What is your excuse for not being vegan?

[bvanevery]

Wasn't referring to you, but anyway.

Factory-farmed as opposed to grass-fed has clear nutirtional disparities.

It may, depending on the factory process. But grass-fed and grass finished also have a substantial cost increase. In the USA the prices can vary from $3/lb. for a decent grade of conventional hamburger if it's on sale, to $4..$5 if it is not, to $8+ if it's grass fed / finished. Prices vary but I'd say the cost slider is roughly 2x..3x.

Personally, I'm on food stamps and can't afford that. I stay ahead of the food stamp game by keeping most of my "per pound" costs down to $1..$2. That means I'm eating a lot more chicken. I'm enough ahead though that lately, I'll be honest, I'm on a search for chicken that doesn't taste like it came out of a factory. The "Smart Chicken air chilled" stuff seems to be a lot better than the usual generic chicken, and chicken quarters go for $2/lb. at Harris Teeter. One needs a Harris Teeter though, as not all stores in all regions have that price. The markup on the air chilled stuff can be quite significant, i.e. Publix in Florida, and their house brand of air chilled chicken isn't much better than regular chicken. Plus it's expensive; I tried it once just to see. I hate Publix, they have a Whole Foods attitude while only delivering a Harris Teeter level of quality. At least Harris Teeter actually puts a good number of things on sale, so if you play "pricing roulette" and are flexible you can do pretty well. Especially for meat, which as a business model seems to be Harris Teeter's loss leader.

When I'm ahead on the food stamp game, I buy a fair amount of the $3/lb. hamburger on sale for my dog. I don't feed him dog food, he eats meat. I'm only buying decent hamburger for him lately, because I can definitely tell the quality grades by how it tastes. If I wouldn't eat it, well lately I'm thinking I shouldn't be feeding it to him either. We're not that poor on food stamps, we don't have to eat the worst stuff.

I don't eat a lot of red meat myself. I do eat some, maybe once every 10 days. At that frequency, it seems pretty helpful to my well being, i.e. I wait until I'm craving it. But more than that, I'll start to feel grossed out. I don't know exactly what's negative about it, but I would not want to live on that stuff.

Anyways I think I've probably got the nutritional role of beef figured out just fine in my life. I don't really need it to be grass fed / finished for some kind of uber health. I frankly don't believe that eating lots of any beef, no matter how it is fed, would be healthy for anyone. Although I might go study the Masai before making any final judgment on that.

Low meat consumptions correlated with higher life expectancy

I don't really shove meat in my face either, that's not my diet. My diet is fat emphasizing and I get a lot of protein from that aforementioned Cabot 10% milkfat plain greek yogurt. Walmart and some other stores have it for $2/lb. Can't beat it for nutritional bang for the buck, and it tastes fine. It's almost like eating cheese.

My grandfather lived to be 84 by smoking and drinking heavily. Imagine how well I'm going to do with all my basically correct and proactive health habits. I'm expecting 100+, as is my Dad. Any time someone tries to sell you on life expectancy arguments, you need to consider the number of slobs out there. I'm of the belief that most people can live a long time if they do the right things, that it's mostly choice and behavior. Some people may be genetically unlucky but I bet most people have plenty of longevity potential. Only a question of whether they squander it somehow.

 

[Nebulous]

I'm not vegan because
- I love fish
- I love lobster
- eggs are good too
- cream cheese
- I eat a lot of Mac and cheese, and there is milk in the cheese sauce
- I don't like salad
- I'm not sure what I'd really eat if I were vegan.

My 'excuse' if you really want one:
I'm recovering from an eating disorder and am focusing on just making sure I'm eating three meals a day. Now's not the best time to try to become vegan. Also, I'd have to do a lot of research, which I don't have time for right now due to school.

 

[QuickTwist]

And nutrition...

The problem here is that you have an emotional/irrational bias against this particular type of food. The same arguments could be made against peanuts.

There is no robust argument for producing massive amounts of peanuts for the market other than two facts: easy and tasty. (of course this is an oversimplification and overlooks byproducts created from the industry, much like your summation did).


In essence, the counter-argument to the case for meat is: but muh feels (and then bullshit emotionally related arguments like "but the environment" or "but you don't need that particular thing. Just do what I say instead so I feel better" are fallen back on when people don't care)


And yeah, call me borderline sociopathic if you want. I wouldn't reject the label. That doesn't render my points invalid and it's not insulting.

Maybe George Washington Carver shares some of the blame in this???

 

[redbaron]

Jesus dude, it was another fucking question. That's what the little "?" on the end means.

All I can do is laugh at this point, because you do realise you've quoted a bunch of my questions in this thread and told me that I'm misrepresenting you right? Did you miss the little "?" or something?

2. "Healthy", in relation to food, is an essentially meaningless word. Does it or does it not contribute to nutritional requirements? Is the LD50 small enough that it could reasonably consumed by accident? It's a food, not a fucking poison. It has nutritional value, whether you think it's "good enough" is irrelevant.

Yes we've been over it, still misrepresenting. It's not to do with whether or not I think it's, "good enough".

3. Peanuts are unnecessary. There are "better" alternatives. So-saith me, the divine arbiter of truth. I decide what everyone needs and wants and no less-than-optimal solutions are acceptable, only perfection.

Cool misrepresentations again. My points have been far from, "I'm the arbiter of truth."

Less than optimal is fine, whatever's practical and doesn't result in excessive damage to the environment, humans and animals will do.

That is a poor representation of what I've said. My position does not discern between factory farmed and local farmed - yours does. I'll grant that my position necessarily includes factory farming, but you're making it the focal point.

Well duh that's my point...because it's factory-farming where animal cruelty happens, poor quality meat is processed, unnecessary scale and wasteful production happens and where the majority of ecological/environmental concerns arise from.

It's like you're complaining about my view not being extreme enough? Should I decry ALL meat consumption and farming practice as evil instead and take some entirely inflexible stance whereby a practical solution can't be reached?

I'm not supporting the idea of prohibiting factory farming because hedonism, yes, but also... it has nutritional value. It's not poison and contributes some vital nutrition for humans. It doesn't matter if it can be gotten another way. You're also falsely dichotomizing by implying that the only logical alternative to endorsement is condemnation.

Basically any food contributes something, "vital", that's a totally pointless qualifier. The argument is that since there's dozens to hundreds of better alternatives, we could do away with the destructive process of factory-farming.

People have different nutritional requirements, access to food, morals/religions, tastes, and get different amounts of pleasure from eating. It's not my place to tell someone "no, you don't need that thing you like, so don't do it". Perhaps the promise of a big juicy steak on Friday is the only thing keeping Bill (hypothetical person) from sticking a gun in his mouth and blowing his fucking brains out. I don't know, I'm not Bill. In that situation, the steak, factory farmed or not, is certainly healthier than the bullet. Same argument can be made for the poison, alcohol.

Muh feels

Also, where have I said that people can't do things they like? Bill can eat a Friday night steak, I'm not fussed. Not sure why you think that I'd think otherwise?

If you are, in fact, against big agriculture as well, where do you get your food (Notice this is a question. I'm not putting words in your mouth)? Or is it like meat, where you're just against it in principle but still consume it? What should people eat if not food?

More strawmans. I'm not against, "big" anything. I'm also not, "against" meat. I'm against practices that unnecessarily damage the environment to produce poor quality, unhealthy products involving animal cruelty and long-term detriment to the human race.

Where I buy food is a red herring but I'll entertain it. I buy from a butcher who sources locally-farmed, grass-fed livestock and I try to buy my vegetables from stores who also use local produce. In Australia though it's basically impossible to get good quality fruit and vegetables because of the nature of the climate and infrastructure. Not many fruits grow well here.

My point was that without a clearly defined metric of "sustainability" you may as well just throw out the argument (of "sustainability" being a reason to not "factory-farm") because it can be used against essentially everything humans produce and consume.

A metric being hard to define (because it involves a lot of factors) doesn't mean you should ignore real issues that affect the world. Honestly, I couldn't give you a precise metric myself - I don't see how any ONE person could develop that metric. It's something obviously taken on a case by case basis, which is why organisations like the EPA exist - in part to investigate the impact of how the things we do impact the environment and how best to handle that.

Worth noting: the EPA exists simply to assess environmental impact and doesn't necessarily try to make argument for or against things, and a typical case study goes for months or years. You'll have to forgive me if my ability to personally assess and argue for a particular point I have on an internet forum isn't quite up to EPA level.

As for the metric, there's a bunch of questions I'd ask when thinking about the practices we engage in, like:

- how much damage does this do to the environment?
- how much benefit does it have to humanity?
- what are the long-term effects?

So on and so forth. It's a process pretty much devoid of any kind of emotional input, mostly just me trying to find answers to questions and forming conclusions based on what I find. In this case: the unhealthy, damaging, unsustainable and unnecessary practice of factory-farming - all documented.

"Best" according to whom?

Evidence.

Speaking as an individual, forgive me for not caring what you think is best for me. You may think I'm just being a dick here, but this hearkens back to the point I was making earlier about people being different. How do you decide what is "best" for an individual without assuming your opinions to be supremely/divinely correct?

Evidence.

How does anyone know what foods arre or aren't healthy, that smoking is unhealthy or that alcohol can cause liver damage? Evidence. I do my best to eliminate my own personal feelings or preferences from an equation when the evidence doesn't fit - because it'd be surpremely arrogant to assume that just because I like something, it's important.

It's why despite the fact that when I was a kid I absolutely LOVED meat and gorged on it, I don't still support a high-meat diet.

Or do you just not care that individuals may have preferences/desires that you don't share or possibly, even understand?

"Muh feels!"

I care but if people are wrong and there's a wealth of evidence to support the fact that they're wrong, then side-stepping the issue for the sake of their feels would be silly.

I'm all for people's opinions and feelings if they can provide evidence to back up their claims.

Kind of ironic that at the end of the day your points keep coming back to things like, "but other people have feels too, think of poor Bill and his Friday night steak ;(" while simultaneously acting like I'm the one making an argument from emotion here.

Be careful of that, 'high correlation to wrongness' m8

No it's not a manipulative post on my part if it was intended to be manipulative then nobody would have noticed because I wouldn't even have posted it. I said personal shit? Really? Because I'm not aware of any personal shit REALLY or otherwise. What in the fuck could actually be personal in that post. I do know personal shit about you. I know personal shit about nearly everybody. I know enough personal shit to bury a continent but I DON'T. FUCKING. DO IT. I in fact SPECIFICALLY AVOID MENTIONING PERSONAL SHIT. I go so far out the FUCKING way to avoid it that it seems I'm the only one on this FUCKING FORUM THAT CAN ACTUALLY MANAGE IT. God dam people. I spend half my time covering up other peoples personal shit that people can't keep personal.

Dat victim card doe

Jokes aside, I have a hard time believing it but if it's indeed true then apologies.

That said, who on the forum mentions personal shit in threads? I've seen it maybe 2-3 times from people who're now banned anyway. It's not like it's an achievement that you don't mention personal shit.

Also, this is a bit curious:

When's the last time I actually mentioned something personal? I mean seriously in all my interactions when have I ever done it? Surely somebody must know? I'm obviously telling everybody. Did I ever talk to you on IRC about personal things of other people? On skype? Obviously it's in my secret lair of people that I just drag up to talk to about personal stuff because they've got nothing better to do that listen to a bunch of REALLY personal stories of people they don't care about. (the only one with time to do that seems to be me)

Did you ever talk to me about personal stuff? No, because we don't talk. Keeping secrets from people you never speak to isn't hard.

I've even covered for you on several occasions when you couldn't keep ********** ***** *** ***** a secret.

Considering that as mentioned we don't talk - then I guess someone else has told you things about me. Although that's pretty weird because the list of people on the forum who know anything about me is pretty damn short, my contact with them is pretty infrequent and I haven't really told many of them all that much. It's only really the ones I've met IRL.

Which blatantly confirms that you do talk about personal things with other people. So this quote:

Obviously it's in my secret lair of people that I just drag up to talk to about personal stuff because they've got nothing better to do that listen to a bunch of REALLY personal stories of people they don't care about.

Doesn't seem to be that far from the truth. Overblown in that there's obviously no secret lair, but you're talking to people about sensitive personal stuff. I guess you're not necessarily at fault for that, if other people just can't keep their mouths shut. My fault for misjudging people's character I guess.

Still it seems a little convenient that you just know so many secrets about so many people. If it's such a burden why don't you just tell them to stop telling you all that stuff?

 

[QuickTwist]

I don't see enough arguments stating they like factory-farmed meat because it is basically made for one purpose and that is to taste good at a cheap price.

Just look at all the processed foods we have in america, all the McD's we have and its easy to see the sole purpose is to make cheap food that taste so good you can't say no.

 

[crippli]

"factory farming"

"factory farming"
It's a complicated issue. There is no doubt. The less animals there is in a farm, the more the animals becomes family. The better care they get.

The other side of the coin is the market. Free competition is generally a good thing. At least for the consumer.

So the problem should be obvious. It is a challenging thing to preserve animal welfare, and keep prices low.

Cow welfare comes first. Humans lust for steak comes second. The government will have to use tax money to insure that this occurs.

The smaller the animal, the less they tend to be part of the farmers family, and have had the necessary love and caring for healthy growth.

 

[MEDICaustik]

My subjective experience as a vegan is that I suffer no detrimental effects from not having animal products in my diet.

So I have no moral justification for consuming animal products.

To each their own, but to answer the OP: I ran out of excuses, so I am vegan.

 

[420MuNkEy]

All I can do is laugh at this point, because you do realise you've quoted a bunch of my questions in this thread and told me that I'm misrepresenting you right? Did you miss the little "?" or something?

Example or stfu.

Yes we've been over it, still misrepresenting. It's not to do with whether or not I think it's, "good enough".

Does it have nutrition or not? Make up your fucking mind. If you say I'm falsely dichotomizing, explain the 3rd position that isn't "insufficient"/"not good enough"/"less than optimal" nutrition.

Cool misrepresentations again. My points have been far from, "I'm the arbiter of truth."

Less than optimal is fine, whatever's practical and doesn't result in excessive damage to the environment, humans and animals will do.

it was sarcastic hyperbole, you dolt.

What the fuck are you talking about? How is it excessively damaging humans if it's not poison?

Well duh that's my point...because it's factory-farming where animal cruelty happens, poor quality meat is processed, unnecessary scale and wasteful production happens and where the majority of ecological/environmental concerns arise from.

"Poor quality" - How do you define this?
"unnecessary scale" - How do you define this?
"wasteful production" - How do you define this?
"ecological/environmental concerns" - Like what?

It's like you're complaining about my view not being extreme enough? Should I decry ALL meat consumption and farming practice as evil instead and take some entirely inflexible stance whereby a practical solution can't be reached?

I don't know how you arrived at that idea.

Basically any food contributes something, "vital", that's a totally pointless qualifier. The argument is that since there's dozens to hundreds of better alternatives, we could do away with the destructive process of factory-farming.

Hooray! You got my point despite your best efforts not to! The "quality" of the food is irrelevant to the fact that it's food. It does not matter if there's "dozens to hundreds of better alternatives", especially if you're the one who's defining what's "better".

Muh feels

The fuck are you talking about? I'm specifically not trying to dictate how people live their lives, i.e, making my "feels" irrelevant to the entire thing.

Also, where have I said that people can't do things they like? Bill can eat a Friday night steak, I'm not fussed. Not sure why you think that I'd think otherwise?

Where would I get such a crazy notion that you are advocating against affordable production of meat? I don't know, it's just crazy. Such a random statement that I pulled out of my ass that has no relation to this thread.

More strawmans. I'm not against, "big" anything. I'm also not, "against" meat. I'm against practices that unnecessarily damage the environment to produce poor quality, unhealthy products involving animal cruelty and long-term detriment to the human race.

Where I buy food is a red herring but I'll entertain it. I buy from a butcher who sources locally-farmed, grass-fed livestock and I try to buy my vegetables from stores who also use local produce. In Australia though it's basically impossible to get good quality fruit and vegetables because of the nature of the climate and infrastructure. Not many fruits grow well here.

Have you visited those "local farms" to make sure the methods aren't cruel/excessive and that the farming meets your standards?

You've seemingly changed your position here, from previously seeming to have a moral objection to meat production in general. I don't know, I really don't care enough to check.

blah blah blah, EPA, repeat something nebulous about "environmental damage", undefined assertions of "unhealthiness", "unsustainability", "unnecessary practices" without explaining what the fuck I actually mean, despite having been asked.

Define your terms, please.

Evidence.

Citation needed.


I've already been banned for calling people "fucking retarded" too often and you're making it really hard not to repeat that.

Honestly, I figure at this point you've gotta be trolling or, well, retarded, because you seem to not understand the very basics of English.

 

[MEDICaustik]

Shit

You undermine your words by being a complete douchenozzle. Logical or not, you don't have to be an asshole to win an argument.

 

[redbaron]

Does it have nutrition or not? Make up your fucking mind. If you say I'm falsely dichotomizing, explain the 3rd position that isn't "insufficient"/"not good enough"/"less than optimal" nutrition.

It has nutrition the same way that lollies have nutrition. Simply having nutrition, doesn't make a food actually nutritious. (No, I'm not advocating removing all lollies anymore than I'm advocating removing all meat.)
Nutritious
adjective
efficient as food; nourishing.

Citing this study again:

Not all beef is created equal. The difference between “factory-farmed” beef and organic pastured beef, for example, may be quite pronounced. The former comes from animals raised on mixtures of genetically modified corn, chicken manure, antibiotics, hormones, and ground-up parts of other animals (5, 6); the meat is densely marbled with fat and most of this is of a saturated variety (7). The latter comes from animals raised on grasses and other vegetation; the meat is lower in fat and much is of an omega-3 polyunsaturated variety (7, 8). The quality of the fat in these 2 kinds of beef is different, not just in molecular make-up but also in overall composition: one is a storage site of hormonally active industrial chemicals derived from unnatural diets, whereas the other is a storage site of fat-soluble vitamins and various phytochemicals derived from plant grazing. It is not hard to imagine that these 2 different types of beef could potentially have different implications for health.

Using hedonic terms and your warped idea of, "nutrition" there's basically no such thing as a bad diet.

Also, the figures on accessibility of meat don't support your claim of the benefit to having cheaply produced meat.

Switzerland has the most expensive meat in the world, and it still tops the OECD Quality of Life Index.

Norway has expensive meat and comes out above the US. Sweden, Germany and Finland too.

I guess the cost of meat isn't really affecting people's lives that significantly at all? There's no correlation there to indicate that meat being more expensive is going to ruin someone's day.

Not to mention that I'm not necessarily talking about making meat more expensive and/or inaccessible.

What the fuck are you talking about? How is it excessively damaging humans if it's not poison?

"Poor quality" - How do you define this?

Less nutrition, increased risk of disease.

Increasing risk of disease
https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-9-10 - 121 references down the bottom, have fun!

"unnecessary scale" - How do you define this?

Is this necessary?

Nothing against McD's existing, but are so many really necessary? I live less than 5 minutes drive from no less than four different McDonald's here in Australia.

You could quarter the number of them and they'd still be perfectly accessible, with less demand for meat. And no, before you go ahead and say that everyone will just go to the one that's still open - it doesn't work like that.

A new store opened up across the road from another, where the already existing store was making roughly $75,000/week. When the new store opened you'd expect them to make less, right? Wrong.

The existing store bumped up to about $80,000, the new store making about $45,000/week. The prevalence and accessibility of the stores has a big impact on how often people use them. Seeing more McDonald's in the area means it's at the front of people's mind and they're more likely to go there when hungry.

Considering that obesity rates and cardiovascular disease is running rampant in Australia, causing very measurable strain on people, the economy and health system - do I consider the continued practice of factory-farmed meats (where almost all fast-food source their product from) to be necessary? No.

Whatever usefulness it once held has clearly begun to become maladaptive.

Yes yes I know what you're response will be: muh hedonism and muh feels.

"wasteful production" - How do you define this?
"ecological/environmental concerns" - Like what?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production

There's 77 references down the bottom, majority of them independent studies. Happy reading!

Hooray! You got my point despite your best efforts not to! The "quality" of the food is irrelevant to the fact that it's food. It does not matter if there's "dozens to hundreds of better alternatives", especially if you're the one who's defining what's "better".

Wait, so making refinements and alterations to the way in which we manage meat production that results in:

1. better quality, healthier meat
2. less environmental damage
3. less animal cruelty

Is somehow construed as

The fuck are you talking about? I'm specifically not trying to dictate how people live their lives, i.e, making my "feels" irrelevant to the entire thing.

I'm not dictating anything. I'm talking about stopping or refining the way in which we inefficiently produce an abundance of food in a way that damages the environment a great deal - for a product that's low in nutritional content.

Your argument this is that, "but people like meat and that's important", using one example where, "Bill might kill himself if he doesn't get his Friday night steak. That steak could be the only thing keeping him alive!"

Do you see how your argument doesn't actually adress my argument, and is pretty much the epitome of, "muh feels"?

Or maybe you're making the argument that accessibility of meat meaningfully impacts suicide rates? I'd actually love to see you make that argument

Where would I get such a crazy notion that you are advocating against affordable production of meat? I don't know, it's just crazy. Such a random statement that I pulled out of my ass that has no relation to this thread.

I know you're trying the sarcastic hyperbole thing again, but the bold part couldn't be more true.

Seriously, find me one instance where I've said that I'm against meat production being affordable? I hope that meat production is affordable - I just also would like that to be in conjunction with being environmentally, human and animal friendly as best as possible.

That might mean that the end result costs more money than it costs now - but it's not your average, once-a-week steak consumer that's going to really suffer there.

Have you visited those "local farms" to make sure the methods aren't cruel/excessive and that the farming meets your standards?

Nope, not specifically but I've driven through the areas where they source the produce from a few times and it's pretty lush and full of happy looking cows. I looked up all the producers they source their prodcuts from and insofar as I can tell they're doing good work.

How's this related to any of my points anyway?

You've seemingly changed your position here, from previously seeming to have a moral objection to meat production in general. I don't know, I really don't care enough to check.

I don't have an issue with meat itself, it's the nature of meat production that I take issue with.

Honestly, I figure at this point you've gotta be trolling or, well, retarded, because you seem to not understand the very basics of English.

Likewise, how you managed to come up with the Bill analogy in response to, "we should aim to do things that are good for the environment, make people healthier and don't hurt animals" is still boggling my mind

Citation needed

Indeed. I think you should start providing citations for how your definition of hedonistic importance meaningfully impacts people, while demonstrating the ways the things that I'm talking about in any way impugn on that hedonistic importance and that it could be conceived to actually decrease the quality of life for humanity.

And, if so, according to what metric does it decrease quality of life?

Because all this talk about Bill and his Friday night steak is irrelevant - but even if I did stop Bill eating his Friday night steak, you'd still have to show that I was decreasing his quality of life by doing so.

Let's not get this twisted either, I'm not advocating preventing people having a nice steak on Fridays if they want to

 

[bvanevery]

Just look at all the processed foods we have in america, all the McD's we have and its easy to see the sole purpose is to make cheap food that taste so good you can't say no.

McDs is not about providing cheap food. It's about providing FAST food. If you actually do the math on what that food costs, for the calories and nutrition provided, you will realize you're always better off going to the grocery store and buying even $4/lb. "good" stuff. 'Cuz that's what you're paying for stupid McDs things and they aren't even providing quality for that price. They're providing SPEED. Lots of people won't drag themselves to the grocery store. But I live out of a car and have food stamps, so 1) I'm usually in a Walmart parking lot at some point in the day anyways, 2) if I'm traveling I know where to find them, and 3) I can pay food stamps for the food. Can't do that at McDs.

McDs is actually an instance of the "convenience / value add" mentality in the USA. It doesn't have much to do with being cheap food. It is typically cheaper than going to a restaurant with a waiter, and of course faster.

The vegan equivalent of the "convenience / value add" mentality is the freezer section of Whole Foods. You can easily pay more for veggie burgers than a decent grade of hamburger costs. This puts the lie to all the sustainability arguments. It's not about feeding the planet efficiently, nobody's going to do that. We already have the food production to do that and it simply doesn't happen, people starve. It's about what, in a given country's economy, people will spend their money on. So you get rich vegans going to Whole Foods and buying convenience / value add veggie burgers.

BTW this thread has turned into a serious wall of text. Plenty of evidence of N in it. But, I question whether I'll even try to keep up anymore. Posts just seem to appear where previously I didn't see any, and they're long. Feels like a game of whack-a-mole. It's a decidedly inelegant discussion in any event, with no real unifying principles. Mostly skirmish wars of ego display.

 

[QuickTwist]

McDs is not about providing cheap food. It's about providing FAST food. If you actually do the math on what that food costs, for the calories and nutrition provided, you will realize you're always better off going to the grocery store and buying even $4/lb. "good" stuff. 'Cuz that's what you're paying for stupid McDs things and they aren't even providing quality for that price. They're providing SPEED. Lots of people won't drag themselves to the grocery store. But I live out of a car and have food stamps, so 1) I'm usually in a Walmart parking lot at some point in the day anyways, 2) if I'm traveling I know where to find them, and 3) I can pay food stamps for the food. Can't do that at McDs.

McDs is actually an instance of the "convenience / value add" mentality in the USA. It doesn't have much to do with being cheap food. It is typically cheaper than going to a restaurant with a waiter, and of course faster.

The vegan equivalent of the "convenience / value add" mentality is the freezer section of Whole Foods. You can easily pay more for veggie burgers than a decent grade of hamburger costs. This puts the lie to all the sustainability arguments. It's not about feeding the planet efficiently, nobody's going to do that. We already have the food production to do that and it simply doesn't happen, people starve. It's about what, in a given country's economy, people will spend their money on. So you get rich vegans going to Whole Foods and buying convenience / value add veggie burgers.

BTW this thread has turned into a serious wall of text. Plenty of evidence of N in it. But, I question whether I'll even try to keep up anymore. Posts just seem to appear where previously I didn't see any, and they're long. Feels like a game of whack-a-mole. It's a decidedly inelegant discussion in any event, with no real unifying principles. Mostly skirmish wars of ego display.

Is McDs not cheap compared to other restaurants? Does McD's not skimp on quality food to make it cheaper to buy? Is it not made to not be good tasting?

 

[420MuNkEy]

You undermine your words by being a complete douchenozzle. Logical or not, you don't have to be an asshole to win an argument.

Upon successive repetition of the same information, curtness and terseness help (me, if no one else).

 

[420MuNkEy]

It has nutrition the same way that lollies have nutrition. Simply having nutrition, doesn't make a food actually nutritious. (No, I'm not advocating removing all lollies anymore than I'm advocating removing all meat.)
Nutritious
adjective
efficient as food; nourishing.

Citing this study again:

Oh, that's sooooo much different than what I said. Your linked study doesn't make it out to be "candy", just less optimal than an alternative. You're talking bullshit.

No index is going to tell you the meat-boner any one individual gets from eating a steak (especially in isolation from other factors).

Increased risk of disease doesn't make it poison. People can subsist just fine on fast food. I know people who eat it daily. The problem here, is you wouldn't see that as "just fine" (according to what you've said) because you have your own standard which you want to apply to everyone.

Is this necessary?

Nothing against McD's existing, but are so many really necessary? I live less than 5 minutes drive from no less than four different McDonald's here in Australia.

They would not be financially viable without demand.

Longevity and freedom from disease are not the most important factors to everyone. Personal freedom to shovel whatever shit I want to in my mouth is far more important to me than how long I live. I extend the same courtesy to everyone else.

I've already explained why freedom is the antithesis of feels, but go ahead and interpret it as that anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production

There's 77 references down the bottom, majority of them independent studies. Happy reading!

Most of this shit is related to the impact of non-factory-farmed meat. Also, this isn't significantly worse than any other industry operating at this scale.

I'm not dictating anything. I'm talking about stopping or refining the way in which we inefficiently produce an abundance of food in a way that damages the environment a great deal - for a product that's low in nutritional content.

I'm not dictating anything, I just want to dictate how people do things because I know better.

Seriously, find me one instance where I've said that I'm against meat production being affordable? I hope that meat production is affordable - I just also would like that to be in conjunction with being environmentally, human and animal friendly as best as possible.

You know what's synonymous with "affordable meat production"? Factory farming. You may be able to pay for beef that's been grass-fed, massaged, and gently buttfucked every day, but this isn't true for many people - even if just once-per-week.

Nope, not specifically but I've driven through the areas where they source the produce from a few times and it's pretty lush and full of happy looking cows. I looked up all the producers they source their prodcuts from and insofar as I can tell they're doing good work.

How's this related to any of my points anyway?

It's relevant because you're assuming one alternative is better than another. For all you know they could be killed totally unstunned and just left to bleed out, gasping for air but only getting blood in their lungs as it gurgles in their esophagus. That can't be possible though, because it goes against your assumed omnipotence.

Likewise, how you managed to come up with the Bill analogy in response to, "we should aim to do things that are good for the environment, make people healthier and don't hurt animals" is still boggling my mind

I don't care about making people healthier and don't particularly care if we hurt animals. People should be free to put whatever they want in their mouth, and the market should be free to supply it. This is not an emotional argument. They should be free to do as they choose because outcome is not prioritized over the individual - meaning everyone is responsible for themselves. No one has to care about anyone else.

Indeed. I think you should start providing citations for how your definition of hedonistic importance meaningfully impacts people

See your McDonalds citation above. People want this shit. That's how the market works.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Some Gopher's and RB's posts moved to a derail thread here.

 

[QuickTwist]

Maybe George Washington Carver shares some of the blame in this???

So no one is taking me up on this one? Don't you understand the history of this man and his obsession with peanuts and how he invented so many uses for them when he lock himself in a laboratory to find out what you can do with these peanuts because he convinced so many farmers to plant them? Its also loosely tied to the industrial revolution and how mass production dictated how people would end up consuming and how large companies would end up providing a grotesque amount of product at a cheap price and how this caused a loss in art ect. the list goes on...

 

[bvanevery]

Although the subject of Washington Carver is interesting, I'm waiting for this thread to de-oscillate into some kind of more stable state, that I can more easily wrap my head around. I believe I've read that Diesel engines were meant to run on vegetable oils, such as from peanuts.

 

[MEDICaustik]

Although the subject of Washington Carver is interesting, I'm waiting for this thread to de-oscillate into some kind of more stable state, that I can more easily wrap my head around. I believe I've read that Diesel engines were meant to run on vegetable oils, such as from peanuts.

That or vegetable based alcohol/ethanol.

But this thread is crazy.

 

[redbaron]

Oh, that's sooooo much different than what I said. Your linked study doesn't make it out to be "candy", just less optimal than an alternative. You're talking bullshit.

There's a slew of articles demonstrating that factory-farmed meat and other high-meat diets are unhealthy.

No index is going to tell you the meat-boner any one individual gets from eating a steak (especially in isolation from other factors).

Muh feels.

Increased risk of disease doesn't make it poison. People can subsist just fine on fast food. I know people who eat it daily. The problem here, is you wouldn't see that as "just fine" (according to what you've said) because you have your own standard which you want to apply to everyone.

I guess people with heart disease are subsisting, "just fine" then?

Longevity and freedom from disease are not the most important factors to everyone. Personal freedom to shovel whatever shit I want to in my mouth is far more important to me than how long I live. I extend the same courtesy to everyone else.

Muh and everywun elses feels. Such projection much cognitive bias.

I've already explained why freedom is the antithesis of feels, but go ahead and interpret it as that anyway.

Poorly explained, very inconsistent with the above. Your argument is one from your own emotion and preferences, not a shred of objective evidence to be seen.

Most of this shit is related to the impact of non-factory-farmed meat. Also, this isn't significantly worse than any other industry operating at this scale.

Sure, there's a lot there that cover both factory-farming as well as normal agricultural practices. As already mentioned I'm against lots of things that damage the environment - this thread is focussed around meat so we've been discussing that.

So what if other things are just as bad? Should we stop trying to solve one bad issue just because other things are bad? Just sink into apathetic acceptance because it feels overwhelming to solve like you apparently do?

You wouldn't be able to function with all the horrific shit constantly occupying your mind that you're powerless to do anything about.

I can't handle all the bad feels, so don't remind me of them because I won't be able to function please ;(
Just sweep everything under the rug so everyone can be blissfully ignorant if you don't mind, I want muh feels to stay in tact so I can have muh freedom ;( ;(

Less backbone than a wet paper bag.

I'm not dictating anything, I just want to dictate how people do things because I know better.

Strawman. Or wait is this the sarcastic hyperbole again? Can't tell.

In any case it's not that I, "know better" I just happen to value certain things based on a lot of independent evidence I've seen. I tend to base my values on a combination of altruism and independently verifiable evidence.

There's nothing to suggest that this hedonistic importance has any basis in something that we can verify as having a legitimate impact on happiness. As noted in the OECD index, the price of meat doesn't have much to do with it.

The argument that the Bills of the world might commit suicide without a Friday steak is just emotion fodder for the audience. Consider the plethora of factors that lead to suicide.
Factors.
Factors.

But hey let's just chalk it up to the fact that if Bill offs himself, it's because he couldn't eat a steak.

You know what's synonymous with "affordable meat production"? Factory farming. You may be able to pay for beef that's been grass-fed, massaged, and gently buttfucked every day, but this isn't true for many people - even if just once-per-week.

If money's such a problem, they could just go vegetarian and save money.

There's lots of ways to do it.

Not really that hard.

Cost argument is void.

It's relevant because you're assuming one alternative is better than another. For all you know they could be killed totally unstunned and just left to bleed out, gasping for air but only getting blood in their lungs as it gurgles in their esophagus. That can't be possible though, because it goes against your assumed omnipotence.

This is just a red herring but I'll entertain you for a little.

They could be, but short of viewing the killing process I can only do my best to research what/how they're doing it. You're right, they could be having some really super elaborate cover up where even though they've had accreditation from independent bodies they might be secretly violating all of the the values they've been given a tick for upholding.

It's indeed possible and I've never said it couldn't be. I've researched to the best of my ability how they produce their food, the independent bodies that have verified them as being legitimately free-range, grass-fed etc. and I've made the decision to buy meat from there as a result.

I don't care about making people healthier and don't particularly care if we hurt animals. People should be free to put whatever they want in their mouth, and the market should be free to supply it. This is not an emotional argument. They should be free to do as they choose because outcome is not prioritized over the individual - meaning everyone is responsible for themselves. No one has to care about anyone else.

Bold part: yes it is actually

People are still free to put meat in their mouths if they want to. They might pay more, but then it's not like they aren't paying already anyway. Also, cost argument is void as noted above.

The argument is emotional, except instead of being based on altruism it's just based on the desire for your own desire for personal hedonistic freedom, extrapolated to other people.

You've so far failed to establish why this is important for any reason beyond, "I want to be able to do it because freedom" and the hilarious Bill example. You've repeated a lot what you believe, but you haven't demonstrated how any of your beliefs benefit anyone.

Also if, "everyone is responsible for themselves" then why is it up to me to worry about Bill committing suicide because he has to pay more for steak?

The market is still free to supply whatever they want, so long as it's sourced responsibly. If you can source it responsibly, go ahead and supply whatever you want. The argument isn't that we should take factory-farmed meat off the market simply because it's bad, that's a misrepresentation of my point.

The point is that we shouldn't market things that are sourced irresponsibly unless their benefit outweighs the damage done sourcing it.

Is factory-farmed meat so important that we should continue damaging the environment and harming animals to keep it around? Not from any form of measurable metric of human happiness and health, nor from an environmentally conscious perspective.

But yeah, you don't care about either animals or people so it's not surprising that you don't value either of those things.

No one has to care about anyone else.

And that's really the source of your argument. It's not that anything you're saying is backed by any kind of evidence, rationality or is even well thought out - you simply don't care.

Unless your precious freedom to do whatever you feel like doing with impunity is violated, then suddenly it's a great big violation of muh freedom huh?

See your McDonalds citation above. People want this shit. That's how the market works.

Muh feels. I want it and I should have it because muh freedom.

 

[bvanevery]

I give up. I can't follow this thread anymore. Unsubscribing.

 

[redbaron]

Thanks for letting us know. Not sure how I'd have lived if you just unsubscribed without announcing it.

 

[TheScornedReflex]

You dick, Bvanevery! I was waiting for Munk to post so he'd have the 420 th post in this thread. My hopes and dreams have been shattered.

My excuse for not being vegan is that I enjoy meat. I like the taste. And I have a bit of land so I have meat walking around in my paddocks just waiting to go into my stomach. It's cheap and renewable.

Also, bacon.

Also, also, meat helped the evolution of our brains. So fuck you vegetables

 

[420MuNkEy]

I've grown bored of feeding this troll. Call it a victory if you want, but I've repeatedly demonstrated it to be talking absolute fucking nonsense. There's no point in engaging with someone who's speech is nothing more than a spite on the very act of communication.

 

[marceedoodles]

I'm just curious. Please no TL;DR.

Well, two reasons: laziness, and I'm also not that interested.
I always wondered if vegans eat honey, though.

 

[MEDICaustik]

Well, two reasons: laziness, and I'm also not that interested.
I always wondered if vegans eat honey, though.

Technically they do not. In fact, vegans like myself, who don't really care about honey, are on the regular attacked and ousted from the vegan community for having such an attitude.

I don't go out of my way to eat honey, but I also don't go out of my way to avoid it. To some, that's about as bad as eating meat.

Whatcha gunna do?

 

[deathvirtuoso]

Excuse? What excuse? There aren't enough compelling reasons for me to be vegan. I don't really care who or what I eat. Besides, I really like meat.

 

[Oedipus]

I just can't be bothered.

I’ve been vegan for a year and a half now. Finally got bothered

 

[ZenRaiden]

Better question yet why don't you believe in Jesus Christ?

Or even better question yet why aren't people breatharian?

 

[sushi]

childhood hardwire and habits

its not impossible to beat, or live off something different from childhood expereinces but its extremely difficult and require some effort.

if I have been eating meat your whole childhood, it just goes on in adulthood.

if I have been programmed to eat more vegan diet, or your parents prepare frequent vagan meals perhaps things would be differnet.

Also stuff that tastes good usually are not very healthy for the body.

 

[INeedHelp]

Why do I need an excuse? That's a rather arrogant question. You are assuming that I think eating animals is immoral or bad for the environment or some other reason in your head that you believe. I don't have to hold your same beliefs. Here is a question for you - Do you advocate for getting rid of all termites too? Or is it just immoral to eat animals. Mankind grew a brain to 2 1/2 times it's size from 350,000 years ago. All attributed to eating more protein and fat in "our" current theories. We came out of the trees and onto the plains where animals were plentiful.

 

[birdsnestfern]

I’m type O blood which means I need meat.
Type A does ok with vegetables.

 

[dr froyd]

plant/grain-based foods mess my stomach up and im genetically predisposed to celiac disease. Sorry to all animals out there but it's me or them. Nature is a bitch

 

[ZenRaiden]

Currently eat meat, had tried eating plant based, and there was some changes in the way I feel.
Overall my problem is with activity, availability and quality of food.
I can survive on plant.
In my mind I am set to change my diet to plants, but still eat meat, now I feel like I am crossing this invisible line in my mind each time I eat meat, tiny bit of guilt, because I do love animals overall.
However my concerns were mainly in past about health, ergo heart, cholesterol, metabolism optimization.