Should i stop being vegan ?

[Emerald]

7 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@Emerald interesting point regarding the study. Perhaps the deciding factor is choice and personal conduct. 

Veganism is a choice - and when we choose differently to others (especially when this choice is ethical or runs counter to society norms) it forces people to reflect on their own behaviour. Something like race does not have the loaded nature of choice associated with it. I find similar issue when others find out I do not drink or eat processed food. Problematic in Australia as our drinking culture is intense. People bond through alcohol.

And yes I did raise that with Coral (that transparency is always best from the outset), she simply viewed it as removing obstacles to dates or life options. But that in itself is problematic: one should not have to pretzel themselves into something else to get on. 

I dislike that sort of behaviour in myself because it breeds resentment over time. Resentment is poison to me.

I do think it very likely is the choice element... but also that it's an ethical choice specifically, and that makes people feel uncomfortable.

That's especially true because a lot of non-Vegans really care about animals and don't want animals to suffer... and would feel very disgusted and traumatized if they saw or participated in the slaughter of animals.

But they haven't fully made the conscious connection between their own routine actions and animal suffering. They know it in the abstract, but not in the concrete.

So, if they encounter a Vegan, it can be something that rubs a person the wrong way because it draws attention to what wants to be ignored.

And yes, that concealment would certainly breed resentment over time.

[AION]

11 hours ago, Emerald said:

Processed meats are worse than unprocessed meats health-wise. That is true.

But even unprocessed meat (especially red meat) is statistically correlated with higher risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and all-cause mortality in general.

So, while processed foods are associated with worse health outcomes in general... there is a clear health advantage to removing even unprocessed meats from one's diet.

We all have to pick our poison. I mean I can pick at vegan diets and you can pick back at my diet. If I would go to vegan diet I would be so unhappy. I would be like a lion who is forced to eat vegatables. It is against my DNA to be fully vegan. And I'm confident enough to say it against the DNA of most people because if it wasn't you wouldn't need all those vitamin pills, blood tests and then some.

Even with all of those 1st world solutions, most vegans still struggle with their diet which says something. There are some freaks of nature and certain races like Asians that are more prone to vegan diets but there are the exclusion of the rule.

And what I have noticed is that most vegans are highly unhappy, I have never seen an upbeat vegan. They are all deadbeat, angry and want to shove their own diet onto other people. I have one vegan friend and he has low energy, ED, and is always cold and it is very difficult to tell him it is because of his diet. But I respect his choices although he is ruining his health and he aged 20 years in 5 years. He is currently 27 and he should have endless power but he has the energy fo a grand pa. But it is his pioson. I respect he respects earth more than his own biology and his own nature.  

Of course eating meat has its downsides too but it is a pioson I'm wiling to take because I have endless energy and I just couldn't do the sports, work and lifestyle if I was vegan. Meats are high energy dense foods. And even with that in my diet, I still have trouble keeping up with my cal because I don't like to eat. I eat to live, not live to eat. And I can't dedicate my whole life to keep up with getting enough nutritions because being vegan is a full time job.

Edited 18 hours ago by AION

[Schizophonia]

6 hours ago, AION said:

Even with all of those 1st world solutions, most vegans still struggle with their diet which says something. There are some freaks of nature and certain races like Asians that are more prone to vegan diets

Not even.
The height and build of people in the Far East only increase as their consumption of meat and dairy products increases.
The same is true for sexual characteristics; for example, in Japan, the average breast size has increased significantly.
The Dutch were once one of the shortest ethnic groups in Europe, and after World War II, they became one of the tallest in the world on average.
In some parts of the Balkans where people consume a lot of animal protein, the average height of men is around 1.85 meters.
Wherever meat consumption increases, life expectancy systematically increases, brain size increases, and body size and sexual characteristics increase. The transition to the Mesolithic period has been correlated with a decrease or regression in all these factors.

Edited 12 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Carl-Richard]

24 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

Not even.
The height and build of people in the Far East only increase as their consumption of meat and dairy products increases.
The same is true for sexual characteristics; for example, in Japan, the average breast size has increased significantly.
The Dutch were once one of the shortest ethnic groups in Europe, and after World War II, they became one of the tallest in the world on average.
In some parts of the Balkans where people consume a lot of animal protein, the average height of men is around 1.85 meters.
Wherever meat consumption increases, life expectancy systematically increases, brain size increases, and body size and sexual characteristics increase. The transition to the Mesolithic period has been correlated with a decrease or regression in all these factors.

Calorie restriction is associated with living longer.

[Schizophonia]

23 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Calorie restriction is associated with living longer.

It’s not so much the number of calories that has changed but their nature.

Edited 11 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Basman]

 

1 hour ago, Schizophonia said:

Not even.
The height and build of people in the Far East only increase as their consumption of meat and dairy products increases.
The same is true for sexual characteristics; for example, in Japan, the average breast size has increased significantly.
The Dutch were once one of the shortest ethnic groups in Europe, and after World War II, they became one of the tallest in the world on average.
In some parts of the Balkans where people consume a lot of animal protein, the average height of men is around 1.85 meters.
Wherever meat consumption increases, life expectancy systematically increases, brain size increases, and body size and sexual characteristics increase. The transition to the Mesolithic period has been correlated with a decrease or regression in all these factors.

Is that because they are eating more meat specifically or because they have more food security as their standards of living raises? Eating more meat is positively correlated to being more well off like how wine is correlated with being rich. Rich people are generally more healthy which can make whine look healthy even though it actually isn't all that healthy.

I see a lot of statistical correlations being thrown around, both for and against veganism, which doesn't conclusively prove anything just yet.

Edited 10 hours ago by Basman

[Schizophonia]

1 hour ago, Basman said:

 

Is that because they are eating more meat specifically or because they have more food security as their standards of living raises? Eating more meat is positively correlated to being more well off like how wine is correlated with being rich. Rich people are generally more healthy which can make whine look healthy even though it actually isn't all that healthy.

I see a lot of statistical correlations being thrown around, both for and against veganism, which doesn't conclusively prove anything just yet.

No, because height is far less correlated with wealth than with diet.

There must also be a mineral balance factor since the French, Bosnians, Dutch, and those who eat a lot of dairies in general are taller than people from countries with high meat consumption (United States, Argentina, Japan...).

https://lowtoxinforum.com/threads/protein-quality-not-genes-determine-male-height.16723/

"

I posted a study on the height of Dutch men - a well studied phenomenon officially explained by genes, but recently recast as one possibly due to diet.
Dutch People Gained 20cm Of Height In Just 150 Years

Now this new study adds more evidence to the diet hypothesis as it found a population in my native Balkans that should be (and sometimes is) even taller than the Dutch, but the realization of that potential depends on protein quality. The mountain men whose diet consists mainly of dairy, eggs and meat, realized that potential and are on average taller than the Dutch and thus the tallest in the world. However, the people with the same genes living in the bigger cities and eating commercial crap that passes as food are actually on average some of the shortest in Europe.
So, once again, diet (and maybe high CO2 from living in mountains) is elucidated as the main factor that drives height and possibly overall health. It would be interesting to also see longevity charts separated within the same population groups examined by the study. I bet the mountain men also live longer and have much lower incidence of chronic diseases.
So, naturally the question is this - what is good quality protein vs. poor quality protein? Well, it's in the quotes below but basically animal protein rules and cereals/grains are crap. Tell that to the vicious vegan munching on a his heap of grass next to you in the cafeteria 
Finally, if people in B&H are expected to continue growing depending on their diet then we can chalk height - one of the holliest pillars of geneticism - off to diet and socioeconomis conditions. If height is not due to genes then I don't see much hope for the genetic theory of diseases. I suppose it also means we should all be focusing on animal protein to realize our genetic height potential, and Ray's assertions that he grew an inch and a half in his 40s due to using DHEA may be actually due to his insistence on consuming animal protein instead of plant one 

The mountains of giants: an anthropometric survey of male youths in Bosnia and Herzegovina | Open Science
Move Over, Dutch Men. Herzegovinians May Be Tallest in World | American Council on Science and Health
"...The Dutch are famous for windmills, impressive feats of geoengineering, and being tall and blonde. At a towering 183.8 cm (just over 6 feet tall), Dutch men are widely hailed as the tallest in the world. But new data suggests that men from regions within the Balkan country of Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) are even taller. The inhabitants of B&H display a large variation in average height. This is due to a combination of factors, such as genetics, religion, and socioeconomics. B&H is a multiethnic country, so the genetic background of its citizens is varied. Religion influences a person's dietary choices (e.g., Muslims avoid pork), while socioeconomic status affects the nutritional value of the food that a person can obtain. Just over half the population of B&H is Muslim, and the country is one of the poorest in Europe."

 

Edited 9 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Schizophonia]

11 hours ago, Emerald said:

I do think it very likely is the choice element... but also that it's an ethical choice specifically, and that makes people feel uncomfortable.

That's especially true because a lot of non-Vegans really care about animals and don't want animals to suffer... and would feel very disgusted and traumatized if they saw or participated in the slaughter of animals.

But they haven't fully made the conscious connection between their own routine actions and animal suffering. They know it in the abstract, but not in the concrete.

So, if they encounter a Vegan, it can be something that rubs a person the wrong way because it draws attention to what wants to be ignored.

And yes, that concealment would certainly breed resentment over time.

You didn't respond to my arguments about livestock farming the other day, you're just rehashing PETA's bs.
It's like if I were to describe Mexico by showing you a video of a guy being tortured by a cartel.

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

It’s not so much the number of calories that has changed but their nature.

You're making the case that meat makes you bigger, but bigger doesn't necessarily mean longer life.

Edited 9 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Schizophonia]

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You're making the case that meat makes you bigger, but bigger doesn't necessarily mean longer life.

Yes but meat consumption is also strongly correlated with a longer life expectancy.

Anyway I don't care about those studies; deep down you know exactly what you should ideally eat to be healthy. Following diets is just neurotic self-flagellation against your cravings and your local culture, just to give cravings to people who know nothing about the current state of your metabolism.

Just as most people wouldn't want to start chasing their neighbor with a machete if the law disappeared, most people wouldn't eat nothing but pasta and soda if they could eat whatever they wanted; they would actually become quite refined, with the exception of certain compulsive and in fact mentally ill individuals.

I'm willing to believe that too much red meat causes problems because I rarely crave red meat; I much prefer fish and pork.

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Emerald]

18 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

You didn't respond to my arguments about livestock farming the other day, you're just rehashing PETA's bs.
It's like if I were to describe Mexico by showing you a video of a guy being tortured by a cartel.

I didn't see your arguments. What were they?

[Schizophonia]

7 minutes ago, Emerald said:

I didn't see your arguments. What were they?

It was on another topic.

I was saying that there was no problem with most farms where the animals had a decent life, were killed by stunning, created plenty of jobs and a source of local food that could be produced everywhere, and the main source of fertilizer including for monocultures.

Edited 8 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Schizophonia]

Animals are also natural insecticides; If you have a vegetable garden it's great to have chickens because they eat everything they find.

I recently saw a documentary showing that crabs were being raised in rice paddies for this very reason, this time on a large scale.

Edited 8 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Schizophonia said:

It was on another topic.

I was saying that there was no problem with most farms where the animals had a decent life, were killed by stunning, created plenty of jobs and a source of local food that could be produced everywhere, and the main source of fertilizer including for monocultures.

You've certainly led an even more decent life than those life-stock animals by being free to go anywhere you want and living in human quarters.

Are you okay with me stunning you and slitting then your throat to sell you for meat?

Then, when you say no to being killed and sold to be eaten for pleasure for my own profit, I'll just remind you, "But you don't understand. Killing people like you creates so many jobs."

[Schizophonia]

15 minutes ago, Emerald said:

You've certainly led an even more decent life than those life-stock animals by being free to go anywhere you want and living in human quarters.

Are you okay with me stunning you and slitting then your throat to sell you for meat?

Then, when you say no to being killed and sold to be eaten for pleasure for my own profit, I'll just remind you, "But you don't understand. Killing people like you creates so many jobs."

Your exemple is sily because their quality of food is the sine qua non condition to their existence. 

The real dilemma is would you rather be killed after a decent life (ideally) to be eaten, or would you rather have never been born? In this case the first option is a net positive.

And again it's true that humans avoid killing each other but you still experience interdependence; just in a different way.

Edited 6 hours ago by Schizophonia

[Emerald]

19 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

The real dilemma is would you rather be killed after a decent life (ideally) to be eaten, or would you rather have never been born? In this case the first option is a net positive.

This is not a real dilemma because I have the privilege of being human, and I don't have to choose between a life of extreme suffering and being killed as a young adult and a life of slightly less suffering and being killed as a young adult. 

It would just be armchair philosophy for me to consider it.

So, it's a false choice because I have human privilege, and I don't have to choose between two horrible options.

But both options are horrible and completely untenable, and animals don't even get a choice between horrible and worse.

Add to that that most people just eat meat for pleasure and creature comforts, so it's also a false dilemma because we don't even need to subject animals to that kind of treatment at all. We could just stop breeding them into existence to kill and eat them, and switch to healthier and more sustainable sources of nourishment that doesn't involve immense amount of suffering to produce.

And if my entire life was being raised to be farmed, exploited, and slaughtered in my teens or early twenties, I would much rather not be born.

It would save me from being constantly made pregnant to have a calf, so that I continue to produce milk that gets extracted from me daily.

And then, when that baby that I carried for 10 months is forcibly taken away from me, it's either shot with a bolt gun immediately... or it's pinned up so that it can't move and its muscles atrophy and it can be slaughtered sold for veal 2 months later. 

So, it's a short hard life of nothing but suffering. And I would much rather not exist if I had to choose non-existence and being farmed and slaughtered.

It's like, you set up a false dichotomy and ask, "Would your rather murder a middle aged person or an old person?" And if the answer is anything other than "Neither", there's a problem.

So, we don't need to choose. We can just quit paying for exploitation.

There is no such thing as "happy meat".

[Majed]

Here's an update: i stopped being vegan after i posted the opening of this post, mainly for practicality, since it is way easier to be omnivore than to be vegan. It's also easier to get all your nutrients from an omnivorous diet as opposed to a vegan diet. So yeah for reasons of practicality i chose to abondon the vegan journey. 

[Schizophonia]

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

This is not a real dilemma because I have the privilege of being human,

It's you who started talking about humans and posing this dilemma; it came from you.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

and I don't have to choose between a life of extreme suffering and being killed as a young adult and a life of slightly less suffering and being killed as a young adult. 

I don't know what you're talking about, you bug lol.

You mentioned animal exploitation and such, and I told you that there are plenty of animal farms, if not most, that are good and have a concrete economic and ecological purpose.

Then you suggested that it's still not fair because I don't want to be killed.
Well yes but I'm a human so I project myself into the future a lot which a cow doesn't do, and especially unlike me a cow only exists to be eaten; so there's no alternative where the cow is left alone, it makes no sense.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

It would just be armchair philosophy for me to consider it.

We make judgments like this when we don't actually have any answers to offer.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

So, it's a false choice because I have human privilege, and I don't have to choose between two horrible options.

You're repeating yourself.

And no, it's not a horrible option; you too live a completely interdependent life, and one day you're going to die, and it might be very painful.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

But both options are horrible and completely untenable, and animals don't even get a choice between horrible and worse.

Ditto

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Add to that that most people just eat meat for pleasure and creature comforts

So what; you use other human for pleasure too.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

 so it's also a false dilemma because we don't even need to subject animals

So what.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

to that kind of treatment at all.

We could just stop breeding them into existence to kill and eat them,

It's like you're projecting depression or something.

Animals have the right to live if their living conditions are normal; especially if there are also third-party interests involved.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

and switch to healthier

No, the countries where people live the longest, are the tallest, strongest, have the largest brain volumes, the best skin, and the best teeth are the countries where they eat the most animal products.

There are slightly more centenarians than average who are vegan, but older people tend to reduce their meat consumption, especially red meat, due to the decrease in stomach acid and digestive enzymes.

Statistically, there are even more centenarians who smoke, lol; so it's not really worth much.

Technically, you can be vegan and healthy and even grow up well; but it's more complicated.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

and more sustainable sources of nourishment that doesn't involve immense amount of suffering to produce.

What suffering are you talking about

Yes there are horrible farms but it's the same for humans; there are plenty of humans who are mistreated at work and are abnormally underpaid.

That doesn't mean the problem is that we have humans in existence lol; the problem is being underpaid.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

And if my entire life was being raised to be farmed, exploited, and slaughtered in my teens or early twenties, I would much rather not be born.

As I said earlier, you will live your life in total interdependence and may eventually die violently (accident, heart attack, cancer...); that's its nature.

It's just narcissistic rage.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

It would save me from being constantly made pregnant to have a calf, so that I continue to produce milk that gets extracted from me daily.

What's the problem. It's just a straw inserted into the vulva for a few seconds to produce insemination; it only lasts a few seconds.

The calves are temporarily separated from their mothers because otherwise they tend to die from diarrhea, and suckling often causes mammary infections.

The calf is separated for a few weeks, and anyway, you're anthropomorphizing cows; a cow basically forgot about her calf in 48 hours, lol.
Once again, you're swallowing the misanthropic vegan nonsense but don't know how things really work.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

 

or it's pinned up so that it can't move and its muscles atrophy and it can be slaughtered sold for veal 2 months later. 

You don't need to do that to get milk-fed veal, and it's a marginal production.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

So, it's a short hard life of nothing but suffering. And I would much rather not exist if I had to choose non-existence and being farmed and slaughtered.

You're talking nonsense.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

It's like, you set up a false dichotomy and ask, "Would your rather murder a middle aged person or an old person?" And if the answer is anything other than "Neither", there's a problem.

No because humans are not farm animals.

17 minutes ago, Emerald said:

So, we don't need to choose. We can just quit paying for exploitation.

There is no such thing as "happy meat".

It's truly a misanthropic delirium frankly.

[Jannes]

2 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

The real dilemma is would you rather be killed after a decent life (ideally) to be eaten, or would you rather have never been born? In this case the first option is a net positive.

You have to destroy a lot of flourishing nature with living animals to grow crops and built a place so you can raise all these animals. 

Its not like you create all of that in the middle of the desert and are therefore creating life that didnt exist before, you simply transform the landscape of nature into crop fields and lifestock. Alternatively you could even transform the space into a place where humans live. 

[Basman]

1 hour ago, Majed said:

Here's an update: i stopped being vegan after i posted the opening of this post, mainly for practicality, since it is way easier to be omnivore than to be vegan. It's also easier to get all your nutrients from an omnivorous diet as opposed to a vegan diet. So yeah for reasons of practicality i chose to abondon the vegan journey. 

What's the ratio like? You go full burger?