[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', 'I')f a teacher took her grade school kids on a tour of a beef slaughterhouse she would be fired and would probably never teach again. If she took them on a tour of a flour mill or a soybean processing plant it would be a happy day for all.

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 's')eldom seen, if you refuse to read my posts or the references, I don't think we can communicate. I didn't say humans didn't eat meat, I said the evidence is they were not big game hunters and efficient fishermen like your examples until they became Homo sapiens. Please read the references.

[untothislast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheTurtle', '
')
Think what the poor stalks of corn must feel as sharp blades slash through their tender bodies each fall.

[eastbay]

What a thoughtful exchange... but I can no longer participate because my G5 MAC isn't working properly and shuts down without notice... at some point in the coming hours or days it will no longer fire up...

SPG, I agree with you about nutrient and life depleted cropland. It's a tragedy no doubt. All we can do is minimize our impacts.

[untothislast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'A') vegetarian diet is stupid. It is not going to save the planet, the animals don't care (nor does the holy seer) and you are not going to live forever. It just makes you feel less guilty about being a 1st-worlder in a planet of human misery. So you drive your BMW to Whole-Foods and stock up on slick packaged products (printed with soy ink) and feel good about stealing 3rd-worlders stuff. It is a fashion statement. Truth is--to die really sucks. Animals do it and so do people. If a cow could speak would it tell you it preferred the barrel of a gun or the disemboweling slash of a lion?

[oilfreeandhappy]

I would believe Worldwatch's figures. Their articles are well-researched. In an earlier post I mentioned 7% (without a link). They may have only been looking at the Production side. Thanks for the research...

>Oops! I found something below and I guess that taxmeat website is lying about how much fossil fuels livestock consumes. Well, don't I feel stupid.

http://www.worldwatch.org/features/cons ... 004/07/07/

David Pimentel of Cornell University estimates that the United States devotes about 17 percent of its fossil fuel consumption to the production and consumption of food: 6 percent for crop and livestock production, 6 percent for processing and packaging, and 5 percent for distribution and cooking.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('untothislast', 'F')acetious statement. You're already off to a bad start. Have you ever heard of anyone swerving to avoid hitting a carrot in the road? Yet even meat eaters would (you would hope) try to avoid a dog or cat. Why? Because we know for sure that some creatures share some of the same emotional range, and some of the same capacity for contentment or pain, as we do.

[untothislast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '
')
That's the problem. You don't know s__t. You infer, because it looks like you that it has the same experience of life as you do. And you infer that because a plant doesn't look like you that it has a wholely different experience of life. The truth of the matter is that there is lots of evidence that plants have a much more complex experience of the world than anyone gives them credit for.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('untothislast', 'I')f you don't believe animals have, and express complex emotions, you need to spend more time around them. While they're alive.

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'H')ey. At least my steak is a naturally occuring substance, not some genetically modified science project from Monsanto. Mass producing food is icky and environmentally destructive.

[TheTurtle]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('untothislast', '
')Facetious statement. You're already off to a bad start. Have you ever heard of anyone swerving to avoid hitting a carrot in the road?

[eastbay]

The only way to avoid suffering, or to avoid causing suffering, is not to be alive.

... quite true. But we can all work at minimizing suffering. Another easy way to minimize suffering, besides not killing animals, is to write and say kinder things to other humans.

[untothislast]

I'll lay it on the line. Facial, or other human similarities, play absolutely no part in my determination of another life form's entitlement to live an untroubled life. On my scale of reference, I don't see any reason - or explanation - why a human should be considered any more important than, say, an ant. Therefore, I do everything I can to avoid causing, what can only be presumed to be distress or suffering, to any other living creature.

Not being a member of that oddball cult which believes humans can survive on nothing but fresh air (no food; no water - no surprise then they're all dying young), I have to consume something to stay alive - and have therefore made it my personal choice to embrace vegetarianism. At 6ft 2' tall, and 210lbs, you can assume that after 25 years living this way, I'm not exactly wasting away. The reason why 'animals' are so called, is that they are said to possess an 'animus' - or inner self - and can be defined as ;

'A multicellular organism of the kingdom Animalia, differing from plants in certain typical characteristics such as capacity for locomotion, nonphotosynthetic metabolism, pronounced response to stimuli, restricted growth, and fixed bodily structure.'

The key passage here, is the 'pronounced response to stimuli'. If you know an animal has a similar response to pain and suffering as your own, (which is one of the key differences between it and the 'road-running carrot') and possesses the same desire to live and tend to the needs of its young as you do, then what right have you - apart from the one you confer on yourself via total dominance - to take away that right to life, and to inflict physical and emotional pain?

You don't.

And the guiding reason why you shoudn't, should be by the cultivation of that profoundly useful human response, called empathy.

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('untothislast', '
')Not being a member of that oddball cult which believes humans can survive on nothing but fresh air (no food; no water - no surprise then they're all dying young)...

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', 'A')nother easy way to minimize suffering, besides not killing animals, is to write and say kinder things to other humans.

[aldente]

No, you're not comming back as a cockroach. The subject is a slippery slope. Even I (vegetarian since nearly 20 years) eat meat sometimes when the occasion does not allow me to act otherwise.

A former friend of mine (hardcore vegan) became an architect and 'ironically' her first job was to design a slaughterhouse.

[Odin]

The vegetarians will change thier mind about eating mead if they were droped in stone age Europe. If you're a hunter-gatherer in temerate areas you either hunted in the winter or you starved. People who think eating meat is immoral or unnatural don't know jack sh*t about human evolution or . I see no difference between us eating meat and other animals eating meat, to do so is anthropocentric. The fact that vegans have to plan thier meals carefully so they get enough of the right amino acids shows very well how unnatural not eating animal products is.

[Itch]

Using words like "dominate," and "subjugate" to describe eating is silly. It does work when describing what is happening to animals in processing plants, since that entire enterprise is not used for eating; it is used to generate profit more than anything. That's why the government has you pay for such monstrosities through subsidization taxes. Using those verbs to describe some mammal having its neck broken on a deadfall is innacurate.

Domination, subjugation, and eating are applications of force used to achieve a certain goal. A valid example of domination and subjugation would be the fact that most people have to surrender a significant amount of time and energy to feudal lords in exchange for tokens that buy low quality food and shelter that varies in security.

Someone who catches a squirrel on a snare is eating, since that application was used for eating purposes.

To say that even that example of eating is domination and subjugation, or self-serving, is an obvious attempt to make people who eat differently feel guilty. A classic propaganda tactic.

[untothislast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Odin', 'T')he vegetarians will change thier mind about eating mead if they were droped in stone age Europe. If you're a hunter-gatherer in temerate areas you either hunted in the winter or you starved. People who think eating meat is immoral or unnatural don't know jack sh*t about human evolution or . I see no difference between us eating meat and other animals eating meat, to do so is anthropocentric. The fact that vegans have to plan thier meals carefully so they get enough of the right amino acids shows very well how unnatural not eating animal products is.