Animal rights?

When you harvest corn, the corn dies.

 

Vegetarians are OK with that, because plants don't feel pain like we do. Of course, neither do insects and fish, but heaven forbid we kill them!

 

We are omnimvores. We developed to eat both meat and plants

This is a correct statement.

You cannot live on a strictly vegetarian diet without supplementation. Women also need a certain percentage of body fat to be able to reproduce - strict vegans generally don't facilitate adequate fat storage to be healthy during pregnancy. I've seen it before at the hospital I work for, unusually thin women often have trouble during pregnancy.

I find it quite odd, to be truthful, that certain individuals feel complete empathy with cows, chickens and the like. I can understand slaughtering them humanely, but to get to extremes and close to a sort of animal worship is a tad absurd in my opinion.

 

I find it more than odd, but I'm an extremist when it comes to issues like this, so you'll probably want to take my opinions with a grain of salt...

Death is essential for survival. Always has been, always will be. For you to live, other living creatures must be killed. I would have thought this to be a bit easier to understand for some people...

 

There have been cases of infants dying due to severe malnourishment because their vegan mothers thought it would be a good idea to feed them soy milk (or equally odd macrobiotic diets to their children).

I mean, it's your body, your choice. But when you bring other people into this world, use some freakin' good sense. Then again, I think hospitals should really go over some basics of infant care and nutrition before sending mothers home anyway.

[1] and before someone mentions it, I do think that stuffing kids with McDonalds is equally henious.

 

I think feeding a newborn with anything other than human breastmilk is just asking for trouble. Those things make milk for a reason you know.

 

"I find it quite odd, to be truthful, that certain individuals feel complete empathy with cows, chickens and the like. I can understand slaughtering them humanely, but to get to extremes and close to a sort of animal worship is a tad absurd in my opinion."

Who wouldn't find that odd? I certainly don't worship any animals and given the choice between saving a human life and saving that of a chicken I would undoubtedly save the human.

That said, I think it's a little naive to think that these animals are slaughtered humanely. Just taking chickens as an example, more than 275 of those animals are slaughtered every second in the United States when you average it out.

Don't believe me? Check out the numbers from the USDA here.

"You cannot live on a strictly vegetarian diet without supplementation. Women also need a certain percentage of body fat to be able to reproduce - strict vegans generally don't facilitate adequate fat storage to be healthy during pregnancy. I've seen it before at the hospital I work for, unusually thin women often have trouble during pregnancy."

Wrong, the strict vegetarian diet provides all the nutrition a body needs. I would suggest checking out the position of the American Dietetic Association for more reputable information. It's easy enough to track down.

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases."

And they aren't the only group that advocates vegetarian diets as healthy alternatives, even the American Heart Association has promoted it as a healthful alternative to a meat centered diet.

And being vegetarian has nothing to do with being thin. Some of the most fatty, yet healthful oils are vegetarian. In fact, here's a tip regarding vegetarian dieting from the American Heart Association's webpage:

"But watch out for fats and oils. Sometimes vegetarian recipes compensate for meatless entrees by adding fat to fill you up."

And to suggest that vegetarians have issues with pregnancy is just plain innaccurate. Plenty of vegetarians have beautiful, healthy babies each and every year. I know, I have lots of vegetarian friends (one in particular that just gave birth one year ago to a perfect baby boy).

The truth is that people who subscribe to any diet should watch it carefully. Any diet can be harmful and unhealthy if it isn't balanced properly. For anyone who eats meat, I would suggest checking out the Harvard Healthy Eating Pyramid for an interesting look at how the current Food Pyramid was generated to serve agricultural desires rather than true health concerns.

" There have been cases of infants dying due to severe malnourishment because their vegan mothers thought it would be a good idea to feed them soy milk (or equally odd macrobiotic diets to their children)."

I'm going to call you out here. That is a bold-faced lie. There is a rather significant population of infants born who are lactose intolerant. What do you think they drink? Ever heard of formula?

[image=http://img.epinions.com/images/opti/16/b2/kifmHealthNursing_and_FeedingFormulaAllCarnation_Alsoy-resized200.jpg]

OMG! Carnation is making formula that kills infants! It has soy in it! How dare they!

In other words, perhaps you would care to back up your statement or maybe you could just simply retract it?

I would also point out that vegetarians make up between 2.5% and 4% of the population of the United States, enjoy longer life expectancies on average, and have lower rates of Heart Disease, Stroke, and Cancer (tops on the mortality list).

So before you start throwing out misco

 

Since we've kinda veered into the realm of vegetarianism, I want to quickly add to obhavekenobi78 & anakin_girl's comments, and just say that another seldom-considered motivation for the vegetarian life-style is that of doing it with human interests in mind.

Although humanity is a long way from sharing its global resources in this fashion, I have heard (now, heard only -- I admittedly haven't done my own research to confirm this) that if most of the world's population were vegetarians, the grain that is currently used to feed livestock would be in such great supply, that it would eliminate world hunger among humans (in other words, if the grain that went to feed livestock were redistributed to feed people, starvation among third-world peoples would be eliminated). It's something to consider at least....

 

Here's one source for you, Space-Man.

U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat, Cornell ecologist advises animal scientists.

It's from August of 1997, which only means that the number has undoubtedly grown.

 

I said soy milk, not soy based formula, there is a distinct difference between the two. It's like saying Ensure is the same as a glass of non-fat skim milk. Like I said before, people can do what they want to do. However, if they bring children into this world, they need to use some common sense.

This is the couple I was reffering to:


Vegan Diet and Child Abuse


KEW GARDENS, N.Y. (Court TV) ? A prosecutor urged jurors to convict a vegan couple in the near starvation of their infant daughter, saying they "turned their tiny baby into a science experiment" with a diet "whose ingredients looked like they were picked off a horse farm."

"This case is not about lifestyle choices. It's about a woefully inadequate diet," Assistant District Attorney Eric Rosenbaum told a Queens Supreme Court jury Tuesday morning during closing arguments in the trial of Joseph and Silva Swinton.

The Swintons, both 32, are accused of severely malnourishing their daughter, Ice, with a strict eating regiment of vegetables and a homemade infant formula that included nuts, soy beans, alfalfa and oat straw. When social services workers removed 15-month-old Ice from the family home in November 2001, she weighed just 10 pounds.[...]

Another case of dietary insanity

Sun-Sentinel.com/May 17, 2003
By Diana Marrero
The siblings of a 5-month-old girl who police say may have starved to death also appear to be malnourished, a medical doctor trained in child abuse and neglect told a juvenile dependency court judge Friday.

As detectives investigate whether Lamoy and Joseph Andressohn were responsible for their infant's death, the couple's four other children remain in the custody of the state Department of Children and Families.

The Andressohns, who followed a strict diet of uncooked organic foods devoid of animal byproducts for religious reasons, could be charged with the death of their daughter, Woyah, if autopsy reports confirm that the infant died of malnutrition, police say.

When she died early Thursday, the Homestead girl weighed only six pounds, about a third of what a normal child should weigh at her age.

 

chibiangi,

Number one, the first case you provided was also the same people who were feeding their baby cod liver oil. It's sounds fairly ludicrous to say it in this light, but they weren't strict enough to be considered vegan.

Having said that, I'll refer you to the links that I provided earlier. Any diet that someone prescribes to (especially when considering special cases such as infants, allergies, etc.) needs to be planned carefully. The fact that you can list two examples out of the millions of people who are vegetarian in the United States is hardly evidence that the diet itself is dangerous. What it is an example of is a few people who are off their rocker and neglected their babies by failing to provide them with adequete nutritional substance.

It's misleading to use such a small number of examples to classify an entire diet that upwards of ten million people choose to follow. If vegetarian diets were unhealthy for babies you would have plenty of scientific evidence in medical journals, books, and web publications to back up your claims as opposed to two examples of people who acted like fools. The fact is, you do not.

Edit: to follow up, I'll post a section of the earlier linked ADA position.

"Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals. Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer."

 

Would you start reading my posts completely? You read one line and then go off on your pre-programmed rebuttals.

I never classified an entire diet.

I said to use common sense. People subjecting their children to strict diets without doing the background research are going to have problems. Vegans, fruitarians, macrobiotic, or whatever the diet du jour have the burden of careful planning because their diets are restrict certain foods. When people don't do this, they get sick. When they do it to their infants, their infants die.

 

Please refrain from attacking me personally. My responses have been specifically tailored to each and every one of your posts.

Please tell me what the intent of posting cases of children being harmed as a result of a vegan diet was if it was not to discredit the diet itself. No back-pedalling allowed.

Since you think that a diet centered on animals doesn't need to be carefully planned, I'll clue you in. The CDC considered obesity an epidemic in the United States and in several other countries across the globe. The number one killer in America is Heart Disease, diet related. Cancer has also been strongly linked to diet, with 30% to 60% of all cases being directly linked to food intake and diet practices. Stroke and Diabetes rates are soaring, especially among children. Shall I continue? If you don't think your diet need to be scrutinized because it is the mainstream, then you have another thing coming.

The problem is that while you consider my answers "pre-programmed", the truth of the matter is that your diet is exactly that.

The vegetarian diet is healthy. I have provided numerous links to qualify that statement. If you have any realy evidence to the contrary, pre-programmed or otherwise, I ask that you provide it.

 

Please tell me what the intent of posting cases of children being harmed as a result of a vegan diet was if it was not to discredit the diet itself. No back-pedalling allowed.

To be fair to Chi, she posted those examples because of this:

In other words, perhaps you would care to back up your statement or maybe you could just simply retract it?

Nowhere did she ever categorize the terms of an entire diet, nor make any comments on the justifications regarding said diet..

 

To be fair and accurate, the statement was:

"There have been cases of infants dying due to severe malnourishment because their vegan mothers thought it would be a good idea to feed them soy milk."

The links provided were two extreme cases that were well beyond a simple vegan mother using soy milk. So, in other words, neither case backed up her initial statement, nor do they shed light on the vegetarian or vegan diets perspective nutrional adequecy.

 

"Since you think that a diet centered on animals doesn't need to be carefully planned, I'll clue you in. The CDC considered obesity an epidemic in the United States and in several other countries across the globe. The number one killer in America is Heart Disease, diet related."

That's only one half of the equation though. The other half is sedentary lifestyles. We eat more. We exercise less. The average American needs to drop his or her caloric intake by at least 50% and increase the level of exercise to at least 30 minutes a day. If that happened, it would be much less important that we have diets heavy on red meat and fries.

 

Please refrain from attacking me personally. My responses have been specifically tailored to each and every one of your posts.

Your posts have been laden with personal attacks.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Please tell me what the intent of posting cases of children being harmed as a result of a vegan diet was if it was not to discredit the diet itself. No back-pedalling allowed.

The intent was to show that extreme diets can harm a child. Reread.

Since you think that a diet centered on animals doesn't need to be carefully planned, I'll clue you in.

Keep your clues to yourself, I never said that either.

Or perhaps you missed the part where I specifically stated that stuffing kids full of McDs is equally as bad?

The CDC considered obesity an epidemic in the United States and in several other countries across the globe. The number one killer in America is Heart Disease, diet related. Cancer has also been strongly linked to diet, with 30% to 60% of all cases being directly linked to food intake and diet practices. Stroke and Diabetes rates are soaring, especially among children. Shall I continue?

I don't dispute those facts and I never did. In fact, I have posted similar data in other threads about nutrition.

Again, going on a diatribe without fully reading what I said.

If you don't think your diet need to be scrutinized because it is the mainstream, then you have another thing coming.

*MY* personal diet does not need to be scrutinized because *I* scrutinize it myself. My diet is perfectly healthy.

I don't remember mentioning my diet anyway. Wait, was that you peeping in my window last night?


The problem is that while you consider my answers "pre-programmed", the truth of the matter is that your diet is exactly that.

Again, you know what I eat? Yes, your responses are pre-programmed. The way in which you completely run off at the mouth without even reading the content of the posts suggests that you have your responses ready and waiting to go--you just need the few buzz words to set it off.

The vegetarian diet is healthy.

Did I ever say it wasn't?

 

Exactly, Mr44.

He sets up "challenges" to suppositions never made, then gets upset when such "challenges" are met.

 

Would you feed a baby nothing but soy milk?

I am not speaking of soy based formula either. There have been numerous cases of parents on extreme diets who have inflicted severe malnourishment on their children. The two cases I posted were taken from a quick google search. I do not recall if I was remembering that case or another when I made my soy milk comment. I simply posted those links as a response to your "challenge". I do remember a case quite a few years ago where a mother was indeed feeding her infant soy milk. However, it is possible that I am remembering wrong.

Here, if it makes it easier for you to understand, I will retract the soy milk statement and replace it with this:

"There are examples of infants who have died at the hands of their parents extreme diets."

 

I suggest that everyone try reading posts more than writing them. Rather than constantly trying to pick apart someone else's post, why not try understanding what they said. Not everything needs to become an argument or a debate.

I will be keeping a close eye on this thread (when I'm not in class), and I will deal with any problems that come up. That includes personal comments or attacks. Keep it clean.

Kimball Kinnison

 

"He sets up "challenges" to suppositions never made, then gets upset when such "challenges" are met."

Not so. Again, your initial statement that I challenged:

"There have been cases of infants dying due to severe malnourishment because their vegan mothers thought it would be a good idea to feed them soy milk."

My reply:

"I'm going to call you out here. That is a bold-faced lie."

"In other words, perhaps you would care to back up your statement or maybe you could just simply retract it?"

You have yet to provide a single shred of evidence to support your claim regarding soy milk nor have you retracted it. I wouldn't consider that meeting a challenge.

"Would you feed a baby nothing but soy milk?"

Of course not, but that's hardly what you said. The quote is listed above.

Jabbadabbado,

Excercise is an important part of the equation, but even that it not enough. It is still prudent to monitor one's diet regardless of which diet that is. Keep in mind, there has been a huge influx of excercise into American society starting in the 1980's with Health Clubs, Videos, and a plethera of "Self-help" style workshops. People are excercising and in many cases it's just not enough.

 

You have yet to provide a single shred of evidence to support your claim regarding soy milk nor have you retracted it. I wouldn't consider that meeting a challenge.

Read my last post. I told everyone to try reaading the posts to try to understand rather than pick apart. If you had, you would have seen this statement from chibiangi:

Here, if it makes it easier for you to understand, I will retract the soy milk statement and replace it with this:

"There are examples of infants who have died at the hands of their parents extreme diets."

Now, unless everyone is going to start listening to each other and stop trying to be so argumentative, I am going to consider locking this thread for the time being.

Kimball Kinnison

 

My apologies. I had opened the reply in a seperate window and added the last quote while I was bouncing back and forth copying text. In any case, I think it's only fair that I should be able to respond when someone claims that they have disproved information that I provided.

As far as the mess about the retraction, I missed it while moving between windows and didn't mean to offend anyone.

So perhaps we can further this discussion with another angle. We can easily show that any diet can be harmful if not properly balanced, vegetarian and meat-centered included.

Given that the vegetarian diet consumes less resources, is more environmentally friendly, is more healthy when employed properly, causes no animal suffering, and has the potential to improve the quality of life for countless millions of people, why is there such an adverse attitute towards it?

 

why is there such an adverse attitute towards it?

I don't think there is an adverse attitude regarding the issue..

I think it comes down again to the all or nothing aspect of human nature..

I try and balance my diet.. At the store, I generally buy 3-4 days of tofu and meat substitute(garden burger, etc..)

(I've gotten pretty good coming up with tofu recipies..)

and 3-4 days of meat products( chicken, beef, etc..) for meals..

I remember one time, a check-out lady asked me "you know this is meat..?"

As I really wasn't paying attention, I didn't know what she meant.. so I said "uhh, ok-why?"

She added that the people she has seen either buy one or the other (as in tofu vs meat)

Why? As I believe with other topics, can't there be a middle ground?

 

Given that the vegetarian diet consumes less resources, is more environmentally friendly, is more healthy when employed properly, causes no animal suffering, and has the potential to improve the quality of life for countless millions of people, why is there such an adverse attitute towards it?

A few points in response to that.

1) The world already produced enough surplus to feed every human being, even with the amounts that are fed to livestock. The problem with fighting hunger is a distribution problem, not a production one. Talking about the amount of grain fed to livestock is a red herring in a discussion like this. (I should also note that even vegitarian diets consist of more than just grain.)

2) People are omnivores by design. Personally, I enjoy the taste of properly cooked meat (in moderation). It adds a unique flavor to meals and is (in my opinion) more satisfying than other means of getting protein. Technologically, we could reduce our body's needs to a consistent glop that looks like porridge, but that wouldn't have the same satisfaction for most people as eating a more traditional diet with the same nutrients. (Think of the scene from the Matrix where they introduced Neo to his first meal since being freed.)

3) Because, at least for some people, there are forms of minerals that their bodies need that can only come from meat. I have one friend who is severely limited in what she can eat because of a medical condition. Her doctor instructed her to eat more red meats because of several vitamins that are found in them.

Kimball Kinnison