Vegetarianism.

[Nanohedron]

There are Chiffers who have posted about preferring to be vegetarian but needing to include meat in their diets as their health suffers otherwise.

I used to be a vegetarian because I thought it made me a better person. Maybe it did at some level; but one day I realised there was no getting around the fact that I was as much Shiva as I was Vishnu and Brahma, if you will, no matter what I ate, and what became more important to me was to own my accountability for my choices whatever they were.

I do think avoiding industrially-produced meats is a good thing for a number of reasons if it's possible.

[hyldemoer]

I have a few concerns about eating non-medicated meat. I understand the concerns about growth hormones and hugh-protein feed containing butchered animals, etc. but there are a lot of diseases that have been controlled through medicating farm animals. I think it would be better to find someone who avoids forced growth methods, but still protects me from things like meningitis, tetanus, etc.

No dear, the medication isn't protecting us from pathologies like meningitis, tetanus, etc. (If its a real concern for you, don't eat the meat raw.)
Quite a bit of the food the industry feeds the animals to create a "better taste" are foods that the animals can't digest without medication. The grains make them sick as if they have inflammatory bowel disease, hence they medicate.

The industry also discovered that if the animals aren't using their immune systems to naturally fight off illness they can be fattened up for slaughter faster.

My experience on the subject of vegetarianism and veganism is that few people who eat that way do it for nutritional reasons.
For the most part they do it for ethical reasons.

Its easier to be an ethical vegetarian when one is young. When we're young we tend to have Yang Qi to spare
or at least have the illusion that we do.

An interesting side story; a couple years back a friend and I attended a conference for Asian bodywork. My friend is a long time vegetarian though trying to keep it a healthy vegetarianism by using macrobiotic cooking practices.

All weekend as we'd attend workshops or even just walking through the hotel the event was happening at, elderly Japanese ladies (practitioners of acupuncture, Asian bodywork and all probably very familiar with macrobiotic diets) approached my friend (out of the blue) and told her she needed to eat some meat.

[Redwolf]

Omnivorous happy as when I'm eating chocolate.

I have a few concerns about eating non-medicated meat. I understand the concerns about growth hormones and hugh-protein feed containing butchered animals, etc. but there are a lot of diseases that have been controlled through medicating farm animals. I think it would be better to find someone who avoids forced growth methods, but still protects me from things like meningitis, tetanus, etc.

djm

Not so. The medications that are fed to the animals are to keep them alive long enough for slaughter...they do nothing whatsoever to protect the consumer. Animals that are raised in intensive conditions are not healthy creatures...they tend to suffer from all kinds of infections that spread among the over-crowded animals like wildfire. Kept from natural exercise, fresh air, and good feed (the feed that's given to an animal to fatten it for slaughter is intended to fatten it...not to promote its health), they would become ill long before they could go to market if they weren't pumped full of antibiotics.

If you're going to eat meat, buy from organic, free-range producers. That not only means a better life for the animal, it means that you're eating meat that came from a healthy animal...not one that was kept alive on medications. That's a lot better for you.

Redwolf

[Lambchop]

We should all be ripping wild animals apart with our bare hands, gnawing on their still-beating hearts

Uh oh.

[Nanohedron]

We should all be ripping wild animals apart with our bare hands, gnawing on their still-beating hearts

Uh oh.

Don't worry. Fid's just channelling her inner Kali.

[Denny]

We should all be ripping wild animals apart with our bare hands, gnawing on their still-beating hearts

Uh oh.

Don't worry. Fid's just channelling her inner Kali.

hum...wild sheep!

Don't nobody tell the chickens.

[dubhlinn]

This sudden understanding that my vegetarianism was deluded, unhealthy and reactionary,

What's all this sudden stuff??

Slan,
D.

[chas]

Regarding animals and antibiotics, cattle are fed antibiotics mostly to make them grow faster. It's done even on small farms where the cattle aren't in close enough proximity to make disease rampant. Cattle that aren't constantly medicated tend to be healthier, albeit smaller. Chickens are another story.

The thing that fries my ass about this is that they don't use some cheap-ass antibiotic like penicillin or erythromycin that's old as the hills; they use modern antibiotics that are in current and sometimes leading-edge use. Since they're not for humans and thus don't carry the same regulations or liability, the pharmaceutical companies sell to farmers cheap. The problem (from our POV; it's a lagniappe for the pharm companies) is that agricultural use is one of the primary reasons that new antibiotics only survive for a few years before resistant strains of bacteria start showing up.

[hyldemoer]

The problem (from our POV; it's a lagniappe for the pharm companies) is that agricultural use is one of the primary reasons that new antibiotics only survive for a few years before resistant strains of bacteria start showing up.

So true!

[Congratulations]

The problem (from our POV; it's a lagniappe for the pharm companies) is that agricultural use is one of the primary reasons that new antibiotics only survive for a few years before resistant strains of bacteria start showing up.

For serious? Damn.

[djm]

re. antibiotics etc. - Sorry, I was thinking more in terms of poultry, not beef or pork. I tend to eat a lot more poultry and fish than I do red meat. Its not that I don't love red meat, its just a matter of price, convenience and opportunity.

djm

[Lorenzo]

Wait a minute fiddler! Biologically you belong to the same phylum, class, family, and genus as the Bonobo ape...which are vegetarians. They have the flat teeth, flat nails, and like you they have the long convoluting....(I'd better stop there).


So, there goes your sex life I guess!

[Redwolf]

Wait a minute fiddler! Biologically you belong to the same phylum, class, family, and genus as the Bonobo ape...which are vegetarians. They have the flat teeth, flat nails, and like you they have the long convoluting....(I'd better stop there).


So, there goes your sex life I guess!

Of course, bonobos are also the creatures that have sex at the drop of a hat!

Redwolf

[Tril Bluejacket]

Anyone who thinks that meat-eating in humans is natural may be right, but nature isn't always our friend. In fact, there are times when nature seems out to kill us.

Digestion in true carnivores - and that's not us -occurs mainly in their stomachs, not in their small intestines . Meat doesn't stay in their guts for very long. In humans, the small intestine is something like 5 meters long and takes care of most of what we eat within a few hours - but meat can stay in our small intestine for a couple of days. By then lots of it has putrified. Rotting causes the development of cadaverine, putrescine and other vile poisons (cadaverine...putrescine...bleahhh! The names alone make me want to retch), and these become pathogens and carcinogens.

Because particles of undigested, rotten meat can hang around in the large intestinal walls of humans for 30 years or more, can anyone be shocked that colon cancer is common among humans who eat meat? Oh, yeah, and here's another thing. The kidneys of meat-eating humans have to work much harder cleansing the blood of toxins than do kidneys of vegetarians. Dialysis, anyone?

I've always been a vegetarian (borderline vegan) like the rest of my family. The main reason we don't consume meat is because we can't bear of thought of killing our fellow animals to eat them. To us, the health benefits of abstaining are perks, albeit important ones.

[talasiga]

I must disclose that I have been a mostly vegan for over thirty years now. Having disclosed that, I must say that I hope you do not find my posts on this subject sanctimonious.

My doctor recently remarked that my full blood count was surprisingly good for a vegetarian and, was, in fact, superior to most people on a non-veg diet. This is a country doctor in a district where a lot of fresh fish and meat is eaten. And yet, in the past, when at times, I was anaemic (due to undiagnosed occult bleeding from cancer of pre-vegetarian aetiology), some doctors said my vegetarianism was causing the anemia! (Minorities just cannot win)

I don't believe vegetarianism or omnivorism per se are gaurantees of good dietetics. Its what kind of vegetarian or omnivore you are in terms of

* the quality and variety of food
* the suitability of it to your needs (activity, metabolic and genetic), and
* the conviviality of your eating culture