I slogged through 23 web pages of crappy arguments on both sides. I think I saw only a single post that pointed out the real problem with eating animals- factory farming. Enjoy eating meat? Fine, enjoy it, but quit kidding yourself about where your meat comes from. Get educated about what really goes on in the raising and slaughtering of animals, and then start buying meat ethically. Yes, it will cost you more. Yes, you will probably be eating it less frequently. Your days of buying cheap meat at your local supermarket, taking trips to fast food joints and eating in most restaurants will be at an end (unless you choose to order meat-free items at them). But, once you know the reality of how factory farming impacts the animals, environment, and the people involved- I don't see how there is any way in which you can continue to buy and consume meat from the factory farm and also think or feel that you are an ethical or moral person when it comes to this subject.

The experiments supposedly demonsrtated that plants hooked up to EEG monitors registered distress signals when their neighbor plants were tortured or cut.

HOW CAN YOU EAT PLANTS?!? YOU BEASTS!!!

This was quite possibly the wittiest and most hilarious book review I've read in ages. It was so well written that I found myself alternately laughing out loud and reading excerpts to my girfriend. The bit about cloud cuckoos had us falling off the couch in fits. We're both pseudo-vegetarians--since we're just to lazy to cook meat most of the time--but don't identify as vegetarian because of the self righteous nature of the whole philosophy that Miller so delightfully pinpoints here. Honestly, I don't think I've ever read anything by her that wasn't awesome. Salon should consider just letting her and Rebecca Traister take over.

"Now I'm a fruitarian. I only want to eat what Nature gives without anything having to die"

What about the millions of viruses and microorganisms your body's immune system kills every day in order for you to stay alive? If your immune system didn't kill them, they would most certainly kill you. No matter how you slice it, nature is "red in tooth and claw".

> The whole foods eating people are the ones that are going to live longer.

If I had to eat just whole foods, I wouldn't *want* to live longer.

It is better to wear out than to rust out.

The author has an interesting point of the attitudes of the meat-eating crowd: I kill, I eat, as nature intended.

But unless they are lugging a rifle into the woods and bagging themselves a deer, meat eaters are actually the pansies of the 21st century. They have somebody else do their dirty work and then claim ignorance about the impact it has on the earth. (To be fair most people including veggies do this with most consumer products they buy).

But even more interesting will be to watch those devil-may-take me red meat eaters as they reach a more tender age and watch the ravages of the American diet unleash themselves on their mortality. For it's not meat that kills necessarily... if you want to talk "natural" let's trace how much meat people actually ate (a very small amount) and the source (lean roaming animals not fed on corn). Eating a 24 ounce prime rib at the Outback along with a Bloomin onion and then sitting on your butt in an office chair 10 hours a day is not exactly the lifestyle the hunter-gatherer had. So we can throw the word "what nature intended" out along with the tofurkey (now that thing is truly vegetarian abuse!)

The whole foods eating people are the ones that are going to live longer. The meat-eating violent types who say things like, "I'm going to die anyway so why not enjoy myself?" Not so much. Survival of the fittest?

and demonstrative of a true loser than a militant vegetarian or a dumbass who belongs to PETA and sanctions eco-terrorism. I have never seen or heard of one who wasn't a total and complete chickenshit, lacking any logical, empirical powers of reason, who was not intellectually dishonest and inconsistent. They are losers.

I'm fairly cognizant of the ethical debates on diet, and choose for myself to be an omnivore. This is a classic moral dilemma, where one has to choose a lesser of evils considering the utility of options.

Generally the supply stock, health benefits, suffering, and flavor are considered.

Things like vegetables, algae + seaweed, tofu and such are literally no-brainers for sources of nutrition and in greatly renewable supply.

Non-endangered fish and crustaceans are highly preferable animal proteins.

Dairy is ok, but has some health issues and should be humanly produced.

Beef and pork are much less preferable generally, and out of the question if produced inhumanly.

Bush meat (i.e. apes) and endangered species are totally out of the question.

...

The choice is of conscience and individual by nature. I don't judge the choices of others.

I have no problem with hunting and meat consumption so long as it's managed and not wasteful.

An exception is when people lack any regard for moral considerations. For example, the rampant killing and near extinction of many primates as a luxury/status meat in Africa is terribly wasteful and ignorant.

I could understand if someone killed an ape, or even 'may as well eat me when I'm dead' consensual cannibalism at the brink of starvation.

As a physical anthropology instructor I just have to weigh in on a lot of the misconceptions about what is 'natural' or not. Human teeth are NOT specially designed for meat tearing. In fact, they aren't that great at it. We are incredibly gracile with very generalized dentition. Our teeth don't do much of anything especially well.This is just peachy because as humans we are FLEXIBLE. We chose to eat meat or seeds or tofu or whatever we desire with our giant brains. These enormous melons allow us to make TOOLS to do all this fun stuff. Realize also that meat isn't particularly difficult to process. It may have been difficult to obtain during most of our evolutionary history but it wasn't difficult to feast on once it was obtained. Vegetal material, on the other hand, is often very labor intensive both to obtain and to process. I could go on but I'll stick to the misconceptions. All this canine discussion is so completly way off base it makes me giggle. We have very small canines, yes. Most primates who have large canines have them not for meat eating but for 'displaying'. Canines are both hot and scary. They are sometimes used to woo females. This is why males in some primate groups have bigger canines than females. They are also used in displays to scare off predators and the like.

Sorry to bore but it is just too painful to read letters from people who use science to support their arguments when they are talking completly out of their arses.