Vegetarianism & Veganism

[Appel]

For me eating vegetarian (and rarely dairy/eggs) is part of a lifestyle of moderate consumption and awareness in this world. It is good to know there are other likeminded people.

Good for you Brugmansia, being a modern day nomad!

 

[Brugmansia]

With the exclamation, I suppose you were cynical.

It's choice. Doing various atlethic performances on a higher level results in much different nutrition requirements.

A man needs competiton in order to gain and maintain self-value and balanced manhood, and sports are the only frame in where this can be done within a healthy structure.

 

[GOD]

"bout 2 rounded teaspoons of large flake Vegetarian Support Formula (Red Star T-6635+) nutritional yeast provides the recommended amount of vitamin B12 for adults "

That doesnt say where the B12 comes from ? Are you saying its natural ? Or is it chemical or extracted B12 that has been added ? I think people are talking about it being imposible for anyone other than rich decadent people to live life as a vegan . If you got parachuted into any country with no money you would die , or where would you get your suplaments ?

 

[Twilight]

I am vegetarian because I refuse to eat meat that came from those 'meat factories' that we have here in 'rich' countries, plus they are supplied by food that came from huge areas of deforested farms where they only grow food for these animals whose only purpose is to be sold as meat.
If I would be dropped in a poor country I think I would adapt to the situation there. Also because they probably don't have these meat factories and treat animals with a lot more respect. Doesn't mean I would leave my refusal to eat meat behind, I'd always prefer a vegetarian meal.

 

[Shamanita]

The fact is that to feed 1 cow, from it's birth till its in the refrigirator,
they first need (let's say, numbers are not exact) 1 hectare of maize...

The meat of that 1 cow, feeds a family for only a week

when u eat the maize directly, instead of giving it to a cow and eating the cow, u would eat a whole year of the maize..

There a huge biomass loss when feeding a cow and then eating the cow, it lives so uses energy ...

but hej, i eat meat too, it's just soo mjammie

 

[SnakeEyes]

I'd like to stop eating meat, but i still live with my parents and my mom who's a doctor already has a problem with me not eating much meat (also because i'm very thin) and she could never accept me being vegetarian. I know that i'll stop eating meat when i move out of home. For now, i can skip eating meat for several days and then eat some once in a while and limit myself to only some ham , chicken or fish, from time to time. Since i was little i always found it hard to eat meat, imagining animals being killed to be eaten and i could never even watch animals being killed in the movies , but i believed what was always said in my family, that men need meat and have a huge lack of proteins if they don't eat meat. That's what most people are conditioned to think. Now i've overcome that conditionment and understood that isn't true and how we don't need meat to be healthy, i understood that with the help of psychedelics and also by the example of some vegetarian friends who are perfectly healthy. Like already said, it's important to find a balance in everything we eat or do. Thanks for this thread,some very interesting information is contained in it, some answers really helped me find more of a rational proof for what i already intuitively know and i'm also enthousiastic to find so many vegetarian or vegan people at the same place. It'd be nice if it helped me to convince my parents, but they're so blinded for some things, that they wouldn't want to hear it at all.

Many people also justify themselves by saying that it's the natural cycle of life and that animals also kill eachothers to survive. If we act like that, than we should consider ourselves equal to animals. Even if we want to cosider ourselves equal to animals then if we really want to kill them for our pleasure or survival, we should do it by ourselves, without the use of weapons which make it easier, like they do. If we feel stronger and subject animals to our will only because they're weaker, that is exactly the same thing as slavery or treatement against Jews in the WWII. But if we consider ourselves superior to animals, why is that? Because we are more aware, have a higher state of consciousness. If that's true,one of the best proofs of a higher consciousness is not harming other beings for our simple pleasure.I think the humanity isn't there yet, but i believe it is the next step (at least in the more developed parts of the world).

Saying that it would be logical for me to be a vegetarian, otherwise i'm not really true to myself, but i know it's one thing to understand things in theory and another to integrate them fully in our lives and act on them, which is often the problem. At least i'm trying my best and know i'm on a good way toward it, it's just a question of time.

 

[GOD]

I`m suprised at what your mom says . As a doctor she should know what her national recomendation for eating meat is . Here its two or three small portions of lean meat a week .

If you feel OK and can do the things you neeed to do every day you are not unhealthy , and whats thin to me or a sumo wrestler are two different things .

The thing is is that the planet MUST go largly vegetarian , its part of our present position in evolution . There isnt enough space or resources for us to keep eating meat in the quantitys we have done up to now . Plus the problems that come with meat production and eating unhealthy / to much meat are to big to ignore .

 

[SnakeEyes]

I agree with you, but i don't think she knows the national recommendations or care for them. She thinks that they (my parents) shouldn't eat too much meat or fat, being old and fat, but it isn't a problem for us who're young. Even if it isn't now, it can be later. She thinks that the food she cooks has to be healthy. She isn't a nutritionist either. I think i'd be considered thin by anybody, but as you said it doesn't matter as long as i'm healthy and can get things done.
And yeah the planet should, must and hopefully will go vegetarian! Can't wait for that moment! About the space and ressources, eating less meat would already help. About health problems, humans should acknowledge that first, but they often don't even care for the health problems before it hits them, as long as they have fun and can stand behind the medical progress to save them as soon as they're ill. Sorry i don't want to seem so pessimistic, but that's what i notice with most people around and fortunately much less on this forum.

 

[GOD]

If canibalism wasnt illegal we / the planet wouldnt have a lot of the problems we have ..........

 

[Toxica]

I concider meat to be the food of low vibrations. It realy put the consciousness down... if you do yoga and meditate - it's not for you... one of my yoga teachers said the same thing.
Moreover, I think that everything that has brain can feel fear and pain when it dies, so these vibrations will transfered to the eater.
And meat is something dead, I don't want to eat corpses. Fruits, vegetables, ect, are alive when we eat it.

And, of course, I don't want to cause harm to alive creatures...

 

[GOD]

"low vibrations" - "so these vibrations will transfered to the eater."

Can you explain that please ? What vibrations ? And how are they transfered ?

I think a lot of people who eat meat do yoga and meditate without dificulty .

 

[Appel]

I wasn't being cynical Brugmansia. Like you SnakeEyes my parents wouldn't let me stop eating meat when I first wanted to. I eventually convinced them I would be able to get enough nutrients/vitamins without meat, although they wanted me to eat fish once every week or so. Waiting untill you leave home is unfortunate, I hope you stick to your believes in the mean time and hopefully your parents will be convinced before then because you haven't given up and are trying to minimize your meat consumption. Thank you for being so considerate for our planet and other people.

 

[JJJ]

I think I am 90-95% vegetarian. I started with abandoning all regular meat, about 4 years ago I think. I don't remember why exactly, it was in a period when I was very (a little too much even) concerned with 'the world', and wanted to do something to reduce my part of the impact of humanity on the environment. I quit 'normal' meat and switched to organic meat. Then, about 2.5 years years ago I did some jobs in the chicken (meat and eggs) industry. My experiences there gave me the energy to abandon eating meat almost at all. Since then, I never buy meat myself, but when others cook, I still like to join because I like the taste (although I like it less and less, I think).

Right now, my motivations for not eating meat are mostly ainmal welfare, environmental impact and my own health. But in discussions I like to avoid complication by just saying 'for meat, an animal has to be killed that really doesn't want to be killed at all, so for me, it doesn't have to'. It's my feeling that meat just has a very negative 'thing' to it (basically: unvoluntary death, and in case of bio-industry: a lot of suffering), which is enough for me to abandon it. And I think that this is the 'low vibrations' of meat that people mention here.

 

[significationof?!?]

...There isnt enough space or resources for us to keep eating meat in the quantitys we have done up to now...

+100

Seriously, most people can't put aside their comfort to understand "infinite consumption+finite resources=destruction, at one point or another". That goes for meat, but also consumption in general. I hate it when people around me throw (or myself) something to the garbage just because it's old, when it's perfectly functional (pillows, furniture, computer screens, leftovers... just recent examples that made my teeth cringe).

 

[GOD]

The first time i saw that was with people from the war generation . They never threw anything away . I used to think "fuck me they are tight" untill i got a bit older and realised that i`d thrown loads of things away that i could use for something . Things that had parts in them that i could fix things i now have that are broken .

When i wash my hands or apples or anything i always do it so the water flows into a bucket and then use that water to water the plants with or flush the toilet with . I use my bath water to flush the bog with to .

On the extreme side i have a friend who doesnt delete emails . Hes got abot 10 gigs of them on his computer in "C" !!!!!!!

 

[Brugmansia]

I have reduced my overal meat consumption. It's more like once a month now. I do notice a difference, a less 'pressured' attitude. Nipples and the top of my rod are responding more sensitive.

So yeah, meat slightely locks.

I actually had a clear dream in where I felt a piece of meat rotting with my organs in January. It was a sort of calling dream, it was typically unpleasant in a way to shiver me.

 

[significationof?!?]

Hmmm... I wonder, where does the B12 and other vitamins/nutrients in supplements come from? I guess supplementing one's diet with B12 from animal liver kind of defeats the purpose of not eating meat (or eating a small quantity of liver every week).

 

[Forkbender]

It differs. There are vegetarian/vegan supplements. It usually says so on the bottle in which it comes. If it doens't say so, it is probably not veg.

 

[Kevoh]

Same for me, where should mankind get the essential vitamins from when not eating meat? I eat meat just because I like it - no further comments. Though I understand the people who don't eat it hence I can only come up with the argument for not eating it as life is horrible for the animals and such.

I do hunt sometimes with my father in Germany. We 'rent' (don't know the specific word for it in this context) some ground which is like 500hA (approx. 1250 acres) with 7 other hunters from Holland. Many people find this cruel and say mankind shouldn't have the ability to kill animals as only God has. I think this is the life for wild animals as it should be for every other animal, they have a much longer life in free nature and get shot without even knowing they are. But is this off-topic or still in the vegetarian subject?

 

[Forkbender]

Same for me, where should mankind get the essential vitamins from when not eating meat?

Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, oils.

Research has shown that people who eat meat are more often vitamin deficient than people who don't, so I don't really see your point.