How many Prius owners are Vegetarians?

Vegetables are what food eats.

 

I was under the impression beef has a high carbon demand due to production and transport of feed and the transport of beasts to slaughter houses. I understand about the methane production of the animal but wouldn't other animals that ate the feed that cattle are eating now also produce methane? Do mice fart? Also wouldn't my methane production rise if I lived on tofu and lentils?
Should I only eat roo meat?

If people make a food selection based on animal cruelty, wouldn't fish be at the top of the list of foods to avoid? Wouldn't be nice dying of asphyxiation, I'd rather have a bolt driven into my brain. The only eggs I buy are free range, no way will I support cage egg production. I have a local supplier of free range eggs at the top of my street. Happy chooks lay happier eggs.

 

I eat what my wife cooks. She is trying to kill me.

When I cook it is pretty much vegetarian with some fish, and occassional organic meat.

I am a chocolate addict. At least a pound a week. Dark.

 

All animal products are at the top of my list to avoid, even fish. Some "vegetarians" will still eat fish, which i really see as counter productive.

Since you ask, mice don't fart. They're incapable of passing any sort of gas (IIRC), thus if a mouse drinks soda pop, it will die because it can't get rid of the excess gas.

I would suggest for your sake, the planets sake, and the animals sake, you refrain from eating any meat, especially kangaroos! (so cute!)

 

The primary climate change impact of livestock production is methane emissions, not transportation. Methane is about 20 time more potent than carbon dioxide as a GHG. The mice argument doesn't make sense because it implies the same amount of grain would be produced and consumed. That's wrong. All things being equal, vegetarians consume about one tenth the grain and water of a meat eater (ie: meat is grain and water intensive, and thus a highly wasteful, inefficient food source) . Eating meat creates the demand for more grain to be grown, then consumed and emitted as methane from livestock.

Re cruelty, the fish argument is exactly wrong (unless your talking about farmed fish). Fish live their whole lives free in a natural (presumably) pain-free state. Whereas most cattle, pigs and chickens live confined, tortured lives. Usually no concern is given to the natural needs, pain sensations or emotions of the animals. The killing of the animal is the conclusion (often painful) to a life of pain and suffering. That's why hunting is the most humane way to eat meat. The animal lives free, then dies quickly (if the hunter is good).

 

One thing about using the word humane that i take issue with is the definition of humane. In there it says that humane can mean to show mercy, and with meat eating, no mercy is shown, because as we know, the animal dies in the end, no mercy is given. No meat used for consumption or otherwise can ever be truly humane.

For those who eat happy meat, or free range meat, take a look at this article. http://www.goodfoodpages.co.uk/lifestyle/The-truth-about-free-range-poultry-and-eggs.html

 

I don't think most people would define humane the way you are (ie: dead animal = no mercy, ergo meat eating is bad). Life is a cycle of birth and death. For anything to live (beyond the simplest life forms), something must die. Vegetarians kill plants to stay alive. The issue isn't that the animal dies. That's inevitable. Humane relates to how we allow the animal to live and die. Free range isn't perfect. I'm sure there are lots of meat companies cutting corners to use the free range label cheaply, which is understandable (but shouldn't be acceptable) in a competitive market.

Most animals grown for food production live terrible, painful lives. The fact that our society allows this is the inhumane part. Native Americans honored the animals they ate. They killed them with respect. This isn't inhumane. It's survival in a humane way.

This isn't to say all of us should hunt our own food. That's not practical. But if more of us bought free range meat, it would put pressure on mainstream meat processors to adopt more humane processes, since they wouldn't want to lose market share. Free range isn't perfect. But it's generally much better (in the sense of being more humane) than conventional meat.

 

Me too!! but not a pound a week.... even a few ounces of chocolate turns into several pounds of David........ funny how that works....

I'm in the vegetarian category, so is my wife but she didn't vote. It is encouraging to see that Vegi and Vegan at this point have 20% of the vote. i guess the % off vegetarians would be higher on a forum like this than on, say, a Ford Mustang forum.... But I used to have a '96 Rio Red Mustang and I was a vegetarian then too....

 

(1) Sorry, you must never have seen an Australian farm. I live very near farming land and cattle and sheep are not confined while they are growing. Cows and sheep generally don't eat grain but grasses and hay. Sheep are often raised on saltbush. They seem very happy to me with plenty of room to roam although I would like to see more shade trees in the paddocks.

Cows doing it tough in Australia


(2) Fish are trapped on nets so they cant swim, a situation they have never experienced before and they have no ability to eat or swim about while they are completely trapped in these nets. They must be in fear of being eaten by larger fish while in these nets then they are dragged out of their world into a totally foreign one, the equivalent of you being put under the sea without warning then left, unable to obtain oxygen until they die. Yep, not cruel at all really

Kangaroos deserve to not be eaten because they are cute!
Have you ever seen a young lamb or calf? They are cute to you because you think of them as a novelty, kangaroos are more abundant now than 220 years ago when whites first settled Australia because there are more sources of water allowing them to colonise where they couldn't before. They are not farmed and are shot by expert shooters who normally kill with a head shot on the first shot. The meat is very lean and rich in flavor. If they weren't eaten by people they would still be shot for population control but the flesh would be used in pet food. Kangaroo skin is the best for protective clothing like motorcycle riding apparel and industry.

As I said earlier, I eat free range eggs from a farm at the end of my street. I see the chickens scratching in the grass each day. As a child we had chickens in our back yard, 9 of them. They wandered free roosting in a tree over night. My dog would herd them around the yard, he never hurt them and never chased them fast. He was a good sheep dog without sheep. Their choice of nesting spots was on the back porch, very handy! I wonder if they knew the fridge was just inside the back door?

If god didn't want us to eat animals why did he/she make them from meat?

 

That's going on a bumper sticker.

 

Thank you, nyprius. Last time someone (you, maybe???) brought up the environmental impact of meat-eating there was a fierce backlash from the carnivorous crowd, apparently angered at the suggestion that driving a Prius did not make them the saviors of the environment.

This information deserves to be repeated often and loudly. (Which is why I quote the entire post, something I normally refrain from doing.)

I didn't answer the poll. The choice "Fish and/or fowl OK, no red meat" reminded me of the medical form with the question: "Have you ever had AIDS or headaches?" While the "correct" answer was "Yes," that leaves open a possibility much more serious than my actual condition. (I have had headaches!)

I eat fish and dairy but no red meat or fowl. The poll combines fish and fowl as though they were essentially the same thing, and not significantly different.

For well over 30 years I was a very strict ovo-lacto-vegetarian. A few years ago I began eating fish. There is no common word to describe this diet. It is not a vegetarian diet, but I was a vegetarian for so long that I think of myself as vegetarian-plus-fish. I began eating fish as the result of reports that a small amount of fish added to an otherwise vegan diet would improve your cholesterol, and my cholesterol is not good, in spite of regular exercise and a low-fat diet.

I could become vegan if I was living with a vegan who wanted me to refrain from dairy and fish. But I lack the motivation to do it otherwise. It's much easier to to allow some fish and dairy.

 

This reminds me of a song by Flanders & Swan, an old British comedy singing team. The song was "The Reluctant Cannibal," about a cannibal who refused to eat people. In the song, the other cannibals tell him: "If the Good Lord hadn't meant us to eat people, he wouldn't have made us of meat."

 

how does one define "pain and suffering" in an objective manner? just curious.

 

I think that's where I got it from.

 

If they weren't caught in the nets it wouldn't be the end of their lives.
Does all that pain and suffering make the meat taste bad? I would have thought so.

I'm going in circles here, I was asking about MY carbon footprint if I eat Australian meat rather than cruelty riddled US meat.

Watch someone raise grain impact and cruelty again.

Americans seem to be at the smooth end of the nasty stick again, cruel for a feed of meat, killing for oil, goodness me!

 

I should make a new poll to see how many of you answering this thing have read The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan.

If you really want to get deep into morality and biethics then you might read up on Peter Singer's work.

One of my favorites topics in this area is AMC (Argument From Marginal Cases)

Some of the points put forth by Pollan in his book is that Vegan's cannot truely claim to maintain a diet that is completely cruelty free since many organisms are killed in growing, processing, and delivering their food not to mention procuring the energy required to fuel food production. Now one could claim a Rumsfeldian appeal and say that the millions of insects, nematodes, and mammals that are killed are done so in a less torturous manner and that they are "collateral damage" yet the fact remains, a great many organisms must die to create a vegan diet in most cases.

A quick article on the subject of Veganism:

OSU SCIENTIST QUESTIONS THE MORAL BASIS OF A VEGAN DIET

I tend to base my feelings on proper pasture managment and ecologically sensitive agricultural methods. In many cases animal life can be spared and the food output can be high and nutritionally dense. Will it allow us to feed everyone on the planet? I have not done enough research to answer that question but I can tell you that our current methods are ruining soils and human health so we need to make a change anyway.

I do not claim to know everything about this process but studying ecology is not a far cry from agricultural processes. In fact I spent last Saturday, on the vernal preserve I work at, learning about pasture managment (soil, plant, ecosystem, and cattle health) from a rancher and biologist then setting up electric paddocks to partition our land and set up a healthy grazing regime.

 

At the time you posted, many more than three had responded. You should try emptying your browser cache and reloading the page.

 

Humans are made of meat, you're not planning on eating any of them are you? If you want to go religious, explain[SIZE=-1]: In the beginning before the fall of man, God's creation was a paradise and God declared that everything he made was good. Mankind was given the seed bearing plants and fruit from trees as our food source. [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Genesis 1:28-29 (English-NIV)
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[SIZE=-1]God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Genesis 2:8-9 (English-NIV)[/SIZE]


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