Interesting...
Parimala just delivered her 9th speech on being a Vegetarian... and I received this article just a day before...
Subject: (Why Vegetarianism / Veganism is a bad idea and why Vegetarians should be eaten alive).
I have a friend who is a raw vegan. He would only chew on raw vegetables and fruits and nuts and nothing else. He wouldn't eat anything cooked, let alone meat, fish or dairy. Apparently this type of diet isn't really "good" for his body as a whole. He would shiver and have tiny spasms from intense cravings for cooked food, not to mention he was a whopping 130 pounds and has been lifting the same weight in the gym for years.
I mean I can kind of step into his shoes. I used to be a hardcore dieter myself. But I ate meat. Lots of it. After experimenting with different kinds of diets and lifting regimes, I learned that it isn't really necessary to go against your instincts and what your body is telling you when it comes to food. I mean if you squat deep and train hard 3 or 4 times a week, you can pretty much get away with eating whatever the hell you want, just don't be ignorant enough to make burgers and pizzas your every meal. It's better for you mentally anyway.
I tried to be a vegetarian for a week during one of my cutting phases just to see how my body would respond and whether or not I would lose fat faster. Not only did I not lose fat during this week, I was hungry after every 2 hours. This was due to the fact that my body was without protein, since there are only so many calories and nutrients in lettuce and apples.
Personally, I think the concept of vegetarianism is an ignorant and full of crap.
People who are vegetarians will probably tell you that the reason why they don't eat meat is because it's "better for the environment", "it's better for your body", and "it's better for the millions of farm animals who suffer each day because we just can't resist not eating meat".
However none of these claims hold true.
First of all, humans are hard wired to eat meat. It's part of our biology. It's the way we evolved. Meat was one of the main components that sped up our evolution to have the large brain capacity we have today. Meat contains all 20 amino acids, and provides energy-rich fatty acids for our brain tissues. Hunting for meat also made us more intelligent and resourceful. We had to learn how to use our hands and brains by innovating tools to kill our prey. And if you look at nature, meat eaters and omnivores are usually more intelligent than plant eaters. It takes a lot more cognitive, visual, and physical skill to subdue a moving prey as opposed to just eating the grass that's lying in front of you.
Hunting for meat is also in some cases a collective effort. Animals that live in group are also more intelligent than animals that are loners. Living in groups force animals to learn to develop strategies, plan ahead, communicate about how to compete against each other within the group you live in, as well as other groups who are competing against your group. Meat was also a critical tool for our ancestor's social lives. Before money and other commodities were created, meat was the only currency. Males were bigger than females because men fought and hunted. It was likely that men brought home meat and traded it for company. (If you think about it, we still do that today. One of the most common things you see in a date is that a man would buy a woman food in hope for some company in return). Meat was also a lot harder to come by than grass, and a lot more calorie-dense than lettuce, so it makes much more sense to seduce and impress others with meat than grass. Buying a girl a 50 dollar steak is probably much more impressive than a 15 dollar plate of salad. Meat also allowed us to reciprocate to others. A hunter who got lucky with a prey wouldn't be able to eat the entire carcass. Taking his share, he could provide the remainder for others, in hope that they would return the favour when he comes up empty.
So meat made us smarter, our eyes sharper, healthier, stronger, and more social. Even our biology is pro meat. Our teeth (incisors) are partly designed to tear up meat, and our stomachs produce chemicals and enzymes that are specifically programmed to break down proteins that are only found in meat.
Ok, fine. Just because we are designed to eat meat doesn't mean we have to right? I mean we are also hardwired to be violent and have sex all the time. But we don't do these things because we are unselfish, rational, and conscious beings who have the mentality to make ethical choices (like not eating animals) to overcome our instinctual desires, right?
Vegetarians who refuse to eat meat because of the animal rights are pieces of shit who don't know what the hell they are talking about because they are brain dead from lack of amino acids from MEAT.
Yes, it's true that factory animals suffer. But grass fed cows and other animals that come off of humane farms die for good causes - they die for the ecosystem as a whole so that other animals can live. It's a necessary evolutionary trade off. If you really think about it, these farm animals only exist because we eat them. Our intentions of eating meat and domesticating animals as means to an end is the reason why animals like pigs, chickens, dogs, cats, horses, and cows flourished, while their ancestors and other wild animals died off. Not all animals can be domesticated. Those that are able to be domesticated and eaten by us evolved to be that way precisely because it benefits both species in a co-evolutionary deal. And if those animals are loved, treated fairly and fed by humans, aren't those chickens, cows and pigs happier than their wild counterparts who have to deal with other wild and brutal animals? The way chickens are slaughtered in a humane farm yields far less suffering than a wild chicken who chewed up and eaten alive by other wild predators.
Predation, however violent and brutal, is all part of nature's design to benefit the ecosystem as a whole. If you feel sorry for the gazelles that are preyed upon by the cheetahs, don't be. As a species, gazelles have to depend on the cheetahs for their survival and well-being. And because of cheetahs' predations, they develop and evolved talents such as jumping abilities and agility and other unique physical traits such as their horns, colours, etc. The threat of a cheetah causes the gazelles to move to different areas so they don't over populate or overrun their comfort zones and starve. Plants and grass that the gazelles eat also benefit from cheetah's predation, and so do countless of other species that rely on healthy grass for survival. By the same token, chickens and cows also depend on the predations of human beings for their health. Humans are to domesticated chickens as wolves are to lamb. If we all turn into vegetarians and stop domesticating and eating chickens, chickens would probably become extinct and take down with them other species that depend and thrive upon the co-evolved arrangement between chicken and human beings.
Vegans and people who cry about animals rights are not ecologically looking at the bigger picture. They worry about whether or not each individual animal would suffer, but they aren't thinking about nature or the species as a whole. Animal rights activists are liberals look at life through their own anthropologic lenses. Their ethics apply to liberal individualism that exists only in a manmade society. It does not apply to the nature world with its built in system of checks and balances.
Vegetarianism is just a way for these liberals and animal rights activists to have something to cry and feel special about.
Vegetarianism in the long run does not work for the environment. Eating meat is not only good for the animals, but for nature.
Grasslands and pastures that are grazed on the natural way by grass fed cows are a lot more sustainable and healthier than grasslands with no animals. There are a lot of pastures and habitats that are diminishing because we aren't letting ruminants grazing on them. Grass can only be green and healthy and natural if they are grazed. And since ruminants need predators like us to be healthy, our predation and domestication of these animals are crucial for the well-being of these habitats.
It's not like if all of a sudden everyone turns into vegetarians, less animals would die and suffer. Animals would die no matter what type of diet human beings choose to follow. If everyone was a vegetarian, farmers would need to cultivate crops with a lot more intensity and give way to more rangeland, and that in turn could lead to the decline of the animals that depend on that particular habitat.
Also, if you take the animals out of the picture, not only would you have unhealthy lands and grass because there will be no animals to graze them and help them grow new and healthy grass, you would have no choice but to use artificial fertilizer and chemicals, since you wouldn't have the their feces to compost the rangeland. Not to mention all of the hilly and rocky places in the world that cannot grow crops. You would have to make these people eat artificial foods or industrialized foods, where without meat; you would have to have your greens delivered from thousands and thousands of miles away, using vast amounts of fossil fuel leaving larger carbon footprints.
At the end of the day, the vegan utopia just isn't very sustainable in an ecological sense. It isn't better for the environment, it isn't better for the animals, and finally it isn't better for Mother Nature.
If you are sensitive about the whole corn-fed, industrialized animal deal, go order some grass fed beef over the internet, or go to the farmer's organic market and eat locally. It's better for local economy anyway, and you have more chances to socialize, since shopping in a farmer's market yields 10 times the amount of conversation compared to buying food at a regular supermarket. The bottom line is : Squat deep and when in doubt, eat MEAT. And like my friend Jeff said after reading this informative post: "The healthy, strong, fast, carnivorous humans such as ourselves should hunt and eat the weaker vegetarian humans". This cannot be further away from the truth. I adore factory farm animals. They are my favourite animals. I wish Disney make an animation about factory farm animals who bite each other's tails. They should make toys and lunch boxes with factory farm animal themes’.
Date: Tuesday, December 16, 2008
http://www.xanga.com/GrannyButter/684435154/meatheads-why-vegetarinismveganism-is-bad.html#firstcomment
