You have to raise more crops to feed people than to feed animals,. so it evens out. Plus you’re killing more animals with all the energy it takes to farm, harvest and transport it all.
It’s more efficient to eat meat, and most people don’t have a choice about it. Vegetarianism is a privileged, western affect.
That I would need a cite for…I think that in terms of calories, it is much more efficient to eat grain directly than to process it through a cow or other animal. Do we really get more calories out of beef or other animals than we would if we just ate the grain or used the farmland currently growing animal feed to grow food for humans?
One we share with at least one major world religion that has it’s basis in the 3rd world.
Grain doesn’t have any protein or fat in it, no matter how much you eat. People who don’t eat animal products have to make up for that lost nutrition by getting it from a variety of other sources which do not grow geographically close to each other and have to be transported long distances.
Let’s put it this way, you could not live in the woods and be a vegan.
What religion is that? Its not universal in Hinduism, if that’s what you’re thinking.
I don’t eat meat because I could not kill the animal myself, and I think it is hypocritical of me to ask someone to do this for me. So, my ethical standard does mean I can look at people who eat meat differently from myself.
Not implying that it is. But it is a choice made by many Indians, Malaysians and Thai (at a start), who I would believe are not doing it under the guise of a “privileged, western affect”.
No, your ethical standard just means you think people who eat meat without killing it are hypocrites.
Soy has plenty of protein and so do a number of grains.
I do realize that there are some places where you couldn’t live and be vegan. However, on a global scale, if we phased out eating meat and instead put the land used to grow feed crops to use growing food for people to eat we could feed a lot more people.
See, there’s that sanctimonious lecturing I was talking about.
It’s true that a single source of protein in a vegetarian diet is not that balanced - but combined with legumes, or eggs, or milk protein, a vegetarian diet can provide all the protein required.
A vegetarian diet which is only available to privileged westerners.
No, my ethical standard is that people who eat meat, who would not be prepared to kill it themselves (regardless of whether they did for this or any meal) are somewhat hypocritical. Since this is not something I care to discuss with anyone, especially over dinner, it never comes up in conversation, and I give meat-eaters (like the one I live with), the benefit of the doubt with regard to their own ethical standards. I don’t judge them - just myself.
In your opinion, is killing one cow and killing one field mouse ethically equivalent?
Sure, what’s the difference? At least somebody is going to eat the cow.
You know this isn’t true, right? All those vegetarian Brahmins in India: Are they “privileged westerners” or do they have an incomplete diet?
Am I missing something here…I think the original claim that eating meat is a more efficient way of gaining nutrition is incorrect, especially as one looks at a global scale. Since a vegetarian diet is considered in this thread to be a diet of western privilege and something that couldn’t be explained to starving children, it seems worthwhile to note that many veg*ns choose to eat that way because of global hunger issues instead of or in addition to ethical, health and environmental reasons.
Some relevant quotes:
I don’t think that is quite true:
So you think that most meat eaters are hypocrites.
You’re judging the ethical value of an act, not a person. It doesn’t matter who commits the act. If you think the act is unethical for you, then you think it’s unethical for everybody else. It makes no sense to say that the ethical; value of an act depends on who’s doing it.