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Meat Eater, Vegetarian or Vegan?

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Replies

  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.
  • nvmomketo
    nvmomketo Posts: 12,019 Member
    senecarr wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    senecarr wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    senecarr wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    I keep protein to about 20% for blood glucose reasons.

    I know eating almost like a carnivore seems odd but I think that is because it is uncommon, and because of the anti cholesterol and saturated fats messages (based on what i think was a lack of science to back it up) that became so widely accepted in the past 50 odd years. I think eventually that being a carnivore will be though to be about as unusual as a vegetarian or vegan.
    If you don't mind me asking, I'm curious as to roughly what percentage of body weight does that protein intake work out to be for you.

    I keep my protein around 65-75g or so per day with a caloric intake set at about 1500kcal. My weight is 150lb. I find my BG starts being affected once my protein gets above 25%, or over 80-85g.

    If my BG starts creeping up, I lower protein a bit, and carbs a lot. I am not doing any consistent exercise, and since a ketogenic diet is muscle sparing, I am sure I am getting enough protein for my needs.

    Odd, the one time bro science was (incorrectly) carbs can spare protein but I've never seen even bro science, let alone actual research that a ketogenic diet spares muscle, particularly without exercise.
    Generally it is training, calories, and protein that spare muscle.

    Ketogenic diets are muscle sparing, meaning they do not catabolize muscle. Someone who is keto adapted will be using fats for fuel so there is less need to use muscle protein to create glucose for energy.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1373635/
    Phinney and Volek go into it in their book, The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance. http://ketogains.com/2015/10/the-art-and-science-of-low-carbohydrate-performance-by-jeff-s-volek-and-stephen-d-phinney-a-summary/
    Getting into the high fat oxidation rates of ketogenic athletes: http://www.ultrarunning.com/features/health-and-nutrition/the-emerging-science-on-fat-adaptation/
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    I keep protein to about 20% for blood glucose reasons.

    I know eating almost like a carnivore seems odd but I think that is because it is uncommon, and because of the anti cholesterol and saturated fats messages (based on what i think was a lack of science to back it up) that became so widely accepted in the past 50 odd years. I think eventually that being a carnivore will be though to be about as unusual as a vegetarian or vegan.
    If you don't mind me asking, I'm curious as to roughly what percentage of body weight does that protein intake work out to be for you.

    I keep my protein around 65-75g or so per day with a caloric intake set at about 1500kcal. My weight is 150lb. I find my BG starts being affected once my protein gets above 25%, or over 80-85g.

    If my BG starts creeping up, I lower protein a bit, and carbs a lot. I am not doing any consistent exercise, and since a ketogenic diet is muscle sparing, I am sure I am getting enough protein for my needs.

    For anyone interested in this, I'd recommend also reading this: "http://anthonycolpo.com/why-low-carb-diets-are-inferior-for-strength-muscle-gains/" and the cited studies.

    This doesn't appear to be a very good study. Perhaps I've read it wrong.

    Three day studies won't tell you much of anything about someone on a ketogenic or low carb diet. It usually takes a few weeks for athletes to become fully fat adapted. After three days of having lower carbs (and over 200g of carbs per day is not really that low) people will just have depleted glycogen stores and feel tired, especially if sodium was not increased as well.

    A long term study of keto adapted subjects would provide better data. Plus this was not really about muscle sparing abilities of diets.

    In that there are multiple studies, I think you have.

    The assertion that keto is better for muscle gain/sparing seems to me to be entirely unsupported and contrary to the evidence I've seen.

    Also, people who don't have a keto diet are still able to burn fat and do.

    Sorry. I did not type that very clearly. Multiple three day studies still doesn't prove much when it comes to keto adapted muscle sparing. I never brought up muscle gain at all. I simply said I was confident I was getting adequate protein for my needs, which can be safely low to moderate to address my insulin sensitivity, without worrying about lacking protein due in part to the muscle sparing effects of a ketogenic diet.

    My supporting evidence (for people eating very low carb high fat over the long term - like me) that my ketogenic diet is muscle sparing was linked above.

    First, these aren't keto diets, so the negative effects cannot be explained by ketosis not kicking in yet, and therefore I think the criticism of the length isn't convincing. And there are other important problems for muscle-building/repair, like amino acids not being as effectively transmitted to the muscles, which is likely an effect of the desired low insulin, since that is one of insulin's jobs. Colpo goes into the studies on keto specifically in his book and some of those are much longer-term studies.

    Beyond that, of course, being more adapted to use fat than glycogen (and I agree that one can train oneself to be better at that, although I'd advise reading the various criticisms of the Volek studies too, and there are ways to do this short of low carbing, and again it's pretty striking that the vast majority of athletes even in endurance sports don't low carb or keto and that even the extreme endurance athletes use carbs for performance), saying nothing about whether you will also use muscle or have more issues maintaining muscle. It's simply a different subject.

    In any event, for most people it may not matter much, and low carbing can be healthy (if one eats adequate vegetables).

    That's an interesting point. What gets lost in low carb craze is that insulin is a anabolic hormone - it is often talked about in terms of building adipose tissue over muscle tissue, but is important for both. The low levels of it that a ketogenic diet are kind of erasing this effect.

    On the off chance I found myself needing to do a muscle sparing ketogenic diet for some reason, I suppose the best way to spare muscle would be dairy heavy, particularly casein. The in-vogue thing seems to be coconut oil, but coconut oil mostly just acts as quick burning fat - I'd be looking for the potential IGF-1 increases dairy has some minor claims of increasing. It might spare some of the effects of the low insulin levels.

    For someone like me (with insulin resistance) a ketogenic diet is helpful with insulin because it prevents insulin spikes because of lower carb, and slightly lower/moderate protein, intake. The insulin is still there, just not in excessive amounts, so BG is stable - similar insulin patterns to that of someone without the insulin resistance. I doubt I have lower insulin than average; I'm probably around average now.

    Would you say then that being on a ketogenic diet might result in excessively low insulin in someone with insulin resistance then? That it would have less muscle sparing for such individuals?

    I doubt it. I couldn't say it with absolute certainty. I think you just would not be getting insulin spikes as high after eating as those with a higher carb diet..
  • buzz28camaro
    buzz28camaro Posts: 49 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    I agree with you, but I don't think that justifies voluntarily killing animals just to spare them a potentially "worse" natural death. We would never apply that same logic to humans and kill 15 years old who might get cancer and have a painful death, so why should it apply it the killing of young animals? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to make a point.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    I agree with you, but I don't think that justifies voluntarily killing animals just to spare them a potentially "worse" natural death. We would never apply that same logic to humans and kill 15 years old who might get cancer and have a painful death, so why should it apply it the killing of young animals? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to make a point.

    The obvious answer is to eat them. Though we kill pets down when they suffer.
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    Exactly. The heart of the notion of humane, which is rooted in the Latin humanus, is the alleviation of suffering, as well as incorporating the finer human qualities of kindness, gentleness and mercy. Neither live evisceration and consumption (as by a predator or parasites) or many of the horrors of factory farming are humane. We support a local farmer, who is also a Lutheran pastor, and his animals are raised with admirable kindness and gentleness, and their deaths, though sad, are conducted with the utmost kindness as well.
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    senecarr wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    senecarr wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    senecarr wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    I keep protein to about 20% for blood glucose reasons.

    I know eating almost like a carnivore seems odd but I think that is because it is uncommon, and because of the anti cholesterol and saturated fats messages (based on what i think was a lack of science to back it up) that became so widely accepted in the past 50 odd years. I think eventually that being a carnivore will be though to be about as unusual as a vegetarian or vegan.
    If you don't mind me asking, I'm curious as to roughly what percentage of body weight does that protein intake work out to be for you.

    I keep my protein around 65-75g or so per day with a caloric intake set at about 1500kcal. My weight is 150lb. I find my BG starts being affected once my protein gets above 25%, or over 80-85g.

    If my BG starts creeping up, I lower protein a bit, and carbs a lot. I am not doing any consistent exercise, and since a ketogenic diet is muscle sparing, I am sure I am getting enough protein for my needs.

    Odd, the one time bro science was (incorrectly) carbs can spare protein but I've never seen even bro science, let alone actual research that a ketogenic diet spares muscle, particularly without exercise.
    Generally it is training, calories, and protein that spare muscle.

    Ketogenic diets are muscle sparing, meaning they do not catabolize muscle. Someone who is keto adapted will be using fats for fuel so there is less need to use muscle protein to create glucose for energy.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1373635/
    Phinney and Volek go into it in their book, The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance. http://ketogains.com/2015/10/the-art-and-science-of-low-carbohydrate-performance-by-jeff-s-volek-and-stephen-d-phinney-a-summary/
    Getting into the high fat oxidation rates of ketogenic athletes: http://www.ultrarunning.com/features/health-and-nutrition/the-emerging-science-on-fat-adaptation/
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    I keep protein to about 20% for blood glucose reasons.

    I know eating almost like a carnivore seems odd but I think that is because it is uncommon, and because of the anti cholesterol and saturated fats messages (based on what i think was a lack of science to back it up) that became so widely accepted in the past 50 odd years. I think eventually that being a carnivore will be though to be about as unusual as a vegetarian or vegan.
    If you don't mind me asking, I'm curious as to roughly what percentage of body weight does that protein intake work out to be for you.

    I keep my protein around 65-75g or so per day with a caloric intake set at about 1500kcal. My weight is 150lb. I find my BG starts being affected once my protein gets above 25%, or over 80-85g.

    If my BG starts creeping up, I lower protein a bit, and carbs a lot. I am not doing any consistent exercise, and since a ketogenic diet is muscle sparing, I am sure I am getting enough protein for my needs.

    For anyone interested in this, I'd recommend also reading this: "http://anthonycolpo.com/why-low-carb-diets-are-inferior-for-strength-muscle-gains/" and the cited studies.

    This doesn't appear to be a very good study. Perhaps I've read it wrong.

    Three day studies won't tell you much of anything about someone on a ketogenic or low carb diet. It usually takes a few weeks for athletes to become fully fat adapted. After three days of having lower carbs (and over 200g of carbs per day is not really that low) people will just have depleted glycogen stores and feel tired, especially if sodium was not increased as well.

    A long term study of keto adapted subjects would provide better data. Plus this was not really about muscle sparing abilities of diets.

    In that there are multiple studies, I think you have.

    The assertion that keto is better for muscle gain/sparing seems to me to be entirely unsupported and contrary to the evidence I've seen.

    Also, people who don't have a keto diet are still able to burn fat and do.

    Sorry. I did not type that very clearly. Multiple three day studies still doesn't prove much when it comes to keto adapted muscle sparing. I never brought up muscle gain at all. I simply said I was confident I was getting adequate protein for my needs, which can be safely low to moderate to address my insulin sensitivity, without worrying about lacking protein due in part to the muscle sparing effects of a ketogenic diet.

    My supporting evidence (for people eating very low carb high fat over the long term - like me) that my ketogenic diet is muscle sparing was linked above.

    First, these aren't keto diets, so the negative effects cannot be explained by ketosis not kicking in yet, and therefore I think the criticism of the length isn't convincing. And there are other important problems for muscle-building/repair, like amino acids not being as effectively transmitted to the muscles, which is likely an effect of the desired low insulin, since that is one of insulin's jobs. Colpo goes into the studies on keto specifically in his book and some of those are much longer-term studies.

    Beyond that, of course, being more adapted to use fat than glycogen (and I agree that one can train oneself to be better at that, although I'd advise reading the various criticisms of the Volek studies too, and there are ways to do this short of low carbing, and again it's pretty striking that the vast majority of athletes even in endurance sports don't low carb or keto and that even the extreme endurance athletes use carbs for performance), saying nothing about whether you will also use muscle or have more issues maintaining muscle. It's simply a different subject.

    In any event, for most people it may not matter much, and low carbing can be healthy (if one eats adequate vegetables).

    That's an interesting point. What gets lost in low carb craze is that insulin is a anabolic hormone - it is often talked about in terms of building adipose tissue over muscle tissue, but is important for both. The low levels of it that a ketogenic diet are kind of erasing this effect.

    On the off chance I found myself needing to do a muscle sparing ketogenic diet for some reason, I suppose the best way to spare muscle would be dairy heavy, particularly casein. The in-vogue thing seems to be coconut oil, but coconut oil mostly just acts as quick burning fat - I'd be looking for the potential IGF-1 increases dairy has some minor claims of increasing. It might spare some of the effects of the low insulin levels.

    For someone like me (with insulin resistance) a ketogenic diet is helpful with insulin because it prevents insulin spikes because of lower carb, and slightly lower/moderate protein, intake. The insulin is still there, just not in excessive amounts, so BG is stable - similar insulin patterns to that of someone without the insulin resistance. I doubt I have lower insulin than average; I'm probably around average now.

    Would you say then that being on a ketogenic diet might result in excessively low insulin in someone with insulin resistance then? That it would have less muscle sparing for such individuals?

    I doubt it. I couldn't say it with absolute certainty. I think you just would not be getting insulin spikes as high after eating as those with a higher carb diet..

    Except insulin is anabolic... So if one were not having it go as high, one would be getting less anabolic effect from it, wouldn't one?
    Heck, the spikes are part of what cause protein to shuttle nutrients into muscles - though endogenous levels don't seem terribly manipulable - it is probably part of why modern pro body builders large "hgh guts", they take insulin to build muscle faster and one side effect appears to be increased central visceral adipose.
  • ForecasterJason
    ForecasterJason Posts: 2,577 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    I agree with you, but I don't think that justifies voluntarily killing animals just to spare them a potentially "worse" natural death. We would never apply that same logic to humans and kill 15 years old who might get cancer and have a painful death, so why should it apply it the killing of young animals? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to make a point.
    The way I see it, we do this because we are basically at the top of the food chain, and for practically all of mankind humans have found that animals can be used as fuel for us.

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    I agree with you, but I don't think that justifies voluntarily killing animals just to spare them a potentially "worse" natural death. We would never apply that same logic to humans and kill 15 years old who might get cancer and have a painful death, so why should it apply it the killing of young animals? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to make a point.
    The way I see it, we do this because we are basically at the top of the food chain, and for practically all of mankind humans have found that animals can be used as fuel for us.

    We do it because we can and because we've always done it?

    I can accept that might be *why* we do it, but neither of those are particularly good arguments as to why we should *continue* doing it when there are other options available.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    I agree with you, but I don't think that justifies voluntarily killing animals just to spare them a potentially "worse" natural death. We would never apply that same logic to humans and kill 15 years old who might get cancer and have a painful death, so why should it apply it the killing of young animals? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to make a point.
    The way I see it, we do this because we are basically at the top of the food chain, and for practically all of mankind humans have found that animals can be used as fuel for us.

    We do it because we can and because we've always done it?

    I can accept that might be *why* we do it, but neither of those are particularly good arguments as to why we should *continue* doing it when there are other options available.

    The original comment wasn't about whether we should kill animals or not, it was about killing them humanely. Then the suggestion that it is impossible to kill an animal humanely before it would have naturally died.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    I agree with you, but I don't think that justifies voluntarily killing animals just to spare them a potentially "worse" natural death. We would never apply that same logic to humans and kill 15 years old who might get cancer and have a painful death, so why should it apply it the killing of young animals? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to make a point.
    The way I see it, we do this because we are basically at the top of the food chain, and for practically all of mankind humans have found that animals can be used as fuel for us.

    We do it because we can and because we've always done it?

    I can accept that might be *why* we do it, but neither of those are particularly good arguments as to why we should *continue* doing it when there are other options available.

    There aren't other options available for meat. And eating a vegetarian/vegan diet is not an option I choose to even consider.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    edited March 2016
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    I agree with you, but I don't think that justifies voluntarily killing animals just to spare them a potentially "worse" natural death. We would never apply that same logic to humans and kill 15 years old who might get cancer and have a painful death, so why should it apply it the killing of young animals? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to make a point.
    The way I see it, we do this because we are basically at the top of the food chain, and for practically all of mankind humans have found that animals can be used as fuel for us.

    We do it because we can and because we've always done it?

    I can accept that might be *why* we do it, but neither of those are particularly good arguments as to why we should *continue* doing it when there are other options available.

    The original comment wasn't about whether we should kill animals or not, it was about killing them humanely. Then the suggestion that it is impossible to kill an animal humanely before it would have naturally died.

    I was responding to someone who said "The way I see it, we do this because we are basically at the top of the food chain, and for practically all of mankind humans have found that animals can be used as fuel for us." I was addressing the explanation of why we do this (I took "this" to mean "kill animals to eat them.") I apologize that it wasn't clear.
  • ForecasterJason
    ForecasterJason Posts: 2,577 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    I agree with you, but I don't think that justifies voluntarily killing animals just to spare them a potentially "worse" natural death. We would never apply that same logic to humans and kill 15 years old who might get cancer and have a painful death, so why should it apply it the killing of young animals? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to make a point.
    The way I see it, we do this because we are basically at the top of the food chain, and for practically all of mankind humans have found that animals can be used as fuel for us.

    We do it because we can and because we've always done it?

    I can accept that might be *why* we do it, but neither of those are particularly good arguments as to why we should *continue* doing it when there are other options available.
    For some nutrients, meat is a much better source than plant based foods.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    I agree with you, but I don't think that justifies voluntarily killing animals just to spare them a potentially "worse" natural death. We would never apply that same logic to humans and kill 15 years old who might get cancer and have a painful death, so why should it apply it the killing of young animals? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to make a point.
    The way I see it, we do this because we are basically at the top of the food chain, and for practically all of mankind humans have found that animals can be used as fuel for us.

    We do it because we can and because we've always done it?

    I can accept that might be *why* we do it, but neither of those are particularly good arguments as to why we should *continue* doing it when there are other options available.
    For some nutrients, meat is a much better source than plant based foods.

    I think that's a much better argument than "We can" and "we've always done it." Which nutrients are you thinking of? I can't think of anything that I can't easily obtain from food and cheap, easy-to-source supplements. For me, that means I have no compelling reason to end an animal's life for meat for the "better source" rationale.

    If someone is unable to meet their dietary needs from food and supplements without meat, this rationale would apply for them.
  • buzz28camaro
    buzz28camaro Posts: 49 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    I agree with you, but I don't think that justifies voluntarily killing animals just to spare them a potentially "worse" natural death. We would never apply that same logic to humans and kill 15 years old who might get cancer and have a painful death, so why should it apply it the killing of young animals? Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to make a point.
    The way I see it, we do this because we are basically at the top of the food chain, and for practically all of mankind humans have found that animals can be used as fuel for us.

    We do it because we can and because we've always done it?

    I can accept that might be *why* we do it, but neither of those are particularly good arguments as to why we should *continue* doing it when there are other options available.
    For some nutrients, meat is a much better source than plant based foods.

    So it is justifiable to slaughter billions of animals a year so we can potentially better absorb certain nutrients? That seems like a stretch.
  • buzz28camaro
    buzz28camaro Posts: 49 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I visited our latest Farm Fair and my daughter chatted up a goat breeder for some time. Her retirement dream is to have a Merino goat farm. We talked about humane slaughter and we got a graphic description on how this can be done humanely. Step one, knock the animal out. Death occurs before it even hits the ground.

    Killing an animal many years before its natural life would have ended when you could easily make other food choices doesn't sound humane to me, regardless of the method.

    Animals that die naturally rarely have a quick and easy death. They typically either starve, die slowly of a disease or parasite or are eaten alive by a predator. Quick and as painless as possible is about as humane as it gets.

    Exactly. The heart of the notion of humane, which is rooted in the Latin humanus, is the alleviation of suffering, as well as incorporating the finer human qualities of kindness, gentleness and mercy. Neither live evisceration and consumption (as by a predator or parasites) or many of the horrors of factory farming are humane. We support a local farmer, who is also a Lutheran pastor, and his animals are raised with admirable kindness and gentleness, and their deaths, though sad, are conducted with the utmost kindness as well.

    Is this a joke? What is kind about killing animal because you prefer how it tastes? I don't understand the logic behind calling the voluntary killing of an animal that you raised and earned it's trust "kind", when you could easily choose not to kill/eat it. Is that the best example of "utmost kindness" you can come up with?
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    Meat is tasty to many.

    There are plenty who are unwilling to give it up and plenty that have no moral or ethical conflict when it comes to killing animals for food.

    That is why we continue to kill animals for meat. If no one wanted it, no one would bother.
  • HappyAnna2014
    HappyAnna2014 Posts: 214 Member
    I'm less concerned with the "healthiest" diet. My concern is: Can I thrive and be healthy while avoiding unnecessary animal exploitation? Since I can, I chose to go vegan.

    I <3 you!! My thoughts exactly.
  • buzz28camaro
    buzz28camaro Posts: 49 Member
    stealthq wrote: »
    Meat is tasty to many.

    There are plenty who are unwilling to give it up and plenty that have no moral or ethical conflict when it comes to killing animals for food.

    That is why we continue to kill animals for meat. If no one wanted it, no one would bother.

    So by that logic, wee should never have ended slavery because plenty of people were unwilling to give it up and had no moral or ethical conflict with owning slaves? Just making sure I'm following your thought process.
  • Hornsby
    Hornsby Posts: 10,322 Member
    edited March 2016
    Humans aren't animals and animals aren't humans. Some don't think of them equally on the moral compass. Why is that a hard concept?
  • mjwarbeck
    mjwarbeck Posts: 699 Member
    Hornsby wrote: »
    Humans aren't animals and animals aren't humans. Some don't think of them equally on the moral compass. Why is that a hard concept?

    What? Of course Humans are animals...We are right right there in the good old taxonomy: Kingdom Animalia. So yes, all Humans are Animals.

    Eat other animals or not....don't care. I do. My wife doesn't. Only thing I make sure is that 1) if we are going to eat meat, we don't waste and 2) my kids are fully aware that the animal was killed and what it was before it was packaged in a supermarket.