Going Vegetarian

[~Chaotic Fireball~ 498]

WHAT??  Become a vetenarian? I don't even like animals!

Ohhh... you said vegetarian.... EVEN WORSE!!

 

I could never live without meat, it's so yummy and juicy. Just because you're lifestyle involves you being a vegetarian doesn't mean that you have to try to 'convert' us meat-eaters. Sorry, but I'll be sitting down eating a HUGE piece of bacon while watching you gulp down a salad.

[Circadian 1,273]

I think there are some interesting parallels between becoming a vegetarian and becoming a brony. Most people shoot down both ideas without even trying them.

 

Come to think of it, I used to think both of these things were ridiculous.

 

Until I tried them.

 

[SongBrony 419]

I think there are some interesting parallels between becoming a vegetarian and becoming a brony. Most people shoot down both ideas without even trying them.

 

Come to think of it, I used to think both of these things were ridiculous.

 

Until I tried them.

 

Like I said. I tried vegetarian diet for a little bit. Guess what? I was dissatisfied, always hungry, I lost weight (and not in the good way, I'm already skinny) I tried MLP, loved it. Tried vegetarian, hated it with an undying passion. Meat is required for us to be healthy, just as vegetables are needed for us to be healthy. A balance of both is what Omnivores need. Not one of them alone. I'm happier as a meat eater than a vegetarian, personally

[ShadowRose2k 270]

You are welcome to your choice of lifestyle in what you eat even if i dissagree.   As a species we can eat almost anything.  Seriously my wife makes me watch "Why would you Eat that?" on you tube.  Some very intresting dishes there.   I just don't understand why Vegeterians feel they need to "convert" others to thier Diet.  

 

Some people can't eat meat others don't like the thought of where it comes from.   I am aware of how Life works and that Living things eat other living things to grow and live.    I happen to like meat.  I don't eat it all the time, I do get those fruit/Veg in there for balence.  I even like tofu on occasion.   I love Gyros. 

 

I am curriouse how far Vegy you are talking about.

 

No Fish?  No Eggs? No Insects?(yes people in other countrys use this as main source of protien)  No Milk?

[Flying Space Badger 84]

I love how arrogant and self centered the OP comes across as in this thread. What ever happened to the "love and tolerate" brony mantra?

 

OP, good for you for doing what you like. Now let us do what we like without judging us, you know, the way many of us did not judge you until you tried to shove your sanctimonious "holier than thou" attitude down our throats.

[Pinkazoid 3,493]

Also, some countries haven't developed to the point where people can sustain themselves without meat. Though, if you have the internet, that's probably not the case.

I won

(I joke)

 

Yee, this is the thing, not everyone can afford to take meat out of their meals, I was raised eating meat for who knows how long, heck, the part of Mexico i was born in was basically known for Meat, well, more like ranches, as in raising cattle, and other sorts of farm animals, all of the northern part is, if I'm not mistaken. Those few years i relied on eating meat was for the sake of eating something, not out of selfish and egoist needs of finding myself superior to the animals that we used not only for food, but we if anything, were nothing without those animals, we did eat some of them, only what we needed, but we also sold them for money to buy other things in the markets and such.

 

I don't honestly see myself changing my habits of eating meat, considering i partake in fishing and sometimes hunting, although i haven't done much hunting nowadays. My parent's would go flipshit on me if i said i wanted to be a vegetarian :3

 

and I cant say goodbye to those delicious steak baked potatoes ; n ;

 

Okay, how is this a popular post again? All I see is a veggie fanatic trying to shove their viewpoint down our throats.

 

As many have stated, animal eat other animals. Human are animals. If eating meat is 'oh so terrible', then why do our bodies digest it just fine? Provided it is cooked that is. I assume if we were just meant to be vegetarians, we would not have such a massive amount of our species that eats meat just fine.

 

I love nature and all, but animals eating other animals IS apart of nature. We just have the capability to avoid being eaten by other animals, for the most part.

While i don't necessarily agree with OP, many people seem to do, just because he has brohoofs doesn't mean that we all agree on what he's said~

 

I love how arrogant and self centered the OP comes across as in this thread. What ever happened to the "love and tolerate" brony mantra?

 

OP, good for you for doing what you like. Now let us do what we like without judging us, you know, the way many of us did not judge you until you tried to shove your sanctimonious "holier than thou" attitude down our throats.

There's nothing that says that we have to love and tolerate each other. Best you can do is Love and Tolerate him, and avoid further confrontation. :v

[Pripyat Pony 2,608]

We have been eating meat since the dawn of humanity. Its nature, kill or be killed. Without meat, there is a major [racism 3] in our food supply. Sure we produce enough veges, fruits and grains to feed the masses  but lets just say a HUGE hail storm hits one end of the country, and a drought on the other side. ALL crops are gone in our country. We would have to rely solely on exports to survive, which would cause ENORMOUS strain on our already collapsing economy. Whereas with meat, those occurances would almost not effect on the meat suppl at all (Atleast at first). With meat, we have a cushion that our economy can rest on until we get our vege grain and fruit supply back up.

 

Ill be damned if i stop eating meat, just because its not "Required" by my diet. Its the easiest way to make sure you get all proteins that your body needs. And in fact, without meat our brains would never have developed as far as they are today, thus we would still be hairy beasts running around foraging for food without meat.

 

Sense. You speak it. /)

 

Here are some links to support what Resistence said.

 

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/6-14-1999a.html

 

Basically, when early humanids started eating meat (homo habilis is considered the first to start this habit; they didn't hunt, but scavenged meat and bone marrow from already killed animals), they began to develop the brain. At the same time as homo habilis was living, there was another humanid, who was strictly vegetarian. This species became extinct due to climate change, which wiped out the plants it relied on for its diet. So, if one species hadn't started eating meat, human beings probably would not exist.

 

Also, if you are vegetarian... yep, there's blood on your hands, too.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97836&page=1#.UXFIx0p2Ou0

 

http://measureofdoubt.com/2011/06/22/why-a-vegetarian-might-kill-more-animals-than-an-omnivore/

 

Preparing a field for pasture doesn't kill as many local wildlife as preparing it for arable farming does. Near where I live, there's a field with a trillion rabbits living in it which is grazed by a flock of sheep. If that field was ploughed under, those rabbits would all lose their lives, a la Watership Down.

 

Btw, not saying that people can't be vegetarians, just saying that they don't have the moral high ground which they think they do.

 

 

[Freewave 1,145]

"Meat is Murder"~Morrissey

 

I think it's admirable to be a vegetarian and it is killing but i have absolutely no reason to join in or want to join the vegetarian cause. I love eating meat, it's natural for us as animals to eat others, and I'm not a veggie lover (i only slightly love and tolerate them).

 

BUT

 

I think it's important to realize where food comes from and it's important to respect how we care for these animals as they are raised and killed. Garbage in and garbage out and when we pump animals with chemicals, keep them in cramped quarters, and feed them bad food it comes back to haunt the meat, make us unhealthy, and make their lives miserable. The organic food movement is an admirable movement and we should try to get suppliers and restaurants to do the right thing and make needed changes and that makes their lives better as well as ours. Meat can be obtained ethically.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Freewave

[Pigeon 1]

Oh boy. Here we go.

Now, I have no problems with vegetarians or vegans. What I can't abide by is people, ANY people, who take it as their God-given mission (figure of speech, don't hate me!) to make everyone just like them. That's the only problem I'm having here. Also, I would never give up pork medallions.

[Skeletor Brony 703]

I am on a diet, so I don't eat much meat anymore, but we have to keep livestock population in check or we will run out of vegetation because it is being ground into livestock food. Would you rather have dead plains and rapidly depleting food, or growing fields and a maintainable amount of livestock on earth?

I wish we didn't have to kill livestock, but it keeps the world growing.

[SasQ 1,355]

The Basic Argument

 

1) Eating meat is not at all required for health.

 

2) There is no nutrient in meat that cannot be found in a vegetarian diet.

 

3) There is no disease where eating meat is required for the treatment or cure of the disease.

 

4) Therefore, eating meat is absolutely unnecessary.

 

5) Eating meat causes death to other animals, obviously. And, despite attempts to make slaughter "humane", whether it be "kosher", "halal" or otherwise, it quite probably, or even certainly, causes stress and pain as well.

 

6) There is more than enough cruelty in the world as it is; no sane person can deny this. There is no need to add to the world's cruelty, unnecessarily.

I would add one more thing to that list.

Even if you don't care about animals well being, and slaughtering them for your own tasteful needs is OK for you, there is one argument based on the scientific grounds of the food chain/pyramid:

 

When the energy comes to the Earth from the Sun, only vegetables can make use of it to produce their own food, binding CO2 from the atmosphere and water from the ground to produce oxygen for us to breathe (as a byproduct) and carbohydrates (sugars) for their own needs (energetic and structural). But before some other animal eats them to reverse this process and burn carbohydrates with oxygen to release CO2, water and the energy stored in these chemical bonds (closing the carbon cycle), this energy is less than at the beginning, because some of them has been used by the plants themselves to live (though they don't use it much, since they don't move much too).

 

But then, this vegetarian animal uses this energy to live itself, dissipating it as heat, and in chemical reactions in its own body. Also, these sugars are often transformed into some more complicated molecules, like glycogen or fats. Then some other carnivore animal eats these animals, dissipating even more energy, and transforming some of them into even more complicated molecules.

 

So when it ultimately comes to humans to eat these animals, a lot of the energy which come from the Sun is already lost by dissipation of heat by these moving creatures. And most of the molecules are already very complicated. But our organisms cannot use most of these molecules directly, because they are different from what we need. And they cannot be incorporated into our bodies in a wholly evolved form -- they need to be evolved through a process of more and more complicated reactions in the same way one cannot just join two houses together, but one needs to build the other house around the other part-by-part to make everything fit.

 

Conclusion?

It's always better to drink closer to the source than down the river.

When you eat plants, you're as close to the source (the Sun and its life-giving energy) as possible. The vegetarian food is very energetic, and our bodies know that too: they use burning carbohydrates as their main source of energy, and glycogen and fats as a storage. They cannot burn fats without transforming them into sugars first. So when you eat other animals, you're not only farther from the source of energy in the food chain, and most of the energy has been dissipated along the way to your plate, but also you need to use some of your own energy to decompose these complex molecules into simpler ones to make any use of them in your own body! :-P Eating other animals is highly inefficient from the energetic point of view, if other arguments doesn't convince you.

 

But if you see it as an argument against killing animals, I must admit that it's not necessarily so. Imagine you're an astronaut on a spaceship, and you've lost far away from your homeworld. You're on board with only a bunch of live chicken and a sack of corn seed. What strategy would you take to live longest and manage to return back home? Would you feed the corn to the chicken and wait for them to lay eggs to produce more chicken, and then eat these chicken? Or would you feed the chicken and then eat their eggs, and then the chicken? Or maybe you'd kill the chicken first and then eat the corn seed yourself?

The most efficient answer from the energetic point of view is not very fortunate for the chicken: you must kill the chicken first. Because chicken dissipates energy when it moves. So it will be wasting it. It's better to eat chicken first to use this energy yourself, and then eat the corn seed yourself to use its energy. It's better when stored in the corn seed, because it doesn't move nor dissipate it. If you'd give the corn seed to the chicken, you'd waste it on unnecessary chicken motion ;-J (the chicken would dissipate it as heat, which couldn't be used by you in any way).

Edited April 19, 2013 by SasQ

[An Old Head 4,815]

I think there are some interesting parallels between becoming a vegetarian and becoming a brony. Most people shoot down both ideas without even trying them.

 

Come to think of it, I used to think both of these things were ridiculous.

 

That's not a good parallel. One involves a TV show that they'll never have watched before, adding to their interests, while the other involves removing meat from your diet - subtracting from their interests. It's not like we've never tried vegetables before. 

[Sir.Flutter Hooves 2,953]

Has meat ever given given off air? No, plants have, and what do vegatarian eat? Plants! So, who's the real killer here?

 

 

I eat meat because of these reason:

 

1.Bacon

 

2. Steak wrapped Bacon

 

3. Chicken wrapped bacon

 

4-10. Bacon

 

Also, vegatarian live a shorter life, because they don't recieve all the nutritional values of meat.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Sir.Flutter Hooves

[Dashabel 381]

Animals don't exist to feed us, they exist for whatever reason, nature, god made them, whatever. They exist to live and breathe and thrive, and yes, become food for predators. They do not exist solely to feed us, and I think it's rather disgusting that you think so.

Whoa, whoa... I think you misunderstood me. That is not what I think! That's not what I said. I'm saying as a pity that they wouldn't exist if there were no meat eaters! I know they have rights! I love animals, and yes they do share our planet and they are alive! You're making me look like some kind of menacing hunter, when actually, I despise all hunting. The other day I saw a deer with a.... Umm, killing thing in its shoulder. It looked alive but I realised it wasn't as a woman sat beside it proudly. It horrified me. As it did others. There was quite an argument over how cruel this was (yes, I think it was rather cruel as the animal was wild and killed inhumanely), but it is plainly down to opinion and hobbies, it was the woman's hobby to kill her own food. Much as we would wince at this thought, it's actually the healthiest meat you could eat eat and that's why we do it.

The only meat I eat is chicken and pork. I used to eat beef, but.. Ya know what happened. That's it. That's what I need for a healthy, balanced diet.

So what do you veggies think of road kill? They've died... Well, you know why. And people choose to only eat them because they've lived a happy wild life and contain no preservatives or life-prolonging chemicals... Whatever they are. Is that "cruel"?

I wasn't saying, "oh I love a bit o' fresh meat freshly killed of I'm gonna go kill a bear pfft animals don't deserve to live they too bloomin' tasty!" !!! I do have mixed feelings about meat sometimes and could probably not even eat it if I saw it killed.

Maybe I should reword my statement as pigs would not exist if we didn't eat them.... Unfortunately, that is their purpose...

@Circadian I don't have a source, trust me, I was thinking this was a weird fact myself.

However in pe today I did actually learn this was wrong as my teacher went in to say that if a vegetarian ate proteinful beans, lentils, nuts etc. they could actually live a longer life. So either way, my friend still owned us, haha. She is happy that she will outlive us all... Lol.

 

 

 

 

P.S. pigs are adorable.

Edited April 19, 2013 by Meadowsong

[hawkflame 3,308]

I am *way* too tired right now (having had NO SLEEP last night whatsoever) to formulate anything resembling a long thought out post on this subject, so I'll just say this.

 

I get and appreciate the arguments given by the OP here, but right now I have too much other shit going on in my life to concern myself with the lives of cows and chickens that I'll never meet. 

 

Oh, and the irony of ironies: I was eating my lunch while reading this thread, and my mom came in and gave me an extra handful of chopped steak. 

[Circadian 1,273]

 

 

The most efficient answer from the energetic point of view is not very fortunate for the chicken: you must kill the chicken first. Because chicken dissipates energy when it moves. So it will be wasting it. It's better to eat chicken first to use this energy yourself, and then eat the corn seed yourself to use its energy. It's better when stored in the corn seed, because it doesn't move nor dissipate it. If you'd give the corn seed to the chicken, you'd waste it on unnecessary chicken motion ;-J (the chicken would dissipate it as heat, which couldn't be used by you in any way).

 

A very logical way of looking at it!

 

TL;DR Vegetarians cut out the middle man.

 

 

 

I love how arrogant and self centered the OP comes across as in this thread. What ever happened to the "love and tolerate" brony mantra? OP, good for you for doing what you like. Now let us do what we like without judging us, you know, the way many of us did not judge you until you tried to shove your sanctimonious "holier than thou" attitude down our throats.

 

I love how stubborn and crazy defensive some of the other posters come across as in this thread!

 

Disagreeing with you is a whole lot different than judging you, darling.

 

 

 

That's not a good parallel. One involves a TV show that they'll never have watched before, adding to their interests, while the other involves removing meat from your diet - subtracting from their interests. It's not like we've never tried vegetables before.

 

Is too. 

 

But they will have tried doing girly things before! For many, becoming a brony is a first step, and involves a whole lot more than just watching a television show. The filter through which we look at the world has been drastically altered.

 

Now, it's okay to have a feminine side! Girly can be good!

[ShinySneasel 34]

I might be more compelled to take the time to type out a proper response to this issue if not for the OP's holier-than-thou attitude. Instead, I will treat this just like I treat Jehovah's Witnesses every time they come around.

 

Edited April 19, 2013 by ShinySneasel

[Flying Space Badger 84]

Many of these posts would not be defensive if your very first post was not worded as an attack on our character for eating meat.

 

Maybe, "darling", learn to word your thoughts in a less hostile manner if you are trying to be informative or spread the word or whatever. Attacking people will never change their minds and will often simply result in them retaliating in kind.

 

After all, us meat eaters are simply, how did you put it? "Adding to the world's cruelty." Of course that would make people defensive.

 

Now, if you want a lively, civilized debate on the topic, I would be quite happy to oblige. But the majority of your posts in this thread have come off as self-righteous, superior, and arrogant. That does not lend itself to a healthy conversational atmosphere.

 

Now, in actual regards to the topic at hand, I personally eat meat. Always have, and for various reasons I will not discuss now, I likely always will. Not to say that I do not have vegetarian or even vegan friends who I love and respect, and could care less about their eating habits. I am sure they, like myself, would be annoyed if either parties started telling the other how horrible their life choices were. We do discuss the topic on occasion, and I can see their point, and they mine. We pick restaurants that cater to both our needs, and it works. Our dinner parties have meat dishes and vegan dishes. Hell, one of them even goes hunting with me every year. Why? Because she knows, as many hunters do, that hunters help keep the local deer population from exploding and causing famine and endangering the population as a whole. I hope I do not need to state the implications of an herbivorous population explosion.

 

This is not to say that I totally agree with how modern livestock farms operate, some of them do in fact, keep their animals in appalling conditions, and I make every effort to not obtain meat from those sources. If that is part of  me being stubborn and defensive, well so be it.

 

Does eating meat make me better than someone else? No.

Does them NOT eating it make them better than me? Again, no.

[Evilshy 5,089]

Forgive me for not reading past the first few pages. I don't have long before I need to leave again :/

 

 

The Basic Argument

 

1) Eating meat is not at all required for health.

2) There is no nutrient in meat that cannot be found in a vegetarian diet.

3) There is no disease where eating meat is required for the treatment or cure of the disease.

4) Therefore, eating meat is absolutely unnecessary.

5) Eating meat causes death to other animals, obviously. And, despite attempts to make slaughter "humane", whether it be "kosher", "halal" or otherwise, it quite probably, or even certainly, causes stress and pain as well.

6) There is more than enough cruelty in the world as it is; no sane person can deny this. There is no need to add to the world's cruelty, unnecessarily.

 

 

All of those are true. However, your claim, which I assume is implied in number 6 (that we should not eat meat because it is cruel) is where I'd have to disagree. Humans are little more than animals. Evolution gave us intelligence as opposed to strength, speed, or good senses. Natural selection put us on top of the food chain. It is merely nature that we eat meat. A lion is hungry, so it kills something and eats it. A bear is hungry so it kills something and eats it (or eats berries, because they're omnivorous). A dolphin is hungry, so it kills something and eats it. All of these cause stress and pain to the prey animal (likely more than human slaughter does, too, because we don't actively hunt livestock down. I will admit that some of the conditions they are kept in are quite bad, though) A human is hungry, so it kills something and eats it. Just because we can survive solely off of plants doesn't mean we are obligated too. Our digestive system is built to eat both plants and animals, so there is nothing wrong with doing either.

 

Also, obligatory (I apologize if this has been posted already)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRSLQu-d6ZQ

 

[Gourgeist 262]

I knew all this stuff but I can't help but love meat. It taste so good and it's good to mix it up instead of not eating just vegetarian all the time. I really like Turkey. That's like the best meat ever. EVER

[Circadian 1,273]

Now, if you want a lively, civilized debate on the topic, I would be quite happy to oblige.

 

Great! I must admit you are rather well spoken for a flying space badger.

 

 

 

But the majority of your posts in this thread have come off as self-righteous, superior, and arrogant.

 

You made your thoughts about that abundantly clear in your last post, darling.

 

 

 

Why? Because she knows, as many hunters do, that hunters help keep the local deer population from exploding and causing famine and endangering the population as a whole. I hope I do not need to state the implications of an herbivorous population explosion.

 

As I already said numerous times in this thread, I'm fine with things like hunting because the person is actually doing the killing themselves (as well as an environmental service) rather than leaving it to assembly line slaughterhouses. Deer are basically rats with hooves anyway.

 

 

 

This is not to say that I totally agree with how modern livestock farms operate, some of them do in fact, keep their animals in appalling conditions, and I make every effort to not obtain meat from those sources. If that is part of me being stubborn and defensive, well so be it.

 

I applaud your efforts to get meat from sources other than those.

 

We treat ethical issues like this one very subjectively, even when things aren't ambiguous. In the end people will eat whatever they can get away with eating and just try not to think about where things come from. My intention is to get people to take a closer look.

 

I admit the wording in my first post isn't doing me any favors.

 

 

I am curriouse how far Vegy you are talking about. No Fish? No Eggs? No Insects?(yes people in other countrys use this as main source of protien) No Milk?

 

Well, if somebody eats fish they aren't a vegetarian. Eggs are okay depending on where they come from; insects, um, well... I really don't have an opinion on that and dairy is okay as well (depending on where it comes from). I usually get soy milk. 

Edited April 20, 2013 by Circadian

[Lost 1,409]

I am a very picky eater, i could never become a vegetarian and nearly every meal i eat has meat in it.

 

I'm sure that most of you are aware of this already but, we breed animals for food, if for whatever reason everybody on earth became vegetarian  chances are many of our commonly consumed animals would dwindle in population and with the tough transition from being farm animals to wild it would possibly cause some of them to become endangered or even die off.

[Coffee Cream 74]

Well, if somebody eats fish they aren't a vegetarian. Eggs are okay depending on where they come from; insects, um, well... I really don't have an opinion on that and dairy is okay as well (depending on where it comes from). I usually get soy milk. 

 

 

If they eat fish, eggs, and milk they are considered Pescatarian which is one of the more relaxed forms of vegetarianism. Pescatarians are sometimes not considered to be real vegetarians because they accept the consumption of fish. 

 

@Flying Space Badger

I'm assuming the OP is discussing more along the lines of lacto-ovo vegetarianism (minus the lacto) and/or veganism. Lacto-ovo vegetarians refrain from eating all meats but will have dairy and eggs. Vegans eat strictly vegetables.

[Steve 290]

well if you wanna be a vegetarian go right ahead

 

but if youre a vegetarian because you wanna save animals, why are you eating their food!?!? (that was a joke)

 

and thanks for saving the good food for me

[Philosophy Pony 123]

I'm honestly glad that I went vegetarian! It brought me so much more energy and has made me feel better. I don't get sick as often and I'm back to a healthy weight of 137 lbs.