The article you posted wrote:
"We usually look at proteins rather than calories, and as a general rule it is still the case that reducing meat consumption in favour of plant-based proteins can reduce emissions,"
That article looked at emissions per calorie, btw. Your article implies that one head of lettuce is three times as worse as about one strip of bacon (~45 calories). That's not very impressive. Controlling for volume, weight, or nutrients would tip the scale in favor of la lechuga.
troof wrote:
Plants take in CO2 and give us O2 (good).
Animals take in O2 and breathe out CO2 (bad).
So why do these hippies think it is ok to kill plants, but bad to kill animals? Aren't they harming the earth and causing global warming by killing all these plants?
Just some food for thought (no pun intended). Feel free to discus, but I'm calling checkmate.
Much like you, plants are sentient.
Rational Thoughts wrote:
And here's the real kicker of your argument. It's also known that meat production is inefficient.
This isn't necessarily true, except in the strictly mathematical tally of "calories". It's a measurement that isn't actually useful, because those calories don't necessarily have a better purpose than feeding meat animals, and don't necessarily have a cost or opportunity cost associated with them. Also by simply counting the calories you're ignoring other impacts of the system.
You actually have to grow and "kill" more plants in order to sustain livestock.
You actually don't have to kill any plants to feed livestock. Ruminants can get their requirements from a patch of grass and then move on to another without killing the plant, similar to a lawnmower. If you're killing the grass, you're doing it wrong.
Feeding these plants to livestock actually wastes calories and water.
It's not a waste unless those calories and water would otherwise go to a useful purpose AND there are no other benefits created by the system. Neither of these is always true. One example is animals raised on land that can't sustain crops, due to elevation, soil quality, terrain, etc., but can sustain plants on which animals can be raised (most of the world isn't flat, fertile, Midwest farmland). Another example is cattle raised on pasture in a manner that contributes to the healing of the land. Well-maintained managed grazing operations can add topsoil, increase biodiversity, reduce waste runoff, sequester carbon, and more.
Research shows that it takes multiple pounds of plant calories to produce one pound of meat calories.
Ok, so? You weren't going to eat 1,000 pounds of prairie grasses, vegetarian or not (hint: you can't digest the same things a cow can).
Meat eaters are indirectly killing more plants than vegans / vegetarians.
Depends where they're getting their meat from, and how it was raised. So for most of us in America, maybe so. But it doesn't have to be this way; there are alternatives.
The points you mention here are indicative of a classic American problem of hitting the wrong target. There are many problems with eating meat in our current food system, and it's natural for people to object to them. But they aren't inherent flaws of eating meat, rather problems with the system that created that meat. It's a failure of logic to conclude that eating meat is the problem, when the problems lie within the system. If you don't like industrially-raised beef, then don't eat beef raised in that manner. There are alternatives out there.
You're an idiot. If people keep eatting meat then the demand for meat will remain the same or increase, causing companies to continue breeding animals that take up a lot of the earths resources and pollute the earth. Oh and fun fact we produce more plant products to feed the animals that we will kill then we do plant products to feed ourselves. That food could be used to give the other half of the world that is starving.
Because it fits in their preconceived ideas.
No, they are not concerned. That would not fit.
You make some good points here.
However,
1) You did not address the inherent flaws of meat from a perspective of suffering (the ethical Vegan perspective).
2) A few of your points point out some flaws in my arguments. But, would you not agree that these are minor flaws? For example, yes, cows can eat patches of grass that don't kill the plant. However, a vast vast majority of cows are raised on factory farms where they are fed corn and soy. The grass-fed statistic is minor in the grand scheme of things. I also think your example of animals raised in areas where crops can't be grown well is a minor percentage of the total area.
3) I would agree that humans obviously can't eat the prairie grass, and not all of the corn or soy is made edible either, but if land that is used for corn, soy, and grass is repurposed for foods that humans can eat, then you have a different story (I also understand that there would be minor exceptions where some of this land could not be repurposed for various reasons).
Because plants are LOSERS!!!!
You should crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their seeds.
Not everybody is vegetarian or vegan because they are concerned about the moral implications of killing animals. Some choose to be vegetarian purely for environmental reasons (already covered) or because they think it is healthier.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2677858/Bad-news-vegetarians-Plants-hear-eaten.html
Vae Victis wrote:
Because plants are LOSERS!!!!
You should crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their seeds.
"You know the riddle of steel boy?"
Rational Thoughts wrote:
It continues to astonish me the things people post. Literally all I do when I post a rational thought is spend 5-10 minutes doing some basic research on the Google. The information is out there, and it's not that hard to find it. Which makes it pretty obvious that the OP is a troll because he/she posted this question on Letsrun of all places.
Here is the result of some basic research.
Vegans / Vegetarians often choose this lifestyle to limit the suffering of animals. Scientific studies show (basic Google search) that, based on what we know, animals can feel pain and suffer while plants cannot (there are probably some small exceptions to this rule). Thus, "killing" a plant doesn't cause any pain and suffering while killing an animal does.
And here's the real kicker of your argument. It's also known that meat production is inefficient. You actually have to grow and "kill" more plants in order to sustain livestock. Feeding these plants to livestock actually wastes calories and water. Research shows that it takes multiple pounds of plant calories to produce one pound of meat calories. Meat eaters are indirectly killing more plants than vegans / vegetarians.
Also, here's another flaw. Your argument is basically saying that vegans / vegetarians should be okay eating animals if they're okay eating plants. Perhaps they believe it's not okay to eat either. By eating only plants, they are still minimizing suffering. You're basically saying it should be one or the other, do all good things or no good things. It's better to some good things than no good things.
Let me just emphasize again that I spent 5-10 minutes on the Google and was able to find credible information on this.
I know you did a lot better than I did in school.
A+
As a vegan, these are very good points. Either side of the debate can get entrenched and absolutist, which is really unhelpful. No one was ever convinced of the truth of something by having it rammed down their throats.So, let's say that all meat eaters agreed to eat meat according to the below restrictions. That it be raised on pastureland that would not otherwise be suitable for agricultural production. Let's also throw in that the cattle would be slaughtered as humanely as possible.This would be a HUGE improvement. Compared to the factory farms today, I would sign up for this in a second. But, it doesn't eliminate all the issues.For one, it doesn't solve the emissions problem (it would help, since you could raise far fewer beef by this method). Current estimates put livestock at 18-30% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Pasture-raised cattle can't avoid this problem.Second, it doesn't eliminate the moral problem. You are choosing to end an animals life and consume it basically because it tastes good. You have plenty of other healthy options, you can take a B-12 supplement or, as I do, eat non-sentient oysters (purity vegans get upset by this, but I don't think they read the science).Finally, there's a class cost and a moral cost to outsourcing killing. Many studies show that killing an animal, for most people, is emotionally difficult. Ask yourself how much meat you would eat if you had to kill it. For some people, this would be fine, which is why I'm far less opposed to hunting than factory farming. But for people who don't have the heart to take an animals life, but are just fine buying a piece of that animal on a styrofoam tray, there's something off about that. The result is that extremely poor people take jobs where they kill animals all day for you, hundreds of animals a day, 7 days a week. It takes a massive toll on them. I've seen studies on the rates of depression, anti-social behavior, violence and suicide among slaughterhouse workers - it's not pretty.So I would say this. If we could replace factory farms with pasture-fed livestock slaughtered and eaten by the people that raise them and a small population of hunters - let's do it. I'll never say another word.But if we hold up that vision to mask what really happens on American factory farms, we're not seeing the forest for the trees.
A Poster wrote:
Rational Thoughts wrote:And here's the real kicker of your argument. It's also known that meat production is inefficient.
This isn't necessarily true, except in the strictly mathematical tally of "calories". It's a measurement that isn't actually useful, because those calories don't necessarily have a better purpose than feeding meat animals, and don't necessarily have a cost or opportunity cost associated with them. Also by simply counting the calories you're ignoring other impacts of the system.
You actually have to grow and "kill" more plants in order to sustain livestock.
You actually don't have to kill any plants to feed livestock. Ruminants can get their requirements from a patch of grass and then move on to another without killing the plant, similar to a lawnmower. If you're killing the grass, you're doing it wrong.
Feeding these plants to livestock actually wastes calories and water.
It's not a waste unless those calories and water would otherwise go to a useful purpose AND there are no other benefits created by the system. Neither of these is always true. One example is animals raised on land that can't sustain crops, due to elevation, soil quality, terrain, etc., but can sustain plants on which animals can be raised (most of the world isn't flat, fertile, Midwest farmland). Another example is cattle raised on pasture in a manner that contributes to the healing of the land. Well-maintained managed grazing operations can add topsoil, increase biodiversity, reduce waste runoff, sequester carbon, and more.
Research shows that it takes multiple pounds of plant calories to produce one pound of meat calories.
Ok, so? You weren't going to eat 1,000 pounds of prairie grasses, vegetarian or not (hint: you can't digest the same things a cow can).
Meat eaters are indirectly killing more plants than vegans / vegetarians.
Depends where they're getting their meat from, and how it was raised. So for most of us in America, maybe so. But it doesn't have to be this way; there are alternatives.
The points you mention here are indicative of a classic American problem of hitting the wrong target. There are many problems with eating meat in our current food system, and it's natural for people to object to them. But they aren't inherent flaws of eating meat, rather problems with the system that created that meat. It's a failure of logic to conclude that eating meat is the problem, when the problems lie within the system. If you don't like industrially-raised beef, then don't eat beef raised in that manner. There are alternatives out there.
Sentience is relative. Plants react to sunlight and other stimuli. Cannot this be considered sentience?
Veggies do it for environmental reasons, sustainability reasons, animal cruelty reasons, health reasons, etc.
It takes 10x as much energy to produce energy from cows as it does crops. 10 fold increase when you move up the food chain b/c of inefficiencies.
As someone mentioned in this forum, plants WANT to be eaten. It's in their nature.
The only argument, which was also mentioned in this forum, that would make me not care as much about being a vegetarian is that monoculture farming does indeed kill many rodents/insects/etc.
OP, what do you expect vegans to eat if not plants? Sand? Become electrically powered? Learn photosynthesis? Stop eating and die?
Maybe vegans care about plants, but not enough to kill themselves rather than eat plants.
You do realize that factory-farmed animals eat more grain than 9,000,000,000 would, correct? You are correct in that if we destroyed all plants, everything on earth would die, but factory farming is the real problem. Additionally, plants can't feel pain or experience emotions like animals can.
As far as we know, plants don't or can't suffer. If you eat fruits and nuts, you're eating things that plants grow for the purpose of being eaten,
Vegetarian is not quite the right word for me -- I would eat bugs, I do eat oysters (also think they don't have the capacity to suffer), and I eat meat that is "Animal Welfare Approved" once in a blue moon -- but I love animals and I would prefer a world in which they suffer less, so I do a tiny bit to make it happen by generally avoiding meat. In the scheme of things, it's not much, but it makes me feel better.
Do people on here really not know that plants feel pain? Did anyone not bother researching this before posting this bit of nonsense? Just because plants don't feel the same kind of pain as animals does not mean they don't feel pain.
Why don't they care about all the critters that are run over when the farm equipment harvests their veggies? Or the others that lose their habitats and food sources when fruits are picked?
Seriously, if you're a vegetarian because you love animals then you're failing.
just another guy wrote:
Hey there moron, have you ever tried to train a plant to do tricks? Huh? Have you?!?!?
Put that is your pipe and smoke and see where that takes you.
I trained a plant to collapse its leaves when I touched it and another to catch flies.
Vegetarian here. I don't care about killing plants because I am a hypocrite in my application of cruelty. I'm also an atheist, teacher, and high school coach. Oh, and I think we spend way too much on our military. Conservatives, please pray for me. Save me from being a cowardly, godless leech. Also, send workouts for my team. Together we can make America great again. I can't wait to be sick of winning.