JimmySeal Wrote:So... are we pretending vix's post right above yours, and mine
above that, never happened?

I don't ignore anyone's posts, but like everyone else here I only have so much time to reply at once. If you feel like there's anything I've neglected to respond to just point it out and I'll get to it when I can.

Umami is produced from L-glutamate. Where are you getting the idea that only meat is rich in glutamic acid? So many plant foods create the umami sensation. Tomatoes, mushrooms, soy, carrots, cabbage, celery, fermented foods, sea vegetables, balsamic, etc. And you can boost the umami sensation of these foods by grilling, caramelizing, and roasting. The idea that someone is genetically hardwired to only enjoy meat more than other foods is pretty ridiculous to me, and in my experience the people that say they can't live without meat/eggs/dairy in their food are also the ones who haven't tried many alternatives. If you undergo extensive blind taste tests and still only enjoy the animal products every time, you might have some validity to that view, but I'm skeptical to say the least. Even my most meat-obsessed friends I've managed to fool almost every time with blind tests, much to their chagrin when they admitted they like the vegan version of something more

Quote:Uhh... what?

Milk is filled with pus and blood from infections and other lovelies, which is drawn out by the machines along with the milk. So in my mind I think of milk as cow pus. Of course the dairy industry calls it "somatic cells" or "white blood cells" since "pus" isn't exactly a great selling point for a food product. The somatic cell count varies from state to state and country to country, but overall the % of milk from cows with mastitis (udder infection) is fairly high. Too low of a somatic cell count is bad, but a normal, healthy cow has a cell count of around 100,000 cells per/ml, whereas the legal limit in America is 750,000 cells per/ml.

Here's the data for various states: http://aipl.arsusda.gov/publish/dhi/dhi11/sccrpt.htm

Fadeway Wrote:An argument being ignored doesn't mean it's correct, just that it's ignored.
...

Yes, that's all well and good when the comment being ignored is tangential to the post ignoring it, but what I was referring to was a case where (1) a commenter called out the repeated use of an unsubstantiated assertion and (2) the commenter immediately after them used that same unsubstantiated assertion to support their argument without addressing commenter 1's challenge. I think it's hard for a discussion to proceed when an assertion whose validity has been challenged is used to support further assertions.

Aijin Wrote:Where are you getting the idea that only meat is rich in glutamic acid?

You are well aware that I made no such assertion.

I wouldn't tell a fan of still lifes that they should like landscapes just as much because they both contain paint, or tell a fan of police dramas that they should like sitcoms just as much because they both include actors.

I think your anectdotal evidence about your meat-obsessed friends is a very valid point. Arguing that any given person can like vegetables as much as meat because both can contain certain chemicals is less convincing.

vix86 Wrote:If you could overnight shutdown 4/5 of the meat production industry permanently. Meaning no more cattle/chickens/pigs being raised to be consumed. You would overnight create massive unemployment across the country which wouldn't be easily remedied.

That's why you'd phase in the changes. You'd eliminate the subsidies over a 10 year period or something, giving the industry and workers time to adjust. Meat prices would rise gradually in response and people who still want to buy meat would continue doing so. The industry would not completely disappear.

vix86 Wrote:Some of these people would be capable of switching their work to plant growth but you'd still probably have many in the vertical production chain which wouldn't have anywhere to go and they'd be forced into a situation where they couldn't necessarily "magically retrain" for a new profession/career. Just because you suddenly cut down an industry doesn't mean all those bodies will magically be moved into other parts of the market and make everything cheaper.

when the tractor was invented, it probably put a whole bunch of people out of work. Should be ban tractors so we can keep a bunch of people with shovels employed? Factory robots do/will put people out of work too. On the plus side, they lower manufacturing costs and make everything cheaper. You can always keep people employed by funnelling money towards useless projects, like Japan does by paving over nature and building bridges to nowhere. The problem is these kinds of projects don't actually create lasting value for society. Subsidising meat production is the same, all we're doing is making it cheaper to live unhealthily and driving up cost of living.

JimmySeal Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:So instead of having 2 fields growing plants to feed a vegan population, you'd have 1 field growing plants for people, a building full of animals to produce meat and an additional field growing food for the animals in order to feed a non-vegan population.

Yes, and while we're at it let's eliminate the gaming, film and other entertainment industries, golf courses, luxury cars, water parks, and anything else that's not absolutely necessary for human survival. Because apparently anything that uses anything more than the bare minimum amount of land, resources, or labor in order for people to actually enjoy their lives is wasteful.
Sounds like paradise to me.

Last time I checked, these things aren't subsidised by tax dollars. If people want to continue eating meat, that's fine by me as long as they pay the actual price for it as well as the higher medical insurance costs that their diet necessitates. It's pretty simple really, if you insist on being a ward of the nanny state and have your food/insurance subsidised then you ought to accept losses to your freedom. People who insist on free healthcare shouldn't be allowed to eat meat, smoke, drink soda and so on.

Fadeway Wrote:Humans are pretty similar. I do have a problem with vegetarians claiming animals experience the same things they do; but going to the other extreme and saying that humans are wildly different is nearly as bad. Differences are the exception, not the rule.

I think maybe you misunderstood my statement. I am not really saying anything about human vs other animals, but I think you know that. Within the context of my post though, where I was explaining differences, in those things humans do differ between each other. Yes, every human has the same set of organs, but when you start getting down to stuff like the concentration of neuron receptors in the hand or other parts of the body, the concentration of taste buds, etc. These are differences that are occurring between humans due to changing genetics.

Quote:If it affected my appreciation of art, for example; then it would be obvious, if widespread, that such a difference exists. Basically, if humans did experience the world differently, we would know, or it would be a mere semantic difference without meaning (if I'm using the word "semantic" correctly).

Really? How would we know if someone see's red as being redder? In fact lets step and use something you just said. If you saw Red as Blue while everyone was seeing it the right way, how would know? I mean, you've grown up experiencing the world where the sky is red and apples are blue, to you this is all you have known and this is what you believe the world is. Theres no way you can pull your brain out of your body and stick it into another body and double check that you really are seeing things exactly the same. Eventually someone might realize that something is amiss when you're color selection seems a bit off. You are picking things that match with that you're red, but its blue for everyone else. Likewise the colors that other people pick to match with blue would seem off to you. You could go your entire life without realizing this because people just think you are eccentric. Hell people can go their whole life without realizing they are color blind. So unless you had special glasses to swap the colors your saw, you're experience of the world would always be 'handicapped.' But how does this tie into veggies?...

Quote:Admittedly, I hadn't heard of Supertasters before. I don't see how it matters regarding malleability or the meat-veggie taste scale though. How is the intensity/experience thing even related? You either like or you don't like a food; the argument is that you can adapt to like it - how I or you experience that liking or how strong it is...how does it matter?

Malleability isn't the point here really since much of what has been said so far has been more like this:

Quote:I don't really understand why meat eaters eat meat, I mean after all Veggies taste so much better than meat any way

Anyone can adapt to something new but if the thing they are trying to adapt to isn't pleasing why should they. I could adapt to living in a room that constantly smells like shit but it doesn't mean I want to because I don't like the smell of shit. But maybe for you, the smell of shit actually smells closer to flowers in spring.

Likewise, when you bite into a salad with carrots, lettuce, celery, peppers, you can taste it all and the wonder flavors and you go "Mmm, its like an orgasm in my mouth!!" But then Johnny the meat eater who has never been fond of veggies comes along and takes a bite and just says it all pretty much tastes the same to him. There really isn't a multitude of flavors there for him and that's probably because his tongue can't pick those flavors apart like maybe yours can. So when you're trying to convince him to change his diet based on veggies being superior in taste, he's sitting there thinking "What the hell is this person talking about? Veggies have NO taste."

Quote:I'm not a vegetarian, and I don't like most vegetables either. I am picky though; and I've observed how my tastes change over time with some interest, since a very early age - and eventually nurtured a liking for a few foods I considered healthy as well.

I agree that people can acquire a taste for things that they didn't like at first, but that doesn't mean it ever becomes incredibly pleasant. Look at coffee and beer. But as you stated further on, there does have to be a factor of motivation involved as well. If a doctor tells someone, "you need to eat more greens or you'll die of a heart attack at 50," that might be sufficient enough motivation to get someone to eat more greens. Whether or not they'll ever come to enjoy the taste of them though is a completely separate issue and is really what I was getting at. I mean, I suspect most people like candy/chocolate without ever needing to "adapt" to it, and would say the taste of it is pleasant; but I doubt something like beer/coffee would ever conjure the same level acceptance.

Aijin Wrote:Of course the dairy industry calls it "somatic cells" or "white blood cells" since "pus" isn't exactly a great selling point for a food product

Uh, you do realize that human breast milk is also packed full of "pus" right? That "pus" helps fight infections. The presence of white blood cells in the drink has no affect on the health of the drink. The health of the drink is more determined by the presence of bacteria, which is what pasteurization aims to kill.

nadiatims Wrote:when the tractor was invented, it probably put a whole bunch of people out of work. Should be ban tractors so we can keep a bunch of people with shovels employed? Factory robots do/will put people out of work too.

This is all true, and I don't really don't think we should stop progression and technological advancement simply because we are worried it might put people out of jobs; however, on the flip side I still think we need to be vigilante of the impact that these advances have. An economy runs on its people buying stuff. If 1/4 of your populace is unemployed because automation cut down on jobs they could do, then that's going to hurt your economy. Retraining for a career is something that many of these people wouldn't even be able to accomplish simply due to economical circumstances. Most of these people are just barely middle class, so they don't have the fortune to go back to school. So actually I think if you cut subsidies for the meat industry/or whatever, I think you'd have to divert those subsidies into job training programs.

Quote:Last time I checked, these things aren't subsidised by tax dollars.

I bet if you dug around you'd find that some of those things are subsidized at some level. Maybe the land or construction of the water park/entertainment/golf courses was subsidized by the state to help bring in a bit more tourism to the area. Maybe the luxury car plant had tax cuts (which I will call a subsidy) to build their factory in a state.

Through some googling some time back, I believe I found out though that agricultural subsidies in the US though are mainly for subsidizing the growing of feed for cows. If we cut this, meat would go up, but I also think gas prices would go up since there was an agreement between the US and the corn growers, that some of the corn would be made into biofuel and mixed at a 10% rate with petrol in the US. If this basically disappeared, I wonder how big of an impact it would have on gas prices.

JimmySeal Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:So instead of having 2 fields growing plants to feed a vegan population, you'd have 1 field growing plants for people, a building full of animals to produce meat and an additional field growing food for the animals in order to feed a non-vegan population.

Yes, and while we're at it let's eliminate the gaming, film and other entertainment industries, golf courses, luxury cars, water parks, and anything else that's not absolutely necessary for human survival. Because apparently anything that uses anything more than the bare minimum amount of land, resources, or labor in order for people to actually enjoy their lives is wasteful.
Sounds like paradise to me.

Actually I like the sound of this.

It feels illogical that we make all these technological leaps to make our lives easier, yet cancel them out through lifestyle inflation and end up not much happier in the end. I can honestly say that I don't feel a need to spend lots on holidays and restaurants or luxury goods and the latest in high tech gadgets and whatnot and would certainly sacrifice such a consumerist lifestyle if it meant only having to work 10 hours a week or so. As for fun, I can create my own entertainment or enjoy doujin/open source media.

Obviously taken to the extreme, this would lead to technological stagnation, but a lot of economic activity seems like a misdirected waste of human and planetary resources to me.

vix86 Wrote:I think maybe you misunderstood my statement. I am not really saying anything about human vs other animals, but I think you know that. Within the context of my post though, where I was explaining differences, in those things humans do differ between each other. Yes, every human has the same set of organs, but when you start getting down to stuff like the concentration of neuron receptors in the hand or other parts of the body, the concentration of taste buds, etc. These are differences that are occurring between humans due to changing genetics.

Ah, yeah, I mentioned animals because it touched on my issue with the vegetarian moral mindset I was talking about a few pages back. The whole "Do animals feel pain?" thing.

Quote:Really? How would we know if someone see's red as being redder? In fact lets step and use something you just said. If you saw Red as Blue while everyone was seeing it the right way, how would know? I mean, you've grown up experiencing the world where the sky is red and apples are blue, to you this is all you have known and this is what you believe the world is. Theres no way you can pull your brain out of your body and stick it into another body and double check that you really are seeing things exactly the same. Eventually someone might realize that something is amiss when you're color selection seems a bit off. You are picking things that match with that you're red, but its blue for everyone else. Likewise the colors that other people pick to match with blue would seem off to you. You could go your entire life without realizing this because people just think you are eccentric. Hell people can go their whole life without realizing they are color blind. So unless you had special glasses to swap the colors your saw, you're experience of the world would always be 'handicapped.' But how does this tie into veggies?...

The color analogy has two directions. Either everything about colors is switched, so that not only do I see red as blue, I also see blue as the "danger/anger" color, and I associate it with blood, and due to all of this, my appreciation of art and everything else remains unchanged compared to someone who sees those qualities in red. In that case, the difference is only semantic - it can be said that our color experience is reversed, but while technically true, it doesn't change anything at all. It isn't detectable because it has no actual effect. The difference might as well be in a meteor flying in space where it's written "human A sees red, human B sees blue" - same level of effect, same level of provability (provided we can't track down the asteroid and it doesn't crash on Earth). This is my response to a "how can you talk about my experiences" statement - it may be that your experiences are different, but if they are not provably, observably different, then likely the difference is only symbolic.

The other direction is that I experience red as blue, but my associations are to some extent unchanged; so that your blue, my current red, is my current "danger" sign; on the other hand, acquired associations will probably remain the same - I might see the sky as red, but I'll still associate your blue, my red, with the sky (that would be some bleak existence, seeing the entire sky as oppressive and danger-emanating). In that case, it would be provable to differing extent depending on the severity, because it does have an effect on the experience of the person affected. It's also not something that happens often, so it doesn't matter for the most part. If there are people who can't change their taste configuration, and people who can, one of those groups is probably the exception and one the norm. With the existence of foods that are seen as "acquired taste" and with more people preferring their national kitchen to those of other peoples', I assume most people adapt to the tastes that are common around them.

Quote:Malleability isn't the point here really since much of what has been said so far has been more like this:

Quote:I don't really understand why meat eaters eat meat, I mean after all Veggies taste so much better than meat any way
Anyone can adapt to something new but if the thing they are trying to adapt to isn't pleasing why should they. I could adapt to living in a room that constantly smells like shit but it doesn't mean I want to because I don't like the smell of shit. But maybe for you, the smell of shit actually smells closer to flowers in spring.

I felt you were saying that people can't adapt, which is what I'm replying to - it's the thing that I disagreed with. I completely agree on the motivation bit - if you don't want to adapt to the shit smell (and the smell of shit doesn't seem to provide any benefits on adapting; on the contrary, it has drawbacks if you get used to it), then you don't have to. Getting used to a new palette does take some level of motivation and thereby energy; if the benefits aren't worth it, or if they're worth it but you can't motivate yourself anyway, the answer is obvious. I don't disagree here.

Quote:Likewise, when you bite into a salad with carrots, lettuce, celery, peppers, you can taste it all and the wonder flavors and you go "Mmm, its like an orgasm in my mouth!!" But then Johnny the meat eater who has never been fond of veggies comes along and takes a bite and just says it all pretty much tastes the same to him. There really isn't a multitude of flavors there for him and that's probably because his tongue can't pick those flavors apart like maybe yours can. So when you're trying to convince him to change his diet based on veggies being superior in taste, he's sitting there thinking "What the hell is this person talking about? Veggies have NO taste."

"I don't like X now" is no evidence for "I can't adapt to X".

Quote:I agree that people can acquire a taste for things that they didn't like at first, but that doesn't mean it ever becomes incredibly pleasant.[...] I mean, I suspect most people like candy/chocolate without ever needing to "adapt" to it, and would say the taste of it is pleasant; but I doubt something like beer/coffee would ever conjure the same level acceptance.

Do you like your home cooking? Your national kitchen? What about other national kitchens? Isn't it weird that, if full taste adaptation doesn't exist, people are born genetically predisposed to the cooking of the environment they were born in? Why does my grandmother always say that military service will cure my pickiness? Is it that people who were forced to eat anything and everything in the military return and start pretending that they like the stuff they ignored before but were forced to eat for a few years? Why would they do that? If they were forced to learn to tolerate it, but still prefer their "true" favorites, why don't they go back to predominantly eating the stuff they liked before the military, with everything else, the stuff they only tolerate or mildly like, mostly abandoned (and consequently un-adapting to it)?

Yesterday I got my parents to start eating less pork just by making them a breakfast burrito using soyrizo instead of chorizo. My mom liked it way more than real chorizo. Dad said it was the best breakfast burrito he's eaten. This shows a point that I have been thinking about while reading this thread ... People finding products they enjoy is really the most effective way of them changing their diets. The #1 reason we eat what we eat is because we think it's tasty. Environmental, health and ethical concerns about food matter but taste is #1. Most people are selfish and apathetic and won't ever care about how they impact the environment, their own bodies, or animal lives. Look at how many people continue to smoke even with cancer warnings bigger than the product logos, lol. I just don't know if awareness is enough to make people change on a large scale.

Once people realize how much of the food they already eat and love is vegetarian and that so many yummy products are out there now they will add them to their diet. You just have to deconstruct the myth that a vegan diet isn't as delicious as on omnivore one.

Hyperborea Wrote:Why is it that vegans have to name their soy products after meat products? Why do they try so hard to imitate meat based products? Why soyrizo, tofurkey, etc? Is it because they are missing those meat products soooo much and they want to fool themselves just a little bit? This isn't a new phenomenon either. Vegans throughout history (buddhist vegetarian cooking) have done this little self-lie to make themselves feel better. Is it because if they named them what they really are, e.g. compressed fermented bean scum, that they wouldn't sell? Hmmm, how about some tasty "spicy soy lumps"?

I suspect its more to do with just marketing and communication. "Compressed fermented bean scum" is a description of the item and not a name. I think you can point and place similar fault on many meat products. I think if you sold people "ground up left over meat parts pushed into pig intestines" must people would blanche, but if you told people you are selling sausage, they'll just go "Oh, ok, give me 4." Like wise with stuff like cow's tongue and cow's tail. Describe what you are selling and people go white, but just name it something else and people will probably at least try it once.

vix86 Wrote:I suspect its more to do with just marketing and communication.

Using succinct names instead of overly descriptive ones to sell things makes perfect sense, but Hyperborea's question was why are so many of those names imitating the names of meat products, and for that matter, why are the products themselves trying so hard to be meat? If vegetables are so appealing, shouldn't they be able to stand on their own merit?

Fadeway Wrote:Do you like your home cooking? Your national kitchen?

I like certain things and dislike others.

Fadeway Wrote:What about other national kitchens?

See above.

Quote:Isn't it weird that, if full taste adaptation doesn't exist, people are born genetically predisposed to the cooking of the environment they were born in?

Was it established that all (or most) people have an overwhelming preference for foods from their home culture? I love plenty of Indian, Greek, Japanese, and Chinese foods that I never ate until my 20s, just as much as anything from my childhood, because they fit my flavor preferences.

Quote:Why does my grandmother always say that military service will cure my pickiness.

The human psyche has the capacity to adapt under extreme circumstances. Note the word "extreme."

It's funny how much some of the claims in this thread resemble the old "Homosexuality is a choice" argument.

JimmySeal Wrote:It's funny how much some of the claims in this thread resemble the old "Homosexuality is a choice" argument.

that's great. You were born to love meat. But why should society have to pay for that?

Would you still love meat if it cost twice as much?

People also love cigarettes, crack and gambling. Should we subsidise these as well?

nadiatims Wrote:People also love cigarettes, crack and gambling. Should we subsidise these as well?

Lololol. What kind of silly hyperbolic comparison is this?

my point is that if people want to enjoy, cigarettes, crack and gambling then that's their business but the costs shouldn't be dumped on society.

honestly i don't really give a crap that others eat meat to the detriment of their own health, i just don't understand why I should have to pay for it.

nadiatims Wrote:

JimmySeal Wrote:It's funny how much some of the claims in this thread resemble the old "Homosexuality is a choice" argument.

that's great. You were born to love meat. But why should society have to pay for that?

Why are you asking me to defend a position I haven't supported? I'm pretty sure I haven't seen anyone here saying that meat should be subsidized. You're the only one bringing up that topic (at least in the last several pages) and it's pretty irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

nadiatims Wrote:my point is that if people want to enjoy, cigarettes, crack and gambling then that's their business but the costs shouldn't be dumped on society.

Crack and gambling are not simply personal decisions, actually. If you knew anyone in a family in which one of the members was addicted to either you would understand that they destroy whole families, not just one person in them.

@JimmySeal
go read the OP or the title of the thread.


@Tzadeck
I don't really see what your point is. Are you suggesting that society subsidises the cost of crack and gambling?

nadiatims Wrote:@Tzadeck
I don't really see what your point is. Are you suggesting that society subsidises the cost of crack and gambling?

I'm saying that it's silly to compare subsidizing a food product that is not the most healthy choice long-term to two activities that cause very serious and immediate problems.

Hyperborea Wrote:Why is it that vegans have to name their soy products after meat products? Why do they try so hard to imitate meat based products? Why soyrizo, tofurkey, etc? Is it because they are missing those meat products soooo much and they want to fool themselves just a little bit? This isn't a new phenomenon either. Vegans throughout history (buddhist vegetarian cooking) have done this little self-lie to make themselves feel better.

This is a good question, and I'm not going to claim to know the answer, but I can think of a couple of reasons.

* People who are making the switch to vegetarian/vegan look for specific things to replace what they've stopped eating. This is a great marketing opportunity because they are in the process of building new eating habits, so if they like tofurkey they may still be eating it 10 years later, regardless of it's resemblance to turkey.
* The people buying/cooking for veggies are quite often not veggies themselves. Even at professionally catered events/restaurants, it's pretty common for people who need to add a vegetarian option to the menu to just buy a meat substitute.


Speaking as a long-term vegetarian, I never really thought these product names were aimed at us. After all, why would I need something to replace turkey when I can't even remember what turkey tastes like?

Hyperborea Wrote:Why is it that vegans have to name their soy products after meat products? Why do they try so hard to imitate meat based products? Why soyrizo, tofurkey, etc?

Meat imitations serves many demographics:

- For people who aren't even vegan or vegetarian, but just want to reduce their meat consumption, the names of products like Tofurkey, Soyrizo, or soy milk are perfect marketing, since the name itself tells you straight away what the taste, texture, and culinary uses are. You don't have to change any of your recipes, or how you eat food, you grab the product labeled "Tofurkey" instead of "turkey" when you walk into the grocery store. Very easy for consumers.

- Those who are transitioning to vegetarianism find it really convenient to have easy replacements for things like hotdogs, sausages, roasts, pepperoni, deli slices, etc.

- People who are hosting events or parties find it useful, since it allows you to effortlessly provide options for everyone. Let's say you're having a barbeque party and are serving hotdogs, but want to make sure any vegetarians present can eat too. Just throw some "Tofurky" hotdogs in your shopping cart, and problem solved.

- Vegetarians and vegans who do enjoy the taste of meat. There's a misconception that all vegans hate meat itself, but that's pretty stupid. It's the animal cruelty they hate, the environmental and health damage. It shouldn't be surprising that if someone grows up their entire life eating animal products, that they'd want easy vegan alternatives for those foods. What is their to be ashamed of, exactly?

There are also plenty of vegans, like myself, that have no desire to eat anything resembling meat. If a meat alternative is too realistic in its texture and taste, like Beyond Meat's chicken, it makes me want to vomit. Way too many negative associations towards meat in my mind, so I gag the same way a lot of Americans would if you fed them a hotdog and then as they're chewing told them it was a puppy.

I dunno what point you're trying to make with the descriptions. You can describe a lot of foods bluntly as what they are, and they'll sound disgusting. How do you think a company's sales will do if for Thanksgiving they rename their turkey dinners "Abused Bird Corpse with Bread Shoved into the Orifice Used to Shit, Piss, and Have Sex" Or how about if Budweiser renamed their company "Waste Products of a Bunch of Fungi that Ate Grain Broken Down in Hot Water"? No duh a company is going to pick a catchy, marketable name and not long sentences describing their product.

Quote:Or "deconstruct" the vegan lie that diets that contain meat aren't healthy.

Who is saying 'containing meat' is unhealthy? Over and over in this thread it is stressed that diets containing too much meat are unhealthy. Is the standard American diet of 264lbs of meat per year unhealthy? Yes. Is any diet that contains any amount of meat unhealthy? No.

Quote:Besides, there are 3 times as many ex-vegetarians as there are vegetarians. The give up and return to eating meat because it doesn't appear to be a sustainable lifestyle. On average they give up in 9 years. Most of them start, presumably as a fad, during high school or university.

Over half the people who try quitting smoking go straight back to cigarettes as well. Why only focus on the people that fail, rather than the people who succeed? People stop being vegetarian for many reasons, the most obvious being that it is always less convenient to go against a societal norm, and the vast majority of people will go with the flow of conformity rather than against it. People who become vegetarian do so for many reasons, and if their personal reasons aren't very strong, then of course they'll likely stop eventually. Just like with anything else. This doesn't have any bearing upon vegetarianism itself, so what's your point?

Quote:Even better still, most of those who self-report as vegetarians have eaten meat in the last few days. There's a word for that ... You know people who get up on a moral high horse and pretend to be better than others because of some self proclaimed trait that they say makes them better than others and then do the same thing themselves? ... what is it now? .... Oh, that's right - it's hypocrite. Most vegetarians are hypocrites.

If someone eats meat then they are not a vegetarian, period. If someone criticizes others for meat consumption, then goes around and eats a burger, no duh they're a hypocrite, and feel free to criticize them. But how does this apply to anyone in the thread, exactly? It feels like you're just trying to throw around insults towards vegetarians for the hell of it.

Aijin Wrote:Who is saying 'containing meat' is unhealthy? Over and over in this thread it is stressed that diets containing too much meat are unhealthy. Is the standard American diet of 264lbs of meat per year unhealthy? Yes. Is any diet that contains any amount of meat unhealthy? No.

I think I may have stated this before, but I'll state it again.

This is the moderate argument and I don't really see anything wrong with encouraging people to even out their diet and exercise more. But I really don't feel like this is the rhetoric of the groups trying to get people to switch to vegetarian diets. This is merely an argument in sheep's skin, to get people to switch because since most people don't feel chickens and cows are humans.

A friend sent me this video of vegan chef Timothy Moore talking about treating diabetes with a vegan diet on a cooking TV show, where the host had his mind blown when he realized the barbeque, chicken coleslaw, and cupcakes he ate were all vegan, lol. The host just calls him a liar over and over, funny.

I see why someone would be so shocked to realize a dish that tastes just like chicken is actually made from jack fruit but don't see why people are surprised about baked foods. When you bite into a brownie or cake there's no way to taste if eggs and milk were used or not. Sugar, oil and added flavors overpower everything. The dairy and eggs are just used to create a liquid batter from dry ingredients like wheat and sugar. Why would anybody think a cupcake made with half a cup of soymilk would taste different than one made with half a cup of cow milk???

vix86 Wrote:This is the moderate argument and I don't really see anything wrong with encouraging people to even out their diet and exercise more. But I really don't feel like this is the rhetoric of the groups trying to get people to switch to vegetarian diets. This is merely an argument in sheep's skin, to get people to switch because since most people don't feel chickens and cows are humans.

When somebody says something is bad it's usually not that they mean any amount no matter what is bad. They mean overall it's bad. One dolphin fillet a week won't give anyone mercury poisoning and one steak a week won't give anyone heart disease. Smoking one cigarettes once in a while or snorting cocaine in moderation won't kill you either, lol. It's not about whether or not these things are bad in moderation but are they bad taken as a whole. Don't say it's not fair to compare meat to drug addictions, I know people who would give up smoking sooner than they could give up burgers. Dairy has casomorphins in it, a type of opioid like morphine. Meat and milk kill way more people than drugs do too. Heart attacks are a lot likelier than overdoses.

Looking at the bigger picture meat is bad for us. Even if you eat meat moderately veganism is healthier when you consider food borne illness. Over 60% of chicken and pork have disease causing pathogens. Up to 33 million people in the US become infected every year. The chances of getting a food borne illness from meat eggs and dairy is much higher than from plant based foods. Why flip a coin to see if your meal has salmonella, e. coli, campylobacter or other pathogens when you can just eat yummy vegan food, lol. That's the way I see it.

Francesca2207 Wrote:Even if you eat meat moderately veganism is healthier when you consider food borne illness. Over 60% of chicken and pork have disease causing pathogens. Up to 33 million people in the US become infected every year. The chances of getting a food borne illness from meat eggs and dairy is much higher than from plant based foods. Why flip a coin to see if your meal has salmonella, e. coli, campylobacter or other pathogens when you can just eat yummy vegan food, lol. That's the way I see it.

Where did you get this information? That seems like an awfully high number to blame on meat. I was under the impression that most food poisoning is caused by fecal-oral route from human to human, rather than from badly prepared meat to human. Certainly that's true of norovirus (the biggest cause of food poisoning), and probably campyobacter as well. Of the zoonotic pathogens (like salmonela), animals can pass it to humans but of course humans can pass it to other humans as well so it's hard to tell how many cases are from where unless the source is found.

I recently got norovirus either from eating bread from a little bakery in Kyoto, or from a cheese pizza I had. The only two things I ate the day prior. I'm thinking the bakery bread since my girlfriend didn't get sick but she had the pizza.

Francesca2207 Wrote:Looking at the bigger picture meat is bad for us. Even if you eat meat moderately veganism is healthier when you consider food borne illness. Over 60% of chicken and pork have disease causing pathogens. Up to 33 million people in the US become infected every year. The chances of getting a food borne illness from meat eggs and dairy is much higher than from plant based foods. Why flip a coin to see if your meal has salmonella, e. coli, campylobacter or other pathogens when you can just eat yummy vegan food, lol. That's the way I see it.

It's not like vegetables are magically exempt from food-borne diseases and/or contaminants. Even a quick search brings up several recent recalls of products for listeria contamination. Ground water pollutants and fertilizers (including organic, such as old-fashioned cow poop fertilizer) can also cause contamination. It's not hard to find reports of salmonella or e-coli on tomatoes or spinach. Even though it's likely due to cross contamination from elsewhere, you're still flipping a coin on those for your veggies.

Francesca2207 Wrote:When somebody says something is bad it's usually not that they mean any amount no matter what is bad. They mean overall it's bad. One dolphin fillet a week won't give anyone mercury poisoning and one steak a week won't give anyone heart disease. Smoking one cigarettes once in a while or snorting cocaine in moderation won't kill you either, lol. It's not about whether or not these things are bad in moderation but are they bad taken as a whole. Don't say it's not fair to compare meat to drug addictions, I know people who would give up smoking sooner than they could give up burgers. Dairy has casomorphins in it, a type of opioid like morphine. Meat and milk kill way more people than drugs do too. Heart attacks are a lot likelier than overdoses.

I really have no idea what you are trying to argue here, but I think the thing that bugs me the most is this.

Quote:It's not about whether or not these things are bad in moderation but are they bad taken as a whole.

So what you are effectively saying is that, "It doesn't really matter if something is fine in moderation, what only matters is if you consume/do/experience tons of something, is it harmful? If so then we need to do away with this!"

Which is ridiculous because most stuff in life is bad for you in extremes.

the point of the OP was about subsidies.

If you subsidise something, you'll typically get more of it. This is undoubtably one of the reasons why the typical westerner eats meat in quantities that are beyond healthy. (as can be seen from higher rates of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer etc)