Why maybe going vegan should be a reality for many people.

[Mai72]

I still eat meat, drink milk and eat eggs. I didn't make this thread to criticize people who do the same. But, let's look at the facts. Eating meat, eggs and dairy are bad. How bad? Really bad.

So lets look at the negatives to eating meat, drinking milk and consuming eggs.

1) Huge Increased Risk of Heart Disease.

The studies have shown many times over that eating meat increases cholesterol which will increase your risk of getting heart disease. It has also been shown that eating a vegan diet has many benefits. One is lowering cholesterol, and another is decreasing your risk of diabetes.

Have you ever had a heart attack? Have you witnessed anyone having one? It's not a pretty sight. So, the people who say that they don't care about their health are only fooling themselves.

A very popular You Tuber called Vegan Gains has just released a video on "What Causes Heart Disease."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qczRzcqxoIo

*Be Warned He Uses Foul Language At Times. May Not Be Work Safe.


2) Eating Meat is a HUGE Contributor to Global Warming.

This is something that is rarely talked about, but facts are facts. The meat industry is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. It's more than cars, planes, ships and trains COMBINED!

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/03/eating-less-meat-curb-climate-change

The global livestock industry produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all cars, planes, trains and ships combined, but a worldwide survey by Ipsos MORI in the report finds twice as many people think transport is the bigger contributor to global warming.

3) The Meat Industry is very Similar to the Concentration Camps of WW2.

Notice the similarities? Don't you guys think the meat industry is very similar to the holocaust? The way that the meat industry treats its animals is cruel, unacceptable, and the only thing they care about is profit. There was even talk about how the nazies were practicing killing animals before they started on the Jews. That should tell you something.

I could go on and on...

*High protein diets are not good for you, and will contribute to an early death.
*How Cows are raped, have their babies and then they are ripped from the mother.
*How we are feeding our children animal flesh. Don't let the cute little images of cows and pigs fool you. They were butchered and screamed in pain.
*How the meat industry is evil and the amount of power they wield is alarming.
*It's unethical to eat meat.

I haven't gone vegan yet. I will admit the vegan lifestyle is unappealing. But, what's becoming more unappealing is the thought of eating meat, dairy and eggs.

 

[Ns1]

fuck, I want a steak now.

 

[Mai72]

fuck, I want a steak now.

lol, that does look good.

 

[Red Squirrel]

It is true that the existing method of farming is quite sickening. Where I can I try to buy from free range but it's pretty hard to even find that. What you get in grocery stores is not free range, and is also packed with junk like hormones etc...

It's crossed my mind to go vegen for those reasons. I'd still eat some meat when I can get some from a good source, just not make it part of my main diet. Of course that would also mean no more fast food... fast food meat is typically from the worse of the worse when it comes to terrible farming conditions for the animals.

 

[Ns1]

You know when you eat veggies you're exploiting poor immigrant workers right? Why the fuck do you guys hate immigrants so much?

This poor dude hates his life because you fuckers need a kale smoothie every morning.

 

[lxskllr]

Vegetarian's no problem, but there's no way in hell I'll go without dairy, and a lesser extent eggs. I'd miss fish the most.

 

[Strk]

Vegetarian's no problem, but there's no way in hell I'll go without dairy, and a lesser extent eggs. I'd miss fish the most.

I'd say eggs are the easiest thing to go humane with though. Cage-free, veggie-fed are widely available at most grocery stores. You probably also have local farms that will sell them. I have one right down the street from me.

It's not like one of those things like organic where you have to figure out what exactly does that mean.

 

[Ventanni]

So, I'm going to interject here and hopefully bring us all back to reality a little bit. I'm not denying that we have some opportunities on how we grow our food, but we all have to realize that pretty much all life on this planet derives its food in some horrifying sense. I mean, have you ever seen a preying mantis rip the head off a bug and eat it like it didn't exist? Ever seen a wildebeest cross a river and literally be torn in half by a crocodile? Or watch bambi get caught by the hands of a baboon and have its legs ripped off and eaten alive? Heck, my parents were just telling me they lost one of their chickens. It was dragged out of its yard pen, had its head ripped off, and all its innards were torn out and eaten. The rest was sprawled out across the grass like a Quake 3 gib fest. Life isn't exactly pretty about its food, guys.

So while you can make comparisons of butcher houses to Auschwitz you want, there is a sense of stewardship that goes into the way we manage our food. That doesn't mean we're without areas of opportunity. We, as humans, need to get away from these massive single-crop superfarms and move to a smaller, more sustainable, but far more productive multi-crop farmsteads. We should be focusing on our soil rather than feeding the crops directly. As for meat production, we really need to get away from steroid infused meats and stop overfishing our oceans. There's a lot that we waste, and there's a lot we can do better.

But everyone becoming a vegan because the poor animals have feelings is not the solution.

 

[Sulaco]

OP is an idiot.

 

[Ancalagon44]

What we need to do is breed animals that want to be slaughtered and eaten. Like the cow in the restaurant at the end of the universe.

 

[purbeast0]

eh everything is fine in moderation. if you eat 1lb steaks every day yeah you might have some issues in the future.

you know what else helps counteract all of this negative shit with some bad foods? exercising. give it a try.

 

[Chocu1a]

Moderation moderation moderation. That is the key to a healthy lifestyle. No need to cut out any food group completely.

 

[Anubis]

 

[Artdeco]

We are the ultimate predator on this planet, to deny that is moronic.

 

[Kaido]

I've done vegetarian, vegan, and even fruitarian. If you're into endurance stuff, stuff like the Thrive Diet is hard to beat because your energy is high & your recovery time gets cut in half. In fact, the best I've ever felt in my life is on a fruit-based diet. However:

1. Eating meat, especially red meat, makes me feel amazing. Nothing matches the solidarity I feel after coming home from a long day & eating a steak, especially if I've worked through breakfast & lunch. It's physically fulfilling in a way that just eating veggies isn't. On the flip side, eating stuff like a raw vegan meal doesn't put me into a food coma like meat-based meals often do.

2. While I am a fan of meat as part of a healthy diet, I think it's better to eat it as the minority of your food. Kind of along the lines of Michael Pollan's "eat food, mostly plants, not too much" mantra. Like if you're going to do a burger, throw some lettuce & tomatoes and stuff on it, or have a salad for lunch or something. Kind of balance it out.

3. I don't feel like we have a 100% knowledge of nutrition. Restricting yourself by choice to a specific subset of food may cut you off from stuff like phytochemicals that we need for long-term health. There's a lot of study right now going into the gut microbiome & how food affects how we feel, the quality of our lives, and so on.

I could go on about this stuff forever. Plus, science is fickle. For example, one of the latest studies says:

http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/04...althy-lower-quality-of-life-than-meat-eaters/

Vegetarians were twice as likely to have allergies, a 50 percent increase in heart attacks and a 50 percent increase in incidences of cancer.

...

Overall, vegetarians were found to be in a poorer state of health compared to other dietary groups. Vegetarians reported higher levels of impairment from disorders, chronic diseases, and “suffer significantly more often from anxiety/depression.”

...

The researchers conclude: “Our study has shown that Austrian adults who consume a vegetarian diet are less healthy (in terms of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders), have a lower quality of life, and also require more medical treatment.”

You can pretty much find a study out there to reinforce any idea you're into...paleo, iifym, vegan, omnivore, etc. The fact is that we just don't have the information to back anything up. We actually have a very small amount of usable information. We know that if you don't eat, you'll die. We know that if you eat too few calories, you'll develop major health issues. We know what it takes to keep coma patients alive. We know if you overeat & become overweight, that causes health issues. We know if you eat too much red meat, you'll die faster. But other than that, there's not much info out there. Dan Buettner has a great TED Talk on Blue Zones:

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100?language=en

They basically did long-term studies on what contributes to living past 100 years old. What they found is that there is basically no dietary correlation or fitness regime, other than keeping your body moving every day. So aside from starving or being overweight, pretty much just eat & drink different stuff in moderation & go for walks during the day.

 

[Kaido]

What we need to do is breed animals that want to be slaughtered and eaten. Like the cow in the restaurant at the end of the universe.

 

[Kaido]

Moderation moderation moderation. That is the key to a healthy lifestyle. No need to cut out any food group completely.

Exercise moderately and eat & drink in moderation. That's more or less it, from what I can tell. If you under-eat, over-eat, and are sedentary, that seems to kill you quicker than anything else.

And I don't think moderation is a negative thing. If you watch the documentary "Fat Head", he does a rebuttal to "Supersize Me" and eats like 2400 calories or less a day, but eats out for every meal, and ends up getting healthier than he was at the beginning. Just don't binge on a pair of triple-patty burgers with a gallon of soda at every meal...you can still enjoy junk food just fine if you don't go nuts all the time.

 

[slag]

OP is an idiot.

Gee, you've convinced me...

:\

 

[Kaido]

It is true that the existing method of farming is quite sickening. Where I can I try to buy from free range but it's pretty hard to even find that. What you get in grocery stores is not free range, and is also packed with junk like hormones etc...

It's crossed my mind to go vegen for those reasons. I'd still eat some meat when I can get some from a good source, just not make it part of my main diet. Of course that would also mean no more fast food... fast food meat is typically from the worse of the worse when it comes to terrible farming conditions for the animals.

That's the issue. We have a LOT Of people to feed, plus we live in a culture of convenience & that's not going to change anytime soon. There are more humane ways of doing it, but not for cheap. There's just no way we can reasonably expect to get a burger for a dollar at McDonalds worldwide & also expect them to have stellar working conditions. The behind-the-scenes exposé videos at meat farms are pretty graphic...there are nicer ways you can treat the animals without being a bully. And I know that the violent behavior those videos depict is not the case at every farm or even all the time because I've worked at farms before. But as long as we as consumers vote with our dollars, nothing will change because there's no incentive to. There are a lot of things that would be "nice" to do, but without government sanctions or consumer uproar, ain't nobody got time for that!

 

[cbrunny]

Easy to make small changes. My wife and I try not to eat meat when we are at home for health reasons. When we go out, fair game but at least at home we can control what we do. Not 100% but a legit effort is made.

 

[Ns1]

That's the issue. We have a LOT Of people to feed, plus we live in a culture of convenience & that's not going to change anytime soon. There are more humane ways of doing it, but not for cheap. There's just no way we can reasonably expect to get a burger for a dollar at McDonalds worldwide & also expect them to have stellar working conditions.

You'll be happy to know that these chefs are giving it their best shot.

http://www.welocol.com/#intro

 

[feralkid]

I'm a level 5 vegan—I won't eat anything that casts a shadow.

Also, my car is powered by smug.

 

[Strk]

What we need to do is breed animals that want to be slaughtered and eaten. Like the cow in the restaurant at the end of the universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1nxaQhsaaw

 

[Kaido]

I'm a level 5 vegan—I won't eat anything that casts a shadow.

Wait, chicken's not vegan? :hmm:

 

[Mayne]

I'm doing my part. I've eaten only potatoes for the last 4 days. But I am cooking them in lard though.