obviously you’re missing the whole point. I’m asking why you CARE if one of us is wrong and the other right. I"m not asking who IS. Geez. Buy a clue willya? Sounds to me like you’re just insecure about your diet and are looking for reassurance… 
You lost me there.
I care about being right because there are often consequences to ignorance.
This is a message board based on fighting ignorance.
I care about whether or not I’m correct because it directly affects me.
Not caring or pretending that things are a certain way because I want them to be that way, is a pretty sure way to get yourself in trouble.
Collisions with reality are often painful.
On the other hand, I don’t fucking particularly care very much at all. I posted once about vegetarianism in an attempt at humor about a year ago. It went too far and feelings got hurt.
I thought about it a little, and moved on.
This week or last week I saw that “Questions for omnivores” thread in GD with that evangelical wingnut witnessing for veganism, then I saw this thread in the pit, followed it for a bit, and began posting.
If you want to be a vegetarian that’s fine with me. I hope you’re aware of the more rigorous attention you need to pay to your diet to ensure that you stay healthy, especially if you’re in the categories I mentioned earlier.
If you don’t it’s no sweat off my back.
Indulge yourself. I frequently do. Nothing wrong with it.
I only draw the line when people insist that there decision has some kind of rational or objective basis.
I am an omnivore, because I think that is the best way to safely get the nutrients I need to live healthy. I don’t believe that there’s an ethos to food consumption that makes sense. You eat to live.
If I am wrong and there is a valid ethos to food consumption that I am violating, or if being a vegetarian is superior to being omnivorous for health reasons… I guess I’d give up meat.
Can’t be harder than quitting smoking.
But guess what?
That’s enough with the “Why do you care?”
The next response is “Why do you care if I care?”
Wow.
Scylla, it appears to me that you are a very bitter person.
Why?
Ever since I lost my eye to Lord Broccoli in that duel I’ve sworn vengeance on all of Vegan kind.
Scylla, if it helps at all, look at it this way: No matter what you eat, and no matter what I eat, and no matter whether their exists a proper ethos, in 100 years we’re both going to be fuckin’ dead. If vegetarianism turns out to be the single stupidest thing anybody ever tries to convince you of, count yourself among the truly blessed.
I’d like to think I’ve got a shot at another 100 years.
I’ll do it even if I have to die trying.
Here is some food for thought:
That’s interesting Stinky. I live on a farm, and this farming country. I hate to take the opposing side, but I think the article is wrong because it leaves out something crucial.
It doesn’t work. You can’t raise cattle like that. Ruminant grazing is an extremely inneficient use of the land. For example, there’s 150 acre farm nearby with several hundred cows on it. The cows are kept on a portion of the property and the rest grows their feed. If the cows grazed the whole property it would only support 30-40 of them, and only through the warm months. Grass is an inneficient crop, and the cows ruin anything else if they graze on it. They’d all starve during the winter as the land currently supplies both their summer food, and the silage that gets stored for winter.
I’m figuring this off the cuff, so my numbers aren’t perfect, but I’m in the ballpark. You’d need something like 6 times the land to raise a cow than you need now if you did it that guy’s way, and you’d be limited to climates with year round growing seasons.
So, if we implemented this guy’s idea we’d lose something like 3/4 of agricultural lands and what’s left would produce only 1/6th the food. If we assume that we are producing exactly as much food as we need worldwide than that means we need to kill off 7 out of every 8 that are living right now, or everybody is going to starve to death.
Hardly a humane or ethical solution (especially since I think a few of the people in this thread would happily nominate me for one of the 7.)