As someone who tries earnestly to be a better citizen of the planet (car-sharing, cloth grocery bags, no printing stuff unless it’s required, turning off faucet when brushing teeth/sudsing hands, obsessive recycling, impressive amounts of reusing, not so good on the “reducing”…sorry), I tend to fume at SUV-drivers and not bat an eyelash at my carnivorous and omnivorous peers, even though I am well aware of all the statistics which Esprit, Sting and other organizations drilled in to me in the 90s regarding how many acres or gallons of water beef requires blah blah blah.
Well, apparently I can’t give H3s dirty looks any more.
Via The New York Times:
EVER since “An Inconvenient Truth,†Al Gore has been the darling of environmentalists, but that movie hardly endeared him to the animal rights folks. According to them, the most inconvenient truth of all is that raising animals for meat contributes more to global warming than all the sport utility vehicles combined.
The biggest animal rights groups do not always overlap in their missions, but now they have coalesced around a message that eating meat is worse for the environment than driving. They and smaller groups have started advertising campaigns that try to equate vegetarianism with curbing greenhouse gases.
Oy, I don’t see this going over well with the public at all. Amurricans love their flesh. They like to eat meat, too.
Some backlash against this position is inevitable, the groups acknowledge, but they do have scientific ammunition. In late November, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization issued a report stating that the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.
That sound you heard was my mind being blown. I knew raising animals was less than ideal, I never realized that it was worse than driving, let alone all types of transportation combined! SWEET. I can go back to having naughty dreams about the Veyron, sans shame or guilt. Anyone know how to type that sound Homer makes when he’s contemplating donuts or other yummy things? Because I’m totally doing that right now.
When that report came out, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other groups expected their environmental counterparts to immediately hop on the “Go Veggie!†bandwagon, but that did not happen. “Environmentalists are still pointing their fingers at Hummers and S.U.V.’s when they should be pointing at the dinner plate,†said Matt A. Prescott, manager of vegan campaigns for PETA.
In a move which makes me feel confused and anxious, PETA has decided to drum up awareness by plastering a banner festooned with this new, urgent, “Meat is (Earth’s) Murder”-message on a Hummer, which will tool around my town, complete with a chicken in the cockpit. Well, it’s a driver in a chicken suit who will be in the cockpit, and not an actual specimen of poultry, but what I want to know is, why not a Rooster suit? Why don’t men get any respect?
“You just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist,†said Mr. Prescott, whose group also plans to send billboard-toting trucks to the Colorado Convention Center in Denver when Mr. Gore lectures there on Oct. 2. The billboards will feature a cartoon image of Mr. Gore eating a drumstick next to the tagline: “Too Chicken to Go Vegetarian? Meat Is the No. 1 Cause of Global Warming.â€
The Humane Society is also on board, since it worries about polar bears as well as puppies:
On its Web page and in its literature, the Humane Society has also been highlighting other scientific studies — notably, one that recently came out of the University of Chicago — that, in essence, show that “switching to a plant-based diet does more to curb global warming than switching from an S.U.V. to a Camry,†said Paul Shapiro, senior director of the factory farming campaign for the Humane Society…“Our mission is to protect animals, and global warming has become an animal welfare issue,†he said.
And switching from a Camry to a MINI will do more to curb boredom. Bow down before the mighty Cooper S, I say!
Let’s hear from a spokesperson for Gore:
Chris Song, his deputy press secretary, simply noted that a suggestion to “modify your diet to include less meat†appears on Page 317 of Mr. Gore’s book version of “An Inconvenient Truth.â€
He did not address Mr. Gore’s personal food choices.
An activist quoted in the article rightly mentions that “it’s a lot easier to ask people to put in a fluorescent light bulb than to learn to cook with tofu”, and to that I say, uh…yeah. Tofu scares the Madagascar out of the picky and unadventurous (read: me). It IS easier to swap a bulb for a more energy-efficient one, take metro instead of a car or use one of the handy cloth bags which are now all over Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, for groceries.
Aside: those of you who scored this are on my “I’m so jealous”-list. I will console myself by marinating in haterade, since the bags aren’t made of anything organic, weren’t fair trade and obviously used icky, poo-ey airline miles to get to us from China. Ha! You may have the bag, but I have my obnoxious, envy-tinged righteousness. 😉
Off-aside: food is very personal, and I’m not sure how successful these efforts will be, but I don’t think there’s any harm in educating people about the impact our diets have on our bodies and on the world.
“The argument favoring vegetarianism quoting the efficiency of the foody chain/food pyramid .”
Wouldn’t PETA be better off with sticking CHLOROPHYLL on the skins of its volunteers so that they can photosynthesize their own energy and hence become more efficient.
Why do they even want to KILL plants?
Or is it that many of them feel that plants are not alive like so many so called vegetarians feel about fish?
What is more cruel ,chopping the limbs of a living being that can make some noise or munching on another living being that is mute.?
sorry, but i don’t share your wish at all. I think i’m one of the few vegetarians who doesn’t have compunctions about killing animals as long as it’s to save a human life or to feed a hungry, human mouth.
We shouldn’t give the impression that the vegetarian population in the US is mostly vegan–if so, we’re a mostly sadomasochistic population and I find the very thought unbearable. 😉 I used to work at a mostly-vegan cafe so if I ever have to suffer through another spelt cookie/bread or soy cheese-adorned pizza, I’ll consider it an opportunity to attain mahasamadhi via the express route.
I think i ran into the practical limitations of even a lacto-veggie diet long ago, when I realized that muscle mass was going to be hard to come by with neither the genetic support nor the desire to consume wheel-barrows of sirloin, fowl breast and pig butt. It’s no consolation that the methods use to produce these delicacies are inordinately wasteful.
I think it’s been said above in the comments, but I feel like I need to put my two cents in and reiterate: WRONG.
My guess is the big issues are the mass farms, where many animals are concentrated in one spot, like a factory, and transportation. If one can eat locally-raised farm beef/chicken/pork/duck/goat/monkeybrains, etc., I don’t think the environmental impact is that great.
The best advice always come from mothers and I have to fall back on what my mom always told me: everything in moderation. We can eat meat, we can raise animals for food and all that, but when it becomes out-of-control is where we run into problems.
I don’t know the solution because it’s impractical for people in the city to drive out to a local farm to pick up some beef, especially in large urban centers on the East Coast, but I soundly reject that you canNOT be a meat-eating environmentalist. Also, when did environmentalism become about extremes? Everything in moderation, little steps and do what you can. Simple.
And by simple I mean easy to talk the talk and much harder to walk the walk, especially when our own desires can sometimes be so confoundedly opposite about what we talk.
“One last point ,I don’t understand how people who just shut their eyes and ears when someone questions their illogical faith ,preach their morality so brazenly.”” And exactly whom was this gem for?
“BANG”
“… munching on another living being that is mute.?
not according to roald dahl 🙂
basically if you eat a cow, the cow eats corn. the cost of eating the cow also includes the corn the cow eats—this cost cannot be less than you eating the corn itself because energy cannot be created.
That’s true–but I’m confused as to the relationship to gloal warming–doesn’t growing corn absorb C02…. Maybe not as much as the alterative, though–grass…. And mechaized farming does use petro. Can someone clear this up with more specifics, if you know….
I hope I am not feeding the trolls, but… From 24/7, at comment #40
There is so much wrong in this I don’t even know where to start. Models ARE underweight. Having your ribs sticking out or dying of anorexia because your body does not have enough to sustain you is NOT what normal people look like. There is a reason there are so few models–most people are NOT 6’5 and 105 pounds.
Also, do you have any proof for your 90 percent statistic? Could you please provide linkage? I’d be very interested to read that…you know that 75 percent of statistics are made-up? :-p
Bang? Thanks, that’s helpful.
IF it was for me, you are sadly mistaken. I was reporting a news story I thought would be of interest, I wasn’t preaching shit.
I agree… this is my main problem with vegetarianism as an ideology. It’s great if that’s what you feel is right (and I am moving more toward it for health reasons, personally) but one person not eating meat isn’t going to make a difference. Meat production is happening on a massive scale. Personally, I think that in a rational world we’d produce meat only on the local level and most people would eat it rarely, but we’re a long way from that.
I reviewed The Omnivore’s Dilemma on my blog recently (plug! plug!) and, as I recall, it’s agriculture as a whole industry that is the largest greenhouse-gas-producing industry (not just meat). Yes, there’s the problem of growing grain to feed cows, but let’s not forget that the food industry uses huge unnecessary amounts of grain. We’re also growing that grain to provide the massive amounts of high fructose corn syrup and other corn-derived food additives that are increasing our rates of bowel disorders, obesity and diabetes. I’m not saying meat production isn’t a problem, just that it’s only one part of the bigger picture, and PETA and the like do a real disservice to the environmental cause by failing to acknowledge that.
Large urban centers on the East Coast are probably the places where it’s easiest to get food from local farms. Most cities have farmers’ markets in lots of neighborhoods; Philly certainly does, and I know New York does as well. Encouraging farmers’ markets also makes fresh, healthy food accessible for people without cars and people who live in neighborhoods without grocery stores.
That’s just hateful. Ever hear of the beauty myth?
Oh, and for the record, 59% of American adults eat at a fast food restaurant at least once a week. If we solve our food crisis, it’ll be by making healthy food affordable and accessible, not by aiming this sort of vicious hatred and elitism at people. Way to convert to your cause, there, 24/7.
Bang? Thanks that’s helpful.
IF it was for me, you are sadly mistaken. I was reporting a news story I thought would be of interest, I wasn’t preaching shit.
Please don’t get all riled up now.I realise that reason unsettles the best . And this is not at all digressing from vegan hypocrisy.
You got any ‘reason’ to say that (in terms of instances, past comments, etc)?? My experience/impression based on her posts and comments has been quite different and so I am wondering why you are saying that, considering you claim it was based on some reason.
Thanks, Preston, this is what I was trying to get at 🙂
But soybeans do get pesticides, herbicides, and other modifers pumped over and into them. And if you’re growing soybeans in say, Arizona, you’re also depleting the water table, promoting an unsustainable and unnatural ecological bubble, and generally being wasteful and un-ecofriendly.
Ok, let me say this again:
Sometimes, but not always. I really think folks should just take a quick read at the NYT article I cited back in my first post. It talks all about the “hidden environmental costs” of local produce production. It’s true that meat requires more resources/grain/water/waste management than plant life. That said, if you grow non-indigenous plants locally, which many people are trying to do in order to jump on the “buy local” bandwagon, it can be just as bad for the environment as a small meat farm in the area. And if you don’t buy local, the greenhouse emissions associated with transportation are significant.
DTK, I’m just arguing for nuance. Meat production is often bad, it’s true. That said, meat consumption is not always bad everywhere, and some forms of non-meat food production are equally bad, if not worse, in terms of water/energy waste and greenhouse gas emission. I guess my larger point is that there’s more to choosing an “ethical” or “environmental” food option than simple statements like, “Eating meat kills the earth.”
sadly, some of our bodies don’t process vegetarian protein as well as they do non-vegeterian forms. i know, because i spent two years as a vegetarian, eating all sorts of protein, and it really just wasn’t enough; i grudgingly went back to eating meat after three different doctors told me to do so. my heart and mind are not happy, but my body definitely is.
Thanks, Camille, I feel like that thought really needs to be injected into this debate (both on SM and in the larger world).
On the ‘local food’ angle: Unless we’re all living on sustainable non-monoculture farms, let’s face it, transportation is always going to be an issue. My problem with this whole rash of stories is that they don’t provide much of an alternative, except “it doesn’t make a difference, so keep buying processed food!” If we invested in our nationwide rail infrastructure, instead of trucking food, that’d be a huge step. I don’t think many people are arguing for an all-local diet, and that doesn’t seem feasible; I mean, I live in Philadelphia and I have no intention of giving up rice! But there’s certainly an argument for eating as much fresh, local food as is practical for you, and for supporting small farms that use healthy, sustainable methods.
Also, from the culinary standpoint, fresher tastes better. Local food eaten in-season is delicious.
“You got any ‘reason’ to say that (in terms of instances, past comments, etc)?? My experience/impression based on her posts and comments has been quite different and so I am wondering why you are saying that, considering you claim it was based on some reason.”
I admire your chivalrous act of standing up for the lady.The lady got the message ,understood it but didn’t like it.And I presume that she can stand up for herself. let me shiver and cower into my den,until some verbal fascist injustice beckons me again.
Camille: I don’t disagree with you in your analysis of contemporary US agriculture. (How’s that for lawyer-speak?) You can read my thoughts on the subject in this thread. (Although Melbourne Desi, with his deep knowledge of agriculture as evidenced by his grandparents’ vocation clearly put me, who can only trace farmers back to…my grandparents, in my proper place;-)
That does not negate (what’s with teh double-negatives?) the compounded effect of meat production, though. If you acknowledge that meat production requires the production of more grain than if people did not filter their grain through animals, and you acknowledge that large-scale commercial grain production is a flawed process, then wouldn’t it follow that the unnecessary excess grain production engendered by the luxury of meat production would yield an unnecessary excess of waste from the flawed process of large-scale commercial grain production?
Sorry if that didn’t make any sense. Gotta run!
rob, the amount of energy that is devoted into the production of corn and soybeans, particularly in the U.S., does not offset any kind of CO2 mitigation you get from having plant life. This is because agricultural production in the U.S. uses all of the following: wasteful irrigation techniques (which often consume quite a bit of energy), transportation and trucking, the use of airplanes/mechanized parts for sowing, reaping, insecticide-spraying, etc. Also, sarah brought up a really excellent point (I think it was sarah?) re: the over-use of corn for things like high fructose corn syrup, etc. (and the same goes for soybean products). This is why the argument for switching from gasoline to corn-based ethanol is not a “sustainable” or even carbon-neutral solution.
I think that oftentimes people imply that because something is “earth-based” or “natural” it’s somehow superior, but we forget that natural resource depletion is not just about fossil fuels; it’s about water, it’s about arable land, it’s about distribution, etc. At the end of the day we’re going to have to (in my opinion) restructure how we measure growth/wealth, because the best way to stave off environmental destruction is to significantly REDUCE CONSUMPTION, which is antithetical to how we currently measure economic health in capitalist economies.
By the way, I think we should be careful about moving from what this post is about (environmental arguments for vegetarianism) vs. moralistic arguments on vegetarianism. Not because I don’t think the latter is interesting, but because it’s kind of an argument that goes nowhere.
“one person not eating meat isn’t going to make a difference” Just as one person not voting doesn’t give India any worse leaders. We have a choice, go vegetarian ! step by step if you wish 😛
Theres another angle as well, there is no “mad okra disease” or “foot & rice disease” 🙂
The most hyped myth about vegetarianism is that it can’t give you enough protein. About 60% of India is vegetarian & a balanced Indian thali has the daily lentil supplement. you don’t have to be sportsman healthy to live good.
sarah, I’m actually really glad you brought this up because I was going to say that… Part of the reason it is difficult to “buy local” (aside from the fact that the produce selection would suck for many of us) is also because so many cities/settlements are built in places that are not made to sustain the number of inhabitants in the region. For example, Phoenix and Los Angeles and Las Vegas. These are all cities that SHOULD NOT be as big as they are, but because we’ve diverted water sources and messed with things we have huge swathes of people living in the desert. Is there enough prickly pear to go around? Hell no!
Which, by the way, is connected to the argument that starvation and famine are no longer a result of a food shortage at the macro level; in the global economy they are often a result of improper (or non-) distribution. (so for those who are arguing that eating meat causes others to starve, you are factually incorrect). Amartya Sen has done amazing work on this issue specifically.
Harbeer, my point is that meat consumption does not by itself result in an environmentally less favorable outcome than other food production. Here’s a clear example: Let’s say I live in semi-rural Kenya. Folks have got goats. They definitely don’t have huge goat farms where they crowd tons of goats into a small space and then grow sukuma wiki to feed to said goats. The goats just wander about, foraging as per usual, at an environmentally stable rate (not like the goats raised for cashmere production with their little hooves creating deserts). Let’s say someone takes that goat and slaughters the sucker. The production of that goat for consumption probably didn’t do any more damage to the environment than a farmer’s small farm crop cycle. So that’s Kenya — if someone did something similar here in the U.S., the meat probably wouldn’t taste as “good” as our hormone-hopped up crazy meat, but it would probably be relatively environmentally neutral compared to growing non-meat things.
I’m not arguing that the U.S. system of meat production is somehow not environmentally damaging — it is. I just think our larger system of agricultural production is wasteful as a whole, including our crop/veggie production.
@ak “I spent two years as vegetarian”
Thanks, atleast you tried.
Why would I like it? You are wrong about everything, and yet you persist with your foolishness.
I’m not preaching anything with this post; I’m offering a space for a discussion.
I’m not a vegan, either.
I don’t appreciate your pathetic attempt to call me out as a hypocrite, as if I somehow use this forum as a pulpit for strong-arming dainty types like you in to conversion…to whatever it is you think I’m attempting to sermonize. Christianity? Veganism? Distaste for shitty automobiles?
I don’t get in to debates about my faith on this site or anywhere else for that matter, so I’m not sure how or where you think I dodged your wet-dream of cross-examining me re: my illogical faith. If you have a problem with Christianity, don’t use me as your proxy for a hate-fuck.
Perhaps it’s just where I live, or the that I’ve actually worked on an organic farm that grew only produce that needed soil, compost and water, but ‘buying local’ ’round these parts doesn’t mean you’re shooting yourself in the foot. No hydroponics, no extra nutrients, and no fertilizer were needed–just good, old-fashioned, back-breaking manual labor to keep it clear of weeds and yes, the occasional application of herbicides to control the occasional insect outbreak–something you can’t avoid whether you’re growing native or non-native produce. It is actually not the case that growing non-indigenous plants contributes to hidden environmental costs but that growing any plants that require much more resources than are afforded by the local ecological system produces these hidden environmental costs.
I wonder what sources you could point to, to substantiate your claim that most of the ‘grow local’ branded produce is environmentally-damaging out-of-season, non-native crops.
Has anyone here, besides me and Melbourne Desi(?), ever actually worked on a farm and/or grown their own vegetables using no short-cuts?
Yes, a vegetarian diet can give you an adequate supply of proteins.
But let me debunk the “lentil myth”.
Agreed lentils contain protein.But “dal” or lentil soup which essentially is a few ounces of lentil in a lot of water and that any sensible person can tell is a sorry excuse for proteins.
Now let’s debunk the (“mad okra disease” or “foot & rice disease” ) “disease myth”.
Haven’t you heard of E.Coli in Spinach or Shigella in baby carrots.
Last of all ..ahem the statistics!!.
à thought it was widely known that India has more malnourished children than the whole of Africa put together. This might be an exaggeration,but India does have a sizeable population that is malnourished .
And this is not from someone who has visited India.I have lived in INdia for decades and know it inside out.
Vegan hypocrisy must go.
Coming to the statistics you furnished
MM, not on my own, but i help my mom out in her garden. honestly, i wished that we lived in a less seasonal climate, because it would mean year-round home grown produce. until now, i haven’t necessarily thought of the environmental implications of large-scale agriculture, but i have appreciated the other benefits – better nutrients (less soil to mouth travel time), fewer pesticides etc. plus, there is nothing like eating a vegetable or herb grown in your own garden – most everything pales in comparison, sometimes even farmer’s markets…
Yes, if bringing water to my parents while they merrily toiled in their vegetable-patch/orchard on steroids counts. Chembu/arbi, kappa, cheeru (red spinach), paavaka/karela, three kinds of beans, okra, four kinds of peppers, velarika, padavalinga, two kinds of tomatoes, garlic, actual banana trees…and a whole bunch of other stuff. No chemicals, because they were feeding all of that to their two kids.
i worked on a ranch once. also, my fam is obsessed with gardening.
ANNA, O/T, but did your parents get the seeds from india or here? i’m pretty sure it’s illegal to bring the seeds over, but my mother persists (hers were podalanga, keerai, vellarikai, okra, beans etc). she even brought me a mango two weeks ago from india – i ate it, of course, but with a slight air of protest 😉
The lady got the message ,understood it but didn’t like it. Why would I like it? You are wrong about everything, and yet you persist with your foolishness.
I’m not preaching anything with this post; I’m offering a space for a discussion.
I’m not a vegan, either.
I don’t appreciate your pathetic attempt to call me out as a hypocrite, as if I somehow use this forum as a pulpit for strong-arming dainty types like you in to conversion…to whatever it is you think I’m attempting to sermonize. Christianity? Veganism? Distaste for shitty automobiles?
I don’t get in to debates about my faith on this site or anywhere else for that matter, so I’m not sure how or where you think I dodged your wet-dream of cross-examining me re: my illogical faith. If you have a problem with Christianity, don’t use me as your proxy for a hate-fuck.
There you go!.I knew you could stand up for yourself. But you sure have a foul mouth which is typical of a bigot ,which I presumed you were not.
Yes,I am against organized religion of any kind not just Christianity.
Very so because I realise that they always foment bigotry and intolerance .
You can very well see this phenomenon from your vile retort to just a mention of your faith.
I believe that as any other among the billions of religious people in this world ,you will also seethe in anger,hiss,spit,block and ban when reason confronts the futility of your faith.
And then revel in self pity as to why I provide people with an even UNBIASED(cough!!) platform to debate and they turn nasty.
meat is like alcohol, there’s a reason we like it. in moderation it’s a great source of a lot of nutrients. most americans eat too much meat, and too much period. they could cut back. and if PETA is happy with that that’s great. i think some people have with their argument is that they don’t think PETA is arguing in good faith, they’re just using an instrumental tack when their goal is to simply abolish what they perceive as murder. i think it is not coincidence that high status groups in india are the ones who are most likely to be vegetarian: their complementation of food items in their diet is much more likely to provide a well rounded diet that is meatless than lower status groups who are more on the margins of subsistence (similarly, mystical groups in other cultures, like the essenes i believe, were vegetarian). hunter-gatherers obviously had an omnivorous diet, and our dentition and metabolism shows it.
murali, I didn’t say most local produce is non-indigenous. I just said that you can’t always go buy the axiom “buy local” just like you can’t go by the axiom “meat kills the earth.” In my experience, it is not unusual to find non-indigenous crops on local farms in areas with less varied indigenous produce. It could be totally organic farming, but if you’re rapidly depleting the water table or cobbling things together to force resource-intense crops to grow in a non-native climate, its “local-ness” doesn’t make it inherently less environmentally damaging than other kinds of food production. The problem I have is when folks use environmental calculus to count specific costs but then chose not to apply these cost-structures in comparable scenarios.
And, to answer your second question, my whole fam is into growing their own vegetables, especially my grandparents. My parents have had to give their veggie garden recently because of their physical health, but my mom still has a little herb garden in her kitchen. I’ve grown up with fresh backyard produce for most of my life, actually, and love the fresh, amazing flavor of home-grown veggies & fruits 🙂
By the way, for those interested in urban and peri-urban farming, please see the awesome information provided by the Ecology Center.
Camille, is the word that you are trying to explain with your comments regarding raising meat & environmental impact “sustainable”? 😉
Amit, probably 😉 I just shy away from using “sustainable” because it is used so broadly, and inaccurately, these days that it seems to lack context/meaning.
Also an aside: Freudian slip above, I meant “go by the axiom ‘buy local'”, not buy and buy. I swear, typing makes my command of the English language plummet to subterranean (homesick?) depths.
razib, not sure about your explanation regarding status groups in India and diet, but where I grew up, in my experience, meat was much more expensive than vegetables, hence it was a luxury food. And I’m pretty sure my parents/family are not high status.
i think this statement would resonate a bit more if it was region-specific–i.e. i can see it applying in the southwest but for the pacific northwest and my corner of VA, it doesn’t really apply. “buying local’ as an axiom does have real value in those regions, mainly because you can throw just about anything not grown in a tropical climate into the soil and watch it grow–part of the reason why the cops do so much kumbaya-ing around cannabis bonfires ’round here.
Is it that too much meat, prepared in any fashion, is not good? I think there’s a fairly large difference between wolfing down cheese-steaks all year and suffering through roasted chicken breasts and dry turkey burgers…right? Is it the prep materials (saturated fats, salt, etc.) that matter or just the volume of meat consumed?
“Haven’t you heard of E.Coli in Spinach or Shigella in baby carrots”
Maybe, because i didn’t like spinach :). or maybe since all the spinach in my area was mass culled to stem the disease.
What you consider healthy depends on your lifestyle which dictates the amount of proteins & other nutrients you should consume. Malnourished children don’t stay like that because of vegetarianism, but for the lack of balanced diet(or any at all) as is the case with Africa.
It’s not about chivalry or whether she can stand up for herself or not (actually she very well can). It’s about fairness and what seems to be baseless insinuations. For all the time I have been on this blog, I have never seen her speak derogatorily about any other faith or say her faith is the best. She has always been open to learn about other faiths and cultures and nor have I seen her have any issues about admitting she is wrong if and when she is. Thus if you start to accuse her of things which I have not observed, I think it is not too wrong or chivalrous of me or someone else to ask if you have anything more concrete to back up your claims or if you are just randomly blowing smoke. Questioning peoples claims and arguments is something a lot of people do here, and especially when you make it personal on another commenter/blogger there is more reason to do so. Thus sir/madam, I request you again to provide some instances to support your statements and give the lady a chance to defend herself if needed.
I will happily ban you, when you surely violate our comment policy– I’d love to be proven wrong and have you stay. If you do get banned, it won’t have anything to do with your “reason”s, it will be because you broke the rules.
My money is on “non-issue-focused flame”.
“Maybe, because i didn’t like spinach :). or maybe since all the spinach in my area was mass culled to stem the disease.”
That’s not a rebuttal .Its called escaping.
“What you consider healthy depends on your lifestyle which dictates the amount of proteins & other nutrients you should consume.”
I am glad you understood that and it has not.Vegetarianism can be used to attain a balanced diet,but there is an easier way.
“Malnourished children don’t stay like that because of vegetarianism, but for the lack of balanced diet(or any at all) as is the case with Africa.”
Well sir ,when you are malnourished ,being vegetarian adds to that .And I made my point about malnourished children in India because you came up with a statistic that seemingly corroborated your claim to vegan divinity.
Maybe I missed it, but why are meat eaters the target of ‘reducing global emissions’? Why aren’t those who consume diary products a target, too. (I consume both very happily and don’t plan on stopping either).
Can anyone explain the difference in methane production of cows for meat eating and diary purposes? Both are large industries.I’m a bit confused as to why only livestock for meat eating purposes is the target (beyond PETA making an issue about it).
Didn’t realize that juvenile racists would have any interest in SM. But then they do have plenty of time on their hands.
in general, i think most doctors would tell you not to overdo the meat, for various reasons. meat is harder on your digestive system, esp. kidneys (the biggest objection to the atkins diet). also, non-vegetarian protein comes with cholesterol, and usually more saturated fat, and since most people do not stick solely to lean meats, like fish or poultry, meat eaters have a higher risk of certain diseases and medical conditions. as an aside, since conventional meat is generally pumped up with antibiotics and hormones, it can create non-obvious conditions, and if you overdo it, can even create serious hormone imbalances.
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huh!! how (or rather why) did SFgirls rhyme become SMInterns?
hey.. its some jackass taking on different handles.. I would never do that 😮
I have seen that rhyme being posted in Runa and ak’s name too. No baseless insinuations please!
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. 😉
FDA final report on E. Coli outbreak in 2006.
I am a very pro environmentalist guy. But at the same time, i think one should judge someone by how someone lives their life overall, and not whether they choose to splurge on one or two things. I do not care for SUVs. And I do consider the mileage factor as a negative. But it is not the only reason for me. And I will not judge someone who drives an SUV because the SUV gives them joy. Who are we to police that? If a person doesn’t really care about what vehicle he/she drives, then that person should probably look at fuel efficiency as a factor.
I drive a G35 , a gas guzzler. It gives me 20 mpg despite hitting 100mph frequently. I like to drive fast. But my fuel economy is still decent for that car because I drive in such a way that I do not have to brake much. I am good at anticipating red lights. I do not take unncessary trips in my car. I shut my car off if the drive thru is not moving fast. I try to telecommute as much as I can. I live in an area close to the last few jobs I had and not too far from the other areas.
Then again, driving a car fast gives me pleasure. I love eating meat. It gives me pleasure. I do not drink. I am not going to judge drinkers as being wasteful to the environment because producing beer takes up energy and resources. Are we going to be policing people on anything wasteful?
It’s funny when I see some environmentalists preach while they smoke.
But I