Why are you not vegan....

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katie279 said:
1) Health - We have eaten meat for 2.6 million years - as a result we have been fundamentally shaped by meat in our diet. Despite the less educated/more propaganda based vegan press, we struggle to live healthy by ripping out 2.6m years of biological adaptation. It's not massive disaster, but we are just less healthy.

2) Enjoyment - we have likewise evolved unique pleasure centres for the taste of meat and I therefore enjoy meat

3) Animal Cognition - we fundamentally misunderstand animal cognition and grossly anthropomorphize them. They fundamentally can't think the same way we do.

4) Vegan substitute food is generally low quality and hyperprocessed

5) Nature is brutal - animals live brutal, short lives in the natural world. As indeed humans did until extremely recently. The best advice for vegans is to look at nature before they criticise farmers.


Then ask yourself, does this animal look like it's suffering like a human would be if this happened? Does this look wildly better than instant death with a bolt gun?

A degree is neuroscience is a brilliant way to remove all these doubts!
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You could have at least skim read some of the pages, its like you've never heard any arguments against your position before.

1. Health, The evidence shows us we can live a perfectly healthy diet without meat/dairy
2. I guess if I really like the sound a dog makes when I kick it, you would be ok with that?
3. Its got nothing to do with their cognitive abilities but whether they can suffer or not, a mentally handicapped person might not understand the world around it or anything, but they still feel pain.
4. Id much rather eat processed plants than processed meat but that's not really what veganism is about anyway.
5. Yes nature is brutal, why would you want to replicate what a lion does? There's nothing "natural" about how we exploit and kill animals or drink another mammals milk.
 
Johno please? said:
You could have at least skim read some of the pages, its like you've never heard any arguments against your position before.

1. Health, The evidence shows us we can live a perfectly healthy diet without meat/dairy
2. I guess if I really like the sound a dog makes when I kick it, you would be ok with that?
3. Its got nothing to do with their cognitive abilities but whether they can suffer or not, a mentally handicapped person might not understand the world around it or anything, but they still feel pain.
4. Id much rather eat processed plants than processed meat but that's not really what veganism is about anyway.
5. Yes nature is brutal, why would you want to replicate what a lion does? There's nothing "natural" about how we exploit and kill animals or drink another mammals milk.
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Eat what you want. Nobody cares.
 
Johno please? said:
You could have at least skim read some of the pages, its like you've never heard any arguments against your position before.

1. Health, The evidence shows us we can live a perfectly healthy diet without meat/dairy
2. I guess if I really like the sound a dog makes when I kick it, you would be ok with that?
3. Its got nothing to do with their cognitive abilities but whether they can suffer or not, a mentally handicapped person might not understand the world around it or anything, but they still feel pain.
4. Id much rather eat processed plants than processed meat but that's not really what veganism is about anyway.
5. Yes nature is brutal, why would you want to replicate what a lion does? There's nothing "natural" about how we exploit and kill animals or drink another mammals milk.
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Well I did skim read some, but failed to see anything compelling.

1. Absolutely we can survive - but very limited long range data and already a mounting evidence of impacts (most interestingly neurological impacts)
2. What are you dribbling about?? (Apart from proving point one) - I enjoy the taste of meat, not kicking dogs.
3. You neither understand suffering or pain - both are neuroscientific phenomena and thus are entirely cognitive. It's literally the meaning of the word and thus it's everything to do with cognitive ability. Ie if I literally have no developed hippocampus, then I cannot remember. If my Broca's region is undeveloped, then I can't talk. Therefore animals without humanlike frontal lobes (ie all of them), cannot possibly conceptualise and thus experience pain like we can. You do realise trees can transmit simple pain signals - assume you're going to stop eating plants too....? ;)
4. Agree re processing, but much easier to eat an unprocessed normal diet than a vegan one which requires packing of lots of missing essential elements, oils, vitamins etc
5. Again I don't know where you invented this from - I didn't say anything about us being like lions, my point was that the average farm is vastly more humane than average nature and animals fear responses rank vastly lower in farms than in nature. Every single animal gets killed, exploited etc. Even drinking milk happens in nature - so it's all 'natural', even if for some quasi-religious reason you are considering humans not a part of nature.

Beyond all this, I think you're conflating different things - I'm all for better animal welfare and think we need to do more here, but literally 100% of animals are eaten in nature and the majority die in ways few humans would tolerate.

Good farms are huge improvements on nature in terms of animal welfare, so I'm quite happy to use their meat rather than leave it to the worms...
 
Johno please? said:
1. Health, The evidence shows us we can live a perfectly healthy diet without meat/dairy
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Sometimes yes, if people are careful about things like B12 deficiency etc. some obvious risks, especially with young children:
dowie said:
More on veganism/vegetarianism and kids... just not worth it, let them choose to be veggies as adults if they really want otherwise give them (and pregnant women/new mothers) a balanced diet including meat, milk, eggs etc.. as the poster above pointed out we evolved to be omnivores not herbivores! Eating meat is a natural part of our diet and our diets are at risk of being deficient without it:


(That isn't to say that all meat-eaters are healthy either, nothing natural about fat chavs consuming junk food all the time and they're generally included in the broad set of all people who eat meat.)
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Thekwango said:
Ohhh but some people really really do care what others eat. So much so they think it’s ok to tell people what they should be eating.
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Yet it’s the pro meat lobby who keep bumping this thread. It was off page one twice and it’s come back with a regurgitation of the same arguments by the super pro meat bros. This thread ain’t going anywhere, let it die. But the meat lovers won’t for some reason. And people say the vegans are bad for going on and on…
 
Ahleckz said:
Yet it’s the pro meat lobby who keep bumping this thread. It was off page one twice and it’s come back with a regurgitation of the same arguments by the super pro meat bros. This thread ain’t going anywhere, let it die. But the meat lovers won’t for some reason. And people say the vegans are bad for going on and on…
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Fair enough, but I don't see any threads telling people to stop being vegan ;)
 
Ahleckz said:
Yet it’s the pro meat lobby who keep bumping this thread. It was off page one twice and it’s come back with a regurgitation of the same arguments by the super pro meat bros. This thread ain’t going anywhere, let it die. But the meat lovers won’t for some reason. And people say the vegans are bad for going on and on…
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You lost all credibility with your super pro meat bros line. That just too much lols to take the rest of your post seriously.
 
Johno please? said:
5. Yes nature is brutal, why would you want to replicate what a lion does? There's nothing "natural" about how we exploit and kill animals or drink another mammals milk.
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you know that our ancestors, once they evolved to make tools/weapons etc did exactly the same thing as the lion? they hunted in packs to take down animals for food etc? it's only our continued evolution that allowed us to move from being a hunter/gatherer species to domesticating animals for food use.
i wholeheartedly agree humans need to rein in our meat consumption but berating people and making up nonsense isn't the way forward.
 
Haha, I’m glad it’s caused such hilarity.

I was trying to critique the posters who seem to think all meals must include meat, and we should eat meat because lions eat gazelles.

It’s also interesting I’m being called a super soy boy, when I openly eat meat. But you know, pigeonhole away!

Please don’t take my moniker away from me though!
 
I am banging the old drums here…but there are sooooo many reasons why people eat meat. So the first and foremost what irk to me is that when people putting THEIR own perspective and life style and THRUST upon another, berating and belittling and picking on them for their choice.

The luxury, yes, the luxury to choose a diet, rather than being forced through medical or economic reasons must be nice. Remember that to have the luxury to be able to eat anything you want in the world and choose such a narrow one is one of luxury.

Also, personally, a lot of the food that I like, I want to and I choose to eat it the traditional recipe, the “authentic” one. If I go to Naples to get a pizza, you think I would go there to ask for a vegan one? When I go to Fukuoka to get a Tonkotsu ramen, am I going to look for a vegan one? I find these little treats in life a joy, do I want to go through life without these little moments of joy that I enjoy? Why are the vegans trying to force their values onto me to take that away from me?

I am not going around telling vegans to put a steak on their plate, please, I ask again, don’t tell me what to eat.

This above besides everything else I said about the goal shouldn’t be full veganism but lower meat consumption and better animal welfare.

p.s. I've been eating full vegan this morning, not had any diary or meat or eggs!
 
Raymond Lin said:
I am banging the old drums here…but there are sooooo many reasons why people eat meat. So the first and foremost what irk to me is that when people putting THEIR own perspective and life style and THRUST upon another, berating and belittling and picking on them for their choice.

The luxury, yes, the luxury to choose a diet, rather than being forced through medical or economic reasons must be nice. Remember that to have the luxury to be able to eat anything you want in the world and choose such a narrow one is one of luxury.

Also, personally, a lot of the food that I like, I want to and I choose to eat it the traditional recipe, the “authentic” one. If I go to Naples to get a pizza, you think I would go there to ask for a vegan one? When I go to Fukuoka to get a Tonkotsu ramen, am I going to look for a vegan one? I find these little treats in life a joy, do I want to go through life without these little moments of joy that I enjoy? Why are the vegans trying to force their values onto me to take that away from me?

I am not going around telling vegans to put a steak on their plate, please, I ask again, don’t tell me what to eat.

This above besides everything else I said about the goal shouldn’t be full veganism but lower meat consumption and better animal welfare.

p.s. I've been eating full vegan this morning, not had any diary or meat or eggs!
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The default position of a vegan is that an animal is a victim, you could say because of us thrusting our life style and perspective on them ;)

When you look at things from the perspective of an animal being an individual, sentient being, that wants to avoid harm and can experience pleasure, then you can start to understand a bit more of where they are coming from.

What your essentially saying is "my taste pleasure is more important than the life of that pig or that cow". I do think most wouldn't be OK with caring for an animal and then waking up one morning and slitting it's throat for a ham sandwich.

Having been vegan for many months and done a lot of reading I completely get their position. It's very admirable that they take the view that animals should not be abused or killed. Obviously it's way more nuanced, hence why I am not vegan. But I won't eat a pig, just like I won't eat my dog.
 
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