the individual in my opinion. After all, again, that natural instinct is there, and for many people, it's very strong. I dont really argue in any particular direction when it comes to this issue. I can go one way, but I can go an equal amount the other way.

For what I eat though... When it comes to animal products, I'm all about dairy. I need it. I *need* it. Milk & cheese. But I dont want something that came from some cow permanently attached to some gizmo in a bizarre factory. Just milk the blasted things normally, stupid twits! Use your freaking hands like farmers used to do! You can process the damn milk afterwards. Hell, give me a few cows and I'll freaking do it myself. And I'll make friends with the cows too. They will be happy cows. Alas, I do not appear to have any cows.

As for meat, ehhhhhh.... most of it smells bad, tastes bad, as far as I'm concerned. I rarely have any. Also the idea of eating meat has always seemed mildly disturbing to me. "Hey, see that thing walking around? How about we kill it and eat the freaking corpse?" Also gets even more disturbing if someone is eating offal. No, I dont really want an intact lamb brain or 5 chicken hearts on a stick, thanks. A little... yeah, disturbing. Doesnt mean I never have any meat at all, but definitely rarely.

Except for tuna. When it comes to tuna, I'm pretty much just a cat. I wont even pretend to resist that stuff.

Humans are herbivorous, actually. Our teeth are flat, good for crushing and chewing, and our canines are dull. Carnivorous and omnivorous animals rip flesh directly from an animal’s body with their teeth. If humans did that, we’d probably break our teeth, and we’d also get sick from eating raw meat. Omnivores don’t have to cut meat and cook it and season it to make it safe and palatable. Also, our digestive tract and other parts of our body are those of an herbivore.

The reason you need to eat cheese is because you are an opiate addict. Milk contains casein, an opiate, a morphine-like compound. Isn’t that crazy? It took me a year after I stopped eating it for my body to fully conquer the addiction. It helped to remember what milk is, though: the mammary secretions of a bovine mixed with small amounts of urine, feces, vomit, blood, then pasteurized so that it’s safe (at least bacteria-wise) for humans to drink. Aside from that, cows lactate so they can feed their babies. The milk is for their calves, not us. Dairy makes me especially sad. I’ve heard how the cows cry when their babies, their one small light in a dark, horrible world, is ripped away from them. It’s really sad to me.

I’m glad you don’t eat most meat, though. People like you aren’t the problem. If everyone would just do ONE thing, the world would change overnight for these poor creatures AND for humans. Violence and hatred is NEVER going to end in this world if we don’t extend peace and mercy to animals as well as each other.

 

[onlything]

Humans are omnivores. It's enough to look at the build of our teeth to see that. I respect and appreciate people that decide to go vegetarian or vegan, my cousin is one of them, in fact, but the fact (and my opinion) remains. We're not cows, our stomachs are not build to digest a high amount of fibre, for example. One of my vegan friends landed in a hospital after changing his diet due to the amount of fibre he ate. Which is to say that on the other note we're no carnivores and shouldn't persist solely on meat. We shouldn't even eat meat every day if we wish for a healthy diet and eating meat for every meal is definitely too much. Moderation is always the key.

Just compare human teeth to teeth of, for example, a chimpanzee. Chimps are omnivores, eating plants, eggs and small animals like lizards and fish. Even human teeth, dulled as they are (possibly due to the way we have been preparing food since we began using fire), could still tear raw fish or egg for example.

Animals are sweet and cute, and all that, but nature is nature. Animals won't stop eating other animals.

Of course, I understand the need to stop the pain of the slaughtered animals, but if it came to your survival or the animal's survival... What would you choose?

Speaking of pain and distress of dying animals, there are theories that plants feel pain too. Did you know that smell of fresh grass loved so much by so many, is in fact a distress signal send by grass to attract beneficial insects? It also functions like its blood, healing and preventing bacterial and fungal infections of the plant. Everything in this world wants to live, be it animals, mosquitoes or plants but for some to live, others have to die. You can't save everyone.

Which doesn't mean you should stop trying, of course. After all, isn't this what makes us human - to try to make it better? One of the reasons why I was impressed by the creation of Temple Grandin slaughterhouses for cattle. The movie shows it quite well and I would definitely recommend learning more about the topic.

Speaking of meat, I tend to avoid pork and some parts of beef. I simply don't like them and their smell. As a side note, a firefighter I knew said that the smell of grilled pork is very similar to the smell of burning human flesh... Creepy!

 

[Transmission]

I felt bad when I saw videos of cows running around with each other, playing with balls, and playing and cuddling with people. I never knew how dog-like they are. I also didn't know how bad beef production is for the environment. I've been vegan for a few years now.

 

[Trophonius]

Humans are herbivorous, actually. Our teeth are flat, good for crushing and chewing, and our canines are dull. Carnivorous and omnivorous animals rip flesh directly from an animal’s body with their teeth. If humans did that, we’d probably break our teeth, and we’d also get sick from eating raw meat. Omnivores don’t have to cut meat and cook it and season it to make it safe and palatable. Also, our digestive tract and other parts of our body are those of an herbivore.

Where are you getting that info? Because most of it isn't true.
Human ate raw meat for (thousands, maybe hundred of thousands) years before eating cooked meat. And we still do: rare steak (also known as blue rare) is a the preferred level of cooking for a lot of people — and it is raw meat except at the edges. I don't know if the teeth are capable of ripping off meat, but the tools for cutting meat were available at the very least since we started hunting (2 million years ago) [1].

The second thing to notice humans teeth are omnivorous teeth, not herbivorous [2] (plenty of sources in 2). We humans get more percentage of nutrients from animal sources than from plants — and this is shown by the effectiveness of breaking down the cellular membrane of animal cells against the effectiveness of breaking down the walls of plant cells (a well-known example is that while stem of broccoli may have more calcium than a glass of milk, we still get more calcium from drinking milk).

The third thing is that most animals (with very few exceptions) get as sick from eating raw meat as we humans, mostly from parasites.

For how long our hominini ancestors ate raw meat is debatable, but cooking was a recent discovery that appeared much later than we started hunting.

References:

[1] Evidence for Meat-Eating by Early Humans | Learn Science at Scitable
[2] Humans are not herbivores


I like what [2] said at the end:

I’ve said it earlier and I say it again. This is not an argument for not being vegan. Humans are omnivores, but can live on a completely vegan diet with the supplementation of B12 from fermentation. I think that trying to claim that humans are something else than omnivores are just counter productive since it’s quite easily debunked and we lose credibility. There are plenty of reasons to be vegan and still stick to what is true. This post is mainly focused on debunking the claim that humans are herbivores and should therefore eat only plants, but the post should qualify to debunk anyone claiming that humans are biological meat eaters and therefore should eat meat, likewise.

There are many reasons to go vegetarian/vegan, there is no need to use misleading scientific information.

 

[Kalinychta]

But I think there are limits to veganism, and that is one we found in children: it is close to impossible to supply the required amount of nutrients to the fast-growing bodies of children [1][2].
I don't eat meat either, but I'm an adult. It's not a diet I would advice to children nor pregnant women.

Still, it seems that we have an over-consumption of meat, which is hard to break from since in many countries it has become part of a culture and lifestyle. In my country people eat a lot of meat (twice as much as in the U.S), and it is hard to find vegetarian or vegan meals when taking part of any reunion or event.

References:
[1] Is vegetarianism healthy for children?
[2] Clinical practice: vegetarian infant and child nutrition.




Maybe. A distinction often made in regards to these arguments is that we humans are not under the same (moral) principles as other animals, because of our privileged place in nature (higher cognition, possibly consciousness) we're under different (moral) duties, one of which may be to preserve other animals life when possible.

Also, whether we should eat or not eat meat is not a moral principle that can be derived from nature (this is, animals eat meat therefore it's good to eat meat), this kind of arguments leads to a fallacy known as appeal to nature.

To which nutrients are you referring? Meat, dairy, and eggs aren’t what I would call nutritious. They contain amino acids but also tons of fat and cholesterol. Dairy milk is for baby cows—it’s designed to make calves, not humans, grow rapidly into huge 1,600 pound cows. (And why in the world would a human adult or child need to consume the mammary secretions of another species? That makes no sense.) Vegetables, fruits, beans, and legumes, on the other hand, are bursting with nutrients of every kind.

My niece Pandora (age seven) is a vegan baby. She’s never eaten animal products, and she’s strong as an ox and fit as a fiddle. I’ve met lots of vegan kids. My nephew Isaiah (age ten) has been a vegan since he was three and he, too, is healthy and strong. When I became vegan ten years ago, my health rapidly improved: I lost weight without even trying, allergies that I’d had since I was a kid completely vanished, my skin cleared and began to glow, I had tons more energy, and my mental health drastically improved.

I went vegan when I lived in Montana. Cow country. Ranchers and meat eaters everywhere. I was completely alone. I figured out what to do all by myself in the least vegan-friendly place in the entire U.S. (aside from maybe Wyoming). It was important to me, so I did it, I figured it out. Re: events and such: I tell them beforehand that I’m vegan. They’re always happy to accommodate.

 

[Streetwise]

Humans are omnivores. It's enough to look at the build of our teeth to see that. I respect and appreciate people that decide to go vegetarian or vegan, my cousin is one of them, in fact, but the fact (and my opinion) remains. We're not cows, our stomachs are not build to digest a high amount of fibre, for example. One of my vegan friends landed in a hospital after changing his diet due to the amount of fibre he ate. Which is to say that on the other note we're no carnivores and shouldn't persist solely on meat. We shouldn't even eat meat every day if we wish for a healthy diet and eating meat for every meal is definitely too much. Moderation is always the key.

Animals are sweet and cute, and all that, but nature is nature. Animals won't stop eating other animals.

Of course, I understand the need to stop the pain of the slaughtered animals, but if it came to your survival or the animal's survival... What would you choose?

Speaking of pain and distress of dying animals, there are theories that plants feel pain too. Did you know that smell of fresh grass loved so much by so many, is in fact a distress signal send by grass to attract beneficial insects? It also functions like its blood, healing and preventing bacterial and fungal infections of the plant. Everything in this world wants to live, be it animals, mosquitoes or plants but for some to live, others have to die. You can't save everyone.

Which doesn't mean you should stop trying, of course. After all, isn't this what makes us human - to try to make it better? One of the reasons why I was impressed by the creation of Temple Grandin slaughterhouses for cattle. The movie shows it quite well and I would definitely recommend learning more about the topic.

Speaking of meat, I tend to avoid pork and some parts of beef. I simply don't like them and their smell. As a side note, a firefighter I knew said that the smell of grilled pork is very similar to the smell of burning human flesh... Creepy!

I don’t agree that we are omnivores we don’t have the teeth for it and I don’t agree that it’s a fact either

 

[clg114]

The ends justify the means. If we don't eat them then some other animals will.

Exactly! This is how nature works. In the great scheme of things, some animals are prey and some animals are predators. Some animals are carnivores (or omnivores) and some animals are herbivores. If animal kills another animal to survive, that does not make that animal bad.

However, I would never condemn someone who choses not to eat meat because they think that it is wrong to kill animals for food. I respect your beliefs 100%. I eat meat, but the same time I feel bad about animals being killed. In Idaho, where I live, almost everybody hunts. But I do not hunt because it really bothers me to kill anything. I own a lot of firearms, but the only thing that I shoot at is targets because it bothers me to just step on a bug.

 

[Trophonius]

To which nutrients are you referring? Meat, dairy, and eggs aren’t what I would call nutritious. They contain amino acids but also tons of fat and cholesterol. Dairy milk is for baby cows—it’s designed to make calves, not humans, grow rapidly into huge 1,600 pound cows. (And why in the world would a human adult or child need to consume the mammary secretions of another species? That makes no sense.) Vegetables, fruits, beans, and legumes, on the other hand, are bursting with nutrients of every kind.

"That makes no sense" is to vague to argue with. What is the meaning of "sense"? Do you mean evolutionary sense?

I don't think an adult NEEDS to eat meat, or necessarily food from animal sources.

However, I insist that the claims: (1) We (hominini) never ate raw meat, (2) Our teeth are from herbivorous animals, (3) Our digestive system is not better at processing food from animal sources; are wrong. References, with scientific evidences to back it up, I posted before.

Whatever "makes sense" for you, or personal stories (my niece...) is not scientific thinking, and while valuable in personal decisions, certainly not arguing about factual, biological facts (humans are herbivorous, for example).

 

[onlything]

I don’t agree that we are omnivores we don’t have the teeth for it and I don’t agree that it’s a fact either

You have the right to it, of course, just like I have the right to consider myself an omnivore.

I tried a vegetarian diet before as discussed with my cousin (who's been a vegetarian for a few years now) for about two months. It caused me to become weak, nauseous, with a lot of stomach problems and abdominal pains and protein deficiencies. Additionally, my brain became foggy, numb and I had problems with concentration. I'm allergic to soy, intolerant to some kinds of nuts and can't eat many kinds of vegetables and fruits during spring, so it was also a difficult diet for me to follow.

I tried a full carnivore diet as well, from curiosity mostly. I ended up craving fruits, root vegetables and spinach in less than two weeks. I'm not allergic to any kind of meat or animal product at least, although slightly intolerant to lactose.

By observation of my organism and its needs, I decided on omnivorous diet, with lots of eggs, fish and poultry.

Just to add one more thing: as a child I craved meat, eggs and milk almost all the time. I ended up growing to 6 ft with mostly meat-based diet as our culture commands.

 

[Streetwise]

You have the right to it, of course, just like I have the right to consider myself an omnivore.

I tried a vegetarian diet before as discussed with my cousin (who's been a vegetarian for a few years now) for about two months. It caused me to become weak, nauseous, with a lot of stomach problems and abdominal pains and protein deficiencies. Additionally, my brain became foggy, numb and I had problems with concentration. I'm allergic to soy, intolerant to some kinds of nuts and can't eat many kinds of vegetables and fruits during spring, so it was also a difficult diet for me to follow.

I tried a full carnivore diet as well, from curiosity mostly. I ended up craving fruits, root vegetables and spinach in less than two weeks. I'm not allergic to any kind of meat or animal product at least, although slightly intolerant to lactose.

By observation of my organism and its needs, I decided on omnivorous diet, with lots of eggs, fish and poultry.

Just to add one more thing: as a child I craved meat, eggs and milk almost all the time. I ended up growing to 6 ft with mostly meat-based diet as our culture commands.

that maybe your culture it isn’t !my !culture! I can’t tear flesh from an animal’s body with my teeth,And no my body has reminded me that I should’ve never eaten animal I have unbearable high cholesterol all because I ate animal.

 

[Kalinychta]

Where are you getting that info? Because most of it isn't true.
Human ate raw meat for (thousands, maybe hundred of thousands) years before eating cooked meat. And we still do: rare steak (also known as blue rare) is a the preferred level of cooking for a lot of people — and it is raw meat except at the edges. I don't know if the teeth are capable of ripping off meat, but the tools for cutting meat were available at the very least since we started hunting (2 million years ago) [1].

The second thing to notice humans teeth are omnivorous teeth, not herbivorous [2] (plenty of sources in 2). We humans get more percentage of nutrients from animal sources than from plants — and this is shown by the effectiveness of breaking down the cellular membrane of animal cells against the effectiveness of breaking down the walls of plant cells (a well-known example is that while stem of broccoli may have more calcium than a glass of milk, we still get more calcium from drinking milk).

The third thing is that most animals (with very few exceptions) get as sick from eating raw meat as we humans, mostly from parasites.

For how long our hominini ancestors ate raw meat is debatable, but cooking was a recent discovery that appeared much later than we started hunting.

References:

[1] Evidence for Meat-Eating by Early Humans | Learn Science at Scitable
[2] Humans are not herbivores


I like what [2] said at the end:


There are many reasons to go vegetarian/vegan, there is no need to use misleading scientific information.

I'm talking about modern humans. Today. Not 500,000 years ago. Compare our teeth to those of omnivores (e.g. bears, coyotes, badgers, opossums, etc.)--we're not omnivores. We're just not.

The only people I've ever met who eat rare steaks are men trying to prove how macho they are. Still, though...there's a humongous difference between eating a diced rare steak and ripping flesh directly off of a bleeding animal's body, which is what omnivores do. The fact remains: human teeth are nearly incapable of breaking down raw meat unless it's diced.

Why would a human need to drink the breast milk of a bovine? Again, this makes zero sense. Why would nature do this? And what if you live somewhere where there are no cows? The only reason we're obsessed with calcium and protein is because dairy and meat corporations have spent millions and millions of dollars in advertising and lobbying politicians to convince people that if they don't buy their products, then we're all going to die of malnutrition.

Lions and other carnivores get sick from eating meat? So wouldn't they be lounging around vomiting and dying all the time? I know there are parasites and whatnot but their bodies are so much different than ours. You can't compare lions to humans.

(Edit: this is a better, easier to read chart by Dr. Milton Mills, M.D., author of The Comparative Anatomy of Eating)

 

[onlything]

that maybe your culture it isn’t !my !culture! I can’t tear flesh from an animal’s body with my teeth,And no my body has reminded me that I should’ve never eaten animal I have unbearable high cholesterol all because I ate animal.

No need to get offended. I may have not communicated it properly but this is what I meant - I found what is and feels right for both my mind and my body and you should do the same. If it feels right for you, keep it up! But there's no need to force your point of view on other people. Simple as that.

Everyone has the right to live their life how they want.

 

[Kalinychta]

Everyone has the right to live their life how they want.

Including cows, pigs, and chickens? What sort of argument do you think they would make re: being free to live their lives as nature intended?

 

[Trophonius]

@Kalinychta

That very same image is debunked in the reference I posted above (in my first reply to you), a vegan website, explaining why Humans are not herbivores.

I feel we could argue all night and the "final" answer would depend simply on rhetoric, or who still keeps and keeps answering. I'm a biologist by profession, and in regards to natural claims (like "we are herbivorous or others about our biological matters) I care only about backed-up scientific claims, not what "makes sense" to you — this way of arguing gave me a headache (literally). Whether is morally right to eat animals is a philosophical question, and I have no intention to argue against any claim there. However, the natural claims in these thread are, for the most part, wrong. None of which would imply in any case that we should, or should we not eat animals (also known as the appeal to nature fallacy).

I feel that past this point disagreement comes from not even agreeing on what an "omnivorous" is, so I don't feel there is much point in arguing.

The sources above have enough evidence. If you choose to believe we are herbivorous or "made" to eat only plants is your call — I can assure you is wrong, but it is definitely your right to believe it, like anything you want.

 

[Kalinychta]

@Kalinychta

That very same image is debunked in the reference I posted above (in my first reply to you), a vegan website, explaining why Humans are not herbivores.

I feel we could argue all night and the "final" answer would depend simply on rhetoric, or who still keeps and keeps answering. I'm a biologist by profession, and in regards to natural claims (like "we are herbivorous or others about our biological matters) I care only about backed-up scientific claims, not what "makes sense" to you — this way of arguing have me a headache (literally).

I feel that past this point disagreement comes from not even agreeing on what an "omnivorous" is, so I don't feel there is much point in arguing.

The sources above have enough evidence. If you choose to believe we are herbivorous or "made" to eat only plants is your call — I can assure you is wrong, but it is definitely your right to believe it, like anything you want.

Okay. The next time I watch a bear or coyote eat a deer on The Discovery Channel, I'll remember how wrong I am.

 

[Streetwise]

No need to get offended. I may have not communicated it properly but this is what I meant - I found what is and feels right for both my mind and my body and you should do the same. If it feels right for you, keep it up! But there's no need to force your point of view on other people. Simple as that.

Everyone has the right to live their life how they want.

you’re forcing your point of view on me

 

[Misery]

I'm talking about modern humans. Today. Not 500,000 years ago. Compare our teeth to those of omnivores (e.g. bears, coyotes, badgers, opossums, etc.)--we're not omnivores. We're just not.

The only people I've ever met who eat rare steaks are men trying to prove how macho they are. Still, though...there's a humongous difference between eating a diced rare steak and ripping flesh directly off of a bleeding animal's body, which is what omnivores do. The fact remains: human teeth are nearly incapable of breaking down raw meat unless it's diced.

Why would a human need to drink the breast milk of a bovine? Again, this makes zero sense. Why would nature do this? And what if you live somewhere where there are no cows? The only reason we're obsessed with calcium and protein is because dairy and meat corporations have spent millions and millions of dollars in advertising and lobbying politicians to convince people that if they don't buy their products, then we're all going to die of malnutrition.

Lions and other carnivores get sick from eating meat? So wouldn't they be lounging around vomiting and dying all the time? I know there are parasites and whatnot but their bodies are so much different than ours. You can't compare lions to humans.

(Edit: this is a better, easier to read chart by Dr. Milton Mills, M.D., author of The Comparative Anatomy of Eating)

There's a reason, though, why these things you point out dont entirely apply:

We're tool-users. Evolution has accomodated that. If you look at unevolved primates, ALOT of them have enormous mouths that can open very wide. But as we evolved, that simply no longer became necessary. Tools could be used to cut/grind things, but also our hands kept evolving. One doesnt even need a knife to pry apart meat... not REALLY. And our level of potential coordination with our hands vastly outdoes any other primate.

There's also the fact that, BECAUSE of having hands, we dont need a giant mouth in the way that a wolf or a dog does. Their mouths are like that because they cannot grab things without it. If it was more like ours, how could a wolf possibly catch that rabbit it's after? We naturally grab everything with our hands, so that huge opening is not even remotely necessary. The ability to open the mouth super wide like most carnivores has nothing to do with CONSUMING meat... it has everything to do with CATCHING and GRIPPING it so it cannot escape.

This is also why our canines arent so big. Canines are not for slicing... they just puncture, after all. But that puncturing + their length in, say, a dog, allows them to pierce the prey and hold it so it cannot just slide out of their mouths. That level of grip then allows for tearing chunks off. Again, we do not catch things by trying to bite them, so long canines serve no purpose. Hands and tools do all of this stuff.



I could go on for quite some time about the stuff in that chart you showed and some of the things you've pointed out. My point is, everyone (on BOTH sides) can wave charts or data like this around all they want, but it never REALLY tells the whole story. Which is something to remember about ALL charts and graphs and things. They never, EVER tell you everything you need to know to REALLY understand. Which is important, as many who create such things are counting on it.

 

[tducey]

I eat meat as well. Know many who don't. Not that big a deal to me.