Aside from the moral/ethical implications of meat-eating vs. vegetarianism, there is hard evidence that eating a widely varied, whole-foods based diet low in animal protein PREVENTS MOST CANCERS.

Read THE CHINA STUDY to find out all the details for yourself, but for a quick preview of the findings, read on...

The China Study is the largest study of the correlation between nutrition and disease ever performed. It was carried out by Cornell, Oxford and a Chinese University. It followed 6500 Chinese villagers for 20 years to see what, if any, correlation there is between nutrition and disease. The results were overwhelming. In a nutshell, those people who consumed the most animal protein were the ones who came down with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, allergies, and that's all I can remember off the top of my head. The main culprit in causing cancer, it turns out, is casein. Casein is a (cow) milk protein. They did studies with lab rats where they infected the animals with cancer-causing agents. The rats who were fed a diet with a "normal" amount of dairy products developed cancer. The rats fed a low protein vegetarian diet did not. Then they experimented with feeding dairy/no dairy diets to the infected rats. When they were being fed the diet that included dairy products, the cancer grew. When they were being fed the vegetarian diet, the cancer stopped growing. Like flipping a switch, is how they described it.

As a result of these findings, the author, T. Colin Campbell, PhD, who started his life on a dairy farm, and grew up eating sausages, eggs and bacon for breakfast, has become a vegetarian, and he and his family are now moving in the direction of becoming vegan.

Lest you think that this is a book written by an "activist doctor", let me assure you that he was an establishment scientist for most of his career, working for 50 years in high level government positions. All of the health assertions in this book are backed up by laboratory evidence.

It's not wacky, out there, or unproven: eating your fruits and vegetables and limiting your animal protein consumption lowers your risk of cancer and heart disease MORE SUBSTANTIALLY THAN ANYTHING ELSE YOU CAN DO and increases the quality and length of your life. And those studies that say otherwise? Well, there is a very enlightening chapter in The China Study that covers just that subject. Let's just say that the governing interests behind the funders, designers, and publishers of studies determines what will be found by those studies.

I want a big, fat juicy-ass steak with carrots and aspargus and some kind of potato preparation on the side. Mmmmm.... asparagus... screws with my pee, but whatever. Too bad I'm too broke to get that in a restaurant and too stupid/lazy/useless-in-the-kitchen-except-at-the-sink to be able to do it myself without making it a horrible inedible waste I wouldn't even feed to a homeless guy. Seriously, I can't even fry an egg properly so someone would want to consume it in even the most extreme circumstances.

Man, I'd kill for a really good steak right about now. Just point me at the cow.

I loves the meat, but still, I wouldn't touch a hot dog if you paid me. I have no idea what the hell is actually in those things.

Racoons and boots, probably.

I would put bologna in that camp, too.

Sorry that this post is completely nonsensical, but then so are most of the other posts in this discussion. It's funny how we're all so proud about what we choose to shove down our gullets so we won't die.

Thants for those six paragraphs on how you don't want to debate your choice.

I'm a great fan of Austen's writing and have read all of her work. This statement from the article strikes me as more than a bit self-righteous:

"Stuart has a pretty feeble grasp of literary matters: Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility" was not a satire of the 18th-century obsession with hypersensitive "nerves,"

Since when must we adher to any one set interpretation of a novel? I don't see why Sense and Sensibility can't be refered to as a satire of nerves. Much of the novel is concerned with Marianne's lack of common sense--sensibility--and her subsequent illness based on her attachment to Willoughby.

Another of Austen's novels, Northanger Abbey, pokes fun at gothic novels. Sense and Sensibility does something similar, contrasting the two sisters' behavior when romantically disappointed.

Oh well. I suppose overly broad statements are a time-tried method of attracting readership.

...can vegans eat shit? So long as the animals don't want it anymore?

just a couple of remarks

- Yes, I am a vegetarian. No that doesn't mean I want to get into a debate with you every time that fact becomes apparent. You will never convince me that my choice of diet is a vacuous one or that my reasons for this choice are poor. Trust me, I've already heard all of your crappy arguments, as well as some of the better ones. If, however, you would like to have an intelligent, civilized conversation regarding this matter then I'd be happy to such a discussion with you.

- Furthermore, you'll find that most vegetarians are like me. We don't broadcast our dietary preferences. Usually we think we have good reasons (and yes, they can vary) for our decisions, but most of us ACTUALLY don't claim to be morally superior or food snobs. Nor do we go around trying to convince you all of the time that you are in the wrong. We usually don't bring this up, but yes, if you provoke a debate we will defend our beliefs - how can we be in the wrong for doing so?

- About an omni-vore diet being 'natural'. Haven't we learned by now that because something purports to be natural says absolutely NOTHING about whether it is a moral practice? NATURAL DOES NOT EQUAL MORAL, UNNATURAL DOES NOT EQUAL IMMORAL. Here are some things that are 'unnatural' - contraception, modern medicine, homosexuality - are those things ipso facto immoral? Likewise for attempting to equate natural with moral.

- Yes other animals eat other animals - but since we take ourselves to be unique in that we are rational animals and can make choices based on considerations other than our survival, you would think we'd want to say a little more than 'other animals do it' to defend out meat consumption.

- We may have teeth and other adaptations for eating meat. So what? Those adaptations evolved at a time when it was advantageous for us to have them; that doesn't mean that we MUST continue to use those features. We are not hunter-gatherers anymore. We go to the grocery store. We (most of us, here) have plenty of food from all kinds of sources available to us. Vegetarians can have just as healthy, if not healthier, diets as omnivores. We're not malnourished and wasting away, we don't just eat lettuce.

Relatedly, vegetarianism is put into context. That is, given the food sources and access we have NOW, a vegetarian diet is not that onerous to follow. If these foods are not available, then of course one is permitted to eat what they need to in order to survive (thus, we don't look upon with scorn past populations that ate meat because that was what was available to them).

So, let's try and have an intelligent discussion about the different well-defended reasons for and against vegetarianism, shall we?