When did the food chain become a morality debate?!


Question: When did the food chain become a morality debate!?
I understand everyones right to an opinion!. What I don't understand are the people who are hopping onto a vegan bandwagon claiming it to be immoral to eat meat!. Watch animal planet its natural for carnivorous animals to eat meat!. Humans are omnivores therefore biologically inclined (and nutritionally required) to eat both plants AND animals!. Where does the morality debate come from!? Are vegans suggesting that the natural progression of the life cycle is immoral!? I'm not suggesting we all run around wearing fur or mistreating animals but come on!. Cows are delicous!.Www@FoodAQ@Com


Answers:
It became a morality issue the minute some bright spark decided they thought that animals are people too!.
Divvies
A balanced diet is a prerequisite for a healthy body!.
Did anyone ever see a vegan that was well nourished!?
No,me too!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

Don't worry!. The food chain won't be a morallity debate in the near future!. It will be an environmental debate soon!. You can not keep expanding the world population and have the food chain stay the same!. You can not let a cow that eats as much as a family of five for a whole year, turn around and feed the family of five for only half a year! Infrastructure is already starting to crumble!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

If you understand everyones right to have an opinion then why are you here NOT asking a question but instead trying to be argumentative!?

What exactly makes you a professor of nutrition anyway!? Your opinion!?!? Wild animals hunt and kill to survive!.!.do you!? When was the last time you pounced on a cow and tore it's flesh away!? If it's so natural!.!.!.get out there!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religious writings from India thousands of years ago!. Greek philosopher Pythagoras also wrote about it thousands of years ago!. It's a pretty old bandwagon!.

"Natural" is a silly argument!. If you want to be "natural" don't use a computer!.

Meat is not nutritionally required according to my the American Dietetic Association!. My wife is a Registered Dietitian and vegetarian; what are your qualifications!?

Any human being is free to make any moral or philosophical argument they want to make!.

What foods are "delicious" is determined by cultural and individual factors!. I don't have to agree with you!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

There's a whole lot of preachiness going on these days!. Some of it comes from people who are genuinely concerned about the issue and some who find it an easy way to look better than someone else!. It is completely natural for us to be able to eat meat as we are able to chew it and digest it!. La Vie Boheme: there are many behaviors and neccessities we have that mirror other animals but since we are humans, we have to carry them out differently!. I nursed my children but I didn't do it laying down on the ground w/their claws kneading my skin (i!.e!. kittens, puppies, etc!.!.!.!.)Www@FoodAQ@Com

It's not nutritionally required, half of us have been vegan/vegetarian for years, and if that was the case we!.!.!. wouldn't be here riht now!. And I beleive it's called ANIMAL PLANET!. ANIMALS kill to survive!. HUMANS do it because of the taste like you said 'cows are delicious'!.You do not need to eat meat!. It's bad for you and is one of the number one causes of heart disease!. So, come on, stop telling us about things you don't even understand, and quit being so narrow-minded!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

Do you question other moral beliefs!? Do you question:

Christians!? Jews!? Hindus!? Muslims!?

Are you aware of the environmental issues in a meat based diet!?

Do you know that we as a world eat far to much protein!?

Would you cook a cat, dog or horse!?

Stay out of others lives!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

What you DON'T understand is that lions and wild dogs on animal planet, kill and eat for survival!. Humans do not require meat, my living breathing body is testament to that!. You can ask your dentist and he will tell you that your teeth are deigned to eat plants and occasionally meat when required!. Take a look at pandas!. They are famous for being veggies, yet they have canine teeth so that when humans gather up their bamboo to make table mats, the can eat small animals!. You can also ask your doctor and he'll tell you that your stomach struggles everyday to digest meat!. In fact your stomach cannot digest raw meat!. Now ask yourself, what came first, the descovery of fire or humanity!? If you were to be dropped naked into the jungle, you'd be eating plants, trust me!. Your body is not strong enough to kill and eat a pig!.
also the way a predator in the wild goes about eating other animals is that he/she finds and kills the creatures he needs and then leaves them alone!. We have gathered them up and made it so that their only purpose in life is to be slaves to the benefit of selfish human taste buds!. "Cows are delicious" don't pretend to be so stupid that you think that is the point of the whole thing!. Delicious or not it is a selfish/ignorant choice!.

also, check out the Vegan keyboard player from the band Emery!. Fat Vegan!. and there is Clint Eastwood and Woody Harrelson!. And Spiderman!.
In America to day, the last thing you need to worry about is weighing to little!.

EDIT- And what about Ricky Williams of the Miami Dophins!? He is a vegan!. If you don't know him, check this out http://pnogal32!.files!.wordpress!.com/2008!.!.!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

I have two answers to this question, and I actually do think this question is legitimate because, being vegan, I have many people ask me the same thing!. First, as others have said, animals on Animal Planet eat other animals to survive!. If we still did not have access to grains, beans, vegetables, fruits, etc!. then I would agree that we should eat meat to survive!. However, we can be just as healthy if not more on a vegan diet now (I could go into a long explanation about why this is true but I won't get into that) so it is not necessary for us to eat meat!. I agree that humans are at the top of the food chain--we are the most complex, intelligent, etc of living creatures--but that does not mean that the lower tiers lack rights!.
Second, the key way humans and animals differ in eating meat is the way the animals being killed were treated when they were alive!. In the wild, until death animals lead a healthy, active, and, most important, natural life!. However, humans keep the animals they are going to later consume trapped on farms or, worse, factory farms, where conditions can be anywhere from sub-par to abhorrent!. I will not go into the details of torture on factory farms; I will only say that eating meat would not be nearly as, in my opinion, horrible if animals were killed as they are in the wild!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

You're correct that many veg folks are preachy, but it's more than a bit preachy of you to make it seem like all of us are!. Most of my family eats meat, and I willingly cook it for them!. It doesn't bother me!. I understand that humans are naturally omnivores, and inclined to eat some meat!. I'll even say that those referencing other primates in their answers haven't done the research on evolution!. It suggests that our shift into eating smaller animals rather than just "the occasional insect" was largely responsible for the devlopment of brains that allow us to even debate this issue!. Most intelligent vegetarians I know in real life also understand this!. You, however, are misinformed in believing that being an omnivore means we are nutritionally REQUIRED to eat animals!. That's absolutely wrong!. There's nothing an omnivore gets from meat they can't get just as easily from plants!. The current longest lived dog, a 30 something year old golden retriever, is a lifelong vegetarian!.

I used to eat meat, but chose to stop, not because I believe that eating meat is wrong, but because for as long as I could remember, I'd feel literally ill if I thought about what I was eating when it was meat!. Cows are delicious!. They're also beautiful and loving!. If they weren't so filthy and huge, they'd make great pets!. I'd much rather play with them than eat them!. That's why it doesn't work in my head for me to eat meat!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

for me it came from seeing how the animals are treated when becomming "food"!.
another reason was that when we were cavemen we did not eat meat!. another reason is because humans think that we are at the top of the food chain in reality we are not!.
its everyones diff opinion!.
if you are christian and are a vegetrain/vegan i would look at it as not wanting to eat gods children because if you believe in being christian then techinicly god created everything so you would be eating your brothers,siters, cousins ect!.

if you are not i would think if it as if there were a higher species then humans would it be ok for them to harvest us in cruel ways for food!?
i dont think so but maybe you do!.
its all in different opinions!.
mines not to eat creatures that should have had excellent lives and then were killed or our taste buds!. expecially when people eat lamb or veal it just disgusts me, because those baby animals could have had great lives if everyone were veg*n!.
i believe that in a decade or so we will all be veg*n because loook at everyone whose already become one! and the books written about it being better for you, and the restaurants that knew they had to start having some veg*n foods because lots of people are changing! not to mention the dieses you can get from eating meat:
E coli, diabetes, cancer, hypertension, salmonela,ect!

that is why i am a vegetarian!.
i am going vegan soon but i'm only 13 so i still need to drink milk and eat eggs ect!.

ps!. this was an unbellieveably stupid question get your head back down to earth and figure out why we fighht for this if you couln't figure it out its because we want to save the lives of animals that dont want to be slaughtered and before that seen there families salughtered in cruel ways! and sometimes even tortured before!Www@FoodAQ@Com

"Humans are !.!.!. nutritionally required to eat both plants AND animals" - you've obviously never done any research on diet and nutrition if you can come up with that fallacy!.

If that WAS the case, I (along with several other regulars in this forum) would have been dead from malnutrition over three decades ago!. My own mother would have died before she was 10 - instead she is still going strong at 75!.

Humans do NOT have to eat animals (unless they're living in polar regions and there are no plants there to eat)!.

And "biologically inclined"!? WTF!? I don't know where you got that crap from!. If anything, we're biologically inclined to be primarily vegetarian, as all the other primates are, and they only ever stray outside strict vegetarianism by supplementing their diets with, at worst, the occasional insect!.

Oh, and "cows" (I really think you meant the broader term "cattle", as the ones that are most commonly eaten by non-veg*ns, such as yourself, are the neutered males a!.k!.a!. oxen a!.k!.a!. steers a!.k!.a!. bullocks) are NOT delicious!. They are cute to some degree, but they are also injected with hormones to make them grow faster, not to mention all the highly "delicious" belching, farting and bullsh*tting that they do (hmmmm !.!.!. sounds quite like some humans that I know - you should try eating them instead!)!.

Morality is just as valid a reason for being a veg*n as health, environmental concerns, religion, philosophy, ethics, animal-loving, taste, etc!. etc!. are!. Most veg*ns are probably, like myself, veg*ns for a combination of those possible reasons, not just the one!.

Thanks for your "question" (more of a rant, actually) and for the 2 points!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

Cows are cute, not delicious!. The only reason we fight about this is because people like you come here and say that humans are on top of the food chain, when in reality, we are not; we wouldn't last a day in the wild without tools!. I bet you're sharp canine teeth and those mighty claws of yours could also tear into a cow, huh!?

If we were nutritionally required to eat meat, I'd be dead!. I am so much healthier now, then I ever was, and I feel great!. AND the only reason we are capable of eating meat is for survival situations (when there is nothing else available) You also know that meat (especially that delicious cow) causes heart problems, too!? Yea, you know everything, of course!

This is a rant disguised as a question!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

my reasons for being a vegetarian are mostly religious!.!.!.!.morality comes into play as well, but religion is the main reason!. do you feel like making me defend that, too!?
as a chef you should know that people have different preferences for what they choose to eat!. i prefer not to eat mushrooms!. others prefer not to eat onions!. why the heck do you care if people prefer not to eat meat!?! i'm sorry, but this isn't really even a question!.!.!.!.!.you obviously just wanted to rant!. in case you do feel that i need to defend my stance on religious and moral grounds, here is why I'm a vegetarian:

Jesus taught about love for others, compassion, and mercy!. Personally, I don't think Jesus ate meat!. The only support for his eating meat comes from assumptions based on the fact that He was Jewish!.!.!.but being Jewish doesn't demand the consumption of meat, it only restricts what meats can be consumed!. He could have easily chosen not to eat those things!. No verse in the Bible specifically states that He ate meat!. Think about what you know about Jesus, think about what He taught His followers!.!.!.!.do you really think that killing another living being for His own benefit would have been in line with Jesus's teachings!? I simply cannot fathom that someone who would give their life to save all of us would find it right to kill other animals when it isn't necessary to live!. Even if the Bible tells us that we CAN eat meat, it doesn't say that we HAVE to!. I think it's very likely that Jesus would have chosen not to consume the flesh of another living, feeling being that was a loving creation of His Father!. I try my best to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and I think that being a vegetarian is a great way to exhibit the kindness and compassion that He taught of!.

Besides!.!.!.!.!.the Bible says "Thou shalt not kill"!.!.!.!.!.!.!.not "Thou shalt not kill other humans!." God only gave humans the permission to eat meat after the flood because there was no vegetation!. Even then He said that it would have to be free of blood and that eating animals would cause them to fear us and attack us!. Think about it!.!.!.!.before the flood everyone MUST have been vegetarian!.!.!.!.if people and animals were all eating each other, how would they have been able to stay on an arc together without mass slaughter!? Doesn't make sense, does it!? If you read Genesis 9, you will see all of this play out!.

also, think about the Lord's Prayer!.!.!.part of it is:
"Thy kingdome come, Thy will be done
on Earth as it is in Heaven!."
There is no killing in Heaven, as the lion will lay with the lamb!. If we are supposed to be doing God's will as it is in Heaven, we should do no killing of living beings either!. Just a thought!. =)

I really don't care whether you are a Christian or even believe in God!.!.!.!.but you asked why it's a moral debate and that's my reason, take it or leave it!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

It became this way because too many people have too much time on their hands and have too little sense of reality!.Www@FoodAQ@Com

fully agree, there is nothing better than to sink your teeth into a nice juicy steak!. or a hamburger!.Www@FoodAQ@Com





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