Veganism: Foolishness or Folly?

[jakelafortParticipant]

Good article Reg.

That jibes with the research that suggests vegan diets are not good for wee lads.

Recent research shows that amyloid proteins that are overwhelming brains of persons stricken with alzheimer’s are present in our muscles as we age and lose strength. Those same proteins that cause young Atlas to become wimpy old men are associated with loss of muscle in ancient forms of life. (it looks like reversing muscle strength is a possibility) I say that to say that evolution carries so much biology down with it through the eons. We need a great deal more research to unlock our biology.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unseen, wish i had the answer. But i don’t.

I think there will be a great deal of resistance to begin. But culture can change in a heart beat. Lots of potential for lab grown meat to become widely accepted based upon factors aforementioned and of course the monkey factor. Exhibit A. The NBA…BAD HAIR IS IN!

[UnseenParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

A surprising reason why eating less meat is linked to a longer life.

Hmmm… One of the common complaints about veganism is that it gives its adherents intestinal gas that manifests itself in various forms (sweet farts, fire farts, etc.).

[_Robert_Participant]

There is so much evidence that the predominate American diet is shite. This includes lots of fatty meat, salt, and carb calories. Just take a look around. So many superfluous bodies crowd the waiting rooms at the doctor’s offices, many to get their heart stints installed. The real reason Americans are disproportionately dropping like flies during this pandemic. Millions stuffed into their mobility carts with their blood sugar monitors and elastic waistbands. A generation destined to die younger than their parents and another reason why healthcare is so expensive. I wonder how many would have the nerve to personally put a bullet in the brain of that cow they are about to eat? A disconnect.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Spot on Robert.

The disconnect is blatant. It is funny how primitive and sustenance people seem to have some reverence or at least respect for the animals they kill to eat. And it is so odd to me because so many of us have pets or at least know others with pets and we brag about how special our kitty or dog is. Those pets are on a par with animals that we selfishly produce, have horrible lives and then slaughter and give no quarter. I often think of it as a form of concentration camp for nonhuman animals.

Here is my brutal side. I want the heartless hunters to hunt each other. The last one standing gets bragging rights. The fallen hunters are consumed by the slaughtering hunters.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

There is so much evidence that the predominate American diet is shite. This includes lots of fatty meat, salt, and carb calories. Just take a look around. So many superfluous bodies crowd the waiting rooms at the doctor’s offices, many to get their heart stints installed. The real reason Americans are disproportionately dropping like flies during this pandemic. Millions stuffed into their mobility carts with their blood sugar monitors and elastic waistbands. A generation destined to die younger than their parents and another reason why healthcare is so expensive. I wonder how many would have the nerve to personally put a bullet in the brain of that cow they are about to eat? A disconnect.

Americans have a poor, unbalanced diet, that works well in terms of reducing the population. We may need to make it worldwide. (Well, actually, we are.)

More seriously, the solution isn’t vegetarianism or veganism, but it includes more vegetable matter and a mix of better and better chosen animal matter. More fish and poultry, less beef, pork, and lamb/mutton. BTW, I don’t know about the UK, but in the US nobody eats mutton, unless they live on a farm.

Left unsaid is that not everybody’s metabolism fits just one mold, and it can even have a racial component. The Inuits (the people formerly known as Eskimios) were able to be healthy on a diet that rarely included non-meat items. They ate seals, walruses, polar bears, and to a lesser extent fish and birds, but often it was only red meat and especially the fat. At the other end of the globe, Masais had a very animal-heavy diet.

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

Spot on Robert. The disconnect is blatant. It is funny how primitive and sustenance people seem to have some reverence or at least respect for the animals they kill to eat. And it is so odd to me because so many of us have pets or at least know others with pets and we brag about how special our kitty or dog is. Those pets are on a par with animals that we selfishly produce, have horrible lives and then slaughter and give no quarter. I often think of it as a form of concentration camp for nonhuman animals. Here is my brutal side. I want the heartless hunters to hunt each other. The last one standing gets bragging rights. The fallen hunters are consumed by the slaughtering hunters.

As to pets, being a pet owner is very beneficial and can:

Decrease feelings of loneliness
Decrease feelings of depression and anxiety
Provide social and emotional support
Reduce daily stress
Lower blood pressure and heart rate
Lower cholesterol levels
Provide opportunities for socialization
Provide opportunities for outdoor activities

(The Health Benefits of Your Pets)

In a world run by bureaucratic logicians (reread Orwell’s 1984) there would be no pets.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 4 weeks ago by  Unseen.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unseen i love cats and dogs. I am not questioning their benefit to our well-being. We cherish our pets. Rightly so. Some people do not even use the word pets. They call Fido and Garfield their friends. It would not occur to them to eat their friends. In fact if a neighbor killed their pet it would be an understandable sentiment if they wanted to kill their neighbor. A lot of pet owners would not convict such a revenge murder. Not sure i would.

But then the animal lovers are eating steaks and pork chops with gusto. That same meat in its live form may have as easily been their cherished pets or friends. Slaughter or love of nonhuman animals is so arbitrary in depending on whether the subject animal is our pet/friend or dinner.

I mentioned earlier that their are so many potential causes of vegetarians/vegans living longer and getting few diseases than meat eaters. You rightfully bring up the Inuit diet that was almost exclusively meat. That meat is not like the meat that Americans are buying in the grocery store. Hormones, antibiotics… But the lab grown meat can be viewed as an artificially caused return to the healthy meat of the Inuit.

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

Unseen i love cats and dogs. I am not questioning their benefit to our well-being. We cherish our pets. Rightly so. Some people do not even use the word pets. They call Fido and Garfield their friends. It would not occur to them to eat their friends. In fact if a neighbor killed their pet it would be an understandable sentiment if they wanted to kill their neighbor. A lot of pet owners would not convict such a revenge murder. Not sure i would. But then the animal lovers are eating steaks and pork chops with gusto. That same meat in its live form may have as easily been their cherished pets or friends.

So, we’re inconsistent. Back to my comment about a world governed by bureaucratic logicians. I’m not friends with every person who could be just as good as the friends I have. I’m not even trying to be friends with them. Now, yes, we kill animals for food. We’re in plenty of animal company in so doing. An argument that it’s “unnatural” can’t really be made. Eating a hunk of meat is as natural as eating an apple for an omnivore like a human. Finding some animals we might eat exceptional and more useful to us as workers or companions is simply utilitarian.

But the lab grown meat can be viewed as an artificially caused return to the healthy meat of the Inuit.

Artificial is the new natural. LOL

[jakelafortParticipant]

Humans eating meat is natural. Nature is a bitch or bastard. But it is culture that created animal husbandry. The conditions in which our livestock EXIST until the inevitable moment of truth is not natural. It is akin to concentration camps with a final solution except that the “jews” of livestock reproduce so that the cycle will continue indefinitely.

Your analogy to human friends is not dispositive. We don’t either befriend or slaughter potential human friends. We either befriend or essentially have nothing to do with them. Yeah i know we carpet bomb and do lots of shit that is also reprehensible and wipes out potential friends who are no better or worse than our fellow citizens. But on a personal level it is not like that.

I read 1984 and remember none of it.

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

Humans eating meat is natural. Nature is a bitch or bastard. But it is culture that created animal husbandry. The conditions in which our livestock EXIST until the inevitable moment of truth is not natural. It is akin to concentration camps with a final solution except that the “jews” of livestock reproduce so that the cycle will continue indefinitely. Your analogy to human friends is not dispositive.

Cattle, pigs, chickens, etc., are a crop and are no more or less natural than a field of 100% wheat or soybeans, acres and acres of only red tulips, or a 1000 sq mi forest consisting entirely of Douglas fir trees planted by Weyerheauser Co. How well animals are treated prior to slaughter is driven by market forces. What the public wants.

[jakelafortParticipant]

No more natural or unnatural…okay…but one is sentient and the other is not. Being a product of artificial selection or even cloning oughtn’t deprive the subject of the dignity and rights if applicable of the counterparts who are natural.

You are correct about market forces but those forces are strongly influenced by Christian thinking that inculcates special creation and exploitation and the concomitant notion that the nonhumans are insensate, and unimportant.

[_Robert_Participant]

Primates in general don’t eat a lot of meat. Termites and small rodents supplement fruit, grass shoots, seeds and nuts. Early small hominids, probably the same. Then at some point spear tips show up. I saw one paper putting spear points at 500K years old. I don’t know about you, but I think hunting large game with a spear was no picnic. I bet meat was a real special occasion but an essential addition that provided for our evolution. Nobody sacrificed a pumpkin to their gods. Now it’s 3 meals a day for so many. Probably way more than we are geared for like Unseen has mentioned.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I read 1984 and remember none of it.

Not even the time they put you in Room 101?

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I look after my neighbor’s dog, a Japanese Akita, on occasion. I gave her a big bowl of lean steak once. The noise it made while gulping it down it down was primal. The joy was almost painful. I imaging that distant wolves had heard the sound and were on their way over to say to her “You have come back to us”. She looked at me and I thought I heard her say; “Don’t worry, I will let them know you are on our side”.

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