Turning vegetarian - need advice

[xor]

I think I know what you mean, but that is mostly the polarising debate between vegans and meatlovers. They both love to shock each other and create positions that are untenable. I almost don't eat any meat can't really digest it, which is why I stuck to vegetarian once. I was drawn into the debate every time some one found out I didn't eat meat(no vegetarians here back then!)...

 

But I love fish and fishing isn't that much different than killing a cow in my viewpoint. My preferred food is organic straight from the farm or forest. It's best one find out for oneself what type of diet suits you based on your own ethics(not someone elses ideas of morality) and ultimately your health.

Edited November 2, 2013 by xor

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Without taking the thread in a different direction, is it possible to note the reasons, in this book or otherwise, as to why vegetarianism cannot minimize the suffering of livestock?

[C T]

Has anyone come across this most interesting article before?

 

22 Reasons Not To Go Vegetarian.... thats the title. Its well-written, and where possible, provides enough factual notes to be of interest to both sides of the camp.

 

 

http://www.westonaprice.org/vegetarianism-and-plant-foods/not-to-go-vegetarian

[liminal_luke]

I'd like to suggest a compassionate compromise to those squicked out by conventionally-raised meat. (And really, who wouldn't be?) Seek out, and pay extra for, humanely raised grassfed meat, and ecologically sound seafood. Yes, such animals do die so that you can eat them. There's no getting around that. But it's not like living creatures didn't perish so you could eat your carrot salad either. True, a plate of veggies doesn't provoke a gag reflex among vegans the way a bloody steak might--but murder, if ya wanna use that word, is murder.

 

What you get with grassfed meat from ethically-minded ranchers is food that's good for you, good for the animals, and good for the world.

[Rara]

But it's not like living creatures didn't perish so you could eat your carrot salad either.

Oh? Now this is interesting! How so...?

[Rara]

I'm told the myth it busts is that vegetarians are kinder to the live creatures than meat eaters. This is the part I wanted Rara to check out, since his reasons for considering vegetarianism were compassionate rather than nutritional. I've read books of this nature before but so many and so long ago that it was easier for me to go with the last in first out impulse. Maybe it's not the best. I dunno. I do know from vast prior explorations that the message of vegetarians doing something morally and environmentally more sound is fucked up to the max.

Similarly, this does sound like something I need to explore. Thank you.

[liminal_luke]

From lierrekeith.com on her book "The Vegetarian Myth."

 

"I want a full accounting, an accounting that goes way beyond what’s dead on your plate. I’m asking about everything that died in the process, everything that was killed to get that food onto your plate. That’s the more radical question, and it’s the only question that will produce the truth. How many rivers were dammed and drained, how many prairies plowed and forests pulled down, how much topsoil turned to dust and blown into ghosts? I want to know about all the species—not just the individuals, but the entire species—the chinook, the bison, the grasshopper sparrows, the grey wolves. And I want more than just the number of dead and gone. I want them back.

 

Despite what you’ve been told, and despite the earnestness of the tellers, eating soybeans isn’t going to bring them back. Ninety-eight percent of the American prairie is gone, turned into a monocrop of annual grains. Plough cropping in Canada has destroyed 99 percent of the original humus. In fact, the disappearance of topsoil “rivals global warming as an environmental threat.” When the rainforest falls to beef, progressives are outraged, aware, ready to boycott. But our attachment to the vegetarian myth leaves us uneasy, silent, and ultimately immobilized when the culprit is wheat and the victim is the prairie. We embraced as an article of faith that vegetarianism was the way to salvation, for us, for the planet. How could it be destroying either?"

 

 

No doubt it's not a perfect book. It can, and should be, critiqued. Fine. She might well be wrong about gut bacteria but it's hard to argue with her overarching point about agriculture. The way we've been going about growing vegetables and grains has hurt the earth, and living beings--even as she says, whole species--have died.

Edited November 2, 2013 by liminal_luke

[xor]

 

Despite what you’ve been told, and despite the earnestness of the tellers, eating soybeans isn’t going to bring them back. Ninety-eight percent of the American prairie is gone, turned into a monocrop of annual grains.

 

This stuff is what most cows are fed. Grains and soy:

 

 

 

Grains serve as the base of most commercially produced and homemade cattle feed. The most commonly used grain in cattle feed is corn, due to its low cost and relatively high nutritional content. Soy and barley are also used to supplement corn and provide a greater variety of nutrients. Grain should be introduced into a cow's diet gradually because overconsumption can lead to health problems. Also, grain should either be rolled or cracked to reduce the amount of undigested waste.

 

 

She might well be wrong about gut bacteria but it's hard to argue with her overarching point about agriculture. The way we've been going about growing vegetables and grains has hurt the earth, and living beings--even as she says, whole species--have died.

 

Since the meat will be fed with the same modern agriculture monstrosity using the grains and soy she hates she is blaming the wrong people. She's making a null argument. The same stuff that kills the birds, mice under machines is being used to feed most of the meat in western countries.

[liminal_luke]

Xor,

 

You are correct that most beef is fed grains. Conventionally raised livestock is arguably no better than the conventionally raised corn they are fed. Point taken. But then again that's precisely why I don't advocate eating conventionally raised beef. Fortunately, there's a healthy and environmentally sound alternative: grass-fed beef. See my post #30.

[Taomeow]

The point is, it is not meat agriculture that is selectively murderous but the whole system of our agriculture is murderous --

 

and this can't be solved by not eating meat or bashing those who do by any stretch of imagination. Everything you eat, carrot or rabbit, if it is factory farmed, monsantoed, round-upped, genetically chimerized, monocropped, toxic and earth-killing and water-killing and requires vast fossil fueling for its production (yup, a lettuce muncher munches on agricultural machinery munching on oil munching on earth munching on all its creatures great and small, steak-ready or not), drats, I don't even want to finish this sentence.

 

You (the generic you) want to feel moral and compassionate, wake the frack up, stop fragmenting your consciousness into soothing lies disconnected from disturbing truths, don't go vegetarian, go real. Fight termiator seeds, fight deforestation, fight corporate monsters suing farmers out of business for possessing GM crops when the farmers' own organic ones get contaminated by Monsanto's -- this qualifies as their stealing from Monsano, infringing on its patents!! -- legally!!!! --

 

do something that matters -- or, alternatively, just openly say, "I can't, the monstrosity is too big and powerful and I'm too puny and scared shitless," which would be accurate and honest, and eat your McDonald's OR your organic salad in silence, like your grandmother told you to eat, don't make any moral noise. Please. It really makes me sick to my stomach to eat lettuce if a morally propelled vegetarian puts a seal of approval on that. Poisons it with toxic hypocrisy for me. God I hate hypocricy.

Edited November 2, 2013 by Taomeow

[xor]

Yes now we are getting somewhere more interesting. Stop eating McDonald's garbage and buy local, organic is the best starting point if you want to be moral. It isn't really vegetarian vs meat-eater, that's more of a diversion that stops us from thinking about the real things. If you hate vegetarians or meat-eaters with a passion it will just take energy away.

[C T]

Yes, but organic does not always mean ethical. Not sure where you are, but here, real organic produce is double, sometimes double and a bit, the price of supermarket foodstuffs. Therefore, you can support organic all you want, but does organic support those who can barely earn enough to eat decent and healthy meals, i wonder. It seems that only those who are in the upper echelons of the income bracket can afford real organic foods, and this, afraid to say, is just full of hot air.

 

a lot of folks are caught by the bollocks because they know eating well is necessary, and they do sincerely want to give to their children, and themselves, clean, healthy, pure foods, but how in heaven's name can they continuously afford a piece of grass-fed rump steak for 20 euro, or an organically-farmed chicken for 17 euro a pop? Maybe once or twice a year, perhaps.

 

Its ridiculous.

[Taomeow]

I try to do just that -- eat only unprocessed, organic foods ("local" ain't where it's at if I may submit, that's another myth... Is your tea local? Well, hardly unless you live in China, Ceylon or the like? No? Then where do we draw the "local" line? My coffee -- well, it doesn't grow in CA, so do I emigrate to Columbia or what?.. Going to China, when I asked people there what to bring for presents to give to some very knowledgeable TCM practitioners, they said, "Norwegian fish oil." Very non-local for them, still hard to get locally, but very useful in one's diet, particularly in central China that has no seafood to speak of.)

 

This is better for my personal health than the alternative, but I am acutely aware that this solves nothing in the grand scheme of things. It is not just three or four times as expensive, which especially those who need good nutrition the most -- children, the elderly, the disabled, the disenfranchised, students, young mothers and fathers, people in low paying jobs or out of jobs, etc. etc., can't afford. But it is also getting to mean not much at all when the whole soil is drastically intoxicated and depleted and can't provide the nutrients OR fight off the toxins because this is a live organism that has been mortally wounded -- and it's getting worse every year, and exponentially. Or because the wind blows without asking permission to infringe on a patent and the pollen from GM crops gets on the neighboring supposedly organic plot, or... well, here's from my personal experience:

 

Some years ago I decided to grow my own vegetables in my back yard in NJ. Organic, of course, and I've never sprayed anything on anything, nor "fertilized" with anything, ever (the neighbors kept asking, "what do you use, what's your secret?" and when I said "nothing at all, I have earthworms..." they thought I'm refusing to reveal some new and improved miracle-grow chemicals to them, and were annoyed.) My earthworms did absolutely everything, all I did was refuse to poison them and they thrived and my vegetables and flowers looked and tasted (the former, not the latter) like they were growing in paradise. When the earthworms crawled out after a thunderstorm to bask in the sun a little, I swear they were as thick as anacondas. Well, almost.

 

So the "authorities" (shudder) came up with the West Nile virus-carrying mosquito scare and sprayed the whole tri-state area with malathion. They were at it every week. My earthworms died. Malathion manufacturers made millions upon millions. None of my very very local cucumbers were organic anymore, and neither were anyone else's in the three states, despite the label.

 

They keep spraying malathion in the area every year ever since. Everybody forgot about the West Nile mosquito (whose purported sightings are way more elusive than those of the Loch Ness monster, and I have more reasons to believe in the reality of the latter), but malathion is there to stay. They spray, don't remember the figures, thousands of tons or millions, every year, because...

 

well, because this is what people were trained to allow to happen because they have been made completely retarded by this and hundreds of thousands of other toxins administered. This is a vicious circle I don't know how to break. The more people are poisoned, the more retarded they get, the less ability they have left to realize they are being poisoned and do something about it.

 

So, what would I do?..

 

Oh brother. I would make it a crime punishable by life in prison to use weapons of mass destruction on the environment, for starters, take it from there... I would make sure that those imprisoned for this crime eat ONLY Monsanto... currently they don't, they have their own sheltered organic farms for internal consumption...

Edited November 2, 2013 by Taomeow

[xor]

I agree with both your sentiments here C T and Taomeow. I personally buy local and organic when I can. There is a group of bodybuilders here who buy organic eggs directly from farms, I think they get it at the same price as store shelf eggs. They are doing the same with meat now I think and other people are joining them now. You can visit the farms and see that the animals are well kept, not like a horror show...

 

Even if it's interesting I don't want to derail any further off topic from giving advice on turning vegetarian, maybe worth a new thread?

Edited November 3, 2013 by xor

[mjjbecker]

For the OP.

 

Are you familiar with HFW and his 'River Cottage' TV series'? He did a series a while back on vegetables alone. It was very interesting and included some Vegan stuff that looked worth investigating (not particularly practical while I'm still in China though). There is a book of recipies from the series that I like (I like most of his recipies and they are actually doable, unlike some) you might want to have a look at.

 

I also mention HFW because from the outset of his 'River Cottage' days, he discussed the ethical issues of raising livestock that you ultimately are going to kill.

 

When I lived in another city some Indian medical students had a local set-up an authentic Indian food restaurant. Wonderfully low prices, lovely food. A bowl of daal alone made for a fulfilling meal.

 

I'm not vegetarian, though I know someone that did become vegetarian after a lorry filled with livestock, on the way to the abatoir, went past them. By all means follow your own feelings on this. We are all here to learn, experience and grow in our own ways.

 

For anyone else in general, for health-and cultivation-the practice of fasting is well worth investigating. It is a practical step that almost anyone (medical condition allowing) can follow, regardless of budget or dietary circumstances.

[de_paradise]

I don't think one needs to get so abstract and muddled with eco-warrior sentiments about who ultimately we can point the finger at, carnivores or humanity in general.

 

What I do is think, would I rather a chicken have to die so I can eat my lunch or can I do without and eat other stuff. Its an easy choice for me, all I have to do is imagine a chicken getting its head hacked off and I really don't want to happen.

[Spotless]

Watch the free video

Forks Over Knives

 

Read the book

The China Study

 

It is easy to be healthy as a vegan or vegetarian - and many Gold Winning Olympians have been Vegan and vegetarian.

 

Personally I loved bloody red meat, but it is such a downer on my space at this point.

Dairy was a downer for me at around 20 when most adult lose their ability to process milk - it was obvious to me.

 

No worries - do your homework - enjoy!

Edited November 3, 2013 by Spotless

[baiqi]

The point is, it is not meat agriculture that is selectively murderous but the whole system of our agriculture is murderous --

The whole system of agriculture is indeed murderous, but the meat industry is even more harmful.

Besides, agriculture is more harmful because we have decided that meat would be the primary source of food.

 

If most of the population turned vegetarian (or just ate as little meat as we used to, that is to say once or twice a month), it would be much easier to have an agriculture that respects nature.

 

Even if we eat organic (which is a good thing), we cannot eat so much meat and say we care about the environement.

[baiqi]

Even if it's interesting I don't want to derail any further off topic from giving advice on turning vegetarian, maybe worth a new thread?

Yes,

 

besides, Taomew, you are not giving advice for a new vegetarian, you are trying to prevent Rara (and other folks who may read) from turning vegetarian. You may have good intentions, but this is not the point here. He made his choice. Time will tell if he was right or wrong. (Of course, I believe he is right)

 

Moreover, from the excerpts of the book I read, this book seems pretty lame. Always the same arguments against vegetarianism...

You said you were vegetarian only one year?? That's good, but it's not really much time. I mean you cannot really see the changes (if any) in just one year. Your body will need time to adapt any new diet.

(Anyway, new thread to continue this discussion)

 

So I'll just say:

 

yes, you can be a vegetarian, and still be healthy. Actually, you might become healthier than you used to be.

[mYTHmAKER]

I have been a vegetarian since 1968 - no meat no chicken no fish.

One can be a vegetarian or eat flesh and be healthy or not healthy.

It really depends on the quality of what you put into your body.

There are people who have become vegetarians, eaten junk food, gotten sick

blamed it on being vegetarian, and like born agains go completely in the opposite direction,

never taking into account all the sick people who eat meat. ( You know who you are LOL)

Then they come up with all sorts on nonsense diets. $$$

To be healthy it is more important to pay attention to what you don't eat rather than what you eat.

The more crap you don't eat the healthier you will be.

Read those labels!

[gatito]

The easy way is to eat a mix of vegetables, pulses and grains in every meal.

 

Visit Food for Thought (a restaurant in London between Covent Garden tube and Seven Dials) to get a feel for real vegetarian food. They publish a cookery book as well.

 

 

 

 

[Trash Filter]

Advice for thread

Let it happen naturally

[soaring crane]

Has anyone come across this most interesting article before?

 

22 Reasons Not To Go Vegetarian.... thats the title. Its well-written, and where possible, provides enough factual notes to be of interest to both sides of the camp.

 

 

http://www.westonaprice.org/vegetarianism-and-plant-foods/not-to-go-vegetarian

 

Thanks, but I have to admit it seems kind of like taking a sledge hammer to 22 straw men to me.

[Rara]

Just opening this back up. Just read some "cons" of turning vegetarian from an article posted earlier in this thread and two points from me.

 

1. Yes, living creatures die for plant and grains as well as soaps etc. But by not eating meat, how many lives will be saved? This has not been considered in the argument at all!

 

2. I am well aware if the health risks that could potentially be, but I do not know this for sure by just researching. Perhaps I need to trial this before I say I'm "committed".

 

I'm down to my last couple of chicken meals in the fridge now. Will see how it goes. I would love someone to challenge my first point though!

[xor]

1. Well the cattle eat those grains and soy produced in the modern agriculture way. So it is a non-issue. You have to however consider if you want to a ) minimize unnecessary death or b ) you just don't want to eat the end product of some creature's death. These are different issues.

 

For a ) your best bet would be to get food from a farm that isn't part of the monster of modern agriculture. Grass-fed beef etc would be better than meat you can buy in a store and better than soy etc and veggies, fruits, whatever from that farm even better.

 

For b ) you have an easy choice. Just stop eating something you don't want to.

 

2. You might make some mistakes but do research on your own, experiment. Taking responsibility for your own path is what it's all about.

Edited November 8, 2013 by xor