Vegetarians are the reason of modern decadence

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Pekka
If we care about the poor people, then we let them have genetically manipulated stuff and let them grow it all day long.

The major problem here is not there is insufficient food produced in the world to feed the people. The problem here is that of distribution.

Since meat takes 10 times the energy to produce than an equal volume of plant matter, if everybody becomes a vegetarian there will be more than sufficient food to go around.

I don't see why there is a need for GM food. Just hype by the biotech companies. Even the seeds cost money, because you can't save some from your crop for the next season. You must buy from their seed stores.

Originally posted by Pekka
So, of course it makes all sense to say eating animals is wrong no matter what

Pekka, poor people can't afford to eat meat. Period. Meat is indeed for the rich (at least rich countries). They can't eat the cattle because it is needed to work the fields. They can't eat the pigs because they want to sell them for money. They can't eat the chickens because chickens lay eggs.

[Japher]

It's the whole "I can do without so why can't you?" attitude.

Pekka is observing it in leftest hippies who can do without meat because they actually have the choice. Or they can do without more because they have enough.

You also see this with LIberal politicians who are all for higher taxes and wealth taxes because their wealth is sheltered and already gained.

IMO, if you look you see it in us right-winged sycophants when it comes to charity and world involvements; "we like it, so will you" or "I don't need it, so you shouldn't either". "I don't need welfare, so neither should you."

Still, what Pekka is pointing out is right on the spot, we take ourselves for granted. It appears that this just isn't an American problem.

[chequita guevara]

Pekka, pwned again.

[Japher]

Pekka, poor people can't afford to eat meat. Period. Meat is indeed for the rich (at least rich countries). They can't eat the cattle because it is needed to work the fields. They can't eat the pigs because they want to sell them for money. They can't eat the chickens because chickens lay eggs.

So why are you so hoity-toity for chosing not to eat meat?

[chequita guevara]

Don't confuse stupid youth with principled positions. You young folk take everything so seriously and get all wrapped up in your emotions without thinking everything through.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

The major problem here is not there is insufficient food produced in the world to feed the people. The problem here is that of distribution.

Since meat takes 10 times the energy to produce than an equal volume of plant matter, if everybody becomes a vegetarian there will be more than sufficient food to go around.

Though seeing as there's already sufficient food, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the obvious next step to improve the distribution? Duh.

[Jon Miller]

there is way too much food right now

the problem is distrubtion

maybe in the future it will be different (I am not so sure about that)

JM

[Combat Ingrid]

Laz, funny you would say that, as people are always complaining that food grown in EU is distributed too efficiently to the starving third world countries

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

And why is it funny that I would say that?

[Wycoff]

Great OP Pekka!!! I love how foreigners think that all Americans are rich. It seems to me that most foreigners get their information about American culture from MTV and the O.C. Those hipsters should come and spend a month in West Virginia or Kentucky... then they can see how so many of us "rich" Americans live.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

I don't see why there is a need for GM food. Just hype by the biotech companies. Even the seeds cost money, because you can't save some from your crop for the next season. You must buy from their seed stores.

IDEALLY, GMOs should be used to increase corp yields, reducing the total area under cultivation, hence better for the enviroment. Of course, today it is used to the advantage of the the seed companies, but that doesn't make the GMOs bad themselves.

[Sava]

I heard the vegan diet actually is responsible for more animal deaths because the combines that harvest the stuff kill more animals than what would normally die for meat-eaters diet.

There was some article from PETA supporting this.

I'll try and dig it up.

[chequita guevara]

Except PETA supports a strict vegan diet. Not even bees should be exploited for honey.

[Sava]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Except PETA supports a strict vegan diet. Not even bees should be exploited for honey.

it wasn't PETA... it was a University study... my mistake

OSU scientist questions the moral basis of a vegan diet (3/5/02)

CORVALLIS - Why is it right to kill the mouse and not the cow?

This question is central to a study of bioethics that explores the moral foundation of a strictly vegetarian, so-called vegan diet. The research, by Steven Davis, a professor of animal science at Oregon State University, adds a new perspective to a millennia-old debate: Is it right for people to kill animals in order to feed themselves?

Davis turns that question on its head. How many animals must die, he asks, in order for people to feed themselves?

To address the question, Davis applies a principle used by moral philosophers to measure the least amount of harm an action might cause, called the Least Harm Principle.

Davis's research focuses on the work of Tom Regan, a philosophy professor from North Carolina State University and founder of the contemporary animal rights movement. Regan argues that the least harm would be done to animals if people were to adopt a vegan diet - that is, a diet based only on plants, with no meat, eggs, or milk products.

What goes unaccounted for in Regan's vegan conclusion, according to Davis, is the number of animals who are inadvertently killed during crop production and harvest.

"Vegan diets are not bloodless diets," Davis said. "Millions of animals die every year to provide products used in vegan diets."

Davis presented his research last fall at a meeting of the European Society for Agriculture and Food Ethics, in Florence, Italy. There he questioned the conclusions of animal rights proponents and offered alternatives using the Least Harm Principle. Central to his argument is the unseen mortality that accompanies the production of row crops and grains, staples of a vegan diet, in agricultural systems large enough to sustain the human population.

"Over the years that I have been studying animal rights theories, I have never found anyone who has considered the deaths of - or, the 'harm' to - animals of the field," Davis said. "This, it seems to me, is a serious omission."

Consequently, Davis asks what is the morally relevant difference between the field mouse and the cow that makes it okay to kill one but not the other so that humans may eat.

Few studies document the losses of rabbits, mice, pheasants, snakes and other field animals in planting and harvesting crops. Said one researcher: "Because most of these animals have been seen as expendable, or not seen at all, few scientific studies have been done measuring agriculture's effects on their populations."

Davis has found evidence that suggests that the unseen losses of field animals are very high. One study documented that a single operation, mowing alfalfa, caused a 50 percent reduction in the gray-tailed vole population. Mortality rates increase with every pass of the tractor to plow, plant, and harvest. Additions of herbicides and pesticides cause additional harm to animals of the field.

In contrast, grazing ruminants such as cattle produce food and require fewer entries into the fields with tractors and other equipment. In grazed pastures, according to Davis, less wildlife is lost to the mower blades, and more find stable habitat in untilled fields. And no-till agriculture also helps stabilize soil and reduce run-off into streams.

"Pasture-forage production, with herbivores harvesting the forage, would be the ultimate in 'no-till' agriculture," Davis said.

Davis proposes a ruminant-pasture model of food production, which would replace all poultry, pig and lamb production with beef and dairy products. According to his calculations, such a model would result in the deaths of 300 million fewer animals annually (counting both field animals and cattle) than would a total vegan model. This difference, according to Davis, is mainly the result of fewer field animals killed in pasture and forage production than in the growing and harvest of grain, beans, and corn.

Applying the Least Harm Principle, Davis argues that people may be morally obliged to consume a diet based on plants and grazing ruminants in order to cause the least harm to animals.

Davis's work goes beyond the vegan debate to grapple with issues of animal cloning, genetic engineering, and ethical treatment of production animals. Through the OSU Agriculture Experiment Station and a regional project on animal bioethics, Davis is part of a team of biological and social scientists from throughout the West who are working to integrate ethics and moral reasoning into the work and study of agriculture.

By Peg Herring, 541-737-9180
SOURCE: Steven Davis, 541-737-1892

Mail This Story

link: http://web.archive.org/web/200411070...ood/vegan.html

[chequita guevara]

Of course Davies ignores the fact that 95% of our grain production is ment for animal feed. What humans eat alfalfa? It's a massive red herring.