Being vegetarian better for planet then driving a Prius.

Well, I was being mostly flip when I said I was an almost vegetarian - hence the quotes.

You're totally right, what you eat is only a portion of what you can do that is good or bad for the earth - many of your daily actions is going to have an effect on the planet and it's inhabitants, and many of those actions yield negative effects. I consider it a priority for me to at least make the attempt to choose wisely: I drive a Prius - I even 'let' my husband drive it when he has to go somewhere, MPG be damned. I grow as many of my own vegetables as I can - without pesticides or fertilizers - and try to purchase other products from environmentally responsible companies. I turn off the lights when I leave the room and I don't leave the water run when I brush my teeth, and I've been known to yell at complete strangers for tossing their half-smoked still-lit cigarettes down in parks and even the woods.

On the other hand, I operate a giant laser machine and pay $300 a month in electricity. My husband works with planes for a living, and they're anything but fuel efficient. I still have some Reveal lightbulbs, instead of the CFLs, and I still eat meat sometimes even though I know that it would be 'better' for me to go outside and pick a bagful of greenbeans and make a casserole.

DarrellD could eat a giant steak for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day for the rest of his life, and he'd *still* be able to look really smug standing next to me =)

 

i was going to say, the energy used on what i do at work probably negates anything i save at home whether we eat meat or not...

we've switched over to chicken and turkey instead of beef. they're much better for you and taste pretty good. i don't miss the high fat content of beef. we do have a good steak once in a great while when we can afford to. i don't think either of us would survive as a vegetarian!

 

im like geologyrox. i eat meat but in the course of a week, it might only be the main course maybe a few times a week. i LOVE seafood, guess that counts too, but when you look at the polution aspects of it, how much does it contribute? still gotta catch it. i do do the oysters, clams and shrimp on my own, but still could do more. an abundance of opportunities to fish abound here, but i dont really take advantage of that. i found fishing to not be something i enjoy mostly because of the lack of physical activity. its peaceful, but i find i can no longer stand to sit still long enough to catch anything.

my gf is not a vegetarian, but eats very very little meat and eats no beef at all, only chicken and seafood. she has turned me on to a lot of healthy alternatives. Trader Joe's is a store that has all natural foods available and up until i met her, i had never heard of the place. she does have a weakness for ice cream so she is not a saint either.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA @ May 10 2006, 08:51 AM) [snapback]252748[/snapback]</div>

Dave, seafood is probably much less energy intensive than landmeat.... mmm... landmeat. But I digress. Cattle require an enormous amount of grain and water to be transformed into the slabs of deliciousness that they become when they gradulate from Bovine University. Seafood does need to be caught, processed and transported, but cattle requires 2 of those 3 as well. So, from an energy point of view being vegetarian is better than being an omnivore. Being a vegan, without using any animal derived protein seems ridiculous to me. Unless you take a lot of supplements you are probably depriving yourself of essential chemicals and it's not healthy.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ May 8 2006, 03:34 PM) [snapback]251753[/snapback]</div>

Depends on whether he charges his EV from solar cells on his roof, or from grid power produced by coal. ... But it's not really fair, because when they were selling EVs I had no money, and now that I have money, they're not selling EVs.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ May 9 2006, 06:50 PM) [snapback]252523[/snapback]</div>

From an ethical point of view, this is correct: if it is "immoral" or "sinful" to eat meat, then eating any meat is wrong.

However, from an environmental point of view your statement makes no sense: Since the production of meat for food requires an order of magnitude more land, and several orders of magnitude more water than the production of plant foods, your impact on the environment depends greatly on how much of each you eat. So a person who eats only a very small amount of meat has hardly more impact on the environment than a vegetarian, other lifestyle choices being similar.

 

I am an omnivore. I LOVE meat it is the main part of 2 of three meals a day for me. Since I grow my own I certainly have no qualms about ethical treatment nor about feed (fed grass from my yard which would otherwise have to be cut with lawnmower and hay from neighbor's yard to keep field from becoming forest). I have raised both cows and pigs. Chickens I have but they are not economical to raise for meat, I do get some eggs but I don't kid myself those are expensive eggs! I like having the birds and they do help keep down the fly population. I have raised my own veggies in the past as well but find it more difficult with kid around. If I switched to being vegan it would definitely be worse for the planet. JMO

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ May 11 2006, 06:57 PM) [snapback]253767[/snapback]</div>

Nonsense.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Begreen @ May 8 2006, 03:16 PM) [snapback]251746[/snapback]</div>

I'm with you on the McDonald boycott. My 2nd to last burger was in 1977 , my last McD was in 1997, between Chattanooga and Altanta. It was the only food around and I was really hunger. I was visiting from CA.What a scene inside this McD on HWY 75. I've never seen so many ethnic people in one place ... Jews,Pureto Ricans from NY, North Mid West folks, African Americans and your Hillibilles with toes poking out of shoes. I'll never forget that day. Peace RU EXP 2

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RU EXP 2 @ May 14 2006, 07:41 PM) [snapback]255479[/snapback]</div>

The first McD's I ever saw was around 1967. I had just become a vegetarian about two months earlier. Consequently, I've never eaten in a McD's in my live. I've been inside one only twice, both times accompanying friends.

 

grass-fed Buffalo, field killed and processed:

www.wildidea.com.

Highly recommend!

It's just down the road from where I live. Returning the prairie to a more natural setting...

Cheers,

Curt.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dipper @ May 9 2006, 09:36 PM) [snapback]252511[/snapback]</div>

My wife brings home soya that is supposed to be like meat. I can't vouch for the taste, but it sure has the right nauseating odor.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ May 17 2006, 11:32 PM) [snapback]257379[/snapback]</div>

I've eaten several different varieties of that stuff. While I cannot say how like meat it really tastes, since I have not eaten meat in almost 40 years, it tastes enough like meat to me to be absolutely disgusting. In Mexico there are lots of vegetarian restaurants that serve that stuff, and they do pretty well. But I'll take beans and rice and nopales on tortillas any day. (With just a few drops of salsa picante.)

 

While there is nothing wrong with reducing your intake of red meat, personally I would have to call vegetarianism an eating disorder. In fact, in teenage women, vegetarianism is often used to disguise other eating disorders.

My girlfriend was once a vegetarian but she stopped long before I knew her because she discovered that the high soy content of her diet was making her very, very sick. Nowadays she can have a small amount of soy occassionally without ill effect, but she still needs to watch it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Subversive @ May 18 2006, 07:20 PM) [snapback]257818[/snapback]</div>

I eat very little soy. I eat some tofu (which I like a lot) and on the rare occasions when I want dry cerial I use soy milk (since I cannot digest lactose). And for a treat I'll sometimes eat a soy-based fake ice cream. But overall, soy is my least favorite of the legumes.

And soy-based immitation meat is a highly-processed product, and inherently suspect. A small amount won't hurt you, but a diet that is totally dependent on soy TVP for its protein is indeed unhealthy.

A lot of people go on a vegetarian diet without understanding nutrition and so they adopt a very unhealthy version of it. Too much reliance on any one type of food is a sure sign of problems. Too much soy = bad. Too much meat = bad. Too much fat = bad. Too much salt = bad. A well-balanced diet has a wide variety of foods, including carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. That can be achieved without meat. But you need to eat natural foods, such as beans and whole grains, vegetables, fruits, etc. vegetarian processed and fast foods are unhealthy, just as processed and fast-food meats are. Well, the processed meats are probably worse.

 

I AM a vegetarian. (AND an endurance athlete & a scientist trained as an electrical engineer)

If you are not a vegetarian, you probobly don't know any of the real truth about being a vegetarian. Having a very good science education helps.

I still find "the protien myth" the funniest thing. Protein is NOT a dietary requirement, Essential ameno acids are. The energy contained in protein (treated as 4cal/gram) is insignificant because it will NEVER be utilized.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ May 11 2006, 06:57 PM) [snapback]253767[/snapback]</div>

I totally agree with this statement and it applies to vegetarians as well.

I will agree that being veg*n may actually be "gentler" on the planet, but in this case, my personal health overrides planetary impact as I eat the way humans were designed to eat: an omnivorous, largely paleolithic style diet including plenty of natural saturated fats and cholesterol, but entirely devoid of all refined sugars, refined flours, trans-fats and other processed oils. (BTW, my blood lipids are consistantly excellent, thank you.)

Also, have you ever noticed that all of the highest-order animals are all either omnivorous or carnivorous?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Subversive @ May 18 2006, 10:20 PM) [snapback]257818[/snapback]</div>

There's nothing wrong with certified organically raised, exclusively grass-fed beef.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AnOldHouse @ May 26 2006, 09:48 PM) [snapback]261644[/snapback]</div>

Everything about human digestive anatomy, from the teeth to the intestines, is that of as frugivore, not a carnivore or an omnivore. We evolved eating plants. During the (evolutionary very recent) paleolithic we learned to make use of animals for food (by cooking them, as we cannot properly digest them raw) but for 99.9% of our history, meat has provided less than 1% of our diet. ... And then after WW II, facing a surplus of corn and wanting to support farmers, the government started putting out propaganda about the "importance" of protein, in order to foist corn-fed beef and pork on the American public, thereby creating a market for all that surplus corn.

The only nutrient that is problematic on a strictly vegan diet is vitamin B12. An ovo-lacto-vegetarian diet avoids this problem. And even on a vegan diet it is possible to get B12. Or you can take a multivitamin pill.

If you are concerned about the planet, you'll be vegetarian. If you are concerned about your health, you'll be vegetarian. If you want to eat the way your digestive system evolved to eat, you'll be vegetarian.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ May 27 2006, 01:17 AM) [snapback]261654[/snapback]</div>

OMG! What a complete and total load of veg*n propaganda BS. You would do Dean Ornish proud. LOL!

And you just might want to inform the Masai in Africa and other certain tribal cultures about being supposedly "unable" to "properly" digest raw meats! (BTW, I'll take my thick juicy slab of steak RARE please, and I manage to digest it very well, thank you!) Oh, but then speaking about things humans cannot digest raw, how about discussing grains?

Yes, that nasty little B12 deficiency problem among BOTH vegans AND vegetarians is certainly telling, isn't it? As is having to carefully balance a variety of protein sources to get ALL the essential amino acids from plant-only sources, which ALL just happen to conveniently come in exactly the correct proportions in animal foods along with all the essential B12 needed. Although I do happen to take a multivitamin, it is for insurance purposes against depleted agricultural soils only as, upon detailed analysis, I'm quite easily able to get ALL of my essential nutrients from my diet. My health is NOT DEPENDENT on a multivitamin pill or "enriched" foods (foods with vitamin-pill vitamins added) like marmite.

Oh, also, my diet is devoid of soy, which, unfermented as most of what is consumed in Western countries is, contains toxins.

 

I am a proud meatetarian. I sometimes eat vegies. But I read they may have 'feelings' after all, so maybe I'll cut down on that.

Meat. It's what's for dinner.


And Lunch.

Breakfast too. Oh, and snacks.

I will fight to save the planet, and I will do what I can to recycle, reuse, and to use less fuel. But come on. If eating meat is going to harm the planet, then we better have a talk with all the animals that also eat meat.

See, that is something to consider. MANY animals (outside of man), eat meat. And that will also produce gas.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AnOldHouse @ May 26 2006, 10:33 PM) [snapback]261661[/snapback]</div>

Have you ever been to the Massai Mara? I have. The Massai eat almost no meat, and they certainly do not eat it raw. They eat mostly milk, and they mix in a little blood. They cannot afford to eat meat. Their cattle is too valuable. And when they do, they cook it.

And for ovo-lacto-vegetarians and vitamin B12, there is plenty of B12 in all dairy products.

A high percentage of marathon runners are vegetarians (because of the health / exercise link) and they certainly do not lack any nutrients.