an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

[volcaniclastic]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

Someone mentioned humanity's only export product of value...

What type of pizza?

Dominos, three topping: pineapple, olives, green peppers. Light on the cheese (see, at least I try)

[MaskedOne]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

I don't think I've ever put olives on a pizza. How'd that work out?

[anunitu]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

Black olives are good on a pizza,pineapple is too,but some people dislike that. I have had pizza with guacamole and peppers,good if you like something hot.

One place does hot wings on pizza here,though to me that does not sound all that good.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

I love sliced black olives on pizza!

[Luna]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

Mmm black olives om pizza are yummy

[Gleb]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

I don't think I've ever put olives on a pizza. How'd that work out?

Well there are pizzerias here that put both green and black olives on pizzas.

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I'm not a fan of olives... Just saying...

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Dominos, three topping: pineapple, olives, green peppers. Light on the cheese (see, at least I try)

Yay! We have Dominos here too!!! ^_^

[thalassa]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

Meat gluttony is a new thing; even just a hundred years ago meat was not the centerpiece of every meal. Most people need only 3-4 oz. of meat per day to satisfy nutritional requirements, if that is their only source of protein. Nutritionists say to imagine the size of a deck of cards. In some rare cases a person might require up to 8 oz. due to health issues -- that's two decks of cards. Historically, meat was something of a luxury, which is perhaps why people got crazy with it when government subsidized feed corn and intensive slaughter lots made meat at every meal a possibility. At my grandparents' farm much of the meat came from hunting and fishing, and whatever granddad brought home is what was eaten. Often just a squirrel or two went into stew for 10 people, and the stew was serve with rice and biscuits to fill you up. Sunday dinner was a big deal because that was often the only meal where meat was the centerpiece -- a chicken in every pot was a resonant promise for politicians because of this reality. Anyway, just trying to put the idea that "people always ate meat" into some historical perspective. Compared to our great grandparents, we are meat gluttons, and it isn't particularly healthy.

Then again (because I love to play devil's advocate), this is a culture-specific generalization (and one that is often class-based). Look at the traditional Inuit diet and the traditional Maasai diet, for example... And just because I had Civil War era food fun facts handy...people used to mix saw dust in their flour to make it stretch (and during prohibition, the governemnt poisoned industrial alcohol, and people drank it anyhow).

As a species, humans survive because we have an adaptive gut--we survive as individuals by eating whatever we find in our environment (and hoping there are enough nutrients to do the trick), our populations evolve to be able to process the foods that are available in our habitats (and I'd be willing to bet, to have some preference for it) and our culture evolves to embed those preferences into customs that are flexible according to availability and feasibility.

[nbdy]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

Then again (because I love to play devil's advocate), this is a culture-specific generalization (and one that is often class-based). Look at the traditional Inuit diet and the traditional Maasai diet, for example... And just because I had Civil War era food fun facts handy...people used to mix saw dust in their flour to make it stretch (and during prohibition, the governemnt poisoned industrial alcohol, and people drank it anyhow).

As a species, humans survive because we have an adaptive gut--we survive as individuals by eating whatever we find in our environment (and hoping there are enough nutrients to do the trick), our populations evolve to be able to process the foods that are available in our habitats (and I'd be willing to bet, to have some preference for it) and our culture evolves to embed those preferences into customs that are flexible according to availability and feasibility.

Oh, yeah, definitely talking U.S. In other cultures vegetarianism has been the norm for a long time, or insects supply the preponderance of protein, etc. I have often wondered just what I would be able to eat to survive, and just about everything passes muster. Not sure I could do the cannibal thing, but I have never been truly starving. That's the thing, though, we live in such a society that most of us get to choose not whether we eat, but what we eat. How very blessed we are.

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Regarding pizza -- yes olives, no pineapple. My ideal pizza is white with something green on it, like spinach or broccoli. The last one we had was broccoli, fresh mushrooms, and black olives. This is where the vegan thing doesn't seem like it will be total for me -- not into soy-based foods, and what other "cheese" is out there? I know I will still want pizza. We'll see what happens.

[volcaniclastic]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

Then again (because I love to play devil's advocate), this is a culture-specific generalization (and one that is often class-based). Look at the traditional Inuit diet

I had forgotten about this. I have to say, I'm probably the only one on the forum who has experienced Inuit life firsthand, and they are willing to eat most things, it's crazy. Traditionally, it was mukluk (raw frozen seal flesh), and raw caribou flesh as the bulk of their diets (at least on the coast), and more inland and more to the east are things like polar bears, muskox, birds and fish. In the short summer season, cloudberries and sorrel are picked, and in the fall, cranberries, blueberries, and other little grasses. But for 8-10 months of the year, it's just meat, and nothing else.

Obviously, things are different now. Iqaluit has two Tim Horton's, for instance, and the best donair I've ever eaten was a short walk from the Iqaluit airport. There's Northmart and the Northern Co-op grocers. Cambridge Bay has a KFC and a Pizza Hut last I remember. Every airport, no matter how small the community, has a chocolate bar vendor.

[thalassa]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

I had forgotten about this. I have to say, I'm probably the only one on the forum who has experienced Inuit life firsthand, and they are willing to eat most things, it's crazy. Traditionally, it was mukluk (raw frozen seal flesh), and raw caribou flesh as the bulk of their diets (at least on the coast), and more inland and more to the east are things like polar bears, muskox, birds and fish. In the short summer season, cloudberries and sorrel are picked, and in the fall, cranberries, blueberries, and other little grasses. But for 8-10 months of the year, it's just meat, and nothing else.

Obviously, things are different now. Iqaluit has two Tim Horton's, for instance, and the best donair I've ever eaten was a short walk from the Iqaluit airport. There's Northmart and the Northern Co-op grocers. Cambridge Bay has a KFC and a Pizza Hut last I remember. Every airport, no matter how small the community, has a chocolate bar vendor.

I only thought of this because the kids recently watched an episode of Popular Mechanics for Kids that involved learning to prepare (and taste) traditional Inuit food...which does not look appetizing to me at all.

I mean, I love sushi and I've even had a wonderful steak tartar before...but...eating a meat-eating mammal, much less raw just...eeeew...especially in this day and age with heavy metals in the ocean...

[SilverShadow]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

I don't think I've ever put olives on a pizza. How'd that work out?

Olives are amazing on pizza!

I loved anchovies on pizzas, so adding olives in helped. Supreme pizzas (in Australia, not sure what they're called in other parts of the world) usually come with olives, capsicum, things like that.

Though one of my favourite things to put on a pizza is sundried tomatoes....Or I get some vego mince, some vegan cheese, pickles, onion and mustard....Make myself a cheezeburger pizza.

Oh, yeah, definitely talking U.S. In other cultures vegetarianism has been the norm for a long time, or insects supply the preponderance of protein, etc. I have often wondered just what I would be able to eat to survive, and just about everything passes muster. Not sure I could do the cannibal thing, but I have never been truly starving. That's the thing, though, we live in such a society that most of us get to choose not whether we eat, but what we eat. How very blessed we are.

I wonder about that too! I get asked a lot "But, if you were on a dessert island.....". To be honest, I don't think I could eat someone and 'someone' includes animals (for me). I'd probably steal eggs from animals, if I needed to survive, but it would only take stealing a fertilised egg for me to stop doing that....

That's why I'm glad eating isn't a life or death decision for me.

Regarding pizza -- yes olives, no pineapple. My ideal pizza is white with something green on it, like spinach or broccoli. The last one we had was broccoli, fresh mushrooms, and black olives. This is where the vegan thing doesn't seem like it will be total for me -- not into soy-based foods, and what other "cheese" is out there? I know I will still want pizza. We'll see what happens.

There are other vegan versions of 'cheese' that don't include soy, I THINK (feel free to check it out yourself) that Daiya are soyfree, at least their cheddar one was last I checked.

Pizzas without cheese are quite nice, I usually put pine nuts or cashews on my pizzas, if I'm not in the mood for a cheezy tasting pizza. Nuts are actually quite a nice alternative to cheese.

But if you can't find vegan cheeses where you are, there's a few you can make on your own with few 'special' ingredients. I use Nutritional Yeast (much nicer than it sounds, I assure you and can also be a good source of B12, though I take a multivitamin just to be on the safe side) to make mac-and-not-cheeze sauce (which I also use on pizzas). If you want something less bitey, then you soak about a cup of cashews in a bowl for about 5-10 minutes, blend them up with some water and a touch of salt, possibly a dash of lemon (to taste) and then you can spread it on your pizza.

Sorry, I just talked a lot about vegan cheeze....

[volcaniclastic]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

I only thought of this because the kids recently watched an episode of Popular Mechanics for Kids that involved learning to prepare (and taste) traditional Inuit food...which does not look appetizing to me at all.

I mean, I love sushi and I've even had a wonderful steak tartar before...but...eating a meat-eating mammal, much less raw just...eeeew...especially in this day and age with heavy metals in the ocean...

Not just raw, but frozen too!

[SleepingCompass]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

I kind of screwed up when I took the poll; I chose vegetarian without looking too closely at the other options. After I had already voted, I googled the lacto-ovo vegetarian and realized that I should have picked that one; I don't eat any meat (including fish), but I do eat animal products such as dairy and eggs.

There isn't any way to go back and change your vote that I'm just not seeing, is there?

Also, all of this talk about pizza is making me crave a slice so bad!!! I love olives on pizza, particularly with onions

Regarding pizza -- yes olives, no pineapple. My ideal pizza is white with something green on it, like spinach or broccoli. The last one we had was broccoli, fresh mushrooms, and black olives. This is where the vegan thing doesn't seem like it will be total for me -- not into soy-based foods, and what other "cheese" is out there? I know I will still want pizza. We'll see what happens.

I have a friend who is lactose intolerant and also vegetarian like me; when we hang out, we'll just order a pizza with every single veggie option available and no cheese; it tastes surprisingly delicious

I've been thinking about the answers to this thread that go along the lines of "plants are alive too".

It's an interesting conundrum that all vegetarians and vegans face eventually, I figured I could at least give my perspective on the whole thing-

Plants aren't sentient beings the way that animals are. Plants react to stimuli the way perhaps our keyboards react to the weight of our hands on their keys (not my example, but I remember reading it and thought it was a clever way to explain the difference between reaction and feeling). That doesn't mean they feel pain. It could mean that they do. What science can tell us about animals right now though, is that they are sentient and feel pain as we do.

If, however, plants do feel pain the same way we do, by eating animals we're killing more plants than we would if we just ate plants. It's something like 2/3rds of the world's crops that go to feed animals that humans then consume. That's a lot of plant death, before you even get into the issue of land clearing and the impacts it has on whole ecosystems.

With all of that said, being a veg*n (short hand for vegetarian/vegan) doesn't ensure that no harm is done at all. I can only real speak to my own truth at this point, so other veg*ns may disagree, but I'm in this to do less harm. I started out as a vegetarian just so....so angry at what I'd seen, as I think most people are when they see animals mistreated. No one wants to hurt animals (save a very select few), so I do my utmost to ensure I don't hurt them. It's not absolute, but few things are. Plus, I feel a lot happier in myself with my decision.

This reminded me of the article The Intelligent Plant and the video that goes with it:

The article talks about various research that has been done on plant intelligence and consciousness and it's pretty compelling. One bit of the article relates to what we've been talking about here:

“If plants are conscious, then, yes, they should feel pain,” he said. “If you don’t feel pain, you ignore danger and you don’t survive. Pain is adaptive.” I must have shown some alarm. “That’s a scary idea,” he acknowledged with a shrug. “We live in a world where we must eat other organisms.”

I liked the way SilverShadow said it: "...but I'm in this to do less harm."

I hate the idea that there's any creature suffering so that I can live, but truly doing no harm at all really is impossible. All of this comes down to personal choice; I don't think there's any one right answer.

[SilverShadow]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

I kind of screwed up when I took the poll; I chose vegetarian without looking too closely at the other options. After I had already voted, I googled the lacto-ovo vegetarian and realized that I should have picked that one; I don't eat any meat (including fish), but I do eat animal products such as dairy and eggs.

There isn't any way to go back and change your vote that I'm just not seeing, is there?

I don't know of any way to change your vote, regardless I think it's okay to call yourself a 'vegetarian' if you're still eating eggs and dairy (I call myself a vegetarian and I don't eat eggs or dairy :P, it's a good blanket term).

This reminded me of the article The Intelligent Plant and the video that goes with it:

The article talks about various research that has been done on plant intelligence and consciousness and it's pretty compelling. One bit of the article relates to what we've been talking about here:



I liked the way SilverShadow said it: "...but I'm in this to do less harm."

I hate the idea that there's any creature suffering so that I can live, but truly doing no harm at all really is impossible. All of this comes down to personal choice; I don't think there's any one right answer.

The plant sentience thing is.... strange to me (I also have mixed feelings towards Michael Pollan). The book he's referencing has it's fair share of detractors within the scientific community. I'm not saying that further research or understanding of plant sentience is a waste of time, far from it. I guess I just have a hard time reconciling the fact that these arguments seem to put a houseplant next to a cat/dog/pig and say "these are equally sentient".

[Rae'ya]

Re: an it harm none : meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan?

Just to answer the question about how long cows live- Cows can live about 20 years or more on a farm. I'm not sure how they go in the wild, but then cows on farms are a far leap from how nature intended them to be. Chickens can live a number of years, but broilers only live a month or two from memory.

The question was specifically regarding feral and/or wild cows, not domestic ones on a farm.

Plants react to stimuli the way perhaps our keyboards react to the weight of our hands on their keys (not my example, but I remember reading it and thought it was a clever way to explain the difference between reaction and feeling). That doesn't mean they feel pain. It could mean that they do.

That's not a great analogy. A keyboard is not alive, and doesn't actively react to pleasant or noxious stimuli. A plant is alive... it lives and dies based on whether it receives the correct nutrition. It has measurable health parameters. It will actively grow towards beneficial stimuli and avoid noxious stimuli. The definition of pain is 'an unpleasant physical or emotional response to actual or potential tissue damage'. You don't avoid noxious stimuli unless it has some negative consequence on you... ie an unpleasant physical or emotional response. Ergo we have a compelling argument for the idea that plants feel pain, as per the definition of pain. It's true that they don't feel pain via nociception, as vertebrates (and some invertebrates) do, but that doesn't mean that they don't feel pain. Would you say that a jellyfish doesn't feel pain? A worm? A leech? A sea sponge?

What science can tell us about animals right now though, is that they are sentient and feel pain as we do.

Society didn't recognise that animals felt pain until the late 1800's. Obviously animals and humans have been co-existing from well before that... so I'd say it was an idea that was pretty slow to catch on. What many people may find interesting is that it wasn't actually science that first put the theory of animals feeling pain forward... it was philosophers who hypothesised about suffering and how being able the 'think', 'reason', 'talk' or possess a soul did or didn't affect your ability to suffer. Most of those original arguments can be easily applied to plants.

Also... sentience is not measurable by science. And it's a term that is often misused and misunderstood. Have you ever looked up the definition of sentience? People often think that sentience is the ability to think, but it's not... the basic definition is the ability to experience sensations. Since a sensation can be considered feeling a stimulus... and we know that plants will respond to a stimulus... we can say that plants feel sensations. Therefore the above definition of sentience actually includes plants. This ties back into the philosophers who proposed that animals felt pain and their discussions on sentience vs sapience and how things like 'feeling', 'thinking', 'reasoning', 'cognition' etc fit into those things. Before that, animals certainly weren't considered sentient.

If, however, plants do feel pain the same way we do, by eating animals we're killing more plants than we would if we just ate plants. It's something like 2/3rds of the world's crops that go to feed animals that humans then consume. That's a lot of plant death, before you even get into the issue of land clearing and the impacts it has on whole ecosystems.

Your statistic is incorrect (though it seems the 'true' statistic is unknown as no one seems to be able to agree on it) but the sentiment here has some merit. However, what we're actually talking about here is agriculture, not eating meat vs not eating meat. It is completely possible to eat meat in a sustainable and responsible manner without large scale agriculture (ie without the land clearing, nutritionally unbalanced single-crop feeds, pesticides, overworking of the land, resource usage, transport miles etc etc). It's true that plants are still being eaten (but not necessarily dying) in the process... but the overarching point of most omnivore's arguments is that death is a part of life. Things die in order for other things to live. You can't avoid that. Add into that the fact that most grain crops are annuals and will die at the end of the season anyway, whether or not they are harvested, and that particular argument starts to look a bit thin.

My personal opinion is that if things die in order for you to live... is there really that much difference between plant things dying and animal things dying? What about the insects that are killed? The land that is damaged? The ecosystems that are screwed with when large scale agriculture takes place? The aquatic life killed from the industrial runoff? The microbes in the soil? Sustainable and responsible practices are far more important to me... because they consider all of these things and look at the bigger picture. My free range, grass fed steak from the Fleurieu Peninsula that I order at a restaurant actually didn't kill anything for the majority of the year... so am I really killing more things by eating it than if I ate a salad that was put together from veg grown in large scale agriculture instead? No.

Meat gluttony is a new thing; even just a hundred years ago meat was not the centerpiece of every meal. Most people need only 3-4 oz. of meat per day to satisfy nutritional requirements, if that is their only source of protein. Nutritionists say to imagine the size of a deck of cards. In some rare cases a person might require up to 8 oz. due to health issues -- that's two decks of cards. Historically, meat was something of a luxury, which is perhaps why people got crazy with it when government subsidized feed corn and intensive slaughter lots made meat at every meal a possibility. At my grandparents' farm much of the meat came from hunting and fishing, and whatever granddad brought home is what was eaten. Often just a squirrel or two went into stew for 10 people, and the stew was serve with rice and biscuits to fill you up. Sunday dinner was a big deal because that was often the only meal where meat was the centerpiece -- a chicken in every pot was a resonant promise for politicians because of this reality. Anyway, just trying to put the idea that "people always ate meat" into some historical perspective. Compared to our great grandparents, we are meat gluttons, and it isn't particularly healthy.

I absolutely agree that modern people eat too much meat (and believe I've even mentioned it in here before somewhere)... BUT... I don't agree with this being any sort of historical perspective and I believe that several of the statements above are incorrect. Thalassa already pointed out different cultural norms but I'd like to add into that the differences in diet between the rich and the poor, pretty much all the way through history. There are multiple historical examples of upper class Europeans eating a diet of mostly meat (and the attendant health problems that came with it). A little bit of study into food history shows us that modern Westerners are most certainly NOT the only ones who suffered from meat gluttony, and that blanket statements like "Historically, meat was something of a luxury" are not globally correct.

I'd also like to point out here (not because nbdy said anything about it but just because it seems to fit here) the complete fallacy of humans being 'designed' to eat anything at all. Humans are omnivores. Our physiology is set up to eat essentially whatever we can get our hands on. We aren't designed specifically to eat meat. But we aren't NOT designed to eat meat. We are designed to eat a range of foodstuffs, one of which is meat. Biologically speaking, we can eat it, or we can not eat it. Some can thrive without it, some can't. Some can thrive with it, some can't. There is absolutely no single categorical statement that can be made about human biological suitability to eat or not eat meat except that humans are biologically OMNIVORES. I find it frustrating when people try to use biology and what humans are 'designed to eat' as arguments one way or the other... because it's completely irrelevant to the modern person's decision about whether or not to eat meat.

I don't think I've ever put olives on a pizza. How'd that work out?

Pizza is the only thing I'll eat olives on. Otherwise, olives are ick.

I had forgotten about this. I have to say, I'm probably the only one on the forum who has experienced Inuit life firsthand, and they are willing to eat most things, it's crazy. Traditionally, it was mukluk (raw frozen seal flesh), and raw caribou flesh as the bulk of their diets (at least on the coast), and more inland and more to the east are things like polar bears, muskox, birds and fish. In the short summer season, cloudberries and sorrel are picked, and in the fall, cranberries, blueberries, and other little grasses. But for 8-10 months of the year, it's just meat, and nothing else.

Obviously, things are different now. Iqaluit has two Tim Horton's, for instance, and the best donair I've ever eaten was a short walk from the Iqaluit airport. There's Northmart and the Northern Co-op grocers. Cambridge Bay has a KFC and a Pizza Hut last I remember. Every airport, no matter how small the community, has a chocolate bar vendor.

I once watched a really interesting documentary on the modern changes that are being imposed on indigenous circumpolar cultures. A pair of twins went and lived with a seal hunting community in Siberia (I think) and one ate the traditional diet and the other ate the 'Western' food that was being shipped in to them as compensation for reducing their hunting quotas. Essentially the twin who ate the traditional diet thrived in the climate and living conditions while the other really struggled. The idea was that by taking away their ability to eat their traditional diet (by reducing their hunting practices) and imposing foreign mass produced, grain based food upon them as their only alternative, the authorities were inadvertently creating more disease and health problems, and reducing their ability to thrive in their climate. (There was also the issue that local military operations were actually killing hundreds of seal annually... far more than the hunters were... but that's not relevant here!)

I wonder about that too! I get asked a lot "But, if you were on a dessert island.....". To be honest, I don't think I could eat someone and 'someone' includes animals (for me). I'd probably steal eggs from animals, if I needed to survive, but it would only take stealing a fertilised egg for me to stop doing that....

If you're stealing eggs from wild nests... chances are they are fertilised. Just saying.

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The plant sentience thing is.... strange to me (I also have mixed feelings towards Michael Pollan). The book he's referencing has it's fair share of detractors within the scientific community. I'm not saying that further research or understanding of plant sentience is a waste of time, far from it. I guess I just have a hard time reconciling the fact that these arguments seem to put a houseplant next to a cat/dog/pig and say "these are equally sentient".

I haven't watched the video, but honestly I think you're confusing what being 'sentient' is. Either you're sentient or you're not. There's no scale of sentience (well, there is... but it's highly debated and isn't really about sentience so much as a confused amalgam of sentience and sapience). Either you feel, or you don't feel. How sensitive you are to those feelings really isn't the same as being 'more' or 'less' sentient than something else.