Vegetarianism

[gad-fly]

For quite a long time, human beings have survived as hunter-gatherer, not unlike polar bear and some more part-time predators. In time, multiplication drove this free-ranching mode out as unsustainable, although remnant of it may still remain to this day. Hunting as a challenge is turned into sport, and gathering becomes sideline interest to collect and to investigate. Hunting and gathering are replaced by more steadily-reliable husbandry and farming as our food source, with the former and latter from animal and vegetarian/plant respectively.

I am not about to investigate why we would find meat more tasty than vegetable. Perhaps it can be blamed or credited to the excitement and success of capturing rather than picking-up, or perhaps because meat is more nutritive. Suffice to say that this palate is also found in marauding animals. This palate may be in our genes, hereditary, or developed in our collective memory which can only be erased with time. At this juncture, let it make no difference whether you prefer meat or vegetable, assuming the same availability, as far as matter of choice is concerned.

But the difference is significant when it comes to consumption of scarce resources. Eating meat is vastly inefficient. By eating beef, first you have to grow grain to be placed in trough for cattle to chew up. Cattle is no more than agent for you to extract nutrient from grain. For every eight kilograms or so of grain, you can only obtain one kilogram of beef. Not only that, but you have to care for the cattle and its attenuating hassle, like excretion and foot-and-mouth and mad-cow disease. If human beings can also be grain-fed(!), planting and harvesting grain can be reduced by eight times. You wold leave vast area of your wilderness, forest, and your wild life alone. Thank you, from Mother Earth, from the ocean, and from nature in general. You would have more time to enjoy life. Can't you understand, Idiot? Or are you beyond salvation?

[psyreporter]

Morality could enhance human's potential to thrive. Carelessness/barbarism does not seem to be intelligent on the longer term. Especially with risks such as exponential growth, morality ("think before you act") may be essential for humanity to survive and prosper.

Is eating animal meat the most wise choice for humans? There is some evidence that eating animal meat is not the most optimal for human health and efficiency.

(2018) Millennials Are Driving The Worldwide Shift Away From Meat
A global reduction in meat consumption between 2016 and 2050 could save up to eight million lives per year and $31 trillion in reduced costs from health care and climate change. (National Academy of Sciences).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpel ... 0b03f3a4a4

When considering the shunning of meat consumption for ethical motives, one should consider that plants may be conscious creatures as well.

Philosopher: Plants are conscious creatures that should be eaten with respect
Philosopher Michael Marder, a research professor at the University of the Basque Country, has called for “more respectful treatment of the flora” through his books Plant-Thinking and the forthcoming The Philosopher’s Plant.

His claim that a plant is an “intelligent, social, complex being” has been contested by some biologists, but a stronger reaction has come from animal-rights activists who fear their cause is undermined by extending a duty of respect to plants.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/unth ... -1.1965980

According to forestry professor Suzanne Simard trees are more like humans than many people think.

Mother trees transfer wisdom through mycelium network
Her 30 years of research in Canadian forests have led to an astounding discovery: trees talk, communicating often and over vast distances. Trees are social creatures that are much more like humans than you may think.
https://upliftconnect.com/trees-talk-to ... can-learn/

Is eating vegetables as if it's meaningless matter a wise alternative to eating animal meat? Perhaps, when one is already starting to apply morality to enhance human life, one should also consider the moral status of plants to make further progress faster.

[Terrapin Station]

You could also survive by living in a single 10 x 10 room and with just one pair of underwear, but I'm not about to do that.

[Gertie]

For quite a long time, human beings have survived as hunter-gatherer, not unlike polar bear and some more part-time predators. In time, multiplication drove this free-ranching mode out as unsustainable, although remnant of it may still remain to this day. Hunting as a challenge is turned into sport, and gathering becomes sideline interest to collect and to investigate. Hunting and gathering are replaced by more steadily-reliable husbandry and farming as our food source, with the former and latter from animal and vegetarian/plant respectively.

I am not about to investigate why we would find meat more tasty than vegetable. Perhaps it can be blamed or credited to the excitement and success of capturing rather than picking-up, or perhaps because meat is more nutritive. Suffice to say that this palate is also found in marauding animals. This palate may be in our genes, hereditary, or developed in our collective memory which can only be erased with time. At this juncture, let it make no difference whether you prefer meat or vegetable, assuming the same availability, as far as matter of choice is concerned.

But the difference is significant when it comes to consumption of scarce resources. Eating meat is vastly inefficient. By eating beef, first you have to grow grain to be placed in trough for cattle to chew up. Cattle is no more than agent for you to extract nutrient from grain. For every eight kilograms or so of grain, you can only obtain one kilogram of beef. Not only that, but you have to care for the cattle and its attenuating hassle, like excretion and foot-and-mouth and mad-cow disease. If human beings can also be grain-fed(!), planting and harvesting grain can be reduced by eight times. You wold leave vast area of your wilderness, forest, and your wild life alone. Thank you, from Mother Earth, from the ocean, and from nature in general. You would have more time to enjoy life. Can't you understand, Idiot? Or are you beyond salvation?

Our taste for the salty, fatty protein of meat probably evolved because of its relative rarity.

Unfortunately our brains didn't evolve in ways which always facilitate adjusting to the modern world. And rational arguments like yours aren't always enough to shift us out of comfortable patterns.

[Count Lucanor]

But the difference is significant when it comes to consumption of scarce resources. Eating meat is vastly inefficient. By eating beef,

That's quite a suspicious jump. If you're set to prove the proposition that eating meat is vastly inefficient, you can start with one type of meat (beef), but you must provide an argument about the inefficiencies of all meats.

first you have to grow grain to be placed in trough for cattle to chew up. Cattle is no more than agent for you to extract nutrient from grain. For every eight kilograms or so of grain, you can only obtain one kilogram of beef. Not only that, but you have to care for the cattle and its attenuating hassle, like excretion and foot-and-mouth and mad-cow disease. If human beings can also be grain-fed(!), planting and harvesting grain can be reduced by eight times. You wold leave vast area of your wilderness, forest, and your wild life alone. Thank you, from Mother Earth, from the ocean, and from nature in general. You would have more time to enjoy life. Can't you understand, Idiot? Or are you beyond salvation?

OK, let's leave cattle meat for very rare occasions. We still have plenty of other meat sources which don't use that much land and other resources. The alternative to beef doesn't seem to be vegetarianism only.

[LuckyR]

For quite a long time, human beings have survived as hunter-gatherer, not unlike polar bear and some more part-time predators. In time, multiplication drove this free-ranching mode out as unsustainable, although remnant of it may still remain to this day. Hunting as a challenge is turned into sport, and gathering becomes sideline interest to collect and to investigate. Hunting and gathering are replaced by more steadily-reliable husbandry and farming as our food source, with the former and latter from animal and vegetarian/plant respectively.

I am not about to investigate why we would find meat more tasty than vegetable. Perhaps it can be blamed or credited to the excitement and success of capturing rather than picking-up, or perhaps because meat is more nutritive. Suffice to say that this palate is also found in marauding animals. This palate may be in our genes, hereditary, or developed in our collective memory which can only be erased with time. At this juncture, let it make no difference whether you prefer meat or vegetable, assuming the same availability, as far as matter of choice is concerned.

But the difference is significant when it comes to consumption of scarce resources. Eating meat is vastly inefficient. By eating beef, first you have to grow grain to be placed in trough for cattle to chew up. Cattle is no more than agent for you to extract nutrient from grain. For every eight kilograms or so of grain, you can only obtain one kilogram of beef. Not only that, but you have to care for the cattle and its attenuating hassle, like excretion and foot-and-mouth and mad-cow disease. If human beings can also be grain-fed(!), planting and harvesting grain can be reduced by eight times. You wold leave vast area of your wilderness, forest, and your wild life alone. Thank you, from Mother Earth, from the ocean, and from nature in general. You would have more time to enjoy life. Can't you understand, Idiot? Or are you beyond salvation?

A couple of additional ideas:

Eating meat was not a positive until the invention of fire. In addition, feeding domesticated animals human-grown grain is a relatively recent (and wholly unnecessary) idea. Free range (that is grass fed) cattle are premium cattle, grain is used in feed lots ie low quality industrial ranching. So cattle is nature's way of converting grass, which is abundant in nature yet has zero nutritional value for humans, into calories that humans can consume.

[gad-fly]

Morality could enhance human's potential to thrive. Carelessness/barbarism does not seem to be intelligent on the longer term. Especially with risks such as exponential growth, morality ("think before you act") may be essential for humanity to survive and prosper.

Is eating animal meat the most wise choice for humans? There is some evidence that eating animal meat is not the most optimal for human health and efficiency.

(2018) Millennials Are Driving The Worldwide Shift Away From Meat
A global reduction in meat consumption between 2016 and 2050 could save up to eight million lives per year and $31 trillion in reduced costs from health care and climate change. (National Academy of Sciences).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpel ... 0b03f3a4a4

When considering the shunning of meat consumption for ethical motives, one should consider that plants may be conscious creatures as well.

You have brought excellent perspective to the morality issue of vegetarianism, no doubt through intensive research. I would like to have this thread focused away from the distraction of moral argument. Suffice to say that it is morally acceptable as long as we treat with due respect our food and our food sources, whether from plant or from animal.

Lest misunderstood, let me clarify that I am not against eating meat, nor am I advocating vegetarianism. I am just pointing out that it is high time to strike a balance between eating much more vegetable than meat. It would be idiotic not do so. Beef is an example how we can consume so much less grain by eating grain directly. I am not against traditional husbandry. I like free-ranching chicken, and cattle eating grass is fine with me, but factory farming in feed trough is the problem. It would be idiotic allowing it to continue wasting our environment, a waste we can no longer afford.

You have pointed out how much "A global reduction in meat consumption between 2016 and 2050 could save". I am convinced we are heading in the right direction, but is it fast and sufficient enough? If not, we should give it a push. We should focus on the urgency of this crucial issue. Time does not wait for us to procrastinate. It is easier to bring famine than to revive the dying, and it is easier to deforest than to restore wilderness. What have we got to lose, except our habit and stubbornness to resist progress?

[Steve3007]

...Can't you understand, Idiot? Or are you beyond salvation?

Assuming that, despite apparently being idiots, we can understand and accept the truth of that simple message that eating a vegetarian diet (i.e. cutting out the middle man) is very much more efficient than a diet containing meat, what do you say to people who, essentially, reply in the way that Terrapin Station did?

I presume you say that eating a vegetarian diet is not equivalent to living in a single 10 x 10 room and with just one pair of underwear.

[psyreporter]

Eating meat was not a positive until the invention of fire.

Is there evidence that humans did not eat meat before the invention of fire?

[gad-fly]

...Can't you understand, Idiot? Or are you beyond salvation?

Assuming that, despite apparently being idiots, we can understand and accept the truth of that simple message that eating a vegetarian diet (i.e. cutting out the middle man) is very much more efficient than a diet containing meat, what do you say to people who, essentially, reply in the way that Terrapin Station did?

I presume you say that eating a vegetarian diet is not equivalent to living in a single 10 x 10 room and with just one pair of underwear.

My reply to Terrapin Station: Vegetarianism is not about survival. If only meat is available, it does not ask you to starve to death. A vegetarian diet is as good as a meat diet to me, or even better, as far as my palate is concerned. A 10 by 10 room can be as good as a monster home to a hermit. This thread is not about personal choice, or even about my choice. This thread is about the weight we should assign to vegetarianism at this stage of our civilization. More humbly, it is about which direction we should go. Bear north, or bear east?

[LuckyR]

Eating meat was not a positive until the invention of fire.

Is there evidence that humans did not eat meat before the invention of fire?

Sorry for being difficult to understand. I meant that eating meat before the invention of fire (roasting) tasted bad, not that it didn't exist.

[Sculptor1]

Is there evidence that humans did not eat meat before the invention of fire?

Sorry for being difficult to understand. I meant that eating meat before the invention of fire (roasting) tasted bad, not that it didn't exist.

Raw meat is loved by many gourmets.
I do not think that Australopithecus and the long line of primate species that drift off to time immemorial way beyond a time when they were primates felt that a fresh piece of raw meat was "bad", on the contrary. Meat is rich in nutrients, and good concentrations of hard to get amino-acids and lipids. Nutrients that being so close to the tissues of the predator means that it closely matches what their bodies need for repair and growth.

[gad-fly]

Vegetarianism in the present context is not about whether meat or plant tastes better, are healthier, or more nutritious. Different health professionals may hold different opinion, let alone eaters. This thread is not a personal debate between meat and plant consumption. It is about how to strike a balance between the two. It is about the trend of increasing vegetarianism which may be encouraged/pushed, or allowed to take its own course. Efficiency in food production and consumption is one argument in favor of vegetarianism.

[Pattern-chaser]

...you have to care for the cattle and its attenuating hassle, like excretion and foot-and-mouth and mad-cow disease.

Not forgetting that bovine spongiform encephalopathy was caused by humans feeding food containing animal matter to a vegetarian animal.

[LuckyR]

Sorry for being difficult to understand. I meant that eating meat before the invention of fire (roasting) tasted bad, not that it didn't exist.

Raw meat is loved by many gourmets.
I do not think that Australopithecus and the long line of primate species that drift off to time immemorial way beyond a time when they were primates felt that a fresh piece of raw meat was "bad", on the contrary. Meat is rich in nutrients, and good concentrations of hard to get amino-acids and lipids. Nutrients that being so close to the tissues of the predator means that it closely matches what their bodies need for repair and growth.

Not arguing nutrition. I am commenting on cuisine vs roadkill.