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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
can shut their self-righteous yaps about global warming. I can easily afford a car, but choose not to own one -- and I live in Dallas, which is about as car-centric as you can get. In short, I deliberately inconvenience myself for the sake of the environment. I sometimes wish I had a car, especially when it rains (as it did this morning), but still I don't buy one! By contrast, I wonder how many vegans really crave cheeseburgers on a regular basis. They all seem to think meat is gross, so it's not exactly a moral triumph that they abstain from it.
Man, all this talk about cheeseburgers has got me hungry. Lunchtime!
there was a smug letter some ways back on how "privileged" people with access to grass-fed beef would eat it three times a day or whatever. in reality those of us eating this kind of beef are less likely to eat loads of red meat to begin with. besides, this is how beef was meant to be fed.
and yes, I do take issue with being told I don't "need" to eat meat. I recently accompanied friends to a fancy-pants vegan restaurant, and ate some absolutely delicious dishes. I still can't do it full-time (especially with fish, which I eat 5 times a week). if I became a proper vegan, my IBS would draw comparisons to a certain "mental patient" activity.
Actually, you do [need to eat meat]. We are made as omnivores, and as such, we cannot produce all 20 of the vital amino acids needed for survival. We get the remainder that we cannot produce from outside sources. Now, it is true that up until the 20th century, anyone attempting a vegan diet would slowly die of serious health issues without vitamin B12, which is now in fortified tofu.
Maybe this isn't worth responding to because your point is all over the place and a bit non-sensical, but it is important to refute the myth that people need to eat meat (or other animal products). So, your claims at face value:
(1) We cannot produce all 20 amino acids. True, obvious, and completely irrelevant. "Essential" amino acids are the ones we can't produce and therefore must consume, but they are all easily found in both plant and animal products; this pseudoscientific argument doesn't say we need to eat meat, it just says we need to eat.
(2) Vegan diets used to lack B12. True, and relevant, but how did we get on vitamins all of a sudden? I thought you were going to tell us we couldn't get all the amino acids from plant foods. Why did you bring up amino acids at all? But anyway, vitamin B12 defeciency is one of the risks of a vegan diet, but (in my opinion) is far outweighed by the risks of an omnivorous diet (heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, the list goes on and on, due to the high saturated fat and LDL cholesterol content of animal foods). Also, your assertion that B12 is now found in fortified tofu is true but misleading; it's found there, but not only there. It's also found in lots of other vegan foods including soymilks, breakfast cereals, margarines, yeasts, veggie burgers, and of course multivitamins. So it's not like you have to eat fortified tofu in order to get your B12.
Also, and this is important, everyone who argues for an omnivorous diet seems to be so concerned about B12, but in reality the typical American (omni) diet is more fraught with vitamin and mineral deficiencies than the typical vegan diet, so if vitamin deficiencies are really important to you (and they are important), you should eat more vitamin-rich whole plant foods and take a multivitamin anyway. Everyone should take a multivitamin, really, and if we all do that then none of us has to worry about B12 or any other vitamin deficiency, vegan or omni or anything in between.
Reply to Silenced
I've never heard anybody argue that there is no obscure medical condition that would necessitate an omnivorous diet. In your specific case you may be right (I don't know), but for 99% (or whatever) of the population, that doesn't apply.
The article said
"the difference between a vegan diet and one that includes cheeseburgers is less than 2 tons of greenhouse gases a year.... The average American is responsible for about 26 tons annually, so if the entire U.S. population went vegan, we'd reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by only 6 percent."
It's not a big deal, and correct me if I'm wrong, wouldn't that be 2/26 = about 7.7% (not 6%)?
So as I see it here, we blow up all industry, eat grass and then kill ourselves. THAT is what some of you here are basically saying. Fine. Start with the people who bore your stupid ass into this world.
When you go to the store and pick up a fresh bunch of "organic" asparagus, and the tag on the asparagus says it's from Chile, are you operating under the assumption that your eating habits are sustainable? If so, let me recommend "The Omnivore's Dilemma" to disavow you of that notion forthwith. "Organic" does not = sustainable. It just means they're not pumping synthetic and harmful pesticides into the soil and water. It doesn't mean they're not expending a huge amount of fossil fuel both to plant and harvest the produce and get it to your local store.
The only way you could possibly eat sustainably is to grow all your fruits, vegetables, starches and proteins in your backyard--and even then, I'd be curious how many trips you'd have to make to the gardening store to buy fertilizer and "soil amendments" (which of course come encased in plastic bags). I'm trying it myself and, even with my own compost heap, I still have to buy a number of things (chief among them, the plants and seeds, although hopefully that's just a one-time expense).
The idea of a self-sustaining garden that produces all the calories and nutrients needed by a human being is explored in detail in the books available off of these two websites, and I highly recommend them to anyone interested in sustainable food production--but even these folks don't claim to have achieved 100% sustainability:
http://www.edibleforestgardens.com
http://www.growbiointensive.org
Also--any of you vegans happen to own or maintain grass lawns? Because those are bad, bad, bad. Check out the Edible Forest Gardens book. I mean, what's next, you're going to tell me you mow it with a gas-powered mower? Heaven forfend.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
