Are we all really just cannibals?
 

Read this interesting article questioning what would happen if the human race turned vegetarian / vegan. This is not to say I am one, though I try to eat less meat, but it would have both positive and negative consequences. At present it is simply unrealistic but it seems to me that eventually, perhaps some centuries into the future, we will be viewed in the same way we view cannibals today.

What Would Happen If the World Suddenly Went Vegetarian?

I enjoy a good ribeye steak or a juicy "smash" burger and fries. I get my veggies on a sausage and pepperoni pizza by the tomato sauce and occasionally a few mushrooms. My father was a meat and potato man and lived into his 90's. Why ruin a good thing with veggies, when you can eat those animals that enjoy their veggies? Give me a Brazilian steak house any day over a salad bar.

Tastes like chicken?:icon_hungry:

[QUOeat those animals that enjoy their veggies? [/QUOTE]

Secondhand vegetarian diet. Only eat animals that are vegetarian. No meat eaters. Seafood is the reverse.

Secondhand vegetarian diet. Only eat animals that are vegetarian. No meat eaters. Seafood is the reverse.[/QUOTE]

So you can be a second hand veg by eating deer? Asking for a friend who is a vegetarian.

I am an unrepentant carnivore, but love my vegetables as well.
Especially the ones I grow myself.
Many moons ago, ate some of the animals we raised as well.

I hope the carnitas in my lunch tacos did not come from long pig.

Dealing with the present...
 

and very near future is enough for me. I think a person has to be a bit of a masochist to worry about the future when I won't exist.

Imagine if George Washington had wondered if there would be people who would want to end free speech or freedom of choice.

It is a fools errand to wonder such things when the light at the end of the tunnel could really be an oncoming locomotive.

Cannibal means a person who eats the flesh of another human. I sort of doubt we are going to turn into that. I also doubt we are all going to be chewing the cud like cows anytime soon. Our teeth tend towards omnivore.

I'm mostly a carnivore...:icon_hungry:

Maybe it’s one way to reduce greenhouse gases.

I stopped reading after this. It's a well known fact that vegetarians produce more gas than meat eaters.

When I read this statement, the author lost all credibility.

Mostly????? Do we want to know more?:bigbow:

Great!
 

Great! More methane! :ohdear:

Better question What if Bill Gates was buying all the cattle land so he could rid us of beef (polution crap) and make us eat ...... eeeewwwww I just can't say it.

but you get my drift.

Agreed with all Velvet said. I think moderation in all things (NOT CANNIBALISM!!!) is my best bet.

Seems like most who replied didn't read the entire article. Yes, animal husbandry is one of the greatest sources of methane which is much more harmful to air quality than CO2. As well as depletion of forests that absorb excess CO2.

But no one picked up on the idea of animal cruelty that is involved in meat eating. To me that would be the biggest reason to become a vegetarian. And most of us, however, know the issues involved for nutritional deficiencies that vegans (no dairy) face, requiring some supplemental vitamins -- I think it's Vitamin K-2.

In any case, I thought it was an interesting article if provocative that made a lot of sense.

I'm 77. In the 70s, people could track wherever I was by following the empty coke cans and pastry wrappers. I drank, smoked and did whatever drugs I could. The girl I was living with at the time was allergic to corn and oil and had to watch what she ate. One day I accompanied her to a health food store called Vim and Vigor across from Carnagey Hall. As you walk in there were a number of juicers and people sitting at the counter consuming whatever they were grinding. Half the people were orange from the carrot juice, and they all looked sick.
I couldn't wait to get out of there and wrap my hands around a hamburger.

My point of view is your doing it for health reasons or it makes you feel better go for it.
But if you're doing it to add a couple of years to your life your dead already.

Apples???

Extreme cruelty
 

Factory farming of animals for eating is cruel inhumane and horrible. What the animals endure in the housing shipping and gruesome killing in inexcusable. And I won’t go into details. There is an expression that if there were glass walls in slaughter houses no one would eat meat.

I have not eaten meat or seafood for nearly 50 years and am extremely healthy

Remember
 

Soylent green is people!!!

False assumption
 

Interesting article - thank you for sharing. However, anyone assuming that all pasture land can simply be converted to crop production has never attempted to farm. A piece of land may support grazing yet have unsuitable topography, soil, or water resources for growing food crops. The amount of additional soil erosion and depletion from crop conversion could also be sizable, significantly affecting fertility after a relatively short time. (As a girl in the 1970s, I remember my father pointing out scarred areas of land where almost nothing but broomsedge would grow, & saying he remembered folks growing corn there during the Great Depression.) Would like to see some figures based on a more realistic model.

Vegetables are what food eats.

So you can be a second hand veg by eating deer? Asking for a friend who is a vegetarian.[/QUOTE]

It works for me. Have your friend give it a try. Just one bite, one juicy, tender, delicious bite.

Totally with you on this. We're talking about sentient creatures who feel stress, pain, and fear. I don't have a problem with a young steer living on a pasture getting humanely slaughtered for meat and maybe (maybe?) the factory farms are up and up with animal welfare. But if that is so, why is it such a secretive business?

A few weeks ago I was at a motel and a woman was walking her pet pig. She was leash trained, she liked getting petted, and the woman let me feed her a carrot. They're a lot like your dog yet eating dogs is considered crazy and inhumane.

If I had the option I might just eat humans vs. animals.....just sayin' Might have to smoke them for awhile to soften up the meat though.

Joe

"NOT CANNIBALISM"? We are meat (most of us). We taste like pork (or so I've been told). Cannibals call humans "long pig". Ever cut your finger and suck off the blood? Pretty tasty, huh.

Surely you mean carnivore. A cannibalistic human... eats other humans.

This is why I became a vegetarian 5 years ago this past August. I read a book that was written by the CEO of the Humane Society (at the time, now someone else is the CEO) called "The Bond, Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them. I thought the book was going to be about puppy mills. It was about puppy mills as well as a lot of other inhumane things that animals go through. I've tried to take the step to becoming vegan but haven't been able to give up cheese, yet.

I was never a big fan of red meat or seafood. But it took me a long time to get used to not eating chicken, turkey or cold cuts. Today there are a lot of vegan options that taste like the real thing. (There are also a lot of recipes if someone would rather make these things themselves.) Although some of them aren't good. It's trial and error and personal taste.

B vitamins are important for vegetarians and vegans too.

Did they have names?

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! :22yikes:

Humans are designed to be omnivores. An animal that is purely a meat eater has short intestines. A cow that lives on grass has three stomachs-you have one. A cow since it eats a low energy diet, eats all day long. Humans are designed to eat a diet of both meat and plants, (vegetables). All meat and you will likely have vitamin deficiencies and trouble going to the bathroom. All vegetables, no eggs, no fish, a true vegetarian has trouble getting complete proteins-that are needed for good health.

Most recent episode of Jay Leno's Garage, someone is producing a tractor that runs on the methane from livestock. It is IN PRODUCTION.

Margret Meed the celebrity anthropologist wrote about hunter gathering cultures as in many Indian Tribes. Unlike us, what we think is normal they would work ONE DAY A WEEK. Rabbits-they are all around here as are squirrels. Flour? You can make flour from acorns. Water chestnuts are the roots of the cattails that grow around here.

We seem to live in a puritanical society. If, you enjoy it, it is evil.

You might not have done well travelling with the Donner party. Instead of having carnitas, you might have been the carnitas.

"Animal cruelty?"
Forget the human diet for a moment. Think about your loving and wonderful pets. They are mostly carnivorous. They are meat eaters. They are hunter killers. They kill to feed themselves and their young. Now, they get their meat from you. If you don't want meat, fine. But they naturally need and crave it. Cows, pigs, horses, fish or fowl, will die to feed your pets. Animals eating other animals may sound cruel, but it is natures way.
Some animals eat plants and animals. We are some of those animals. They, we, are omnivores.

Homo Sapiens are carnivores...not herbivores or omnivores.
Meat is highly nutrient dense and saturated fat is vital for reasoning brain function.
If we all went vegan, we would all become irrational sickly children and go extinct like A. Robustus, most likely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIRurLnQ8oo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY2v6AnEyuU

We evolved into consciousness because of meat diet.

It most certainly is natures way but the industrial meat industry is anything but. Surely you understand this when you see pictures of farrowing crates, chicken cages, and feed lots. I'll be happy to post some graphic pictures if you aren't sure if the way we raise these animals is natural or not.

Joe

I think the definition of carnivore is different than what you think it is. Omnivore is what you're looking for here.

Joe

I am aware of the huge meat and fish industrial operations. They are interested in larger yields, lower effort and expense to maximise profit and meeting the protein needs of some 8 BILLION human beings and their pets. I don't like what seems inhumane to me, but I do understand it. Humans, for example, think shooting fish in a barrel is inhumane. But cats want to eat the fish. They couldn't care less about the lives of the fish or their sustainability. They would happily and greedily eat the last fish, then have no clue why there are no more. Only humans have this sense of empathy toward other species. It would make me happy to think that had peaceful and pleasant lives. But that isn't always going to be the case in to days world.
If it would make you happy, I recently heard that some scientists are trying to develop a way to have meat producing animals not develop into a full blown cow or pig, but just grow the "meat". No awareness, no pain or pleasure. Just meat. Sounds weird, but?

I totally agree with you about the cat…and nature in general. Far more brutal than it seems at first glance. Nearly every animal will have a very traumatic death in nature. We have the ability to provide a decent quality of life and an almost stress free death to the animals that provide us meat. I hope it happens that way most of the time but there is no easy way to be sure given the current lack of transparency in the industry.

As for the lab grown meat or whatever it is called….I’m kinda all for it as long as it’s as healthy as “normal meat” (if that makes any sense lol) I would really love some totally guilt free bacon someday!

Joe