"Tom2Tec" <tom2tec.remove_this@no-spam> wrote in message
news:LxoIa.10464$Mc4.2383516@no-spam
> Yes, it is true, we do need to eat, and yes, everything alive belongs to
some
> species. However, I really still don't see how that in any way justifies
eating
> meat.
>
> Some points you might consider:
>
> 1) There are many reasons a person may decide to not eat meat or other
animal
> products.
I believe you, but what are they?
> 2) No one needs to defend their decision as to what to eat.
No, but the philosophy should be able to bear up to discussion.
> 3) Everyone, in the end, pays a price for the diet they follow.
We are what we eat; who wants to be a vegetable?.
> 4) Just because it's edible or tasty does not mean it's nutritious.
Sometimes it does. Our sense of taste tells us if food quality is good or
bad.
> 5) Most Canadians do not eat a healthy balance of nutritional foods.
Seen many cases of rickets lately?
> 6) Obesity is rampant in our society.
"No one needs to defend their decision as to what to eat." -remember saying
that?
> 7) Food production is an industry governed by profit not nutritional
quality.
Without profit, there is no industry. Would you like to go back to
subsistence farming for everyone?
>
> Personally, I stopped eating meat after I lost my taste for it, which
happened
> shortly after I started a fitness regime. It seemed like the less meat (or
> sugar) I ate, the less I wanted to. I occasionally still eat some meat out
of
> politeness but I haven't spent money at the meat isle for three or four
years or
> so. I feel that my general health is better now than it ever has been. So,
> evidently, I don't seem to be suffering, in any way, from the lack of
eating
> flesh.
>
> As well, remember that your cells, which are animal cells, will accumulate
the
> same toxins as have accumulated in the animal cells in the food you eat.
> However, plant cells do not accumulate the same toxins as their physiology
is
> different.
Actually, you have it backwards. Plants have no excretory system, they
accumulate wastes and toxins in vacuoles in their cells until they die.
Therefore, many of the toxins which accumulate in plants, don't
> accumulate in people. Consider:
>
> Chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticide residues in the U.S. diet supplied
by
> meat: 55%
> Supplied by Dairy products: 23%
> Supplied by vegetables: 6%
> Supplied by fruits: 4%
> Supplied by grains: 1%
>
> (Source: http://foodrelief.tripod.com/v/veg1.htm) *
Hmm... sounds very scientific :-\
>
> ... and there's lots more:
>
> "Malnutrition and starvation will kill approximately 14 million people
this
> year. If Americans reduced their intake of meat by just 10 percent, the
land,
> water and energy freed up from growing livestock feed would feed 100
million
> people"
Redistribution of wealth again... After a consistent record of failure in
the long term, I wonder why it's still being touted?
>
> "Turning grain into flesh is extremely wasteful. Twenty vegetarians can be
fed
> on the amount of land needed to feed one person on a meat-based diet. "
Sounds like a recipe for a more densly-populated world
>
> "More than one-third of all the raw materials and fossil fuels used in our
> country go to raise animals for food. "
Hmm... better check that one out again...
>
> "We have permanently lost 3/4 of U.S. topsoil; 85 percent of this loss is
> directly due to the raising of animals for food. "
Actually, that was due to erosion by wind and water under poor cereal-grain
production practices. Animal manure is one of the best and few ways to
rebuild the topsoil.
>
> "The price of meat would double or triple if the full ecological costs -
> including fossil fuel use, groundwater depletion and agriculture-chemical
> pollution - were included in the pricetag. "
Lots of double and triple-counting went into that one, I'm sure.
>
> "A typical hog factory farm generates raw waste equivalent to that of a
city of
> 12,000 people. The waste from U.S. factory farms in a single year would
fill 6.7
> million train boxcars - enough to circle the Earth 12 and a half times."
Actually, all that waste is returned to the food cycle as a valuable
component of plant nutition and soil organic matter.
>
> www.animalconnectiontx.org/food/vegfacts.htm
>
> Further reading:
> http://www.vegetariantimes.com/resources/facts.asp
> http://users.techline.com/leiske/vegetarianfacts.html
> http://library.thinkquest.org/26813/vegfacts.htm
> http://www.angelfire.com/ok2/sxethic/vfacts.html
> http://pw2.netcom.com/~axleplus/stuff/vegan.html
> http://mama.essortment.com/vegetarianfacts_rxab.htm
>
> 2tec ~ cowabunga dood
>
> ps. salmon is a vegetable
>
>
> GlennMor wrote in message
news:lfl3fvoimf3bsoislk6rp5j5osk5el025e@no-spam
>
> | You have to eat sometime, and everything we eat is bits of some species
or
> other.
>
>