If you want to get get literal than so be it, but you missed my point.

If a meat eater gets sick they don't blame the food they're eating do they?
But if a vegetarian/vegan get sick people say "It's because you don't eat meat". It's a bogus argument.

jeezus, man, are you high???

quality organic grains and beans don't cost more than $2 a pound. what kind of crummy preserved meat can you buy for the same price? spam?

What he meant was that it's easier if you're lazy.

how fucking hard is it to punch a button on a rice cooker?

just saying...

Whoa, please stop putting words in my mouth. I never mentioned anything about being sick. I was just concerned about if a body could support a pregnancy on a vegetarian diet which, evidently, it can.

My other cousin (the previous' sister) is a vegetarian for ideological reasons and when she got sick when I stayed with her over one summer that argument never occured to me. I was more quick to think I passed something on something from the airplane that I was on. I agree, that argument is bogus.

I wasn't being rude, by the way,

There's a difference between principle and practice. A lot of farming practice is inefficient and wasteful, including the production of non meat products, especially plants used to make oils (rapeseed has been linked to an increase in childhood asthma incidentally).

i'd rather eat naturally raised buffalo than monsanto tofu by the way.

hmmm... buffalo burger...

I'd much rather have a buffalo burger over a beef burger.

And I have only had buffalo once in my life. There's a damn good reason why those guys almost went extinct.

Hmmmm.... this is more suble than it seems - livestock are quite diverse, but if we're talking about ruminants, they can digest plant material that we humans can't (cellulose, lignin, etc....), which make up a large portion of the plants used for human consuption. For instance, the soybeans used to make tofu are only a fraction of the plant itself, same for cereals. Ruminants can make use of these and metabolize these components, which in turn can provide meat, not to mention other grasses, hay, thorny shrubs even for some species. Indeed, a lot of vegetable byproducts (such as corn husks, soybean meal, etc) are sent back from the processors to the animal feed market. For these reasons they are extremely valuable to those living on marginal land where most crops can't be grown. However, your argument is absolutely correct when applied to, oh say, clearing forests to raise livestock, or industrial-size feetlots, which indeed makes up a huge proportion (if not over 95%) of the meat produced today in the developed (ha!) world. Actually, byproducts from plant processing (ethanol, vegetable oils, tofu, cereals, cannery wastes) are a source of cheap feedstuff for feedlots, which helps to keep the price of meat down to some extent. I'm not sure if any numbers exist though, as this is often done on a case-by-case basis.

As for the CO2 emissions, you'.re right, though methane, while 30-odd times more potent than CO2 to trap gasses, pales in comparison to N2O, released from water-logged soils. Not to mention that a helluvalot of methane is released from rice fields as well. Whether one option is better than the other is hard to figure out, I'm sure that many reports have been done on this with conflicting results. Guess it all comes down to one's preferences and ethos, I suppose.


And for the original question, I guess I all comes down to whether vegans see humans as animals or as removed from this realm. From this perspective, if humans are considered animals (in a metaphysical or ethical sense, not biological), then I guess not.

in all honesty, , i would be sort of bothered if my girlfriend was not a vegetarian. i mean it would just feel weird because imagining meat passing through my lips would be a total turn off. Im friends with alot of omnivores but i honestly do not believe i could have a sexual relationship with a non vegetarian...

its crazy and stupid i know, it just bothers me......

Hmm.. food sure is controversial...

wow.

i like girls who can eat a big iguana.