SxE, Vegetarianism, Veganism

I'm a vegetarian and I drink beer very (too) much
I think that SxE is a good choice too, but I'm too weak to be sober all the time.

 

this is a completely different situation in a moment like this you handle on instinct plus the chance that the terrier can save itself is a lot bigger than the chance the baby can so this statement is completely irrelevant

and about the "human rights first" thing going vegan/vegetarian does help humans too study's show that the food a pig gets the 3 months it lives is enough to feed an American family (and the eat 2 time more than the average European and three times the average African family) for a year so to stop eating meat would really help stop world hunger (of course we would need to be able to share which I found out is hard for a lot of people)

but anyway I'm certainly not sXe just love beer and scotch too much I don't smoke never had the need to but I do smoke hasj and weed (I mean come on I'm from Holland) but not too often I like to keep it fun one spliff a week is more than enough for me so not a huge stoner

I have started going vegetarian (put a lot of thought in it and I just feel like too much of a hypocrite eating meat) very recently just need to get rid of my leathers first to really be able to call myself a vegetarian but I will wait with selling my jacket until after winter so I don't need to buy a new winter coat too soon right now I'm saving up for vegetarian boots (my docs are starting to get holes in em anyway) and I still live with my parents and they pay for my food so meat replacements are not really that hard to get by but I have stopped eating meat since last Thursday I think and I'm feeling really good about it but if anyone has got any tips I would appreciate


nutz

 

To Vegans and Vegetarians

Vegetarians:
Firstly, I understand you don't like the meat industry, but what is the point of being a vegetarian if your gonna consume everything else, such as dairy ( equally as cruel) and gmo food that benefits the same companies that farm animals for killing?

Vegans:
Same thing, I don't see the point in being a vegan if your gonna consume goods from the same corporations that just isn't meat or dairy?

Do any of you actually eat compltely organic or local food? And if so, aren't you just spending more money and giving it to greedy corporations such as Whole Foods ( that still sell conventional foods), or trader joes or whatever>

I just don't see how changing your diet can make a change. Please elaborate.

 

Re: To Vegans and Vegetarians

You spend money buying meat from the bloody meat industry, so you are a hypocrite.

 

Re: To Vegans and Vegetarians

Not to mention how many own pets. Buying pet food still counts as supporting the industry.

Don't bother trying to point out the inconsistencies in the logic of idealists though. As far as people who actually believe their diet/consumption has any effect (or worse: counter-acting) a system they are so blindly vocal about, instead of a humble philosophical belief, you might as well talk to a brick wall.

 

Re: To Vegans and Vegetarians

i think it's a little bit difficult if you are past this point pf "omgz me can't eatz cute animals", and you actually start to think about it.
as you already mentioned, it's all about source of the products, at least thats what i think.
like, i'm at this point vegetarian for not even one year (!), but this "local vegetarian"-attitude makes more sense to me than any vegan diet (this means vegetarian diet, but only from locals, where you actually KNOW the chickens/cows where the milk/eggs come from, KNOWING that the animals don't suffer but living in kind of symbiosis with the humans (eggs/milk for shelter/protection/good food/and so on), because you've seen it).
there are also some other points besides supporting big corporations (as you already mentioned, supporting the corps by buying other things is not that well-thought-of...). for example: me living in germany, i know a LOT of vegans that buy soj-products, as well from the supermarket, as from an internetz-source called "vegan wonderland". most of this soj is not produced in germany itself, but far away in serbia, which equals lots of transport costs AND tons of CO2 emitted, polluting planet earth. so, what's better now: milk from the local cow or vegan milk from 1000 kilometers away?

on the other hand: IF da people on this giant blue ball won't eat meat (and other animal products) that require BIG FARMS/FACTORIES to be produced, more peoplez could be feed (i bet anyone knows this calculations about 1 kilo meat needing x kilos of grain to be produced), or, if not more, they could be feed without (or close to without) exploiting da ecosystem earth further.

if you take into consideration these eco-facts, let alone changing the needs, the products that are bought (less meat, more vegs...) would not destroy the company, but would require it to change it's product scale as well (less meat, more vegs...).

at last, there is this moral pointz. u don't harm da fluffy animals, so u are better than peoplez who does! (is actually not THAT stupid, but some people think this way...)

the easiest way to get "ethically responsible (lack of better words, sorry) food" is 1)grow it yourself, 2)farming collectives 3)not-commercial agriculture (not sure if this is known at all, this pretty much about people working together with a farmer, calculating the required vegs for each season, supplying the farmer with the money to produce it, getting vegs later (sorry for this horrible explanation)), or CSA (community supported agriculture, note that everything i know about this is german sources only, i don't know if there are valid english sources as well!).
pretty sure there are more things to do to survive while not supporting corporations

 

Re: To Vegans and Vegetarians

However, I will say that changing your diet to local produce DOES make a difference. Not so much in bringing down an industry, but in building up a consumer base for a truly just food source. Its not about being anti- that as it is being pro- this.

 

Re: To Vegans and Vegetarians

If a food company see that they are selling less meat then they will produce less meat so, surely, if alot of people only ate vegetarian or vegan products, they will review their sales figures and make necessary changes. I'm not even a strict vegetarian, mind, nor am I a vegetarian for any sort of moral reason, I just don't like meat all that much and most of the places I hang out serve really good vegan and vegetarian food. Regardless, I think that is the reasoning.

 

Re: To Vegans and Vegetarians

That grain statistic is pretty bogus. Its only relevant to factory farming, a process only practiced in super-decadent countries like the USA. Cows don't eat grain, they eat grass. Also, you can't just feed people grain on an all veg diet. They would have to produce a million more of everything else to compensate for the lack of meat. No math on that yet as far as I know.

Point is, factory farms are wrong on a 100 levels. Its only done so you can afford to eat half of a $1.00 cheeseburger and then toss it.

I am a reduce-itarian. I only eat local free range once a day, maybe every two days. Meat NEEDS to be more expensive, to prevent the animals from being commodified.

 

sadly it's far from being bogus just because it is relevant to industrial stock farming - practiced as the standard mood of food production actually in every industrialized country and the majority of so-called emerging countries, including state capitalist china, north korea and vietnam.
it's not only cows and some other species of horned cattle like sheep and goats (according to local demands), even more important is the factory farming of pigs and poultry and most of these animals never see the sun, breath fresh air not to mention they hardly ever set a foot or hoof on grass.
for profits they are raised in the shortest time possible/the most rational mood of production and to achieve this, concentrated feed is the general standard:
a menage of grain, soja and maize, potatoes and dried sugar beet pulp, fish and meat meal (BSE scandal in england!!!), milk and dairy products, minerals and products for the preservation and storage of such feedingstuffs in feed silos, the mess is high on protein to build up the carcase weight fast, but low on bulky or high-fibre/coarse fodder which would satisfy the natural hunger and the need to chew for the animals, kept almost in static with nothing else to do except to eat and shit.
in the western united states 80% of stream and riparian habitats have been negatively impacted by factory farming livestock. This has resulted in increased phosphates, nitrates, decreased dissolved oxygen, increased temperature, turbidity, and eutrophication events, and reduced species diversity. many regions in middle europe had to insert UV-irradiation facilities to reduce the bacterial contamination of waste water caused by high level accumulation of phosphates produced by lifestock and agro-fertilization.
the maize- and soja-production of the americas is almost entirely feed to animals, the same goes for the east asian states and the ratio describing the balance between expenses or efford and output/the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production, range from a 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1 - the calculation in kilogram is very difficult because of local differences of seperate markets and productions.
animals fed on grain need more water than grain crops, the production and consumption of meat and other animal products is associated with the clearing of rainforests, resource depletion, air and water pollution, land and economic inefficiency, species extinction, and other environmental harms - the use of human medical pharmacy for disease prevention in factory farming is getting dangerous because it supports the development and world-wide spreading of drug-resistant bacteria and viruses which are already crossing the line between animals and humans - the birdflu from asia or swine fever in europe already killed a unknown number of humans.
another effect of the use of pharmacy in factory farming is the accumulation of antibiotics in the meat meant for consumation and in the industrial wastewater - a growing number of cases of untreatable tuberculosis - is reported, many identified strains of pathogens are resistant against broadband antibiotics.

satisfying the demand for meat via local production and free-range husbandry is impossible and would only increase the waste of land, water and other resources - feeding the growing world population directly with the harvesting of grains, vegetables, legumes, seeds and fruits is much more efficient and would allow the reduction of the area used for food production, giving hard pressed nature more opportunity to recover from human interventions.

 

I do not eat any animals not just cute animals.

 

That's not completely true. Factory farming only accounts for 40% of the worlds meat production, mostly coming from the US and western europe. Sure, china does it but I mentioned "super-decadent countries"

The current meat demand can't be satisfied via local farming? I agree with you. The current meat demand is outrageous! The price is set by McDonalds, the worlds largest meat purchaser. They demand meat so cheap they can sell it for a buck and still reel in huge profits. There needs to be a dramatic dietary change in these aforementioned super-decadent countries. Let the prices soar. People should not gorge themselves on animal flesh as they do, eating cheese burgers 5 times a day.

Natural farming is not a strain on resources. Land? An argument I'll get to in a second. There are plenty greater wastes of land, like private golf courses, anyway. Cows eat grass and drink water. They require no other resources to be raised. That is not placing any strain on mother nature. I think she can handle something that happens anyway.

Secondly, the mass production of fruits and veggies puts a just as, if not more strain on the earths resources as meat does. Read " the vegetarian myth" for the cold hard calculations. Once you get past the inflammatory tone, there are a lot of good statistics there.

Lastly: meat is good. The scientific community has not yet reached a consensus on the total practicality of an all veg diet. There's no debating that. Until scientists have irrefutably proven that meat is worthless and is easily replaced, I am, rightly so as an omnivore, going to eat meat. My diet is not wrong on any level.

 

I'm a vegetarian, maybe I'll move on to vegan someday. But my diet sucks, so it probably wouldn't be the smartest idea to eliminate a major portion of my nutrients (eggs, rennet-free cheeses) just yet.

And, as far as 'drugs' go, I smoke cannabis and all natural tobacco regularly. But I rarely drink alcohol or caffeine.

It ain't exactly 'clean' living. But overall knowing what little I know, I feel comfortable with it and in reality that's what it comes down to.

 

This is the same problem I have with punks about how they are supposedly anti-corporation, yet support the beer and alcohol corporations. lol.

" FUCK MCDONALDS, COLT 45!!!!!!"

BUt any the fuck way, I'm a vegan myself, and I often question these things. The truth is, these so called vegan and vegatarian companies and propghanda, and saying you can change everything by consumer choices. Buy the soy milk instaed of milk, yet they both share the same farms, lol. It's really all a scam to me, so called vegan food.

But for me, it's a dietary choice, I just feel gross by eating meat and dairy, but maybe we should organize places or free markets where anarchists can share local vegetarians eats.

But truth is we can't associate herbivores with being revolutionaries, that is merely a dietary preference.

And it's mundane to judge people on food, because we all know that not everybody has access to preferred anarchist eats or whatever. Especially the poor.

 

i have doubts that it's "only" 40% of the worlds meat production, because the high level comes predominantly from the industrialized "western" countries - but the majority of the world population lives in still less developed countries, and the majority of those people simply couldn't afford meat for as long as the known history goes. large populations like in india are vegetarians out of cultural and religious reasons - they might produce meat for western markets, but they don't consume it themselves.
eating meat was never really "popular" or important until the end of WWII, before that, eating meat was an expensive sunday/holiday special in western europe regarded as a symbol of being well-off.
there are some theories describing the general availability of meat as a tool of the state to simulate general prosperity, blurring social problems and class conflicts out of sight (like: you don't envy the millionaires while you have to live on the dole and can afford a burger)
- i don't know how reliable such theories are, japan is mentioned as an example for a population changing from predominantly vegetarianism to western "omnivorism".

natural farming is a strain on resources - cattle breeding and husbandry in africa for example is responsible for desertification of large areas and results in conflicts about water- and herbage-rights because many herders are still nomads.
my other point was, that agricultural production is far more effective for food production than cattle-breeding could ever be. most of the used european cattle-sub-species need medical care (result of decades of "rational" overbreeding), a natural diet for them would mean that they need more time to reach a satisfactory fatness score, resulting in lower quality of the meat because the individual animals are getting "too old".

i will read it, but out of daily experience (i live and work on a farm collective, difficult promontory area and we try to do everything in a pre-industrial/resource-saving way) i have strong doubts that it's a reliable source, we'll see.

you can catch me with the problem that our species is "omnivore" in our disposition and that certain vitamines and other stuff are exclusively in meat onlyand because of this a vegetarian diet for young children isn't healthy. i haven't found a solution for this, but i have a daughter, that's why we are still omnivore, but at least i will turn vegetarian again at the first opportunity just for rational reasons and my personal dislike for slaughtering animals - some day my daughter will decide for herself.

 

Anyyone read the Vegetarian Myth?

http://lierrekeith.com/vegmyth.htm

I didn't but it looks interesting.

 

i started reading the e-book (dl on e-mule), but i guess i won't read it until the bloody polemic end - oh dear lierre:
pie-bombed last year at an anarchist bookfair, still famous for her "feminist" anti-porn campaign in england...
now switching to anti-civilisation and primitivism at it's best including spirituality, hunting and gathering & the old and popular:
"there are too many people in the world..."
and typical for the lifestylers genre:
an early childhood traumata with bobby the hamster and her brother-"male":
he killed little animals and insects for his manhood, thus driving her into the vegetarian myth - soundtrack: merry popp-it, or whotts?

toooo bad that she doesn't really know much about mammal's digestion, human evolution (primate ancestry, caecum/blind gut anybody?), ecological balance in the far aways, history of zivilisation and agriculture - her simple 3rd grade simplifications are really good material for the simple solution:
back to the romantic world of 30.000 BC, lets give up all the evil knowledge that only spawned overpopulation, monoculture, factory farming and all those stupid, blind and sheepish vegetarians and their grassfed cats... and after the final solution for them, lets find some spirituality and sit around the fireplace...
no, i defenitely won't finish the book, i'll start baking a great number of pie's for ammo... and wait for her to come within target reach...

 

Yes, you can associate herbivores with Anarchists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganarchism
You are starting to sound like a straightedge militant to me because you think Alchool and Cigarette companies just as much as companies that kill animals, and that is wrong . 10s of billions of animals are slaughtered each year.
You can not compare the Alchool and Cigarette Companies with the companies that slaughter amimals.
Anarchism and Veganism are not a seperate struggle. Are you saying ALF is not Anarchist? They are because they fight for a cause against the corporations.

 

The only argument you have is that meat is good. Your point does not justify killing 10 billions of animals with feelings each year to satisfy what you want.