Why vegetarianism?

[Secret Chief]

Eat dirt!

Seriously, that's where B12 ultimately comes from, so thoroughly peeling and/or scrubbing vegetables creates that shortage. However, one can also take a B12 pill-- problem solved.

Lots of stuff is supplemented these days with vitamins and minerals. When my iodine supps run out I'm not going to buy any more cos it seems to be added to most plant milks now.

 

[metis]

Lots of stuff is supplemented these days with vitamins and minerals. When my iodine supps run out I'm not going to buy any more cos it seems to be added to most plant milks now.

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At 77, I have to watch my B12 and D carefully, but I have gotten them back to normal levels by eating more fatty fish, not peeling potatoes and carrots, getting outside at least 6 days a week while exercising, etc.

 

[Left Coast]

What does "conscious" mean and how do you decide who is and isn't conscious? Why do you select this quality as a litmus test?

Conscious means awake, aware, capable of acting with intent. I didn't select this quality; the word "actor" in English means "one who acts." To act at least implies behaving in a way that is intentional. A rock does not "act," beyond perhaps a metaphor.

No need to really answer here, just worth asking oneself these things. I think there's way too much emphasis placed on the inevitably anthropocentrically-defined and nebulous concept of "consciousness" for my liking. I pretty much cringe whenever that word comes up.

I smiled at your cringing toward a concept you think is defined nebulously. That's how I feel about your idea of what a "person" is.

In comparative studies, a lot of it circles back to relationships - where a person or tribe recognizes the deep significance of a relationship or a connection with something it's understood as a person. An heirloom passed down through generations. Something you painstakingly crafted by hand and consecrated in ritual. The very land upon which you depend for your livelihood and existence. It's wherever you find meaning. So, if you've got deep meaning and a connection with your pillow, it's regarded as a person. Otherwise, it is not... though your culture might inform certain standards if you were growing up in an animist culture instead of a non-animist one.

How do you have a relationship with something, aside from metaphor, that has no mind or ability to respond to you? I can understand having an emotional connection to, say, a certain place or object. But I don't imagine that thing or place has the same feelings back toward me.

Fair. I think a lot of humans are way too anthropocentric in their measure of these things, though, just as they are with how they understand "consciousness." Plus, pain and suffering are an inevitable part of living. Change is always happening with the give-and-take, creation-and-destruction, making-and-unmaking. It's up to each actor to determine how they want to navigate that reality based on the relationships they have with various actors.

For me, the inevitability of pain and suffering is not an excuse to therefore inflict it whenever I like. That would be like punching you in the nose and when you say "what the heck??" I reply, "Well, pain and suffering are part of life."

To me, that's the height of anthropocentrism: these other animals should suffer and die so that I, the human, can satisfy my taste buds.

 

[Secret Chief]

At 77, I have to watch my B12 and D carefully, but I have gotten them back to normal levels by eating more fatty fish, not peeling potatoes and carrots, getting outside at least 6 days a week while exercising, etc.

Yes. We in northern climes typically are D deficient in the winter, whatever our diet.

 

[Quagmire]

Question: do most of the vegetarians in this thread take supplements, and if so what kind?

 

[Valjean]

This is actually startling. We actually use more land to produce cattle feed than we use to grow plants to feed ourselves, and we use more land for grazing cattle than we do for literally anything else. Really eye-opening.

I thought this was common knowledge.
There's are reasons why people complain about the ecological effects of carnivory.

 

[Vinayaka]

Question: do most of the vegetarians in this thread take supplements, and if so what kind?

Do the meat-eaters in this thread take supplements? Nutrient deficiency can occur in all diets.

17 Deficiencies From the Carnivore Diet - SelfDecode Health.

 

[Left Coast]

Question: do most of the vegetarians in this thread take supplements, and if so what kind?

I started getting B12 shots last month.

 

[Secret Chief]

Question: do most of the vegetarians in this thread take supplements, and if so what kind?

Currently:

Iodine. But as I said above, I'll not bother any more cos plant milks now typically have it.

(I also take glucosamine, but that's because of my running, nowt to do with my diet. And yes it is vegan).

 

[metis]

Yes. We in northern climes typically are D deficient in the winter, whatever our diet.

Yep, and I am here in Michigan. Maybe I should walk around nude? Nah, as my ears are sensitive to screams.

 

[Quintessence]

Conscious means awake, aware, capable of acting with intent. I didn't select this quality; the word "actor" in English means "one who acts." To act at least implies behaving in a way that is intentional. A rock does not "act," beyond perhaps a metaphor.

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Yes, that is how a non-animist - or one who does not speak with and listen to the land and its spirits - would see things. Others experience things differently than you.

I smiled at your cringing toward a concept you think is defined nebulously. That's how I feel about your idea of what a "person" is.

Yes, I would expect a non-animist - or someone who really constrains who and what is an actor, agent, ethical subject, or person - to think so. The world becomes much more... hmm... how to put it... complicated? Let's go with complicated. It becomes much more complicated as an animist. The scope of actors given ethical consideration expands dramatically, which is very much not comfortable or "cringe" to those unaccustomed.

How do you have a relationship with something, aside from metaphor, that has no mind or ability to respond to you? I can understand having an emotional connection to, say, a certain place or object.

That is a type of relationship - emotional connection. A relationship is any connection between two agents. The nature of it varies. It is no metaphor to say we have a relationship with our planet. It is a metaphor to describe it in anthropocentric terms, perhaps, like "the earth is our mother" though. Such anthropomorphisms are useful for articulating relationships with non-human persons, which is why they are widely used. And if you learn to speak with and listen to the non-human world, it... hmm... well, most never bother. I do. It is part of my religious practice. Those who do not practice these things will regard most persons not as persons, but impersonal. That is not how it is for me. I "speak" and "listen" to the trees and develop a stronger relationship with the land and its non-human peoples.

If it helps, think of something like Shamanism as a frame of reference. I rarely identify as a Shaman (for reasons that are not important to go into) but that is basically my religious practice. I am that person who helps mediate between human and non-human worlds because I listen to and speak to that non-human world when others do not. Unfortunately, it isn't easy. I didn't grow up in a culture where the default approach was animism. Many modern Pagan groups have done a lot of great work reconstructing these practices, the Order I belong to among them, but we are in many ways still re-learning what our ancestors knew. It can be daunting but also very rich and fulfilling.

For me, the inevitability of pain and suffering is not an excuse to therefore inflict it whenever I like.

Yes, I am the same.

Where I might differ is thus: if I believe that something cannot feel pain or suffer, I do not view that as an excuse to inflict whatever I like upon it either.

 

[Vinayaka]

I started getting B12 shots last month.

I gave them to myself for awhile. You learn how to use a needle ... quickly, and straight. Now I take a small supplement a couple of times a week. The B12 shots were a result of going to a radical doctor who though everybody was low on everything. His side business was selling supplements. I learned later, that most of it was most likely going right through me ... the body absorbs what it needs, and expels the rest.

 

[Left Coast]

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Yes, that is how a non-animist - or one who does not speak with and listen to the land and its spirits - would see things. Others experience things differently than you.

I suspect "spirit" is also a term nebulously defined.

That is a type of relationship - emotional connection. A relationship is any connection between two agents.

I disagree. A relationship implies mutuality: I intentionally act in a certain way toward the one I'm in relationship with, and they intentionally respond and we react to one another. My emotional sentiments toward, say, my favorite beach are one-directional. The beach does not have feelings towards me. The beach is not aware of me. It has no intention in my regard.

Where I might differ is thus: if I believe that something cannot feel pain or suffer, I do not view that as an excuse to inflict whatever I like upon it either.

The thing is, inflict implies the recipients of our actions are aware of what we do and resent or suffer from it. A rock is not aware I'm sitting on it. The rock has no opinions as to whether it would like if I sat on it. My cat would, though. That's why our ethical considerations toward cats differ from rocks.

 

[Shaul]

Most corn grown today in the States is for livestock, plus there's a serious water issue, especially with cattle, that drink enormous amounts of water.

No. While most of the bulk of corn is used for feeding livestock, most of the reason it is grown is for human food consumption. Humans eat the corn kernels. But the vast majority of the plant is not its kernels. It is this remainder of the plant, the stalks, cobs, leaves, silk, etc., which is fed to livestock. Livestock doesn't need the corn to feed on. It could be fed on pasture lands. As is done in other countries and was in the U.S. before corn became so prevalent. The livestock are simply eating those parts humans can't eat. Thereby converting an otherwise waste product into a usable food supply. But the corn isn't grown for the animals. It is grown in order to feed people. Regardless of the proportions used by each.

 

[Valjean]

Most corn grown today in the States is for livestock, plus there's a serious water issue, especially with cattle, that drink enormous amounts of water.

... and eat a lot of feed that takes a lot of water to grow.
So, here in the US, most land and water is used to support livestock.

I live in a desert, but I can take a 15 minute drive and see (in Summer) fields of alfalfa -- a very thirsty, premium, hay/feed crop. Rivers and reservoirs throughout the West are running dangerously low, yet livestock feed still has a priority claim.

We could go into the massive, untreated sewerage lagoons on pig farms, or the eutrification of water bodies from animal waste and fertilizer run-off, causing fish and amphibian mutations, huge die-offs from deoxygenation, and blooms of poisonous cyanobacteria.

How about the eco-effects of the massive decrease in insect and bird numbers, or the bacterial antibiotic resistance, from animal usage, that's plaguing health care?

Diet affects the whole world, the climate, and all life on the planet. It's a butterfly affect.

Q: is it moral to ignore this, and continue to increase our animal consumption?

 

[Left Coast]

I gave them to myself for awhile. You learn how to use a needle ... quickly, and straight. Now I take a small supplement a couple of times a week. The B12 shots were a result of going to a radical doctor who though everybody was low on everything. His side business was selling supplements. I learned later, that most of it was most likely going right through me ... the body absorbs what it needs, and expels the rest.

My PCP was quite up front with me and left the ball entirely in my court. We've been tracking my levels and I'm on the low end of normal. I could have taken supplements, or gotten a shot, or done nothing. I didn't feel taken advantage of at all. The shot was a matter of convenience so I don't have to take a pill every day.

 

[Shaul]

False. Actually, only a minority of what we give them is by-products. The majority is purpose-grown hay and grains.

In any case, their suitability for human consumption isn't the point. The point is that those products still have to be grown, and in doing so we kill lots of animals and insects, so the argument that I was responding to was fallacious.


I've never heard the argument that we could "feed more people" if we used the land to grow crops fit for human consumption. We already have enough food for people to eat, so why would we need more? The argument is more about the environmental damage caused by farms, and that re-wilding these areas would produce a lot of good.


True. But that's not the argument.

"purpose-grown hay and grains" is quite misleading. These are grown by both cultivation and nature. They are grown on land unsuitable for direct human used crops. Until humans start ruminating and eating grass these plants are unfit for use other than to feed livestock. Which livestock are a viable human food source.

There are literally a billion people in the world that live in regions that cannot be used to grow directly consumed crops but which can be used as grazing land to sustain livestock which they depend upon to eat in order to survive.

 

[Left Coast]

@Vinayaka also I'm way to much of a wuss about needles to give them to myself.

 

[Quagmire]

Do the meat-eaters in this thread take supplements? Nutrient deficiency can occur in all diets.

17 Deficiencies From the Carnivore Diet - SelfDecode Health.

I was just asking for my own edification.

Wasn't trying to make a point with the question.

 

[Vinayaka]

My PCP was quite up front with me and left the ball entirely in my court. We've been tracking my levels and I'm on the low end of normal. I could have taken supplements, or gotten a shot, or done nothing. I didn't feel taken advantage of at all. The shot was a matter of convenience so I don't have to take a pill every day.

Did you have any symptoms beforehand?