Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sidenote: I'm not actually a vegetarian or what-not, just showing that black-wing that there are circumstances where . I agree with the points you made already, but that doesn't contradict the truth of my argument.

Animal farms produce waste, this is not contested. This waste leads to environmental damage. Human landfills also cause environmental damage, this is not contested. Whether one is more damaging than the other is a matter of opinion, and many people are working to solve both problems. Animal farms can and have been made to operate in an organic and environmentally friendly manner, just as landfills have. It's not a question of ability, it's a question of whether people care.

Yes, if people are educated we can eat meat in a very healthy way. Unfortunately, if people were educated here (I take it you're from Canada going by the fact that you said "province" and going by the creepy killer girl thread), America wouldn't have the highest obesity rate in the world, and heart disease wouldn't be killing off more people than almost anything else around. Can we eat meat in a healthy way? Yes we can. Can we educate people to do so? Yes and we're doing so. Will this actually do anything? Can't say for sure, but the way things are going I really don't think so. Fingers crossed, though.

Simply because meat takes more land makes it a less efficient fuel source than plants. Not to mention the fact that every organism loses 90% of the energy it takes in when it's eaten by something else. The query was about how meat contributed to global hunger. If food is needed in a place where land is used for farming animals, then converting that land into growing plants should easily allay the hunger problems. However, the actual cause of global hunger is not the amount of food in the world (there are massive stockpiles all over the world, more than enough to keep everyone fed), but rather the distribution of it. Making more food is not going to conquer global hunger as a whole, but it would definitely help.

The last query was a bit silly, talking about how eating meat inflicts suffering on billions of animals everyday. Killing an animal automatically qualifies it as suffering, as does farming them. Is this to say that trillions of animals are not suffering everyday as we speak? Of course not. Other animals feed too, and we all step on bugs all the time. Does this mean we should continue farming meat the way we are now? Absolutely not. I personally abhor ill-treatment of animals, and prefer that any animal I eat has not been kept in cages its whole life, fed out of a bottle, and butchered before ever seeing daylight. Not only is that kind of meat unethical, it's unhealthy for both humans and environment. There are ways (as I mentioned above) to raise your meat healthy and green (meaning environmentally safe, not the literal color). Your neighbor, I assume, already does so. However, a great deal of farms in the States do not. It is these that I am protesting, and that I think we need to free ourselves of.

When I said we have a problem with how we get our meat, I did not mean that we can't do it by farming or without killing. These are fine, and killing is a part of the cycle of life. However, for the reasons outlined above, I definitely feel that farms all over the world (because I'm sure that the poor practices have been exported as well) need to change the way they treat their animals and the way they run their farms in general.

"Do you know what they do to those chickens?" scream
"No, but it's delicious." 3nodding
-Jim Gaffigan

actually the health thing is a misnomer. While you lower your fat intake vegetarians typically suffer from low iron, low protien and tend to end up absorbing many more simple carbs. just the same with anything else it's being aware enough to fill in the gaps where needed. meat eaters usually have to be more active to process. vegeetarians need more supplimental aid to offset the balance.

I'm curious about the religious stuff though.

"Your system's kickin' back BROTH?!"

Pork in itself is bad for you. I like eating meat, even though I disagree with the methods they use to produce it. Animals live in a preditor-prey kind of world, where the predators keep the population of prey in check to prevent disease from spreading through the herds and wiping the herds out, something many people don't want to understand because they are so caught up in what THEY view as good and bad, and because of such, many animals suffer far worse than what these barnyard animals endure. As far as cattle and such go, it would be better for them to be able to graze the lands and let them live until they are at an old age before killing them for meat. it would mean less meat available to the public for consumption, but it is more humane in my sight then cramming them in cages and killing them when they reach a certain weight.

[im sorry if this has been said before but im kinda to lazy to search through all the pages]
humans are omnivores which pretty much means that they can eat anything edible and survive(for the most part i do know some people are alergic and cant eat/drink certian thing but with that said) we need to eat a certain amount of neutriants a day or we would be unhealthy.
so lets say your a vegitarian you would have to eat alot of legumes(beans) a day to get enough proteinand lets face it you dont always feel up for eating beans with every meal or having a lot of beans in one sitting
like wise for people who eat meat they would have to get nuetrients from plants
i myself like meat and fruits and vegtables and all other edible plant givin food
i try and eat as diverse foods as possible as to try and keep a balanced deit

not to be intentionally a**l... but they're both from comedians

the second one was Tater Salad. (aka Ron White)

But to stay on topic ...
the only irrefutable argument towards vegetarianism I've ever heard was when someone explained to me that after abstaining from eating meat or drinking milk that the body will begin rejecting it.

However after following up on thier research with my own the same thing happens with fruits and vegetables over time. The body doesn't produce enzymes and acids to digest what we aren't eating. And if you really tried... you can make your body absorb toxins more efficiently (like the poison tasters of old times)

So all in all... what you ingest is a decision... not bound to necessity