Sad post. The animal agriculture industry is the lead cause of global warming, and that matters. The meat industry contributes more to global warming than all the cars, trains and planes put together in a year.
On top of this, plants do not have the brain or nervous system necessary to process pain or suffering. Animals do.
Please watch Cowspiracy and What The Health. Seriously - they'll open your eyes.
Also the obvious point - no one can be completely perfect, but we can try our best. The definition of being vegan is to avoid animal products as far as POSSIBLE and PRACTICAL. Therefore, you can be 100% vegan.
being 100% vegan is actually not the natural way of life for humans. some essential vitamins i.e. B12 is necessary for human survival, which is only found in animal meat
Wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Bacteria
my point was that humans source for B12 is animal meat consumption not where B12 is produced
Do you know how there's B12 in animals? Because of SUPPLEMENTS. This is because the natural way of getting B12 is through dirt - dirt on veg, or second hand dirt that animals ate, but mostly through first hand dirt because we didn't actually eat that much meat back in the day. However, because of all out hyper-clean food now, even the animals people eat have to be given it through supplements. That doesn't sound very natural either to me. Vegans just get their supplements first hand.
Wrong. Simply put - B12 is found in bacteria in soil (where herbivores continue to get it). You would too, if you grew your own veg. But now all your lettuce gets washed in chlorine, packed in plastic and sold in supermarkets. So yeah, unless you grow your own, supplements are advised. But that proves nothing about the intentions of nature. Show me please the length of your small intestine compared with that of a cat, teeth, agility.... looking a lot like herbivores aren't we?
Those statistics are highly misleading. It depends how the animals are raised. Especially cows are great for the environment if they are properly grass-fed. Many different ecosystems need ruminants to be able to flourish. And flourishing ecosystems are the most effective way to take CO2 from the atmosphere and put it back to the ground.
On the other hand, monoculture grainfields are the worst: they destroy complete ecosystems because there will be only one plant at a time. They truly destroy life. When life is destroyed, huge amounts of CO2 are released to the atmosphere.
If you don't want to see global warming, only logical result is that you should support growing cows instead of grains.
Why don't you look something outside the vegan bubble and propaganda? Maybe this will open your eyes: http://regenerateland.info/2015/12/24/a-collection-of-rebuttals-to-cowspiracy-and-other-anti-holistic-management-propaganda/
Or read a whole book on the subject: http://lettertovegetarians.com/
Grass fed cows are actually worse for the environment because they take up more land and therefore more water. Sorry, but your claims don't add up.
If you watch cowspiracy you'll know that there are a whole ton of people in the meat industry desperately trying to cover up the true impact of meat, so it doesn't surprise me that there's anti truth propaganda floating about. What did you think of the original cowspiracy?
Do you even think about what you write? Water is not a problem with properly grass-fed cattle. Do you know where the water goes? To the ground, as piss. It's food for plants, it helps them grow better. It doesn't destroy nature, it helps it flourish.
Vegan propaganda is totally lost touch with the reality. You don't understand how complete ecosystems work, when water, nutrients, etc. flow from one place to another.
What's wrong with the critique I linked to? IMHO it proves quite well that Cowspiracy is just a propaganda film, they don't even try to tell the truth.
@harrietbradley @kriacos , The major cause of global warming is world's population we are too much in numbers and you gotta do something to feed this population. Decreasing population will solve most of the issues. fewer people need less food, less space which in term helps plants to grow more in numbers. More plants will lead to less global warming!!
and you are right too... :)
This I agree. It's not wether people eat animals or plants. Problem is that there are so many of us who eat so much of the Earth's resources. CO2 is rising because we cleared our forest. It does matter if we use the cleared land to feed cows or grow wheat
So problem is how to control the population. Do we choose or let nature take its course?
I think mother nature will take care of it very soon, we already seeing how the her "immune system" has started fighting off the human disease through natural disasters all around the world, if we dont sort ourselves out fast mother nature will do it for us, the world isn't going to die off because of our decisions.
false claim. plant agriculture causes much the same problems as I reference in my post.
they have a very similar structure. read the article. again. i reference.
you can't. you still kill animals to eat your vegan products. again. referenced in the post.
Hey, sorry, but I think you may have misunderstood me.
Let me try and explain clearer so you might be able to understand this time.
You're saying plants cause global warming... Technically this is true. But what do animals eat? Thats right, plants! And a lot of them. This means that in order to eat animals, you have to make a LOT more plants and use a LOT more water than if you just eat the plants. This is very basic logic. Very basic. There is no way around it - An omnivorous diet causes waaaaaaay more greenhouse gases than a vegan one.
Secondly, if you don't have a brain, even if the plant is producing distress hormones or whatever, it had nothing to process them with. However, even if you were right, again, you have to feed animals plants. Therefore, if you want to minimise damage, you should still go vegan as less plants will be 'harmed'. Again, very basic logic.
Please read the definition again, as clearly you haven't understood it. Perhaps if you still can't understand, you should look up the definitions of 'possible' and 'practical'. Essentially the definition means that you can be vegan without avoiding animal suffering entirely, because it appreciates this may not be POSSIBLE or PRACTICAL. Again, if you don't know what these words mean Google will help.
Its a tough spot to be in for a vegan. I eat meat myself but for vegan people I know its really hard to commit. Not a lot of options, being big meat consumers the system takes you that way. Your choices are narrowed to what food suppliers have to offer, and they will offer what is the most profitable for them. Being that the masses are carnivorous... do the math.
Great info in this post @kyriacos !
They might not eat meat by the surely use animal products either they like it or not. Heck, even their salad kills more animals such as mice since mass agriculture demands mass exterminations.
thank you man.
What if, global warming is a lie?
And even if it's true, you REALLY think it's because of cows?
Sure, it's wrong, but how do you explain drinkable non-salted water disappearing?
Global warming, find, deny it, but you can't deny the droughts that's happening and the forests being cleared for animal agriculture.
My parents are geologists, they told me 5, 10, 20 years ago that, according to the life cycle of our planet, minor ice age is coming.
Drinkable non-salted water disappearing - have YOU seen it?
Even if so, it doesn't disappear, it gust goes from liquid form, being evaporated. So, it's still with us, no worries :)
Forest clearing IS bad, for sure. But maybe too much of the population is the problem?
Why not to fight things that cause the problem?
Non-salted water does disappear when it becomes salted.
Almost every fresh water source in the world (especially the west) is depleted or nearly depleted. Once those are gone the only drinkable water we will have or water for crops will come from the sky and from desalination plants, of which nobody is building as they are not profitable, and that's all capitalists care about.
It took literally forever to build those reserves up and not even 100 years of us not tapping into them will refill them.
To put it in perspective in the US alone the animals consume 55 Trillion, yes trillion, gallons of water, and that does not even account for the water consumed in growing their feed, which is oddly enough the majority of crops in the USA.
Every burger is literally 4,000 gallons of fresh drinkable water. That's over 160 showers for the average American (they take the longest of showers).
And don't you mention fracking, while it's horrible it's 520x less horrible than eating dead animals in terms of water consumption.
This is the problem with you people.
Rather than change and make a different you blame the problem on other things, such as population.
What is your solution? Murder all of Africa? Forced sterilization?
Sorry but eating plants is much easier, as none of those forests (rainforests especially) were cleared because there wasn't space for someone to live somehwere else.
They were cleared because sociopaths demand dead animals with every single meal and refuse to acknowledge the impact they cause.
Are you suggesting that I should physically assault people like you?
:^)
Well, you see? I'm russian, we have loads of drinkable water here :)
In worst case, we have Baikal lake
And I'm former military sniper, so:
well... I think, you know the answer, come :)
What if, we just eat less meat? What if we switch to chicken or pork?
Why you suggest just to stop eating meat at all? Isn't it too radical? Eating less meat - well, yeah, I'm ready for that. But not eat meat at all - this will just cause confrontation.
I'm not saying that we should kill extra population (even though I can help :) joking) but we should learn to handle it somehow. Most part of India are vegetarians (not sure though) and India has enormously huge population.
And I consider it dangerous for my health to be vegetarian. I tried it when I lived in India for 3 weeks. I've spent lots of time just eating vegetables. I eat enormous amounts of them, then I'm hungry in 2 hours, I eat enormous amounts of vegetables again. And so on and on.
When I eat meat, I am not feeling anything close to being hungry in 6-10 hours. I prefer spending my life not eating all the time.
You're lucky, Russia is one of the less-exploited regions...buuut that also means you'll probably get hundreds of millions of refugees in a couple decades :)
The problem is unless we go down to what many (healthy) traditional societies ate, which is only 1-3% of their calories from meat/animal-products (when stationary and in civilization), then things would still be horrible environmentally.
It'd certainly help, but any less than that and things aren't going to improve all too much. There's no need for it at all though, so why eat it at all?
That's because of the density of the food. If you ate more fatty foods (or less juicy foods) you'd be fine.
Because your body is used to ultra-dense sources from animals (which have been concentrated) such as milk/cheese/eggs/meat your stomach capacity is lower...plus those vegetables might have simply been cooked too healthily or more-so you didn't have enough of the main part of the meal, the start (most likely).
Vegetables have super low calories, that's why in every culture the base of the meal is always a starch like potatoes, rice, bread, etc, with vegetables, legumes (beans), or meat on the side/on top.
I was the same way for the first month I stopped eating meat/dairy/etc, then I realized I was simply not eating enough and I begun gorging myself on huge bowls of spaghetti every night, or a huge bowl of beans and another bowl of rice with many many tortillas, etc.
Then I was fine :)
I usually only eat twice a day now, just a small breakfast then I'll have a big dinner sometime later in the day, probably only spend about 30minutes eating all day if even that, but I am a quick eater.
well... sounds convincing.
I will try ;)
But not giving any promises though :v
Global warming isn't a lie though.
Partially - it is. But we are "lucky" - we will see minor ice age pretty soon
You have fangs, just as all predators. Why?
Part of cowspiracy as well? :)
So, don't look miserable, chewing grass! :v
Haha! We don't have fangs. Look at actual predators to see what fangs actually look like.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_tooth
I agree, Wikipedia is not the most trusted source but not in the case of anatomy
You really think, we need fangs (canine teeth, ok) for tearing vegetables apart? :)
Incisors are just perfect for that.
I will always prefer meat as it makkes me forget about hunger for 6-10 hours.
And I use this time to prosper, invent, develop myself instead of chewing grass and thinking, what to chew next
Well said @harrietbradley! I avoid animal products in as far as is possible as I cannot in conscience deliberately cause suffering. I don't use either of the 'V words' though, and reading many of the comments below, I think I'll keep it that way.
Thanks! And well done for making an effort to do your bit. May I ask why you don't use the v words? Because of attack or because of the stereotypes/ associations?
A bit of both really. As you know, all vegans/vegetarians are pompous, self-important snobs who need to be taken down a peg or two. I'm over 30 years a veggie and believe me, I've heard every inane argument in defence of cruelty ad nauseam.
I know it won't be in my lifetime, but I'm confident that a more civilised version of the human race will look back at our treatment of our fellow creatures with horror and disbelief.
So it's not sad, it is the opposite, based on truth. You can relax. If you want to save the planet don't have kids. You'd be pushing them into veganism anyway and they'd be weak and death before you know it.
Lol okay. I'm sorry but I can't have a sensible conversation with someone who doesn't believe in global warming, and also thinks that plants feel pain. Mate - plants don't have a brain or a central nervous system in order to process pain or have a consciousness. Even if they have distress hormones or whatever, they have nothing to process them with. Sorry, but you can't fall back on that one.