How many Prius owners are Vegetarians?

Agreed, the way our animals are raised, I feel it is minimally affecting our neighborhood. The field the animals are pastured in is around 15 acres and only bears four mules (not for food), between 5 and 10 cattle, and up to 6 swine (summer only, they grow fast). Additionally, the majority of the younger cattle are raised as fair projects for my niece and nephews which teaches them responsibility for a creature other than themselves and also provides a means to save for college on their own besides working at a fast food joint.

I agree on the buying organic side but I don't trust my government any farther than I could overthrow it. Maybe those of us that do care about the environment and still eat meat that we raise or purchase from locals who do their part as best as they can should simply work on getting people to enforce their own set of standards on what they are willing to purchase and work to educate others. If enough of us stop purchasing meat or vegetables at cut rate prices and pay your local growers a few cents more to encourage them not to use pesticides, chemical fertilizers and/or hormones we can make a difference. Remembwer the think globally, act locally concept. If you change things in your corner of the world and your neighbors all do likewise it will eventually spread to other areas. The milk company near us that no longer uses hormones were asked by their customers to stop or those customers would no longer go there. Today, that producer is now making cheese curds, ice cream, and milk all on site and I have yet to drive by it and not see at least 3 or 4 cars in their parking lot. They are reaping the rewards of meeting a challenge from their customers who care about what they put in their bodies.

 

What the hell is that about? Who is the socialist or fascist? Or are you just trying to rile someone up like another member here who uses the letters DR in their title? Are you a drbermanmd by another name? If so, to paraphrase Shakespeare your crap stinks just as bad as berman's.

 

Uh-oh, am I in the non-intelligent group?

 

Another myth. Soy contains no estrogen. It contains phytoestrogens which have some structural similarities to estrogen, causing speculation that it they might have the same effect as estrogens. However the research has turned up no effects whatsoever.

Nuts have even more phytoestrogens than soy, so if there were something really bad or unpleasant about phytoestrogrens, we'd know about it.

 

I believe that. It seems to be an American obsession for protein among both meat eaters and vegetarians alike. We don't need anywhere near the amount of protein we normally eat.

 

Funny that. I've been a vegetarian for over twenty years, and I've never bought a vegetarian cookbook. Go figure.

I guess it's quite easy to make very good conventional meals that simply leave out the meat. Any Italian or Mexican cookbook is probably a good place to start. (Forget French cookbooks.) The more adventurous could try Indian recipes.

Anyway now you've piqued my interest, so I'm going to start looking at vegetarian cookbooks in the bookstore.

 

My beagle has molars. She uses them to very efficiently crunch up bones. Give her some bones from a rack of ribs, and there won't be a trace left.

There is some irony regarding this cruelty to animals theme. Most livestock would never exist but for the fact that they are raised for human consumption.

Harry

PS: if it helps any, I'm a vegetarian for two meals a day: I never eat meat for breakfast or lunch, and there are days when I don't eat meat for dinner.

 

Resources:

www.goveg.com
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/
http://www.veganconnection.com/recipes/index.htm
http://www.vegforlife.org/
http://www.veganlunchbox.com/loaf_studio.html (this is awesome)
http://www.veganwolf.com/index.html
http://yeahthatveganshit.blogspot.com/
http://whatdoyoudowithtofu.blogspot.com/ (my own contribution)

If you want a hold-in-your-hand cookbook, I recommend Vegan with a Vengance or any of Isa's other cookbooks.

Enjoy.

 

I respectfully, but vigorously, disagree. Check out this link:
http://reliableanswers.com/med/soy.asp
There is lots of research to indicate soy causes various health problems, including in males.

Even common sense would indicate this without looking at the research. Many women take soy to help with hormonal issues. If the compounds in soy that mimic estrogen significantly affect women, why would they not affect men.

I've seen enough credible studies that convince me soy can negatively impact males. Maybe the research isn't conclusive, but I'm not waiting for 100% certainty before I act to protect my health. If I was a father, I'd never give soy to my sons. Based on what I've read and heard, it seems giving soy formula to babies, especially boys, is not a good idea. The link above will show you lots of reasons why.

 

Huh? What did I say negative about this thread? I did vote and have been posting? Was this comment intended for madler?

 

Thanks Rae Vynn. I will be sure to check these out.

 

I disagree. Species that evolve do not always represent a single perfect line of living and extinct. When a species evolves into another species it is simply a new path and the MRCA (most recent common ancestor) may still be alive and doing well in another ecosystem. Sometimes the MRCA may die off but it does not always mean that there was a neat line of direct ancestors who kept dying off whenever a new trait appeared. Think phylogenetic tree and Homo Sapien and our cousin Homo neanderthalensis. Either of our species could have been coexisting with Homo heidelbergensis or Homo erectus.

Every aspect of natural selection and genetic modification applies to humans as it does to every other species. So to assume that a butterly showing different coloring due to a recessive gene is somehow similar to a human giving birth to an ape is completely and utterly rediculous.

 

Better to not exist at all than lead a horrid life IMO.

 

Believe it or not, you can live a perfectly wonderful, Vegan life without using soy products.
Soy is not the magic ingredient that makes veganism possible.
It's just a food product. Seriously.

There are plenty of soy-free meals you can make that are incredibly delicious, nutritious, and planet-friendly. You won't starve to death, develop a protein deficiency, or die of B-12 lack, either.

[personal opinion: if you use only organic, non-GMO soy products, made from whole soy beans, NOT soy isolates or "soy protein", you will avoid much of the negative effects. Soy beans are a whole food, and are rather good, when used in moderation. The widespread use of soy protein and isolates is due to the questionable benefit of them for women. I usually avoid fractionated foods.]

 

I have yet to see a proper study done on the complete life cycle of animals. The animal waste gets reused and the water that passes through them gets recycled back into the system. I'm all for free range and grass fed, but there is no way in hell I will become a vegan or such.

The EPA seems to list very different numbers from the ones sort of mumbo jumboed in this thread. I prefer to see scientific proof, study and real numbers.

In the end I guess we could save the planet and animals a lot of trouble if we just off ourselves then. No way you get away from making a huge imprint and impact to theplanet by just beign here. The place you live, the work you do, the economy you support, clothes you wear, etc all leave a huge footprint (even the computer you are reading this on right now). Anyway my 2c.

 

Daniel,

Reducing my meat consumption is something I struggle with daily. In most cases you are right in that a vegetarian diet is more environmentally friendly that a meat based diet but it's not so black and white as I have dicussed earlier.

On my Land Trust property we lease to ranchers who bring in cattle and sheep to graze the land and reduce residual dry matter (RDM) and spread natural fertilizer (with proper precautions against introducing invasive plant species). Later when the land is closer to its historical form (containing more native species that invasives) the cattle/sheep will help to rebuild the soils and keep the vegetation at it's peak production. When those cattle are old enough for slaughter they can then be used for food for us. There is little in the way of degradation going on here, in fact they are being overly useful, and the only ethical argument is centered on killing an animal for food. These cattle live a typical herbivore's life of eating and roaming so it can't be that rough for them.

Unfortunately we could not feed all of the U.S. on meat raised in this manner unless each of us consumed a less meat overall. This would also have many benefits with regards to water usuage, salinization etc. Most of which has already been mentioned by others. The simple solution is to raise the cost of meat to it's true cost of raising it. Then people would consume less overall.

 

Where this water/waste gets recycled is a key part of the problem. The waste may be collected (from a CAFO in Montana)and sent to a Home Depot 1000 miles away and used to fertilize lawn grass or a rose bed (useless). This is useless in restoring the native vegetation in the region in which the feedstock that fed the cattle originally came from (an Iowa cornfield). We won't go into the petrochemical fertilization problems or the draining of aquifers as it is beyond the scope of this thread IMO.