I just had a revelation about PETA

IMHO, the real issue is preserving the natural balance of nature. Take cows for example. Many of them are bred SPECIFICALLY for a use by humans. It's just adding, not changing, really. (By "definition," anyway, I'd bet.) Killing a lion though, well, that's altering the natural cycle.

I'd guess that if a whole bunch of lionesses went barren, and the population of lions dropped significantly, I'd hope that PETA would be a hell of a lot more upset about that than about Fear Factor or Disneyland or whatever eating cockroaches.

PETA believes since we have the ability to eat without meat than we are ethically obligated to abstain from it.

I understand PETA and it's views, but there is a line to draw.

Like it or not, humans are animals too. Therefore, as long as we don't comlpetely upset the food chain, we can eat other animals, just like other predators do. We're just as much a part of nature as the lions, tigers and bears.

Personal example: like, If I see a spider or fly in my house I squish it. Why? Because it's in my territory. Standard predatory behaviour. However if I see a Spider outside I will not intentionally squish it, because it poses no threat, and is not invading my territory.

Aegix Drakan wrote:I understand PETA and it's views, but there is a line to draw.

Like it or not, humans are animals too. Therefore, as long as we don't comlpetely upset the food chain, we can eat other animals, just like other predators do. We're just as much a part of nature as the lions, tigers and bears.

Personal example: like, If I see a spider or fly in my house I squish it. Why? Because it's in my territory. Standard predatory behaviour. However if I see a Spider outside I will not intentionally squish it, because it poses no threat, and is not invading my territory.

You know, this is a surprisingly good argument that I never really considered before. I know PETA is all "we gotta stop mammal on mammal violence", but really, by raising our own animals and not taking from the wild (95% of the time), aren't we doing more for nature than we would if we didn't raise livestock specifically for food? If we all just foraged for dinner, the planet would have been trashed long ago.

Of course, they'd counter that argument by saying that animals have feelings, and don't like being eaten, or somesuch. To which I'd respond to by simply quoting comedian Ron White: "I didn't climb to the top of the food chain to eat carrots."

punkonjunk1024 wrote:So it just struck me - Does it bother them when animals eat each other? Seriously, this could raise serious issues for peta. They need to dispatch a group of individuals bent on stopping animal cruelty caused by other animals! omigosh!

Seriously though, that could actually be significant. If me eating a burger is bad, is it bad for a lion to eat a gazelle?
If it's only natural for a lion to do it, then... isn't it only natural for me to do it, too?

Cloral wrote:
And it seems like every time I see a vegan, they look really unhealthy. They're unnaturally thin and their skin looks uneven and sick. People naturally eat meat. There's nothing immoral about it.

Bingo.

When I was vegan for like 6 months, (and I still thought peta was retarded) I took a massive ammount of supplements to replace the things in meat that I wasn't getting. And I still felt kinda sickly. I know alot of vegans who don't bother with supplements.

And why aren't I a vegan? Organic food costs too much, and hamburgers and chocolate milk are just too damn good. I didn't try it to be an animal rights bitch, either. Someone told me it was extremely healthy, and felt great after your body got used to it. Stupid liar.

Anyhow. We're intellegent creatures. We created cows that are specifically engineered to have more meat, with shorter legs and stouter bodies, or whatever. How is that cruel? That creates less waste. Thats a good thing.
*shrug* I don't eat veal because the proposed treatment of an animal to attain "good veal" disturbs the violent shits out of me. However, most animals for food are treated relatively well before being eaten. But once again... who cares?

I hate vegans/vegetarians with a passion. If they're one of those people because they just don't like the taste of meat. Fine. But if it's becaus ehtey can't stand to kill animals, fuck em. They shouldn't be allowed to take supplement pills. If they want to cut protien and stuff out of their diet, more power to them. But if they take supplement pills. That's just cheating.

IMHO, animals were put on this earth to be eaten. If you want to move down the food chain I'll eat you too.

Cloral wrote:Exactly. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with that view.
And it seems like every time I see a vegan, they look really unhealthy. They're unnaturally thin and their skin looks uneven and sick. People naturally eat meat. There's nothing immoral about it.

That has always disturbed me whenever I hear that some people think that the partaking of flesh is immoral. It's not. However, I would say that it is somewhat immoral to waste animal products. For example, if you bred a cow just for one organ, and threw the rest away, that would be bad. Cows of course are raised for their meat, and whatever is not used, becomes feed(disgusting, but saves on burial plots), like the bones. Animals are recycled and not wasted or allowed to rot. In the wild, there are always scavengers who will pick corpses clean long after the beast has been killed and the animal takes their fill. Actually, humans are really the only creature on the earth that actually wastes their food instead of using it productivly. If you think of all the times people have let leftovers rot in their fridge, all the companies that throw out food instead of letting it be used by, say, poor people; and other kinds of waste. It's also a waste too that people become obese though the overindulgence of food. We see it everyday that people always buy more food than they can possibly eat.

But anyway, I think PETA is just a place for angry people to project their hatred of humanity by saying they are out to protect the "innocent animals" by getting mad at other humans for what is within their right to do.

Pass the cockroaches please!

Jigglysaint wrote: Actually, humans are really the only creature on the earth that actually wastes their food instead of using it productivly. If you think of all the times people have let leftovers rot in their fridge, all the companies that throw out food instead of letting it be used by, say, poor people; and other kinds of waste. It's also a waste too that people become obese though the overindulgence of food. We see it everyday that people always buy more food than they can possibly eat.

It's our priviledge as a wealthy society to be able throw out food so I wouldn't complain about that. It's not thoughtless waste by us that is causing world hunger, but a lot of factors that are largely out of our control. If your worried about poor people join a charity, but don't complain about something you should be thankful for.

Like Rainman said, we don't acquire food by stealing it from starving countries. We produce it because we have a successful productive economy. We produce it with our land, with technology such as chemistry, mechanical engineering, farm tools, capitalism, markets, etc. We produced these technologies as well. We did not take them from anyone.

If poor countries are starving, that says absolutely nothing about us, and everything about their dysfunctional political systems.

There's a number of people starving to death in the world right now so large that it basically makes the amount of overweight people insignificant. On top of this, people are being beaten, oppressed, persecuted, and denied the most basic of human rights that we hold dear.

When this number is overshadowed by the number of people who are dying due to their severe obesity, I will begin to care about animal rights.

I still don't like the idea of wasting food. Anyway, the topic is about PETA and their percieved moral problems eating meat. It is actually better eating meat because to support the size of the USA alone, you'd need way more land to grow food. The other problem is that meat is a compact source of nutrients, while your grains and veggies don't have enough protien in order to meet the demands the population has.

If we had a million less people the country needed to support, maybe a third of them could get away without touching a single animal product, except for the fact that it alone will cause nutritional deficiencies.

Jigs makes a good point about land use. It would take a lot more land to raise crops as opposed to meat. And that would inevitably lead to more drastically genetically engineered plants, for higher yields, hardier plants, etc. And anyone who's read about the dangers of man-made crops should know that they're much more dangerous than even man-made cows, so to speak. A genetically engineered bovine hardly threatens the entire global ecosystem if it escapes the farm. Super Wheat/Rice/Corn/Etc., on the other hand, does.

Animals still require a lot of crops to feed them so the land advantage probably isn't as great as you make it. "Super Wheat/Rice/Corn" is probably the only way we'll be able to get enough food to feed the world. You can only increase meat yields so much.

Rainman wrote:Animals still require a lot of crops to feed them so the land advantage probably isn't as great as you make it. "Super Wheat/Rice/Corn" is probably the only way we'll be able to get enough food to feed the world. You can only increase meat yields so much.

AtmaWeapon wrote:I was just thinking maybe the solution to the problem is easier than we think. Like what if we genetically engineered cows that had nothing but flesh and a digestive system to create it... it would be one big giant meatball and would definitely be much more efficient than cows!

It would, if we could do it. Unfortunatly we just arn't that advanced enough to create organic machines in that way just yet.

You should treat animals (well certain animals atleast) with some respect. Generally ones kept as pets in my opinion, as they are the owner's responsibility as they are not wild animals. It isn't right to let people abuse animals that are supposed to be in their care. However, wild animals... Really the only concern would be preserving species or an ecosystem.

Anyways, about vegan people, ew. I certainly enjoy a nice steak, pork chop, hamburger, etc. If I stop eating them, that means I'm dead. I could not survive on fucking fruits and vegtables or whatever the hell they think you should eat. I don't see what's so cruel to raise cows and pigs and then slaughter them to harness the meat. It's not like some sicko is tormenting them. They are rather humanely killed. Also, considering cows aren't exactly proven to be very intelligent and aren't educated, what's the big deal? Today, they ate and shit. Tomorrow, they'll eat and shit. Yesterday they ate and shit. What's the cow gonna miss when it dies?

So there's no reason to be cruel, and certainly not bad to have someone on the look out. But at the same time, it's a fact of life. I certainly would agree you can't be healthy without eating meat. It's part of the human race.

Do we have any vegans/vegetarians on these boards?

MottZilla wrote:What's the cow gonna miss when it dies?

Butterflies, rainbows and public sex?

Atma, as usual, I'm not sure if you're really being serious or not, but producing animals without skin, organs, etc. is a popular urban myth, most often attributed (as I'm sure you know) to KFC. And the key word is "myth".

Rainman, compared with the amount of food humans consume and waste, raising crops for animal feed is actually much more efficient and economical. Cows and pigs don't complain about freshness, corn worms, flies, rotten flesh, bruised produce, color or smell. They eat the whole fruit/veggie, corn cobs and apple cores and what have you. Things most humans turn their noses up at, which is ironic considering that we eat the animal in the end.

AtmaWeapon wrote:I was just thinking maybe the solution to the problem is easier than we think. Like what if we genetically engineered cows that had nothing but flesh and a digestive system to create it... it would be one big giant meatball and would definitely be much more efficient than cows!

if something like that was feasable, it would be interesting in the least.
either that or very disturbing :shrug:

I eat meat and I think as such it's morally all right. It happens in nature too.
I do keep an eye open for where the meat comes from. For instance, I'll happily eat a free-range chicken but I wouldn't buy one from a "battery farm" (the same goes for eggs) as that's most certainly not natural. I must also point out that I am a pampered first-world citizen and I have enough money to choose both to eat meat and where I buy it.

That said, I'm not especially fond of meat either except in a few dishes I really like, and in a restaurant I choose the vegetarian option more often than not simply because of my tastes.

I think animals have some sort of "life" too and should be treated as well as possible when they're alive. I'll give PETA the point that in many cases animals are mistreated in quite unacceptable ways, but I do think they go a bit far.

Here in Europe you hear about PETA mostly when they've managed to run onto some catwalk in a fashion show and unfold a banner protesting against people wearing fur. My thoughts on that are the same as with eating meat - if you treat an animal well then kill it as painlessly as possible, you can wear its fur as far as I'm concerned. But if you skin animals alive to make a fur coat, you're doing something evil.

Well see I have this weird hybrid belief about animal cruelty.

In my view, animals have at best limited emotional capacity. I've seen enough to feel like dogs know sadness, and some other domestic animals seem to display this capability. However, one can deduce that since their loyalty to master is the result of centuries of a relationship where human provides food in return for the biological radar they provide, the sadness may simply be the response to the sudden severance of their easiest access to resources.

When it comes to food animals we tend to select animals that display the least capacity for emotion (in European cultures at least). We see the slaughter of dogs for food as disturbing but none of us have really been in the kind of poverty that makes such a thing appealing. I mean seriously why slaughter a small animal like a dog when we've got herds of cows running around? At the same time, the lack of perceived emotional capacity makes us feel better about killing the creature, as we tell ourselves the animal does not understand its plight.

So do I get outraged when I hear of poor living conditions for food animals? Not in the least. I see no reason to put great expense into a life of luxury for cattle and produce when the sole reason for their existance is to provide a meal. Until a cow or chicken or pig demonstrates consciousness and understanding of its existance I see no reason to lament their plight.

HOWEVER, there is a difference between poor quality of life as the result of efficiency and poor treatment as the result of cruelty. If there are compelling monetary reasons for the treatment of the animals, and the cost of altering the handling methods are not high, then it is excusable. If trivial changes could make the animals' lives better, then it is only by cruelty that the treatment continues.

Basically I don't shed a tear over treatment of animals unless it seems intentional for no reason other than a desire to hurt the animal. The desire to cause pain to another creature and the derivation of pleasure from this act is an evil act regardless of the animal's capability to reason. I'd wager that it provides insight into a person's internal mental health and whether they are a danger to society as well, which is why I support animal cruelty penalties. I don't believe a man who sees fit to toss kittens on a barbecue grill for sport is mentally fit, and I'm comfortable with punishing this act.

{DSG}DarkRaven wrote:Rainman, compared with the amount of food humans consume and waste, raising crops for animal feed is actually much more efficient and economical. Cows and pigs don't complain about freshness, corn worms, flies, rotten flesh, bruised produce, color or smell. They eat the whole fruit/veggie, corn cobs and apple cores and what have you. Things most humans turn their noses up at, which is ironic considering that we eat the animal in the end.

I'm just playing a little devil's advocate. I don't know off hand which is more efficient. There is also the fact that humans can't live on an all meat diet. We can live without meat though. Some culture (like South East Asians) eat very little, if any, meat. We'll always need crops to eat.

ShadowTiger wrote:Take cows for example. Many of them are bred SPECIFICALLY for a use by humans. It's just adding, not changing, really. (By "definition," anyway, I'd bet.) Killing a lion though, well, that's altering the natural cycle.

The problem with this arguement is cows destroy the enviroment a lot more than killing a lion.

Vegans unhealthy? Than theyre stupid. Simple as that. What is this about taking supplements to replace what your body gets from meat? What protein? Umm... ever heard of Soy, Nuts, Beans, Rice, Lentels, Hempseed? Everything you can get from meat can be obtained through a vegan diet. Humans where not meant to be meat eaters. Look at our digestive system. Sure we are omnivors(how the fuck do you spell that), but it is healthier to be vegan.

And PETA is just fucking crazy. I don't know about them.

One thing everyone should realize though is you could feed every living person and sustain so much more of the natural enviroment simply by cutting back Americas(not the whole world) meat consumption.

Kinda off topic... get the fuck over it.

I eat meat because it tastes good, and I NEED it, especially after working all day doing construction work. If I had to kill a cow to get to the meat I'd get flashbacks of killing that cow every time I ate a hamburger afterwards. Would I still eat meat? Sure, but I'd be a lot more understanding of the process of things.

SUCCESSOR wrote: Humans where not meant to be meat eaters. Look at our digestive system. Sure we are omnivors(how the fuck do you spell that), but it is healthier to be vegan.

First, there's the weird issue of incisors and canines, the function of which is to eat meat. Also, most apes that are primiarily herbivorous have bone and muscle structure for more hardcore chewing (mostly a sagittal crest (not looking up the spelling, sorry) to which the muscles attach).

Second, there's the small problem that when you follow the evolutionary chain of ape -> ??? -> human you find that most of the Australopithecines were scavengers or carnivores. Most early tools were designed either to hunt animals or break bones to get at the marrow.

So I propose that based on this evolutionary evidence of carnivorous behavior we are in fact intended to eat meat to some extent.

Short of that one statement I agree with your other points though, through careful planning it is possible to get everything you need without the consumption of animal products. I don't believe it's a bad idea to not want to eat meat, but I think it is a bad idea to claim that it is not natural.

To add the Atma's points, our meat eating ability is relatively new so we haven't adapted all that well. That's why our digestive system doesn't always agree with meat. Meat is still an important part of our diet though. It was a big factor in making us who we are today. We needed meat to develop large brains and hunting was the reason we needed to become so intelligent.

SUCCESSOR wrote:The problem with this arguement is cows destroy the enviroment a lot more than killing a lion.

Vegans unhealthy? Than theyre stupid. Simple as that. What is this about taking supplements to replace what your body gets from meat? What protein? Umm... ever heard of Soy, Nuts, Beans, Rice, Lentels, Hempseed? Everything you can get from meat can be obtained through a vegan diet. Humans where not meant to be meat eaters. Look at our digestive system. Sure we are omnivors(how the fuck do you spell that), but it is healthier to be vegan.

And PETA is just fucking crazy. I don't know about them.

One thing everyone should realize though is you could feed every living person and sustain so much more of the natural enviroment simply by cutting back Americas(not the whole world) meat consumption.

Kinda off topic... get the fuck over it.

whoooooa super-defensive vegan man. Calm the "fuck" down? How is it healthier to be a vegan? It's faaaar healthier to eat all organic, unprocessed foods. And remember, protein isn't the single provided requirement in meat. It's a big one, but eating soy and not taking any supplements of any sort will not get you where you need to be. 😞

You have as much a right to say being vegan just as likely to be healthy a balanced diet as I have to say the atkin's diet is as healthy as a balanced diet.

Our digestive system does have trouble with meat, yes, but also, aren't we incapable of digesting cellulose, a plant fiber present in all plants? Couldn't I then defend that our digestive systems are not meant for plants, either?
(Forgive me if it's not cellulose, it's some key part of a plant cell, I'm pretty sure it's part of the hard cell wall)

And, as has been pointed out... We've all adapted differently. Some people have a full set of flat teeth. I have serated edges on my top and bottom 4 teeth, and unusually long, pointed canines. It's impossible to argue that I don't have these for... meat.

Rainman also makes a very good point.

I honestly don't see any reason for people to say veganism is a good choice. :/