Vegans should just starve to death.

Great Debates
41

Of course, it is perfectly possible NOT to kill plants and still eat them, should you feel any pressing ethical need to.

A great many plant foods we consume consist of the fruit/seeds (seed-bearing part) of plants, and don’t require the killing of the plant to harvest.

Apples, pears, bananas (etc…) tomatoes, pumpkins/squash, nuts, grains, legumes, green beans, berries, the list goes on and on.

In fact, such plants produce very attractive, delicious packages for their seeds SO we (animals) WILL eat them and spread their offspring far and wide.

Even foods like brocoli and brussel sprouts can be harvested without killing the plant, and most home gardeners I know, incl. myself, typically DO…both are the buds which if allowed to, eventually bloom and bear seeds. If you cut a bunch of “buds” off, the plant goes on and the cutting actually stimulates it to produce more “heads”. Like cutting flowers. I regularly allowed my brocolli to live out it’s natural life-span (and eventually go to seed after I’d taken several heads from it)

Same for leaf veggies…spinach, kale, lettuce…I never harvested the whole plant, but planted enough so I could take a few leaves from each and let it keep growing.

The only veggies which REQUIRE the killing of the plant to harvest are tubers (carrots, potaoes, onions, etc…) And in the case of 'taters, one plant produces lots of tubers, so you can dig up some and leave the rest and the plant will do just fine and make more.

Almost all these plants are annuals and die off at the end of the growing season anyway (tomato plants are perinials which will bear year after year if you protect them from freezing, btw)

So if someone wants to take it to that next level and not kill the plants they eat from, it is quite possible (though with the exception of fruit/nuts, you’d likely need to grow your own, since most plants ARE killed in the harvest with modern mass harvesting).

I personally feel no urge to worry about torturing or killing spinach, but just saying. :slight_smile:

42

Yes. I was a vegan for several years (am currently a “vegetarian” who eats fish now and then just 'cause I like it, dammit! :p) including before, during, and after the birth of my second child. I did not take any supplements during that pregnancy because they made me terribly nauseated and after testing my iron levels (which were very good) my midwife said nevermind them.

What you said about the abundance of iron, calcium and PROTEIN in plant foods.

It’s important to understand that the RDAS for calcium in this country are much higher than those set by the UN, based on their studies of human needs. (the UN concluded there is no such thing as a calcium deficiency as long as enough calories from a fairly varied plant-based diet are being consumed and set the RDA at 300 mgs based on populations who do very well at that level)

But one of the functions of calcium is to neutralize acid in the body/keep the PH healthy, and so it is consumed by “acid-forming” foods and behaviors like drinking, smoking, coffee/caffeine, carbonated beverages, and, most notably, the consumption of foods high in protein, esp. animal protein. So it IS possible to lose calcium at a rate which depletes the body of this nutrient (esp. if you consume the 3 glasses of milk a day they so “ironically” suggest you do to GET enough calcium:rolleyes:)

Those on a vegetarian or esp. vegan diet require far less calcium intake because they have far less of it going OUT.

As for B12, it is produced by organisms in the gut (same way the cows make it) and this production can be disturbed or depleted by certain factors, namely alcohol consumption, imbalnce of gut flora and/or a lack of the organisms required.
These organisms thrive in healthy soil and many remain even after washing, and most people used to get a good dose from eating/handling plant foods grown in such soil. With much of the food being grown today on depleted, chemicalized soil and otherwise largely sterilized during processing, such organisms are not as readily available through a plant-based diet. But it is very easy to get through supplemented vegetarian foods, brewers yeast (yummy on popcorn, imo!) or to take as a supplement, and many vegans I’ve known just took it just in case.

43

Thanks, InterestedObserver, for those important points on living with a vegetarian diet. Well said.

I’m a horticulturist: I live every day around plants, grow plants, and spend a great deal of time educating people how to do that. My dreams circulate plants back at me in the wee hours. I honestly adore them, and people who come to me to learn often note how I talk about plants in terms of “this fella”, “that gal”, because I totally see them as good living beings. I understand them at a deep level. Not anthromorphism, that’s an insult, really.

In good observation, I also see how the plants deal with insects, insects with birds, birds with other predators; under the soil level, plants with bacteria and fungi, and, really, on and on. That is the food web, and when you get a small glimmer of what is involved with allowing you to live on this planet, it will make your head reel. Intricate and complex, and wonderful.

Trying to figuring out how to feed my own demanding gullet, in order to live, past the easy avenues, it’s been an adventure, in my own as well as other’s attitude. I’m not a Yahoo, don’t think, but as someone who greatly understands and appreciates plants, I do think of taking that life as well. I’m not neurotic or whiny about it, but, it does figure in with wondering what life as a human being with thoughtful least damage can be.

What I’m left with, in many pondering years, is that you don’t take more than you need, and have a good attitude of gratefullness for what you have. Be it bacon or broccoli.

44

I believe a seed has the same right to life as the plant it would grow into if you didn’t MURDER IT!:mad:

45

Oh boy, fasten your seat belt, somehow it all comes back to the abortion debate.

46

snip.

What about those of use who don’t indulge in farmed animal products. I often go fishing and eat my catch. I don’t need to use a boat to catch plenty of tasty fish. The species I keep aren’t endangered, or in need of management. Though I haven’t hunted recently, I have in the past taken wild game by bowhunting. The carbon plan sort of doesn’t apply to simple hunting and fishing practices.

47

Actually, as an honest question, what about those of us who are soy and legume intolerant? Eating just about any kind of bean, nut, or lentil at best wrecks my digestive system for a few days and at worst gives me hives. I have been under the impression that without legumes a balanced vegan diet is significantly harder to achieve.

48

If everyone hunted or fished their own food then there would be no animals left on this continent in short order. As it is factory farms are required to meet current meat needs for 250 million people. Either way the same inefficient equation stands. No matter the animal it takes many times more feed than the food it produces. Though the smaller the animal the more efficient it tends to be. That inefficiency stands whether you’re killing your food or the slaughter house is. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with well managed hunting. I’m just saying it’s no different than farming in regards to energy waste and it is even less sustainable when scaled up.

49

No one who argues for a greater morality because they have a softer touch on the earth has thought their position through unless they are as vociferous about population control.

There are too many of us. Eating plants instead of animals might cause less pain, but it’s not better for the earth at some larger scale. The only thing that’s better for the earth’s natural processes is fewer people. 20 billion vegans would diminish the earth’s resources as robustly as 5 million omnivores, so simply feeding a given individual more efficiently pretty much just keeps her alive to make more people.

To be internally consistent in an argument for the smallest efficiency footprint we must eat plants and stop reproducing.

50

I’m with Richard Dawkins on this one. I recognize, intellectually, why causing pain to millions of cows and pigs is immoral. We can talk about the continuum between harvesting plants, swatting a fly, fishing, caging chickens, and harvesting cows and pigs. The closer to us we get the more empathetic we should be due to how close their nervous systems are to ours. Most westerners who think meat comes from the cold part of the grocery store would be extremely uncomfortable watching the entire process unfold.

But it just doesn’t quite register. I’m easily led by society on this topic. I’m still eating ham sandwiches. In a different society I could only eat plants or so called lower animals and their derivatives and be cool with that.

51

You give most people a lot more credit as hunters than is warranted. :wink: I suspect between those who are too sqeamish to kill and process their own meat and those who are simply too inept to do so, we’d see a surge in vegetarianism, or at least a huge reduction in meat consumption per capita.

The sort of mass harvesting and farming that takes place currently has vast impacts beyond anything individual hunters/fishermen, no matter how skilled or intent, could inflict (waste products/contamination of water and soil, methane emmisions, drag-netting, water and grain consumption, etc.)

52

:smiley:

53

You know, if we genetically engineered ourselves to photosynthesize and grow a really big leaf out of the top of our head (a 20-foot broadleaf ought to do it, preferably following the sun like a sunflower), not only could we forget about this moral dilemma, but we’d solve world hunger.*

*Next project: reversing global warming by making people who can shit limestone bricks at will.

54

Little known fact: they already have. You don’t hear about it because no one’s willing to.

55

Agreed:) I can’t think of many of my meat eating friends and relatives that would stick a gun to cows head and pull the trigger, let alone strip the carcass!

56

I think if we told everyone they had to start feeding themselves beginning now, we’d see a huge reduction of capita per capita. It’s 10 degrees outside. There ain’t no broccoli out there.

57

How is veganism an extravagance? Not being snarky…genuinely confused. I’m the least extravagant person I know (not that I wouldn’t be if I had the means! : ) ) and I’m a vegetarian.

58

It is an extravagance of advanced western science and technology. A truly complete vegan diet necessitates a wide variety of food sources not readily available at all times or in all locations. Without the aid of modern packaging, commerce, and transportation, such a diet would be either impossible to maintain or nutritionally deficient.

59

Well, that pretty much sums up the basis of the average modern US diet as well, so I don’t see any quibble with veganism particularly.

What are we talking about? Extravagance as a result of extreme abundance? Or, extravagance in relation to the Cardinal Sins: Gluttony would be the one there, over-indulgence or lustful appetite. That doesn’t really fit with vegans, or vegetarians. My impression is that it is usually a response against Gluttony, so, it’s mirror in a Cardinal Virtue: Temperance, or moderation.

60

The difference is that a non-vegan, traditional omnivorous diet can be be nutritionally complete and obtainable utilizing only local resources. The fact that most people eat all sorts of processed, shipped items is irrelevant.