Could veggie burgers increase your lifespan? Many experts insist that switching to a vegetarian lifestyle can greatly increase overall health, leading some to ditch their pork rinds like an old smoking habit. Still others swear by an omnivorous diet, saying that occasional New York steak never hurt anyone. Is a fresh helping of tofu just what the doctor ordered, or only a lot of empty calories?
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Alright, here's the rule of thumb:
Whatever the American Health Association, American Cancer Society, FDA and their mother says, do just the oposite and you'll live 20 years more than them.
Hardcore vegetarians miss out on important vitamins and proteins gained from the consumption of meat . Meat is part of a balanced diet . If you go vegetarian (or worse, vegan ), you leave a gaping hole in your food pyramid.
Vegetarians maybe healthier but perhaps not. Vegs make up most of my diet but its supplemented with meats that i have hunted myself 600lbs of elk go along ways but really my main question which is off topic is, do we have enough farmable land to produce the amount needed for the 6 billion people on earth. I dont have a problem with people being vegan or vegetarians exept for the few who feel they hold the moral high ground you dont your simply being an ass no different than relgious people who feel sorry for those who dont follow that religion i have on simple rule that has done me well If your not hurting someone else then you can do as you please.
I'm going to talk about myself in this essay. I'm a vegetarian (ovo-lacto) myself since 2005, and I've been much healthier since I made that decision. I haven't been sick since I stopped eating meat . Of course, I have a healthy diet : I get enough proteins, vitamin B12,... (I know how much I need). On the contrary, a lot of meat eaters get get too much protein, which may cause severe diseases.
My condition is quite good, in my opinion. I regularly climb and a hike a lot. I also run thrice a week. I never had problems doing these activities.
I even know small children (3-5 years old) who have a vegetarian diet, and they are the only children of their class who never become sick. I really don't think this is a coincidence...
I could write some objective information about vegetarianism as well, but other people have already used these arguments, so I'm not going to quote them.
I'm going to talk about myself in this essay. I'm a vegetarian (ovo-lacto) myself since 2005, and I've been much healthier since I made that decision. I haven't been sick since I stopped eating meat . Of course, I have a healthy diet : I get enough proteins, vitamin B12,... (I know how much I need). On the contrary, a lot of meat eaters get get too much protein, which may cause severe diseases.
My condition is quite good, in my opinion. I regularly climb and a hike a lot. I also run thrice a week. I never had problems doing these activities.
I even know small children (3-5 years old) who have a vegetarian diet, and they are the only children of their class who never become sick. I really don't think this is a coincidence...
Some objective information: scientific evidence has shown that the immune system of vegetarians is stronger. Meat eaters have an increased risk of heart disease, cancer , and other diseases. Meat consumption also has an effect on diabetes , arthritis, overweight, asthma, and impotence.
If it is o.k. for people to eat animals , then it is o.k. for animals to eat people. UH OH! I forgot that people are the center of the universe and they are SOOO... special that they think everything on the earth is here for them to use like trash. People do not need meat or dairy products. All people are is selfish and cruel!
"Ultimately, the best reason to be vegan is for the animals . Any health benefits that accrue as a result of that decision should be thought of as a bonus."
It's not necessarily the best reason, depending on what you believe.
Morals differ from man to man. As such, eating meat is wrong to one person while it's God-given to another.
If you're a Christian who believes his Bible more than PETA 's hype, meat eating is acceptable. Jesus ate fish and had to eat the passover lamb to follow Jewish law . In fact, commanding to abstain from meats/ food is considered apostasy. (Get e-sword or some concordance if you want to find sources.)
If you're an Orthodox Jew, it is (or at least was) required that you eat the passover lamb by Jewish law. You cannot be vegetarian and follow that law.
If you're a Hindu, eating meat and killing are an abomination according to the Vedas.
For Buddhists, it depends on the school (some allow eating but not directly killing).
The beliefs became indoctrinated because of indigenous taboos derived from health practices.
Once you understand how trichonosis can be prevented, though, it's ok to eat some pig. Health wise.
I think that vegatarian's in the modern world are typically healthier, because they are health conscious anyway. There are certainly health conscious people with meat in their diet that are just as healthy though.
Another consideration is that many processed foods derive from unhealthy vegetable and unhealthy meat sources, but vegatarians tend to avoid these, as well.
Finally, we should be able to synthesize an ideal diet without animals dieing or the need for inefficent farming, if we wish to survive our technological, overpopulating, adolescence. Meat is very expensive food ecologically and economically.
because there is none. There may be peripheral factors some meat eaters engage in which are putting them at risk. But the science does not support vegetarianism or veganism as a healthier alternative. In fact the case can be made that meat is a necessary part of your diet , and that you can live on it exclusively. Food is a choice. For a long time I wanted to be vegetarian , or even vegan, god forbid, because I had issues with agriculture and saw the PETA videos, and bought into the propaganda that meat was unhealthy. But never did I feel eating meat was inherently wrong. Humans and other animals eat each other and have since time immemorial.
Again, there is no llink between animal products and cancer , stroke, diabetes, cholesterol problems, etc. If you can find it, publish it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jul/01/vegetarians-blood-cancer-diet-risk
Only a few who are well-trained in nutrition and in proper cooking techniques actually live a fairly healthier life. I know at least 1,000 vegetarians who are friends and family members or acquaintances and I can safely say that over half of them don't even look healthy or healthier than meat -eating individuals. It's amazing to see how vegetarians or vegans have this "holier than thou" attitude and they can't even see how sicker and worse they look and/or function compared to most people.
I don't eat meat everyday, and when I do, mainly free range chicken etc. and occasionaly eat steak. I have a Master degree in Nutrition and I know my stuff. I am healthier than a hundred vegetarians that I know in my life. All these discussions about sickness, disease, etc. all of these problems are not caused just by food consumption. Mental health plays a big role. Vaccination with all the lethal and unnecessary ingredients ( http://www.whale.to/vaccines.html ) plus the motive for profits, plays the biggest role in the rise of autoimmune diseases. Also, doctors dispensing ungodly amount of painkillers and drugs to patients that they (supposedly) must take for the rest of their lives (and no long term research to back that up). All of these and more, count for the cause of increase in sickness and lowered health quality. That's why USA is at #37 in the world in healthy quality according to WHO, under some third world countries like Costa Rica.
Both still depend on food choices to determine which is more healthful.
My son and friends are vegetarian. Their idea of vegetarianism was eating no meat and replacing it with junk food. His girlfriend went to the hospital once because of these poor food choices.
Same is true for non-vegetarian too. You can eat lean meats or eat pork rinds all day. It's all about the choices.
As for the question of "Are Vegetarians Healthier?", I don't believe this is true, because eating a vegetarian diet is more difficult to adhere to, many vegetarians lack the proper amount of protein in their diets, and doctor usually tell pregnant woman to eat a traditional diet during the pregnancy. Also, if you eat fish too much, you expose yourself to accumulation of mercury.
In my experience, most of the vegetarians that I know actually experience lower levels of health and prone to illness.
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Fear of death influences our relationship with food. A primary way this occurs is by projecting our fear of death onto animals.
== Killing animals ==
Killing is the only way in which most modern humans acquire food. Scavenging isn't too popular these days. Objections to killing animals have led many to adopt vegetarian diets. Some folks are even trying to figure out how to grow meat in vats.
As an aside, I'm not against vegetarianism, veganism, fruitarianism, or any other crazy-ass diet. If you want to eat some way, eat that way. It does not have to be justified. I think the justifications given for vegetarianism are wrong though. To quickly address justifications not related to killing:
* Animal Cruelty - Eating animals is not synonymous with eating factory farmed meat. I personally avoid factory farmed meat for nutritional reasons and because it's production is unnecessarily cruel. Chucking a spear into a dear or buffalo is not unnecessarily cruel. Nature is no better [1] (and there are reasons for it [2]).
* Nutrition - Historically and anatomically speaking, humans are adapted to eat animals[3]. It's obviously not necessary, but ideal nutrition includes eating animals.
* Sustainability - Eating meat is not sustainable? 6 billion people is not sustainable. Our single species is using 14-26% of the total photosynthetic production of the planet[4]. If everybody eats beans and rice in a state of near-famine, we can support an even larger population. Is that a worthwhile goal?
Most people that consume meat do not kill their own meat. Most people who eat meat have not even seen someone else kill an animal for food. If I were to invite friends over and feed them braised rabbit, most would eat it and (I hope) enjoy it. Were I to mention that before they came over, I took a rabbit, whacked its head with a brick to stun it, cut its jugular, then gutted and skinned it, I would receive shocked looks. The modern food production system has abstracted us away from the concrete experience of killing an animal. Meat does not grow pre-cut in plastic-wrapped styrofoam containers, waiting to be harvested and labeled for sale by Wal-Mart.
One result of this abstraction away from killing is that many people now frown upon hunting. It's ridiculous. Other species hunt. Paleolithic humans and earlier homonids lived as hunter-gatherers. That should be enough to justify hunting as a legitimate part of the human experience. Instead, people sneer at "redneck" hunters as "uncivilized" and then go celebrate "progress" by spending huge portions of their lives at work to earn money to buy hormone-laden, tasteless, nutritionally deficient meat products (not meat, meat products). Just grab some friends, sharpen some sticks, and go kill the damn thing yourself.
Another result of abstraction away from killing is that vegetarianism and veganism have become popular in the last few decades. When killing is not understood to be a part of life, all life—not just human, then one can begin to explore the idea that it is normal to forgo it entirely. There have always been those that eschewed meat for religious reasons, but they were consciously trying to leave everyday experience of the world in search of the "divine". People spurn other forms of religious ascetism because they recognize how neurotic it is. The religious view is just as fucked up in this case.
Speaking of religion, through schooling and everyday experience of the modern world we are inculcated with the idea that humans are somehow different than the rest of the living world. This idea originated in religious traditions—go read Genesis. Our species is the one made in god's image? What hubris. Darwinian evolution is rejected by the Catholic church to this day because it implies that humans are just another animal. What's funny is that even the secular world has adopted it, witness the soccer-moms gossiping about how horrible hunting is. Those who object to meat consumption often brush off other animals doing so stating that it is the carnivore's nature or that it cannot consciously choose, while we can. What arrogance! Perhaps the animals simply eat what works best instead of restricting their diet and then getting their rocks off on a sense of superiority over the rest of existence.
== Killing plants ==
People seem to be very into arbitrary divisions. Humans vs. non-conscious life (Michael Pollan has a good 20 min. talk on this [5]). Plants vs. animals. Many people say I should eat plants and not animals. It's interesting that people believe that plants do not suffer when dying. Perhaps we're just too biologically distant to have our empathy triggered or to project our own fears of death onto an ear of corn or a tomato. Aspargus doesn't scream when you cut off its roots. An blog post worth reading entitled Plants are People, Too[6] at Anthropik discusses biological markers of stress in plants:
Continued (and cites) in sub-comment...
I'm curious where you buy your meat from since you claim you don't eat factory farmed meat.
Carnivorous animals would die if they did not hunt. It is not a matter of what works best, but what works at all.
It is no less absurd to say that being involved in meat production should make the production more acceptable to a person than being involved in abortion should make abortion more acceptable to a person. Some may learn psychological numbing, but others will feel the revulsion more intensely than they would have had they have had they not been involved.
Death may happen, but we must do whatever possible to minimize it.
There is a reason why we believe in retributive punishment for humans but not for animals (I hope you see what that addresses and why).
Plants do not have a brain, a nervous system, or pain receptors, so they can't suffer when someone eats them. I don't feel bad if I eat lettuce, but I would never be able to forgive myself if I ate a steak.
But you don't feel bad that people toiled long hard hours bent over, baking in the heat for very little compensation. Something you would never "lower" yourself to.
So you place the suffering of humans below the suffering of an animal.
Of course I don't feel bad for other human beings! I also don't feel bad for the workers in a chicken factory who are mostly Latin Americans with very little pay or education. They have to work in a blood and excrement-filled factory and repeat the same monotonous task so often that they are in risk of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. I care very much!
I do not think that humans deserve to suffer more than animals do. I am simply choosing between whether a human suffers or a human and an animal suffers. What do you think is the best choice?
I was picking on you... but it is a valid point.
If you want to eat meat, but don't agree with the methods and means (which is my shituation), there are alternatives. Most 4-H animals are raised with love and care. You can eat kosher meat... in which the manner of death is quick and relatively painless. Anyone who's tried to commit suicide via ye old wrist slice will tell you it hurts only for a moment.
If you don't want to eat meat because of the environmental costs associated with it, it would be best if you only ate what seasonally available or you'd be running into the same problems.
If you don't want to eat meat because there's no valid reason at all to eat meat, you don't have to do anything but ensure you're eating the proper amounts of different veggies, nuts, legumes, and beans... and fruit. Maybe take some vitamins...
But despite this, the fact that human beings suffer greatly doesn't go away. I would suggest you work for a summer in a fields and see exactly how back-breaking it is... that you live in housing that's provided and experience the conditions that migrant farm workers live in. Then you might be able to make a better decision as to just kind of suffering I'm talking about. There is a very real fight going on in this country that most people know nothing about. Child labour, abuse, degradation... people simply buy their vegetables and think nothing of it. You live in Oregon... how many tomatoes are growing right now? It's winter... that's right. Tomatoes don't grow in the winter. Where did they come from, then? Where does your food come from and do you know that there is no suffering of humans? Does it make okay to eat what you're eating because an animal isn't dying? Are you satisfied with your choice of promoting the abuse and suffering of humans to suit your high level of vegetable consumption? If everyone were to stop eating meat, imagine the demands on the farming industry.
Eating vegetables is something everyone should do, but just because the cabbage doesn't suffer doesn't mean there are no problems associated with being complete vegetarian; or that there is no suffering involved. Neither does ignoring the problems make them go away.
That's all I'm saying.
Please believe me - slashing your wrists does NOT hurt for just a second. But let's focus on the animals instead of my messed-up life.
I am vegan because I don't just have a problem with the way that animals are treated in meat, dairy, and egg farms, I have a problem with the fact that animals are being killed for food. I don't really care if the steak on my plate had a happy life once, it is still a piece of flesh off of a corpse and I helped kill a living, pain-feeling being for almost no reason at all. Not eating meat does help the environment and your health, but even if there were absolutely no benefit to the planet or me from going vegan, I still wouldn't eat animal problems because I believe that it is morally wrong. (For more information please go to: http://www.goveg.com/theissues.asp )
I'm not trying to ignore the problem, I'm just trying to fix what I can. I can't do anything about child labor and exploitation; as much as I would like to help, I am thirteen. I don't think that anyone would take me seriously. If you can think of a way that doesn't involve killing something to help stop human suffering, by all means let me know.
You're better suited than anyone else then. Those are you peers. There are kids your age out there who are picking the vegetables YOU eat, bent over for hours and hours and yours. You're old enough to do it, go out and do it this summer. Tell you mom you want to know where your food really comes from. I don't think you really have any idea.
And obviously, you didn't do it right if it hurt for more than 5 seconds.
Is it morally wrong for the wolf to eat the caribou? For the bear to eat the salmon? The crow to eat the bug? Or are they eating what is available to them?
The only way that you can truly eat morally is to eat what is available to you at the time and to grow your own food in the summer. But if you want to ignore that, go right ahead. It won't change the fact that you're ignoring the moral implications of eating only vegetables all the time simply because you want to.
I have venison in the crock pot that I killed. It died in 5 seconds. Unlike the veggies in there with it, the suffering of that animal is nothing compared to the suffering inflicted upon the humans who gathered them, nor the gas that burnt to ship them here, nor the cost. But believe what you want to, simply because it suits your ideals to do so. Morals be damned. There's only comparatives anyway.
You should not be discussing other animals . They do not have the capacity to make moral decisions. So, in that sense, our actions cannot be categorized as "natural."
Carnivores must kill to live. Humans need not do so.
The answer is not to eat meat , but to improve conditions for workers.
Also remember that gathering vegetables provides employment, which the workers need.
so you're saying that having a system by which to judge the necessity or relevancy of actions or inactions is not natural?
and you are wrong.... animals follow moral codes of behavior. bet you didn't know that. some animals, in fact, ignore that moral code... and do so knowingly.
in fact, it's a general consensus that some kind of morality is indeed embedded into our genetic code. (obviously... if you're charles manson and co., or the like, something went wrong.)
......also remember that raising animals, and the slaughter of animals, and the shipping of animals, and the butchering and everything else also provide employment. which workers need. so that's a moot point.
so why don't you try finding a real argument as to why people should do what is completely unnatural by eating only vegetable foods that are out of season where they live instead of eating what is available and sustainable?
unless you think it natural to have oranges in february. and all manner of legumes, lettuce, avocados, etcetera etcetera etcetera.
now if your'e argument against eating meat is the treatment of animals, you should go to farmsanctuary and sign the petitions they have. i've already done it. i see no reason why animals should not have led decent lives before being killed for consumption (rather than rotting away slowly like the rest of us).
Do we really need to eat a lot of meat? I think you killing your own meat is what's best: instead of having it mass produced and eating large amounts of it without effort and without thinking about the animal. We don't need as much meat as we eat in America, there's no reason besides personal laziness and greed to have this much meat.
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Researchers have even discovered the chemical markers of stress in plants, just like they have identified the chemical markers of stress in humans. Such evidence suggests that plants might even experience some analogue of emotion.
> Koussevitzky, looking at the end of the signaling pathway, found the
> corresponding binding factor known that ABI4, a known plant transcription
> factor. It prevents light-induced regulatory factors from activating gene
> expression. Additional work in the project had determined that the
> chloroplast-localized, nuclear-encoded protein GUN1 is required for
> integrating multiple stress-derived signals within the chloroplast. This
> work was conducted by the first co-author of the article, Ajit Nott, who
> was a research associate in Dr. Chory’s lab.
> Many of the nuclear genes that encode chloroplast proteins are regulated by
> a “master switch” in response to environmental conditions. This “master
> switch,” like a binary computer, can activate or de-activate certain sets
> of genes based on stress signaling processes.
> “One of our suggestions in the paper is that ABI4 seems like a prime
> candidate to be the ‘master switch,’” Koussevitzky said. “ABI4 binds to a
> newly identified sequence motif, and by doing so prevents light-induced
> regulatory factors from activating gene expression. It has a role in so
> many signaling processes in the plant, it might actually be the ‘master
> switch’ that researchers have been looking for.” (Trent, 2007)
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Plants might even experience some analog of emotion? How could they not? Every organism that responds to the outside world occupies a certain perceptual universe, an umwelt[7]. This umwelt combines sensory experiences pertinent to the organism's survival and reproduction with the salience of the perception to produce "the world" for that animal. If plant cells are producing chemical stress signals then they occupy an umwelt as surely as humans do.
== Recoil ==
Humans started large scale agriculture with cereal-grain monocropping to ensure a regular food supply. It also enables vegetarianism, which is calorically infeasible without the carbohydrates available from processed grains. If energy is not obtained from carbohydrates, which are relatively scarce in nature, it must be obtained from fat. No contemporary hunter-gatherer group has been found with a diet free of all animal products.
The back breaking labor agriculture requires of farmers took a great toll on them historically (we currently use fossil-fuels to avoid this). Cereal-grains are also a poor nutritional staple[8] further weakening them (and us). Large scale agriculture also depletes soil nutrients[9] so that our descendants will have trouble feeding themselves.
1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/12/indonesia
2. http://www.reddit.com/info/6ndbr/comments/c04cr9n
3. http://www.beyondveg.com/cordain-l/metab-carn/metabolic-carnivory-1a.shtml
4. http://www.worldwildlife.org/science/pubs/imhoff_nature.pdf
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQPN1O03z8I&feature=related
6. http://anthropik.com/2007/08/plants-are-people-too /
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umwelt
8. http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/Cereal %20article.pdf
9. http://www.ifpri.org/2020/BRIEFS/number62.htm
More info on the subject - live discussion on KPFA Berkeley:
Plant Based Diets
Many famous food writers these days advise us to eat mostly plants. It sounds so healthy and ecologically responsible. But is it? Ecologically, like every other creature on the planet, plants have ways of protecting themselves: phytates, lectins, soyatoxins, saponins, oxylates, salicylates, goitrogens, oligosaccharides, phytoestrogens, and even insoluble fiber. Each of these disrupts the health of plant predators in its own distinct way in order to preserve the plants species. So when we humans eat plants, we are plant predators. And the plants fight back. Ironically, our own natural, countervailing protection against these substances is a balanced, omnivorous diet and proper preparation of plant foods.
This week Layna talks with nutritionist Kaayla Daniel, PhD, author of The Whole Soy Story, about the popular idea that a mostly plant based diet is healthier.
Date and Time Your Own Health And Fitness broadcasts Tuesdays at 1pm on KPFA 94.1FM Berkeley and on KFCF 88.1FM Fresno. We broadcast from other stations throughout the week. Check our list of stations that carry the show for other dates and times.
besides killing each other, animals in the wild also have sex without asking, urinate and defecate wherever they are standing, don't wear clothes, don't have jobs , and any number of things that would looked down upon should we as humans follow their lead.
Significant grain consumption is not necessary for vegetarianism . It would be hard to do without beans, but beans can replenish the soil. Olives, nuts, avocadoes, etc. can provide tons of fat.
The science about so-called plant sentience is simply not credible. They have nothing remotely resembling a nervous system. Stress chemicals are not relevant, since any cell would show some signs of stress.
Are you planning to start working on how to develop grass anesthesia for mowing lawns?
I have been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for almost 20 years, am raising my children as vegetarian, my son is 10 and has never eaten meat. I feel that it is a healthier diet and better for the environment and most certainly, the animals.
You're taking advantage of the child 's inability to make this sort of decision themselves. You should at least allow your son to taste red meat , and then allow him to make the decision himself. If he chooses to stay vegetarian , so much the better for you. If he decides not to, you should respect his decision.
That's really cool that your son has never eaten meat. My parents were vegetarians , but my mom started letting me eat meat. I didn't know any better back when I was three, but now I still feel very guilty about ever eating it.
Depends on what you eat either way I guess.
You could eat tofu and live an additional ten years but that's just ten more years of eating tofu.....
just try the baked tofu. the spongy white stuff is no good.
When a brightly-colored goldfinch comes to the birdfeeder, we may admire him, we may vicariously sense his contentment, we may be happy for him. We would make an effort to avoid hitting him when driving, and would feel awful if we harmed him. This is our natural state of being.
When we see a ripe apple on the tree, it sure looks good.
When we see roadkill, we may feel a sick. But a plump red tomato on the vine, ready to fall off, is almost irresistable.
As children, our friends included stuffed animals, and we had affection for cartoon or storybook animals. We may have pulled doggy's tail occasionally, but we more likely cried uncontrollably when the family pet died.
Our innate senses are not carnivorous; they are the opposite.
We have a natural affinity toward other sentient beings. We sense that their joy and pain is similar to our joy and pain, which forms a basis for empathy.
But unfortunately we have the capacity to harden our hearts in order to engage in selfish exploitations. We've done this with human as well as animal victims.
We invent all manner of self-serving, psuedo-religious and psuedo-philosophical reasons for oppressing others - human and non-human. We dumb our victims down and speak of them as an aggregate. We develop ceremonies and build institutions to distance ourselves from the atrocities we commit, and to give them an appearance of legitimacy. We've done this throughout recorded history, and probably long before.
One may as well claim we've evolved as war-mongers, therefore we ought to keep on waging war.
We have a frightening capability to rationalize, and get used to virtually any form of cruelty from which we derive some pleasure, no matter how superficial or indulgent or ill-gotten. But in our heart of hearts we want to be peaceful and kind to others - human and non-human. When we're kind to animals, our conscience knows we did the right thing. We can fulfill that inner longing, which is resonant with our deepest moral principles, and which brings steadfast and radiant peace, by evolving to a vegan diet, and by looking for and thus finding additional ways in which to exist in harmony, humbly, non-violently with other creatures.