Should We Eat Meat?

Should We Eat Meat?

Thanksgiving arrives every year with a heated debate over how to best cook that plump and juicy turkey. But the idea of a tofu turkey (also known as a “tofurkey”) has gone from a joke a couple years ago to a reality for many. While vegetarianism has been practiced for over a thousand years in some countries, it is a relatively new concept in the West. And so, with the question cropping up more and more often, should we eat meat?

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You are seeing 8 Comments on this Argument. See all 665 Comments on this Question.
Regarding Argument
It’s Nutritious (and Delicious!)
- From Consumer Freedom
Yes Side
By The Center for Consumer Freedom - Promoting Personal Responsibility
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Regarding Objection
Meat Is A Sickening Food: There Are Tasty Alternatives
- From PETA
No Side
By PETA - People for Ethical Treatment of Animals
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  • ElaineVigneault
    Mock meat tastes just like meat!

    A recent study showed many people believe fake meat is actually real. It tastes that good:
    "69% of the participants believed that the vegetarian sausage roll was in fact meat, compared to 37% for the nutmeat sauce and 37% for the hotdog." source:
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/4015305/The-Interactive-Effect-of-Cultural-Symbols-and-Human-Values-on-Taste-Evaluation

    - ElaineVigneaultUS September 1, 2008 7:04PM

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    • speedplane
      Sausage Roll, Hotdogs, Meat Sauce????

      Come on... a sausage roll is not exactly the meat industry's flagship product. The fact that participants who ate hotdogs, which are one of the least tasty meat products, were able to get it right 63% of the time does not bode well for your argument.

      Try doing the test with a medium rare porterhouse steak and I'm sure the probability will go down to zero.

      I'm with PETA on all of their arguments except for taste... if you can fix that then I'll be a vegetarian the next day.

      - speedplaneUS November 7, 2008 11:39AM

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  • PhilyG
    What's the Trade Off?

    I find it hard to believe that even if there are any serious health risks to eating meat, how serious are they that I am to sacrifice pleasure and satisfaction for a couple more years of life later on? I doubt that there is any unavoidable serious detriment to your health involved with eating meat that would add any more than maybe 5 years of life to you. I'd rather have a slightly shorter lifetime of enjoying hamburgers, steaks, bacon, and all the rest than eating purely vegetables, fruits, and meat imitators for the rest of my life. Plus, if we were to stop killing all animals, they would start dying of starvation and other more painful deaths from predators due to overpopulation.

    - PhilyGUS January 30, 2009 1:34AM

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    • Hal 84
      Hidden Danger for Vegans

      Since many vegetarians are female and approaching child bearing age, there is another serious consideration generally overlooked by them. That is that these gals may end up pregnant thereby having the obligation to provide nourishment to the developing fetus.

      It is much more difficult to provide *all* the nutrition desirable to the building of a healthy new life when the nutritional choices are narrowed to exclude meat and related products.

      Many of the young teens switch to vegetarianism after their bodies were adequately nourished by a complete diet by their mothers and often they will have had several years before becoming teens when they themselves have had the benefits of a well rounded diet before they were "talked into" becoming vegetarians- but now they approach the child bearing age with no thought as to whether their bodies are well nourished, complete, ready for the task of nurturing a fetus.

      I have personally observed what my two vegetarian granddaughters eat and it is certainly far short of being nutritious.

      In their efforts to avoid meat they end up instead eating empty caloried carbohydrates with various sauces added to reduce blandness. Junk food makes the entire dietary intake! Goats even eat better when having kids!

      One of the best things that cold be done for these kind of gals is to put them on continuous or permanent birth control.

      Hal 84

      - Hal 84US January 30, 2009 1:35PM

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      • Desert Girl
        Vegan Diet Endorsed by World Health Org

        Hi Hal,

        Whether someone is a vegan or an omnivore, a junk food diet is bad for the body, disease causing and nutritionally inadequate. Coca Cola and deep fried food can be all vegan, but it's terrible food. No one could live on that without getting sick. A healthy vegan diet is more than possible and is endorsed by the World Health Organisation (remember it's very conservative). There is no nutrient that cannot be met on an all-plant diet. While it is commonly assumed that vegetarians must be more prone to aenemia, the facts reveal that vegans and vegetarians do not get aenemia any more than meat eaters. It's a myth.

        Think about this one... where do you think gorillas get their iron and protein from? Leaves! They're vegans. And so are the largest and strongest animals on Earth -elephants, giraffs, buffalos, hippos. Herbivores also far outlive carnivores. Did u know that the Guinness book of world records longest living dog at 27 years old is a pure vegan? But they're not humans I hear u say? Well the longest lived people in the world consume a plant based diet. Read about these amazing people in Healthy At 100 by John Robbins.

        I am 32 and have been a vegan for 12 years as has my husband also. We have 2 bouncy healthy little boys. We even have two healthy vegan husky dogs whose diet is nutritionally complete for dog requirements. That way no animals have to suffer and die in order for our animals to live. My pregnancies were normal and healthy. I have had blood tests every couple of years (just to satisfy my worried Nanna), and every time my iron is normal, my B12 is normal, folate is excellent, calcium normal, my cholesterol is always low (I do not eat one single thing with any cholesterol in it! My body manufactures its own cholesterol). Our family are all healthy. AND I'm a fitness instructor! I pump weights! One of the benefits of vegan diets is the ENERGY!

        Veganism is our way of practicing non-violence. Watch the film Earthlings to see exactly what happens to animals in order to become food. www.earthlings.com . I wouldn't eat a human, and I wouldn't eat any other species either. We all feel just as much pain.

        Also our family of six save 9 tonnes of carbon emmissions on a vegan diet every year. That's more than if we switched our family car for a Prius which only saves one tonne a year. Livestock production (including dairy and eggs) contribute more to global warming than all the cars, ships, trains and planes of the world put together. 95% of the Amazon is being destroyed (adding to more global warming and species loss) for meat and dairy production through grazing and crops to feed animals in feedlots in the US. This is far too great a cost just for a mere taste sensation. There are other ways to enjoy food without destroying the Earth or killing living, feeling beings.

        Thanks for listening...

        - Desert GirlAU January 31, 2009 8:38PM

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