Are Vegetarians & Vegans Hypocrites?

Great Debates
61

Thanks to the others for further explaining the definition of vegetarianism!

I also suspect that there is some “trendy” factor in certain women wanting to be called vegetarian, without actually being one. Arggh. I had more of a “chip” on my shoulder about veggieness the year or two after I became one, but that soon wore off and became tiresome. I don’t spend a lot of time preaching or giving meat-eaters a hard time. I still care about vegetarianism, but sometimes, I just want to be left alone, you know? Anyway…

In case anyone has not understood why the “real” vegetarians get so bent out of shape over these fish and chicken eaters calling themself veggie, I have come up with another analogy for ya:

What makes a non-smoker? Let’s say you never smoked, or struggled hard to stop a difficult smoking habit. And then you encounter somebody who claims to be a non-smoker, maybe is even a little self-righteous about it. But, they do smoke a cigarette or two a day. Hey, what’s the big deal? It’s one of those “lite” cigarettes, and it’s just one or two a day! That shouldn’t count, should it? They consider themself a non-smoker, so they are one, right? Aw, c’mon, lighten up! (Pardon the pun ;)) It’s just one or two cigs a day - you can’t really expect them to go without totally, can you?

If you were a non-smoker, especially if you were a non-smoker who had really worked hard to quit smoking, would you think that only one or two cigarettes was “close enough”? Would you consider this person to have displayed the same discipline to not smoking that you had?

That’s the attitude a lot of veggies have seen in these faux-chicken/fish-eating “veggies”. And also the attitude they sometimes get from the people who are fooled into thinking that chicken/fish eating is “close enough”. I am not saying that someone who only eats chicken (or only smokes a cig or two a day) are “bad”, or that I don’t appreciate the effort they’ve made. But a chicken-eater is not a vegetarian, any more than a person who smokes a cigarette or two a day is a non-smoker.

62

elucidator:

That is a very good question. While I don’t know for certain how Rabbis would answer it, I’d wager that they’d probably say to keep away from the stuff anyway because it would be too easily confused for real pig meat.

Kyla:

Re-read his post, Kyla. I think kosher slaughtering probably wouldn’t enter into the question (although I’m not a Rabbi).

Chaim Mattis Keller
ckeller@kozmo.com

“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective

63

They make vegetarian Pepperoni. :slight_smile: I have some in the fridge right now. I also have vegetarian sausage patties.

Hmm… “the veggies” keep saying this? Funny, the ONLY people I’ve heard say this is my dad and his wife, who aren’t vegetarians. I’m a vegetarian and I think vitamins and suppliments are just fine. So does almost everyone I have ever met.

–
From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion”
the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

64

Just don’t feed a vegan diet to your cat. (Unless you’re reeeeeeally careful about it.)

65

Yosemite: I just have not seen the election results for the International Board of Vegetarians listed. Ie, who died & made any one group boss/king/pope? 1. In some culters/religions, fish (etc) are NOT animals, thus Ok to be included in a veg diet. 2. All vegetarians (even vegans) eat HUGE #s, of living animals every day. True, most of them are too small to be seen by the naked eye, but they are animals none the less. I am not talking about unicellular creatures, either, I mean very small insects. worms & similar creatures. They are especialy numerous in Organic produce! So, then, by YOUR definition, you are not a vegetarian either, nor is anyone else!

Otto: Spirulina is “blue-green algae”, as I mentioned before. Usu not classified as a true plant. There are NO true vegatable sources of B12. I conceded on TVP, ect, but that as a highly processed, nearly artificial food, is pracitally a supplement.
ditto w/ veg “eggs” etc. Again I say, with the normal traditional & natural sources of plant protien, small kids can’t get enough. I even read a seriously vegan piece that somewhat conceded this, but recommended nursing until 3-5. As to “forcing” kids to eat meat eggs etc, that, like it or no, is the “normal” lifestyle. By deciding to go Vegan, you are not “normal”. Hey, that’s OK, it’s your choice & I’m not “normal” either, but I think it is unfair for anyone to make that choice for their child, especially as it poses a health risk. Members of Churches that do not believe in medicine have had their kids taken away under certain health risks. Your kids are not your property, you are just their custodian.
Tracer: even if you are VERY careful, your cat will end up VERY dead. However, you can feed dogs an O-L-V diet, or even vegan, w/ care.

66

Otto, those things aren’t food! :slight_smile:

67

Oh well, I guess you told us. I think I’ll go out and eat a whole fucking cow right now! Are you deliberately being obtuse or are you really like this?

How about wheat grass and barley? Not true plants either?

No, actually, it’s a food, and four ounces of it provides 24 grams of protein, the same as three eggs with none of the cholesterol or factory farming.

Yes, you have said that, but you have not said what is “enough” nor have you said anything about the list of “normal traditional & natural” foods I provided. In fact, you haven’t said anything that could possibly be construed as support for your assertion at all. Repeating it isn’t going to make it true. Where are your numbers, what are your sources?

Source? Cite? Link?

You’ll pardon me I’m sure if, as someone who’s been called abnormal by better than you, if I don’t take your word for it. Perhaps while you’re searching for those numbers on protein requirements (you’re spelling “protein” wrong which may be why you haven’t found anything) you could also consult a dictionary to learn the difference between “normal” and “norm.”

You have yet to present a shred of evidence that eating vegan is a threat to children or anyone else. Parents are well within their rights to feed their children as they see fit, providing the child receives adequate nutrition. I have demonstrated that it is indeed possible for children to get a lot of protein in a small quantity of food, whereas when asked to back up your claim about tummy size and protein intake you respond with a resounding silence.

And if a vegan refuses to provide adequate nutrition for his or her child, then I support placing that child elsewhere. I do think in such a case the parent’s wish regarding dietary restriction should be respected, just as a child whose parents keep kosher should be fed kosher food if taken from his parents for malnourishing him. If you can provide me with actual documented numbers which demonstrate that it is not possible to provide a child adequate nutrition on a vegan diet, then I’ll concede the point. The evidence, sir, bring forth the evidence.

68

Never mind, I found it myself. An outfit calling itself Nutrition Health Reports posts that the federal RDA for protein for “infants” (it does not give an age range) is 14g, for children 7-10 it’s 28g. It also reports for male and female adults; I don’t know if for purposes of the report “adult” means over age 10. The numbers come from the National Academy of Sciences, 10th ed, 1989. I do not know if more recent numbers would indicate any significant changes.

14 grams of protein per day for an infant. That would be half a serving of soy powder mixed into 8 ounces of soy milk. I think most infants in 24 hours consume at least 8 ounces of fluid. 28 grams for children 7-10. That’s one serving of soy powder mixed into 8 ounces of soy milk. Again, I think that’s probably doable for children in that age range.

And so, I restate my reaction to your initial claim about the unhealthiness of a vegan diet for children based on protein intake: Bullshit.

69

Otto: :slight_smile: You are the coolest of the cool!

Daniel:

I just go by the mainstream Vegetarian Societies’ definitions. Surely you can find a few of those around to check into. Hey - I’m sure there is no International Board of Non-Smokers, but pretty much everyone knows what a non-smoker is. IF eating fish and chicken is considered a viable and a mainstream ingredient of the vegetarian diet, please explain why Kentucky Fried or Long John Silver’s are not considered “vegetarian”? There are plenty of restaurants that like to proudly make note of the fact that they include meatless meals in their menu, or are a completely vegetarian restaurant. Yet I can never recall finding a restaurant that calls their Chicken Special a “vegetarian” dish. How come? And where are the Vegetarian Cookbooks and magazines that include fish or chicken as recipe ingredients?

Well, bully for them. Some cultures/religions think it’s OK to eat puppies, or to treat women like property. Let’s all go down and chow down on little doggoes and beat up women! It must be OK, then!

In my observation, the only people who claim that vegetarians can eat fish or chicken are mere individuals who just want to think it’s OK. Or they have a friend or relative who told them it was OK, so that was good enough for them. I suppose there might be some smallish, crackpot organization out there who will recognize any variation of diet as “vegetarian”, but I tend to take the mainstream vegetarian organizations seriously, myself.

70

Orangecakes:
“Loved the remark about an egg isn’t a chick yet; it reminds me of the pro-lifers
who say …you know.”

I would assume you were talking about my quote. I would say that the eggs in the supermarket, since they aren’t fertilized, have the same chance of hatching that I have of about being 20 feet tall.

As an undergrad, I saw enough chicken embryos that I can name the Hamburger and Hamilton stage of development on sight. Put your store bought egg into an incubator and then hold your breath.

Otto–your response was what I was looking for–thanks. Some debate. I disagree with some of your points and I’ll be back later. It’s getting late for me.

71

OK, I went out & got some sources. I note your (otto & yosemite) replies seem to have a paucity of them also.

On B12, no wheat grass & barley has no B12. I quote “The Essential Guide to Vitamins & Minerals” by Health Media of America & eliz. Somer, Harper, 1992 +. PG 56:“Foods of animal origin or fermented foods are the only sources of vitamin B12”. Pg 55 "Strict vegetarians- people who do not consumeany foods of animal origin- and their children… are at risk for vitamin B12 deficiency. This is a pretty balanced & fair book, giving kudos to a balanced vegetarian diet (by which they mean Ovo-Lacto, they use “strict” to mean what we arer calling vegan).

When I used a search engine to look for “vegan children”, or variants on this, all I could find were sites run by vegetarian groups. I believe they might have a slight bias. No-where did I find anything that would say a vegan diet is bad for kids, BUT, they all cautioned to ensure a well balanced & high protien diet, plus many suggested B12 supplements.

I tried “childrens nutrition”. there I foundthe “Childrens Nutrition Research Center” ( Im going to try a link, but Im really bad at this… cnrc@bcm.tmc.edu or http://www.bcm.cmj/cni/ I probably got it wrong, but it was the 1st find on 3 common search engines, so go look for yourself. At no time do they go so far as to condem a vegan diet, but they do say a "well balanced semi-vegetarian (which THEY define as including fish & poultry), or ovo-lacto- vegetarian, is safe for kids ( even saying once that it is heathier than many non well balanced diets). They mention care in selecting enough varied sources of protein & recommend supplements.

This seems to be “the source”, and if they do not recommend a vegan diet, should we?

BUT, if you watch the proteins carefully, and use things like TVP & egg-subs, AND supplement, I cautiously concede. But, hell, when I was raising kids, I had REAL problems w/ their strange eating habits. One almost ate nothing but macaroni, P-nut butter, hot dogs & Sunny D-lite. All 3 had strange likes & dislikes. So, I wish any vegan parent good luck.

As to the remarks that Vegans eat huge #s of small animals every day, I am not obtuse- that was a fair reaction to extreme definitions like “any diet that includes the flesh of an animal is not vegetarian”. Vegans(& everybody else) eat scads of very small animals everytime they eat any raw fruit or vegetable (even if well washed). So, the definition of “animal” for these folks excludes “anything too small to see that I am not eating on purpose”. Ok, I can buy that. Then why can’t they buy “animal”
does not include invertebrates, or warm-blooded? Is there really any difference between a shrimp & a mite? (The original ?= are vegetarians hypocrites? Well?) (Between a nematode & a cow, I will concede).

Note as to flames re typos, etc. This is not a flame war, there are no personal attacks, we are simply having a debate on a very interesting subject, or at least that is what most of us are trying to do. Note, “vegans” I have conceded several of your points.

72

Can’t you see the distinction between inadvertantly eating some microscopic little critter (ewwwwwww) that you can’t see, wouldn’t want to eat, wish you didn’t have to eat, but cannot avoid - compared to eating chicken off the bone? I can safely speak for all vegetarians (ovo-lacto and vegan) in saying that I don’t want to eat these itty-bitty critters. There seems to be no choice in the matter. Eating some creepy little thing in your food that you don’t want to think about (just like you don’t want to think about the little microscopic bits of rat feces that are supposedly in the food too) is a far cry from chowing down on a fish, or a chicken. Do you want to eat the rat feces that is supposedly in your food? Do you think it makes you some sort of a “shit eater” because it’s in there anyway?

Just like there is a distinction between smoking a cigarette yourself (putting it in your mouth and puffing it) and just being around a smoker, and inhaling the fumes because you can’t avoid it. Sort of simular concepts there - is every person who inadvertantly inhales second-hand smoke a smoker? Well, they inhale the smoke, don’t they? Then they must be smokers, right?

I also don’t get why it is so damned important for fish and chicken-eaters to take on the vegetarian mantle. If they are not up to the discipline of restricting their diet enough to qualify, they shouldn’t be considered a vegetarian. It doesn’t negate the effort they are putting into their diet, after all. They are still using some restraint, and/or discipline…just not as much as would be required to be considered a vegetarian. They can be called a “psuedo-vegetarian” or “almost vegetarian” if it’ll make them feel better. But they are not vegetarian. Simple as that.

73

Mmmmmm, Kentucky Fried Bacteria.

74

This is, pardon my french, fucking absurd.
Let me first tell you what my definition of sin is. To me, sin is doing something YOU BELIEVE to be wrong. Now, while I don’t care what you eat, to me it is absolutely inexcusably WRONG to kill an animal for food when there are so many alternatives. I refuse to be a part of it. If you think that I should cook meat in my home, while thinking that it is totally immoral, and feed it to my child, therefore going AGAINST my own morals for my child, then you are just so incredibly clueless I just don’t know what to say. That is sort of like a Christian doing satanic animal sacrifices for the sake of their child, in some hypothetical society where satanism was the norm. I am teaching my child that eating meat is wrong. I firmly believe that it is. Some parents teach their kids that premarital sex is wrong. I don’t tell them they shouldn’t, even though I don’t agree with them. It is a parent’s job to pass on their morals to their children.

For the record, my son is 4 1/2 and has never eaten meat. He is perfectly healthy. (we are ovo-lacto vegetarians, my husband, son, and myself)

–
From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion”
the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

75

My son LOVES to try new foods. He asks me to taste things even when I warn him he may not like them. He didn’t like his first experience with soup, but next time he saw me eating soup, he wanted to try it, in case it was better. It was a different kind, and this time he loved it. I credit this to many things… including Nicky’s personality, our attitudes as parents, and the kinds of foods we feed him (vegetarian.)

–
From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion”
the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

76

Watch out, Opal! I was really open to new foods until I was about 4 or 5. Then, all of a sudden, I began vehemently disliking all sorts of foods I used to eat, including apples, chili, those slices of celery in Campbell’s Chicken Gumbo Soup, and, eventallu, all fruits and vegetables except for bananas.

It was only through the herculean efforts of Popeye that I ever ate spinach.

77

Yosemite; You can avoid them, but it would require a herculean effort and eating a lot of very odd stuff, such as tank raised algae, and some of the “high protein” vegan “foods” recommended many posts ago. So, are vegetarians lazy or hypocrites?
I think I like the CNRC’s (see my last post) calling fish/poultry “vegetarians” = “semi-vegetarians”. Note, I have never included chicken as a vegetarian food.

Opalcat: Please read my posts! I absolutely agree that an Ovo-Lacto V. diet is “safe”, “heathy”, and is NORMAL. There is a moral choice that you are making, and a fair one ( just do not insist I make the same choice, or think yours is “better”). I said a STRICT VEGAN diet is possibly unsafe & not-“normal”.
PS, Tracer is right, wait a year or so, you have a surprise coming!

78

What you said was

with no “possibly” about it and

So you seem to be defining “normal” as “consuming meat and eggs.” Thus, by your own apparent definition an ovo-lacto vegetarian is not “normal” and raising a child without meat is equally not “normal.” However, since you also say

so it strikes me as quite odd indeed that you persist in using language like “not normal” to refer to others’ dietary habits while conceding that, whether in diet or some other aspect of your life, you are equally abnormal.

Your own sourced websites, as you say, “do not condem [sic] a vegan diet” and you have offered no information which backs up your claim that a child is unable to consume enough protein on a vegan diet for such a diet to be healthy. I have offered the US RDA for protein in a variety of age categories and demonstrated how to get vastly greater quantities of protein into a vegan child’s diet. You have “cautiously concede[d]” the point, so why are you back here again harping on the supposed abnormality of a vegan diet?

As for the hoards of microscopic animals that supposedly meet their fates in the gastric juices of non-meat eaters every day, there is simply no way to exist without causing the deaths of other life forms. For me, the principle behind being vegetarian has been to do the least harm that I can. There is no need for me to kill a “macro-animal” to live, so I don’t. There is no reasonable way for me to avoid the “micro-animals,” so I don’t particularly worry about it. I’m not a Jain Buddhist. I feel reasonably secure in feeling that I am much less of a hypocrite for eating vegetarian while possibly still consuming these “micro-animals” than, say, a meat-eater who creates a thread called “Are Vegetarians & Vegans Hypocrites” or a meat-eater who whines about “micro-animals” while condoning the unnecessary and cruel deaths of millions of animals actually large enough for the naked eye to see.

79

Otto: I still say a vegan diet is unsafe for small kids. Wouldn’t mother’s milk be non-vegan? I said “possibly” unsafe for to include all,including adults, who are at a lower risk. And “unsafe” does not mean always deadly or harmful. Keeping a loaded gun where kids can find it almost defines “unsafe”, even if it never hurts anyone. Just because i could not find a website in 30 minute that roundly condemmed Veganism for kids, does not make it safe. Can you find a (non-vegan) site that says a veagn diet for kids is safe? Nearly ALL the sites had cautions on vegetarian diets for kids. If I see enough warning signs on a road, I conclude the road is unsafe, even if I make it thru w/ no problems, esp. if I drive extra careful & have no problems.

So if an animal is “too small for the naked eye”, it’s OK to kill & beat it? There is such a sharp line between big & small animals?
Some people hold onto their ethics as long as they are convenient-- we call these people “hypocrites”.

80

Wow!

I have read all of these posts, and I just have one question: Yosemitebabe, are you sure that vegetarianism is not a religion?

:wink: