Vegetarianism/Veganism - Why or Why Not?

[PsychGuy]

Are there good reasons to be vegetarian (not eat meat) or vegan (not eat any animal products at all, including dairy, eggs, etc)? Are there good reasons against being either one? You may invoke reasons that are moral, philosophical, religious, political, or dietary.

[Darth Executor]

Meat tastes good.

[Jedidiah]

So do milk, eggs and cheese, etc.

[Jolly Rogers]

For Vegetarian:
Human's can get most of their Proteins, Vitamins, Minerals from non-meat sources.
There is plenty of non-veg sources as opposed to meat
Some early Christians like St.Clement were vegetarians.
It's cruel to kill animals

Against:
In nature you see animals eat animals, even some meat eating plants consume insects like the Venus fly trap

[guacamole]

Even organic farming of fruits and vegetables requires the killing of animals that make open spaces their habitat. There is no such thing as "cruelty free" food. It's just that even vegetarians are either okay with killing the ugly ones or don't know. I'm not saying we can minimize the suffering of the animals we eat, but to pretend that we can feed ourselves without animal sacrifice is absurd.

guaca.

[Kelp]

I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm starting to wonder if perhaps God wants us to minimize animal death as much as possible. So if directly killing animals to eat was acceptable back then; it might not be now since we, at least in the industrial West, now have the option to live without it.

I don't know if that holds up, just something I think about from time to time.

[Hamster]

I can see how God would want us to at least minimize suffering in the animal world. I've seen videos of the way we keep our animals (in at least some places) and it's pretty dreadful. Our civilization seems to either elevate animals to quasi-people or reduce them to mere objects to tear apart if we so choose.

[Manwë Súlimo]

I don't see how Christians or Jews can view meat as evil, provided the permission and downright requirement of eating meat in some cases (lamb at Passover, the Levite priests ate part of the sacrifices, and so on). I can respect forgoing meat because of gratuitous animal cruelty involved at the slaughterhouses.

And I just love the guilt trips some vegans tried to put me on in high school, eating my faux-hamburger.

[Crow]

One of the things I find which people often overlook is that farm animals usually inhabit and draw nourishment from areas which are unusable for significant vegetable/grain production. Cattle, sheep, and goats in particular produce meat mainly on acerage which cannot be plowed. On a family farm chickens mostly find their own food from bugs and grasses, with only a few laying hens kept on some grain and a lot of kitchen waste over the winter.

If you took farm animals out of the mix, food production would go down. You do need to grow some food to keep them over the winter. But you'd be surprised how little that is if they are managed correctly. As an example, little of a sweet corn crop is used by people--only the kernels off of the ears of corn. Farm animals will eat the stalks, the cobs, fertilize the field when you turn them in to clean it up, and convert a waste product into usable food. Farm animals will clean your vegetable garden up after harvest. Hay is typically grown in areas that are too rocky or dry or poor to plow.

To me the answer to the cruelty problem is not to take farm animals out of the equation but to use more humane means of raising them and slaughter. It sucks to be a steer and get killed when you're 24 months old. But to my mind, it really sucks to decrease total food production when a lot of people need to be fed.

[Kelp]

Good point.

[gharfish]

Why vegetarianism ? For me it's the animal cruelty of our factory farming operations...that bring home a pig to bacon under plastic wrap over foam trays.

http://www.aspca.org/fight-animal-cr...nimal-cruelty/


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[Raphael]

Some folk have cited that it's cruel to animals. What about the flip side, an argument for Carnivorism is that eating plants is cruel to them, and they way that plants are farmed is damaging to their dignity.

Yes, you think I am joking, however several government have recently passed laws heading in this direction.

For example in Switzerland the Constitution protects the INDIVIDUAL plant's intrinsic dignity, and Swiss Ethics committees have ruled that the "decapitation" of a wild flower is immoral.

The New York Times has called plants the "most ethical life form".

I do think we sometimes have a little too much meat in out diet now days. I do think we should have more less processed foods in our diets (he says while eating some potato crisps). But apart from people who have particular health problems I can see no real reason why Vegetarianism (not why become one, I mean why full stop, don't see the point at all). And Vegansim, again apart from particular health problems someone may have, is also a load of nonsense.

There was a recent documentary here in NZ, they took four people. 1 Carnivore (he literally only ate red meat, he was, surprise surprise, a butcher by profession); 1 Omnivore (she ate a balanced diet); 1 Vegetarian (oldest of the lot, in his 60's I think); and 1 Vegan (who was a bit of a health/fitness freak).
The Omnivore and the Vegetarian were the healthiest, with only one significant difference, this particular vegeterian had the lowest levels of LDL cholesterol the lab had ever tested (he had decent HDL levels)
The Carnivore and the Vegan were both in terrible state of nutrition and both were told to immediately alter their diets (despite the Vegan taking all the suggested vitamin and mineral supplement...the Carnivore's supplement was beer).

[Andius]

I actually concede that determined Vegetarian diets are vastly superior to your standard "4 groups" meals. I have heard about this Web blog that promotes the Spartan Diet (not the stuff ancient Laconians ate many millenia ago. :P), consisting of ultra healthy dieting, and which in effect, has slated meat. (Sorry bacon lovers! lol).

And I don't mind or care if they are actually right. And admittedly, the authors of this blog are very apologetic about their diet, but their arguments are actually quite rock solid, highly and correctly informed on matters of nutrition, plus given their backgrounds as bona fide nutritionist, they might actually be right in their claim that their diet is the best in the world.

Nonetheless, justice and virtue does not demand that humans abandon meat eating all together (Unless you are bound by a pact or an ethos that demands the renouncement of meat consumption, THEN it legitametely is an abominable act to consume meat, by virtue of violating an accorded agreement), nothing condemnable in the consumption of meat in the objective sense. I still eat meat (but neither do I gorge in it), in the same reasons that I still consume alcohol, it is pleasurable, and so as long as I don't go overboard (like many pleasurable things in life), it will not harm you at all.

[Mountain Man]

Meat tastes good.

I once told a vegetarian, "If animals didn't want to be eaten then they shouldn't taste so good." He just scowled at me.

With regards to the topic at hand, I'm not a vegetarian because it can cause long-term health problems.

[NeilUnreal]

For vegetarianism:

1) Factory farming can be cruel.

2) Feeding food that can be eaten by humans to animals is inefficient.

For meat-eating:

1) Grazing and other free-range animals can convert vegetable matter not directly useable by humans in to food useable by humans.

2) Animals kept on humanely on small farms can actually help promote a connection between humans and the natural cycles of land and life.

-Neil