Vegetarian?

[Teonanacapilli]

You can stay unconscious and unaware, that's your decision. I don't respect such a mindless choice, but I still respect you

 

[IJesusChrist]

I still go for sweets... one day I'll be off em.

I do seem to subside the sugar tooth with some naked juice or odwalla... atleast its natural sugar :roll:

 

[trick]

ive noticed that my junk food habbits are directly related to my marijuana habbits. i supposed that will be a problem when my metabolisim slows down lol.


but unless im smoking for that period of time, i dont eat any sweets at all. weird.

 

[EndlessEntity]

i've always loved steak. i have a very very fast metabolism so i've never had to worry about what i eat, even now age 21 i always stay skinny.

i have considered a vegen diet though

after trying out an AYA diet and noticing some of the effect it had on my body.

 

[Teonanacapilli]

Well, I have had a long period of learning about the benefits and positive outcomes of this lifestyle choice. It is very holistic, in more ways than you can realize without some deeper consideration. If you won't watch the clips, please read below and hear me out Do it with an open mind and open heart. When you read a word that strikes up emotion in you, drop that feeling immediately, it is crucial for any kind of understanding to disallow emotional and ego traps to hold you away from learning. I hope what is outlined here will appeal to your inner being and add to your awareness and ability to make conscious decisions.

#1. The animals; this is the obvious fact that you are killing or contributing to the killing of billions of animals a year for a primitive sensory desire. Moreover, the extreme suffering these animals endure in factory farms (who supply a great many of the supermarkets and chain stores across the globe) is beyond anything you would have done to your own family or self. We are all brothers and sisters of this earth and as humans with developed intellect, it is our responsibility to see that our fellows are treated with respect. Life feeds on life, this is necessary, but to blindly allow such intensive, disrespectful abuse of another INTELLIGENT living being is beyond what we can allow in a conscious world and future. In the most real sense, what goes on there is a holocaust (this is a fact without argument when you watch video evidence). We live in a society and age where it is fully possible to live a healthy (more healthy than omnivorous in most cases) vegetarian or vegan diet, so to me it is very petty and mindless to continue taking a life for your oral preferences. If YOU are not willing to take the animal's life yourself YOU do NOT deserve to eat meat, buying the flesh wrapped in cellophane at the market is no compromise. Our choices (especially in the highly consumptive west) effect the whole world -EVERY choice- and diet is one of the most impactful choices as I outline here. We must make aware, conscious, mindful decisions if we are to drive our species and world into a positive future. Please, psychonauts, with your psychedelic and spiritual insights- you must see this, we are all connected!

#2. Your health; we must treat our bodies as temples, you are allowed only one physical system in this life and it seems a wise principal to take care of this body. Our physical forms are borrowed from this earth and when our consciousness leaves them, they are returned to the soil- so whatever we put in, goes back. When we consume "livestock" that is pumped with steroids, growth hormones, antibiotics and other dangerous compounds, these poisons are gathered within our bodies. When we eat sealife from our toxified oceans, the pollution inside them is transferred to us and can be very damaging, especially when eating apex predators such as tuna. People have suffered irreversible brain damage from mercury in tuna, eating just one can a week can increase your mercury levels to 30% above safe amounts. With each meal, these toxins bioaccumulate within our bodies, poisoning us, perhaps causing unknown mutations to our genetics- how will these choices effect our descendants? I often wonder if our species will come to the sad circumstance of the Beluga whale, whose lifeless body is considered toxic waste when washed ashore.

#3. The planet; it seems that most damage done to this Earth by humans is a direct result of our collective societal addictions to oil and meat- think on it. Look at all of the land set aside for livestock ranging and feed production. 70% of America's grain production goes to feeding cattle (How many forests were cleared? Where did the great bison herds go, what is happening to the great migrations worldwide?). The amazon rainforest is being ripped down this very second to clear land for cattle grazing. What disease cures, what beauty will we lose for another pound of beef? The visionary herbs many of us so respect can be found in these places, will you endanger their existence too, for the sake of a burger? Water required to produce a pound of wheat: 14 gallons, water required to produce a pound of meat: 441 gallons! Of the water used in the U.S., over half goes to livestock production! You see, the process of creating that steak or pork loin is a hugely consumptive process. That is what the process consumes, what it produces is also environmentally catastrophic. Livestock fecal contamination in our drinking water, in our natural water bodies is obviously very pollutant. The clear human health issues arise, but the organic compounds in manure are also natural fertilizers. Eutrophication occurs when when concentrated amounts of these compounds gather in a body of water like a lake, and cause algal blooms. When the algae die and decompose they consume oxygen, causing hypoxic (low oxygen) conditions in the water body and killing massive amounts of fish. As the algae bloom and die each year, so their remains gather on the water bottom and the water body slowly shallows. Then see the massive amounts of methane produced by ungulate livestock, "One ton of methane has the global warming potential of 23 tons of carbon dioxide. A single dairy cow produces the equivalent to over 1.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide." It adds up to being possibly the single most destructive activity of human planetary consumption/destruction.

What I have provided here is all information from the chooseveg.com website along with some personal experience and research. Please, even if you don't want to see any videos, look at the website and the information it provides, it has important figures and more info than what I have presented here. Only when you have been properly informed on the impact your dietary decision makes, can you really make conscious choices. Concern yourselves with something that really matters, beyond sensory entertainment or material possessions.

Information is useless unless shared, so it is my that hope you will take a short time to increase your awareness on this global issue, all of us here know that everything is connected- so every decision impacts the universe. Be mindful, choose wisely, choose with heart You can change the world through your decisions.

 

[IJesusChrist]

good

 

[ophiuchus]

thank for the info teo. god, i just got myself sick the night before last from waaay too much sugar. im not even gonna touch the stuff for at least a month, hopefully permanently, but i dont think that will happen... fucking missed dinner, and all that i had in my stomache at that point was nutella sandwiches. went from my favorite (sweet)food, to my most hated food of all. FUCK SUGAR

i am now convinced that it dampens the immune system(probably many other bodily functions as well...)

 

[ararat]

when I was in hospital a few weeks ago, I didn't consume any sugar for a week (had to be artificially fed) and then had a glass of coke in the evening. it was a most horrible night, feeling cranky, sugar rushes through your head, no way to fall asleep, mind rattling along fast tracks and the body goes with it, really bad dreams that felt psychotic at some points etc.

sugar is the drug our (working-)culture is made of.

 

[ophiuchus]

man, i hope your well again now? that's horrible... i bet you dont drink coke anymore :lol:

 

[ararat]

I'm well again thanks

haven't had any coke so far :lol: there's better sugar. were you able to resist the awesome taste of nutella?

 

[ophiuchus]

i haven't had any since, actually! i've started using honey again though, but that's about it. i don't get the cravings like i used to, i have a horrible mental association with it now(maybe i used a little conscious self-programming while i was sick).. however, i do think that nutella and i could maybe be friends again, under much different circumstances...

:lol:

 

[itsscience]

I feel fantastic after eating steak and salad, I find it to be one of the most energising meals I can have.

I think it is wonderful that you guys have such passion about animals that you're willing to give up such a tasty source of protein and iron. I think it is sick and twisted that you (or some of you) profess to have more care for animals than you do your fellow man.

There are ants and bees that will swarm a man or an animal and brutally sting it to death and if any of those ants wanted to start moralising about the treatment of that animal they wouldn't be listened to but that would not happen in the first place because everyone of those ants knows that all that is important is the colony.

Life will not knit you a warm sweater, sit you down beside the fire with a cup of cocoa and give you hug. Life, evolution, the whole thing is driven by survival and only the fittest survive. If our practices are such (and lets face it the way we kill animals for food is one of the lesser attrocities we committ on this earth ) that we are not fit to survive then we will be eliminated by this planet as surely as the dinosaurs were.

I think waygie is right to a certain extent, there is no equality - not in the way the politically correct movement sees equality but there is an equality in a different sense - we are all equal in that we are all subject to the same law of survival - only the fittest will survive.

 

[IJesusChrist]

hah,

Bees did not create global warming. Millions are not in debt because of tuna. Torture was never seen outside of man. Money is not used with birds.

If I had to survive by killing animals I would. To be a dousche bag, Avatar was pretty intense where they kill the animal and pray for forgiveness and thanks for the blessing. When you eat your steak without so much as a fleeting image of where or how that came to be on your plate, THAT is sick and twisted. It is unfortunate that it is so engrained to be "OK" to just eat anything that pops onto your plate.

When a bee swarm kills a man, it is not evil, it is for it's protection of it's queen. It does not think about revenge, death, harming, it simply does what it is instructed to do by its genetic material and instinctual responses. When a man goes and kills a cow, it is not because he needs to eat, or needs to protect his own life - it is for money (specifically the immigrants that come to your country to do the work in order to produce that lovely steak in your fridge). They kill that cow because of the giant system in place - the ideology that meat is ok, and necessary every day of the week - which it is not.

You ask whats the answer, but are so blind to the problems and questions?!

 

[itsscience]

Ok so the world tunrs vegetarian. Where do you think all that plant matter is going to be grown and who do you think is going to grow it? Old growth forests will still get wiped out, the plant crops grown for food (generally short rooted and nowhere near as effective at drawing water fromm the water table as trees) will allow the water table to rise and therefore large tracts of land will still become infertile due to salinity.

Who do you think owns the wheat farms, plantations and major market gardens? Who do you think will own and operate them once the world turns vegetarian? Those with the money, those that are currently operating the slaughterhouses.

The food we eat and the way it is distributed is merely a symptom not the cause.

I've worked on farms and a couple of days in an abatoir, I know exactly where my food comes from and I know exactly where I sit on the food chain. I also know that converting the world to vegetarianism will not solve humanity's problems.

 

[IJesusChrist]

Well you completely ignored what I said. You just want to argue.

The problem you are stating is not coming from vegetarianism. You're argueing about over population.

Here's some more facts for you - you seem to miss the good stuff;

Tah dah;

1.51% of CO2 emissions from animal live stock.

http://www.sincerelysustainable.com/foo ... -livestock

2.Currently, about 55 percent of corn produced in the U.S. is used as animal feed for livestock and poultry

http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/Febr ... Prices.htm

3.Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/200 ... index.html

1. Speaks for itself
2. Well, looks like we could turn that corn field into human food.
3. Oh, so we would gain 30% of the land surface on earth for people and their own gardens. Preeeeetty neat!

And for your comeback - the problem is not becoming a vegetarian, what you're going to argue is population growth. Well with everything said here, it is plainly obvious that have livestock ISN'T HELPING THE SITUATION, and that become vegetarian would be a nicer way to go, as far as 1,2,3.

 

[itsscience]

Funny, you started talking about global warming - compared to heavy industry and even motor cars the amount of emmissions produced by live stock is minimal.

Population growth is problem. As I said the food we eat and the way it is produced is a symptom not the cause. The more of us there are the more land we need to use to produce the food we need (either vegetarian or animal they both require land). Similarly the more of us there are the more cars are driven, the more factories emit noxious fumes, the more native flora and fauna is destroyed.

Everything is interconnected and to say that vegetarianism will solve problems or even have any noticeable effect on the condition of the planet is too simplistic.

 

[IJesusChrist]

Did you read what I just posted? 51% of CO2 emissions come from live stock.

How can that be minimal, unless you are talking about more than a 100% sum?

sigh, you're not getting it are you? You don't want change - you want a solution without doing anything. Maybe you think politicians can change politics as well.

 

[itsscience]

sigh.

You're confusing two posts.

Everyone in the world could turn vegetarian and it wouldn't effect the sort of change we need.

Every organism that breathes produces CO2 - get rid of livestock and you'll then be pointing the finger at mankind as being the highest CO2 producer. As I said, in response to your post, the amount of CO2 produced by livestock is minimal compared to the amount of CO2 and CO produced by heavy industry.

Plants during the night produce CO2 and during the day convert CO2 to O2 - trees, tropical rainforests etc are the most efficient at converting CO2 to O2, they are the lungs of our planet. Corn, cauliflower, peas etc are not very efficient at all at converting CO2 to O2 and when these short rooted plants are planted over the graves of forrests (refer to my previous posts) they will do more harm than good.

You're fond of accusing me of not reading what you posted but perhaps you should go back and re-read my post. I said, "compared to heavy industry and even motor cars the amount of emmissions produced by live stock is minimal."

 

[Guest]

I'm not here for backing up either of you guy (I don't have the necessary knowledge), but you didn't adressed IJC's poit stating that 51% of o2 comes from live stock, which contradicts your point that live stock's emissions are smaller than the ones coming from the industry (which is mathematically impossible if this 51% data is correct).

 

[IJesusChrist]

You really aren't reading what I post. Read tiaxes comment, and reply.