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Earthquake in Japan March 11th 2011
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Indeed, vegetarianism has always struck me as hypocritical if it's done for moral reasons, since they are still supporting animal cruelty, suffering, and death through their diets so long as they're giving money to the major animal product industries. It causes less animal deaths and suffering than being a carnivore, sure, but it's still contributing to the problem. If one truly wants to cause no suffering and death to animals then they would be strict vegans rather than simply being vegetarians for convenience sake.
Not that I have much room to talk, being a carnivore, but I fully acknowledge that my dietary choices support a horrendous industry 
I'm a weak-minded individual enslaved by my upbringing and environment. One of my good friends is vegan, and when I go to his house he forces me to eat vegan food, which I find very delicious, so maybe I'll convert in the years to come if I can defeat aforementioned weakness.
I should note, though, that a vegetarian diet that doesn't contribute to animal suffering is certainly possible, provided that one ensures all their food sources come from animals treated well. That requires getting eggs from either your own chickens, or a personally known source, and making all your baked goods yourself with those eggs. But when it comes to milk and other things, finding your own personal sources may be virtually impossible, especially for anyone living in cities. Not to mention not many people are willing to make all of their food themselves with those ingredients, so the vegetarians that actually do these are very, very few I imagine.
Last time I tried soy milk I couldn't bear to down more than one mouthful. 
It tastes nothing like real milk!
Animals are indeed killed during crop harvesting, but while there isn't extensive enough research on the topic it's pretty fair to say that it's no where near the numbers cranked out by slaughterhouses, and isn't a long, dragged out, cruel procedure as is the case in the meat industries. The U.S. alone can boast of nearly 10 billion slaughtered animals per year, and even if it were the case that that many animals were dying from crop harvesting, there's a huge difference between the types of animals being killed. Highly intelligent mammals with extrensively developed central nervous systems are not being killed by crop harvesting, as is the case with the meat industry. A field mouse dying versus a pig dying is quite the difference.
It's unfortunate that deaths are caused by the crop industries as well, but that could mostly be prevented through elaborate precautions and measures. It's all a matter of whether the population is willing to support and finance such things. Granted there's not much one can do about insects and such, and the Buddha's point about the only true way to cause no death or suffering through one's actions would be to starve oneself, rings true.
I hate soy milk too, but I adore rice milk 
When I came to CA I found that drinking the milk here was causing me skin problems, so I switched to rice milk. Now milk in cereal and such simply tastes disgusting to me, though I still consume milk through all the other stuff I eat.
As for how this got so off topic...no idea, but it's a nice break from all the reactor hysteria
Last edited by Aijin (2011 March 19, 8:11 pm)
dizmox wrote:
Last time I tried soy milk I couldn't bear to down more than one mouthful.
Try vanilla-flavored. If you have an Asian supermarket nearby, then try Kikkoman (which has plenty of flavors) or Vietnamese soy milk (pictured here). Vietnamese soy milk is loaded with sugar, and is therefore good for beginners.
bodhisamaya wrote:
Almond milk is good as well, and maybe the healthiest among the grain based milks. Silk brand seems to taste the closest to cow's milk. They have some good ice cream products as well.
Almond milk? I'll have to give that a try. I've tried coconut milk icecream, but that's about it. I suppose if I want to give veganism/vegetarianism a shot I'm in the perfect place since the Bay Area is practically a vegan haven.
nest0r wrote:
I somewhat presumptuously thought you might have been avoiding this thread when I noted your comments elsewhere, so I didn't inquire, but I'm glad it seems to have been a relatively minor injury that served to accentuate the endearing and frustrating aspects of having a mother, and hope your family and friends are otherwise okay.
All my family and friends other than my mother are uninjured fortunately I suppose I've been avoiding the whole thing as much as possible since it just gets to be a little overwhelming after a while. In all honesty I've been more concerned with events in the Middle East lately so am mostly following that. It's sure been an active year.
