Animal rights

[Guest MattP]

Surely the facts that Americans have higher rates of heart disease etc etc comes from the fact the nation is obsessed with fast food from Maccys Denny's Popeyes etc rather than generally being meat eaters?

The captains right when he says if you have a balanced diet you'll be fine.

That said even if meat eaters lived ten years less I wouldn't stop, eating good meat for 70 years would be far more pleasurable than being a vegetarian for 80.

[Houdini Logic]

and just to prove that Veggies too can copy and paste

...and at the same time not realise the diffrerence between vegetarians and vegans

[OzFox]

I watched it but surprisingly feel no less ignorant than before.

Oh and head lice don't carry Human disease to the best of our knowledge.

Most animals are no threat to us. Doesn't stop us killing them though

[OzFox]

Animal welfare, in the so called first world is one thing. Changes for the better have been made and continue to be made, but in many areas of the East and Far East its not high on the agenda. In markets in South East Asia live stock is often sold live, carried home upside down on a bike and disptached who knows how? This of course includes some animals we thnk of as pets the West. Changing the habits of the world is top of the hard to do pile. We can really only do our own little bit, the rest of the world is unlikely to be impressed though.

Good point, but there's still plenty of room for improvement in our own backyard.

For me Asia is a lost cause. What they do to livestock is bad enough but a chunk of the population still believe in superstitious nonsense about rhino horn & ivory, there's medieval bear baiting in Pakistan, bear bile in four countries, dolphin slaughter in Japan, shark finning just about everywhere. In Indonesia they burn orangutans out of trees, or even worse, tie them up and have sex with them. I'm amazed animal welfare groups even bother to try and operate there to be honest.

[ozleicester]

1. you’ll live longer. studies show that on average vegans live 6 years longer than meat eater. Key words here, on average, of course an average Vegan will live longer because by virtue of being a vegan you have to be very careful of what you eat to have a healthy balanced diet, of the non vegans some will be healthy omnivores, and others won't and will eat any old crap bringing the average down, healthy balanced omnivore diet is the same as a healthy balanced vegan diet.

Meat is proven to contain carcinogens, whilst what you say is mostly accurate, you will have a less healthy body by eating meat

2. avoid toxins. (non-organic) meat contains antibiotics, hormones & toxins produced by stress & pesticide residues that become concentrated from all the crops they have eaten. So meat contains toxins from crops, and you want us to eat the crops directly, increase in veggies means an increase in demand for crops, means an increase in the use of pesticides and hormones to produce the crops. I try to eat Organic meat and I think there are tighter controls in the UK than the states on this, but I could be wrong.

The crops contain toxins due to the need for overproduction for animal consumption

3. less land consumption. an astounding 20 vegans can live off the same amount of land required by one meat eater. True, but I eat a lot of fish and they take up no land

What will you eat when the fish run out... not long now

4. less water consumption. it only takes 25 gallons of water to produce 1lb of wheat whereas it takes 2500 gallons to produce 1lb of meat. So give it less water to drink... no seriously though, do you think that water has been used up, do you think it is gone, and there is no more water in the world, or do you think it is recycled back into the ecosystem?

Its actually gone... one of the worlds largest future problems will be the lack of adequate water

5. reduce potential for food poison. 80% of food poisoning is due to infected meat. This only applies to people that can't cook, or don't know how to store food properly (or eat at dodgy restaurants)

Meat becomes dangerous more easily and quickly

6. reduced risk of heart disease. vegans have a 57% reduced risk of getting heart disease (the #1 killer in america today!). See point 1. See point 1

7. proper protein. the average american eats twice as much protein as necessary for a healthy diet and much of that is from red meat. getting protein from beans and grains is much healthier and reduces the risk for osteoporosis. I'm not american, and it is again assuming non vegan can't have a balanced diet.

No its not assuming that, research has shown it, the fact you state about Veggies being more careful about good diet is true, the simple fact is, more meat eaters are unhealthy because they dont think about what they eat, but even if they did.. they would be healthier as Veggies

8. healthy hormones. eating animals that have been given hormones to speed growth (a widely accepted practice in the meat industry) means those hormones go into your body. not only can this disrupt the natural balance of your hormones, but some of the hormones given to animals have shown to cause tumor growth in humans. A fair point but I try to eat only organic meat, or non farmed fish.

9. avoid antibiotics. antibiotics are almost always given to (non-organic) feed animals, which can lead to bacterial resistance in humans. many of the antibiotics used to treat human infections are also used in feed animals. this means by consuming this, we are causing ourselves to be less resistant to antibiotics. Not going to give you this one without any evidence, I don't think these practices are common in the UK, and like I said eating organic avoids this problem.

Evidence - http://www.bsas.org.uk/about_the_bsas/issue_papers/antibiotic_use_in_farmed_livestock/

or (First try to ignore the Authors name) something like 60% of antibiotics used in the US are used on animals... seriously if you think the UK is substantially different you are fooling yourself. http://www.forbes.com/sites/daniellegould/2012/07/11/whats-in-your-beef-a-lot-of-antibiotics-says-food-industry-survey/

10. increased weight loss. a healthy weight loss is a typical result of a smart vegan diet. eating vegan eliminates most of the unhealthy foods that tend to cause weight issues. 33% percent of americans are obese, while only 2% of vegans are. Again not American and non vegan doesn't mean unhealthy.

So there are no chumbers wandering the streets of England?

11. prevent osteoporosis. bone health depends on a balance of neither too much or too little protein, adequate calcium intake, high potassium, and low sodium. with a healthy vegan diet, all four of these points set a perfect scenario for preventing osteoporosis. And with a healthy meat eating diet, eating meat does not mean you are unhealthy.

Correct - although you would be healthier still if you weren't eating meat

12. appropriate puberty. since 1950, girls are hitting puberty on average 4-7 years earlier and boy’s sperm counts have decreased by 25-50% due to the hormones present in non-organic meat and dairy products. See point 9

Indeed - see point 9...or from Princeton Uni http://www.princeton.edu/~greening/downloads/antibiotic_table_tent1.pdf

13. reduced risk of alzheimers. meat eaters have double the rate of alzheimers disease as vegans. Is there a proven link between meat and alzheimers, or is it just unhealthy eating, or because of chemicals in non organic meat?

Link - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9278413/Red-meat-and-butter-could-raise-Alzheimers-risk.html

or here -

http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/91/34818/methionine-meat-other-foods-may-increase-alzheimers-risk.html

14. support heathy ecosystems. nitrates & pesticides used on crops grown to feed livestock end up in our rivers and vastly effect the health of micro environments and ecosystems. See point 2. Ditto

15. reduce global warming. the 1,300,000,000 cattle in the world emit 60,000,000 tons of methane per year (methane is a greenhouse gas which leads to global warming). Solution, kill off the cattle? Plug up their bum holes?

no its really quite simple... reduce the amount of meat we eat... means reduction in cattle.. means reduction in Greenhouse gasses. Just remember anyone who wants to make a difference to climate change. THE SINGLE BIGGEST impact you can make is to stop eating meat

16. reduce animal cruelty. the animals involved in mass industry farming are exposed to the most cruel, unsanitary and horrific conditions. if you can handle watching it, the ‘meet your meat‘ (beware this movie is horrific) movie will give you a glance into the common practices of present day industry farming. No argument there.

17. reduce your risk for cancer. vegans have a 40% reduced level of cancer than the general population thought to be because they have a higher intake of vitamins A,C & E. Again is the link to meat, or to eating too much red meat something that can be easily controlled, but often isn't.

but meat contains carcinogens...just as every cigarette does you damage, so to does every steak

18. eliminate bad cholesterol. eliminating any food that comes from an animal and you will eliminate all of the ‘bad’ dietary cholesterol from your diet (heart disease is the leading cause of death in america today). But eating a healthy balanced diet including meat and fish will also not cause you cholesterol problems.

Meat and fish contain fats etc that are the cause of many health problems.. a balanced diet is better than unbalanced... a balanced veggie diet is better still

19. save rain forests. if they continue to clear american forests to raise cattle at the present rate, in 50 years there will be none left. True (well I think it is an over simplification, the logging industry are also fairly quick to help).

On the good side, the americans will starrt dieing off at such speed due to their unhealthy diets that in a couple of generations we could be back in balance ..add the palm oil industry to the loggers too

20. increase your energy. when following a healthy vegan diet, you will find your energy is much higher. When following a healthy balanced omnivorous diet you will also have plenty of energy.

Agreed but if you eat veggie you also dont need to kill anything

[acooling08]

Out of those points ozleicester, you can wipe out about half of them for many meat eaters including me.

I love meat (red meat especially) and would rather have a meat eating life and die of heart disease at 70, than live a vegan life and live to 80. I'm a fussy bugger when it comes to food, so most vegan alternatives are unnappealing to me. So for cancer, heart disease etc, I'll take the chance. If you go by 'recent studies', there's hundreds of things that we use/consume that will likely give us cancer.

As for animal welfare, I don't think you'll find anybody who wouldn't support a better standard of living for farm animals. We are getting there. Battery hens are banned now, and free range products are becoming readily available.

[The Doctor]

Out of those points ozleicester, you can wipe out about half of them for many meat eaters including me.

I love meat (red meat especially) and would rather have a meat eating life and die of heart disease at 70, than live a vegan life and live to 80. I'm a fussy bugger when it comes to food, so most vegan alternatives are unnappealing to me. So for cancer, heart disease etc, I'll take the chance. If you go by 'recent studies', there's hundreds of things that we use/consume that will likely give us cancer.

As for animal welfare, I don't think you'll find anybody who wouldn't support a better standard of living for farm animals. We are getting there. Battery hens are banned now, and free range products are becoming readily available.

The Daily Heil does not count as recent studies.

Oh and Oz - cunt off with that last point, plants are as fucking alive as animals so don't get off on that whole killing things idea - if you're going to do that, become a fruitarian.

[Captain...]

One little snippet of info I didn't quite pick up on is the fact that 2% of Vegans are obese, how the fvck does a vegan become obese? eat an entire tree?!?!

Again it proves my point that being a vegan or a meat eater is not the only factor in whether you are healthy, you can, I don't really understand how, have obese unhealthy vegans, in the same way you can have fit and healthy meat eaters.

With regard the carcinogens, do you not eat toast, sugar, salty, spicy or smoked food nor drink soda or alcoholic drinks?

Meat is not the only carcinogenic food there are also studies that show meat substitutes such as tofu and soy products can be linked to cancer, a vegan diet does not protect you from all carcinogens or pesticides, the majority of those arguments are not about Veganism, just healthy eating.

[MooseBreath]

Cakes, chocolate etc. Too much sugar is what makes most people fat. You'd do well to become obese from eating too much meat. It would cost a fortune for a start.

[21st Century Fox]

Cakes, chocolate etc. Too much sugar is what makes most people fat. You'd do well to become obese from eating too much meat. It would cost a fortune for a start.

True, you'd have to absolutely plough through a lot of meat, probably highly processed at that to become obese. It's the crap that goes with it that makes you fat. Considering a lot of sugary foods nowadays contain things like high fructose corn syrup which is pretty much what they feed to pigs.

[Rincewind]

I think I could be a summer veggie. Had a nice ham salad today. Could easily have been a cheese one or a quiche. Salads are not right for the winter though. I prefer a nice hot roast or beef and dumpling stew.

[ozleicester]

Out of those points ozleicester, you can wipe out about half of them for many meat eaters including me.

I love meat (red meat especially) and would rather have a meat eating life and die of heart disease at 70, than live a vegan life and live to 80. I'm a fussy bugger when it comes to food, so most vegan alternatives are unnappealing to me. So for cancer, heart disease etc, I'll take the chance. If you go by 'recent studies', there's hundreds of things that we use/consume that will likely give us cancer.

As for animal welfare, I don't think you'll find anybody who wouldn't support a better standard of living for farm animals. We are getting there. Battery hens are banned now, and free range products are becoming readily available.

I understand that you think you prefer meat at the moment, because like almost all of us, you have been conditioned to think that meat is wonderfully flavoured and that veggie alternatives are less so, and i have admitted that there are certain meats that i have always loved the taste of, but I decided to adjust my thinking about what tastes good and what doesnt.

Now when i see or smell meat, instead of the pavlovian response of thinking how yummy it is, i unconciously think that it is animal carcass being incinerated which certainly reduces my interest.

yes, there has been progression with animal cruelty but we have a lot further to go.

You mention everybody is looking to improve the standard of living for animals, but you still support the killing of them for you to eat... so yes, they have a better life while they are alive... but you are still killing them...and i think you will agree..."Killing is cruel"

The Daily Heil does not count as recent studies.

Oh and Oz - **** off with that last point, plants are as ****ing alive as animals so don't get off on that whole killing things idea - if you're going to do that, become a fruitarian.

Thanks Al,I think you will find that animals have a central nervous system and pain receptors like (most) humans and are therefore capable of thought and suffering... plants do not have a central nervous system or pain receptors, therefore do not suffer pain when they are eaten.

[ozleicester]

I think I could be a summer veggie. Had a nice ham salad today. Could easily have been a cheese one or a quiche. Salads are not right for the winter though. I prefer a nice hot roast or beef and dumpling stew.

I think youve mentioned earlier about having had some quorn mince etc, that can be used to make some very tasty hot winter dishes (stews/shepherds pie etc) and is usually cheaper than the meat alternative.

In order to enjoy a veggie lifestyle, the biggest change is the one inside our own heads,

i remember my first beer or first wine and saying it tasted like pi$$ or vinegar and almost everyone when answering honestly says the same thing, but for some reason, we decide that becoming accustomed to the taste, which then leads to enjoying the taste, is something many people will happily do.

The same type commitment is required with a veggie lifestyle.

[ozleicester]

WTF... This absurd "fishing boat" has arrived in Australia.

http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/news/oceans/top-10-facts-about-super-trawlers/

10 frightening facts about super trawlers

From Europe to Africa, Greenpeace is campaigning for super trawlers like the Margiris to be removed from the seas. Our campaign has reached Australia now that one of the world’s largest and most notorious super trawlers, the Margiris, is heading for our shores.

Click on the image to see the full size infographic

Here are ten reasons why we must stop the Margiris and all super trawlers coming to Australia before they destroy our marine environment and our coastal communities.

• The Margiris is more than twice the size of any boat to have fished Australian waters.
  Super trawlers can be up to 144 metres long, and use trawl nets up to 600 metres long. The average Australian commercial fishing boat is around 25 metres long.
  
• Super trawlers can catch the equivalent weight of 20 buses in fish per day.
  The Margiris can process up to 250 tonnes of fish per day and can store over 6000 tonnes (545 buses) of frozen fish – that means they can fish for months on end without coming into port.
  
• Super trawlers kill turtles, dolphins, seals and other marine animals.
  This indiscriminate fishing method has a high level of bycatch, that is, unwanted marine life. In the past 15 years, bycatch from 20 super trawlers fishing off West Africa has killed an estimated 1,500 critically endangered turtles, more than 18,000 giant rays, and more than 60,000 sharks.
  
• Super trawlers destroy jobs.
  These vessels use sophisticated technology and few crew members, while taking the majority of the fish. In Europe, small-scale local fishermen have only been allocated 20% of the fishing opportunities despite the fact that they represent 80% of all fishermen in Europe.
  
• Super trawlers have a criminal track record
  The Margiris and other super trawlers were ordered out of Western Sahara watersafter it was found they were breaching international law in 2011.
  
• Super trawlers collapsed the South Pacific fishery.
  Scientists said there were so many jack mackerel in the South Pacific that the fishery was impossible to overfish. Super trawlers, including the Margiris, fished so much that in 2006 the fishery collapsed to 10% of healthy stocks. Fisheries managers are calling for fishing to be cut by half with some scientists arguing for a five year total ban.
  
• Super trawlers wiped out West Africa’s commercial fish stocks
  Since super trawlers, including the Margiris, started fishing off the West Coast of Africa,most commercial fish stocks have become ‘fully exploited’ or ‘over-exploited’. i.e. There are no more fish.
  
• Senegal banned all foreign trawlers from its waters
  This was a result of 52,000 local fishermen threatening to take direct action against the owners of foreign trawlers, due to the damage super trawlers have caused to their fish stocks. The Senegalese president then closed the fishery entirely for six months to aid recovery.
  
• If the little fish go, so do the big fish..
  The Margiris will target Redbait, blue mackerel and red mackerel, which are important species in the food chain. They are food for animals including the bottlenose dolphin, fur seals and larger fish such as southern bluefin tuna and sharks.
  
• Super trawlers have already harmed Tasmania’s fish
  Large surface schools of the fish to be targeted by the Margiris - jack mackerel - were once common off Tasmania until they were overfished by trawlers more than 20 years ago. These surface schools soon disappeared and have not been seen since. The Margiris are now targeting the deeper schools of jack mackerel.
  

[Jaspa]

[Jaspa]

Joke . . . Joke

Very serious issue, but I thought they had those special nets that only caught fish of certain sizes, and the reason for countries like Senegal not allowing fishing could be more than just wanting to save fish, could be a very deep political issue

I hope Its resolved well . . . In time

[Captain...]

The more fish we remove from the sea, the better, with the icecaps melting and sea levels rising we need to remove as much from the sea as possible to counteract the rise in sea level via displacement.

It's called science dummy.

*This announcement was brought to by the Fisheries United in Catching and Killing Whales And Dolphins or (F.U.C.K.W.A.D).

[OzFox]

All this without a super trawler.

.....just one-seventeenth of the volume of fish that existed in 1889 survived into the first decade of the 21st century. Fish stocks, they found, collapsed long before the amount of fish being landed declined: the landings were sustained only by ever more powerful boats, with ever more effective gear, scouring ever wider expanses of sea. Haddock, they found, had fallen to 1% of their former volume, halibut to one-fifth of 1%.

There is plenty more to tell: in the 1920s and 1930s big game fishermen pursued bluefin tuna off Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast. In 1933 the biggest tuna caught anywhere on Earth to that date was taken there.

Before our river systems were dammed and weired for industry in the middle ages, all of them supported almost unimaginable runs of migratory fish: not only salmon and sea trout but also shad, lampreys and giant sturgeon, swarming up from the all the seas surrounding us. In the 11th century, and probably long before, there was a coastal whaling industry in England: many of the world's largest whales, including a species now extinct in the Atlantic region - the grey whale - came this way.

Our marine life was likely to have been as rich and abundant as that of any other sea. But this great exuberance has not only been depleted beyond recognition; it has also been forgotten. Just as overfishing impoverishes the life of the sea, the forgetting impoverishes our own lives.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/sep/07/riches-seas-depleted-forgotten

[ozleicester]

http://www.freedomforfarmedrabbits.com/

[foxesfan1989]

Everyone should be vegetarian. Killing animals for the purpose of food should be illegal. Any other argument is ultimately based on the fact that people do not want to give up meat and enjoy a steak...rather than any real logic. There, that is my honest opinion that everyone hates and in real life I mainly keep to myself to avoid a lynching.

[AdamN]

Everyone should be vegetarian. Killing animals for the purpose of food should be illegal. Any other argument is ultimately based on the fact that people do not want to give up meat and enjoy a steak...rather than any real logic. There, that is my honest opinion that everyone hates and in real life I mainly keep to myself to avoid a lynching.

Steak is delicious, therefore I want to eat it.

Pretty sound logic if you ask me.

[foxesfan1989]

Steak is delicious, therefore I want to eat it.

Pretty sound logic if you ask me.

That response is why I rarely bother having a vegetarian discussion with meat eaters. It is impossible to change peoples mind, really is.

[21st Century Fox]

I prefer long pork.

[AdamN]

That response is why I rarely bother having a vegetarian discussion with meat eaters. It is impossible to change peoples mind, really is.

Same as it'd be impossible for any meat eater to change a vegetarian's mind. 24 pages of thread up in smoke!

[foxesfan1989]

Same as it'd be impossible for any meat eater to change a vegetarian's mind. 24 pages of thread up in smoke!

Ah yes but why would any meat eater want to change the mind of a vegetarian? Eating meat is not a decision people have come to after much soul searching. It is not a moral decision that they will fight for. It's just something that they haven't really ever thought through. It's nice therefore people eat it. No sane person has ever sat down and thought "yes, i eat meat because its the right thing to do".