And I’ve been eaten many times too!
<insert winking smilie here>
Umm, as a resident omnivore who stated my dislike for grocery store meats I can assume this was directed at the likes of me but maybe not…hard to read your intent in that.
Anyhow, nope I am not against hunting at all. I am just not one that can hunt. It is against my heart to do so. If I had a significant other that was a hunter I would be totally for it, in fact I would eat more elk, deer, goose, duck, pheasant and the like if I had a loved one that was a hunter. They are meats that take some people to get used to but are lower in fat and have more flavor than that crap they pass as beef in the supermarket.
While that comment was most likely NOT directed at me I read something in that that screamed out to comment on it. If it was then well, the more power to me.
< snort >
I never could figure out why omnivores have to describe the meat dishes the enjoy eating. I get this all the time. It comes out (usually during a meal, when I am noticed for not eating meat) that I am a vegetarian. And then next thing some genius says is how they LOVE to eat meat, they LOVE this dripping with sauce, etc. etc. And they’ll go on and on.
Excuse me? I don’t care what the hell you eat. I am not offended, I am bored. I don’t go around telling everyone about my excessive love for ocra or hummus unless they ask me what I like to eat. If I were to start just spouting off about my love of veggies, I assume I’d just be boring them with useless information.
But somehow I always get to hear about meat dishes. Spare me. It’s getting old.
'prolly 'cause most people don’t know what the hell Ocra and Hummus are!
and no, Techie, that wasn’t aimed directly at you. you might’ve caught a little flash from the blast, but it wasn’t aimed directly at you 
that should be “I’ll be you’re anti-hunting because…”
Fuck!!
“I’ll bet you’re anti-hunting because…”
Y-Babe,
Imagine (even from this meat eating girl) drooling over the thought of a carefully prepared artichoke with a creamy and lemony dipping sauce with the right amount of course ground pepper. Oh the smell of garlic and spices in the artichoke water.
Now that’s gotta get those juices going?
I love artichokes. I had two of them last week for a meal.
The other day I had pasta with a fine tomato sauce…of course no meat. A whole wheat pasta, made at home and the ever slightest bit of parmesan cheese.
BUT I am am a meat eater.
I just hope you realize that not all of us meat eaters place all vegetarians/vegans in some category that should be reserved for militia groups and extremists. Some of us look beyond and through your food choices and look to the person inside.
Oh and yes I am fan of yosemitebabe and OpalCat and a few other veg-heads on this board. They are beautifully quirky but never known them to go over board to push their vegetarianism/veganism on anyone. The only people I ever see that have a problem are the meat eaters (excluding self from that as I a little more balanced than that, I think.)
Well shit on a brick, seems to be getting close to nighty night time for this SDMBer.
Meaning I had one one night then had another a couple days after…
Oh and for my fellow meat lovers, artichokes are a hearty veggie and good on the checkbook. They cost about $1.49 here in Colorado for one, with a little mayonnaise, lemon juice, pepper and a wee bit of salt they are pretty filling. The heart of the artichoke is the filling part. It has lots of texture not unlike meat. A little stringy with the leaves but the qualities are great for a cheap and easy meal when meat is out of the budget.
Side that with some tomatoes with some Italian dressing, sprinkle with some parmesan cheese and you have a healthful meal that may not have meat but is hearty enough to satisfy all.
If you are so daring, have a half an artichoke on the side with some butter as a dip and a filet minon (sp) with some bearnaise sauce…one of my favorite combo dishes.
Geez, all this talk of food I am going to go have to raid the fridge!
Thanks for the kind words, Techchick, and yes, artichokes are sublime! I haven’t had any in a few weeks. I don’t eat them all that often, which is a shame. Yum!
Actually there are a number extremely good moral and social arguments for vegetarianism. These centre around [ul][li]resources - many, many more resources are needed to produce 1kg of meet than 1 kg of veg[/li]
[li]Political - McDonalds, for example, are causing the destruction of thousands of acres of jungle in Africa in order to raise their cows. This is having a disasterous effect on some endangered species’ habitat. The effect is heightened by the slaughter of creatures that endanger the cows.[/li]
[li]Health - Miller brought this up earlier. The majority of meat eaten now is pumped full of hormones. Feed processes have resulted in who-knows how many health scares, such as BSE. As a UK resident, this point has really been brought home to me in recent years.[/li]
[li]Moral - Slaughterhouse conditions can be horrendous. You have to have a pretty strong stomach to sit through the images of suffering inflicted on many animals brought to slaughter. Note that this has nothing to do with the concept of killing animals for food. My girlfriend, for example is to all intents and purposes a vegetarian for this reason but she will eat hunted game or fish from ocean stocks. Choosing not to eat mass-produced meat in consumer power in action - if we all did this then practices would change.[/ul]I’ll not go on and I’ll not take the time and effort needed to find websites to back this (my knowledge is from non-web sources) since this is the Pit and not GD.[/li]
If you want to eat meat, then fine. I also eat meat - but I consider this a weakness of my inability to face the consequences and an inability to give up the taste rather than a positive move on my part. I’m not so blind as to insist there is no argument for vegetarianism.
pan
[QU"I don’t want to kill animals or be responsible for their death."**
[/QUOTE]
They say wearing leather shoes and a leather belt. This makes me laugh. (Not all vegitable-arians do this, I know, but it’s not too uncommon.)
-Rue.
I can hardly be bothered to dignify this, but I’ll wearily note that animals tend not to be killed for the leather - they are killed for meat and leather is a biproduct.
I’m sure that if the animal was slaughtered for leather, the vegetarian wouldn’t wear it.
pan
… And have you ever seen what those thresher machines do to those poor, defenseless wheat plants?
Oh, that’s right. We don’t give a fuck, because the wheat plant’s agony isn’t apparent to us.
Pass the Malt O’ Meal!
Oh yeah…in that case
[sub]wait for it[/sub]
Eat me. 
I have sat here reading this post in disbelief. I considered writing a long explanation about why I have been a vegetarian for the past 10 years. Then I decided that I have never once questioned anyone’s descision to eat meat or any other personal decision they have made so why the hell should I justify my beliefs? Do I ask why you go to church? etc etc etc.
So to you Scylla I simply offer a sincere, heartfelt
FUCK YOU!
Half-joking?
Yes.
Never before in mylife have I railed against Vegans. Maybe a dozen times in my life, I’ve had to deal with self-righteous, meddling Vegans.
I had a crawfish boil which was advertised as one when I invited people, and had one guest in tears about the suffering, imploring me to set them free after I’d gone to large expense to have them flown live from Louisiana. I’ve been lectured at, the whole nine yards.
These recent threads have brought this frustration to a head.
Eat your beans and mind your own business and we won’t have problems.
Know though that Veganism is founded on ignorance, the continuing spreading of which contributes to the degradation of all.
Dr. Lao makes a fair point about the ten to one ratio in energy. He is wrong though to think (if he does) that Vegans consume less resources. As I’ve pointed out the same matter gets recycled again and again without loss (or very very little.) Both plants and animals consume water. Is the earth about to run out of that? The calorie differential basically comes into play because the natural world runs on solar power.
fortunately, sunlight is wondrously abundant, and we are not close to physically consuming all the energy that hits the earth in terms of solar power in order to drive our metabolic processes. Until we even begin to come close to using up all this solar energy basking the earth the Vegan energy waste argument is also moot.
Therefore, whether we eat meat or plants makes no difference in terms of energy consumed.
Should that even be a consideration, when examining the principle? “I don’t eat meat because that’s what the animals are grown for. Leather is OK, because the animal would have been killed anyway for the meat that I’m not eating.” Isn’t that the same as saying “Eating meat is OK, because the animal would have died one way or another.” In short, is this not exactly the “moral facade” the OP described?
Yeah, I was wondering about that too. WOuld it be ok to eat the meat of an animal that was slaughtered to make leather?
How about a rhino that was killed for its horn?
Mmmmm. Rhino.
And how should your questions be considered in the light of my previous post giving some of the good reasons for vegetarianism?
Tell you what - on the day McDonalds start tearing down thousands of hectares of jungle in order to grow cows to make shoes, I’ll consider whether the wearing of leather is causing significant damage to the planet.
pan
The only thing that really annoys me about “vegans” is that they pronounce it wrong . . .
In light of this particular point:
I still consider them valid questions. Why is one product resulting from “horrendous” living conditions any more acceptable than another?