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Vegetarians who eat fish are confused.

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Dear OP, contrary to what you think, not all pescetarians call themselves "vegetarians who eat fish". And certainly not all vegetarians do not eat meat because of reasons like animals have a heart, etc. I understand what you're trying to say, but please do not generalise your thoughts that way. I, for one, am a pescetarian and I am not confused about my dietary habits. Since I eat fish, I am not a vegetarian, and I certainly do not call myself one.
Original post by Abc1234x
Ohhh okayy..yeah i googled it- and you're right. :smile:


Now you know :smile: Do you eat eggs btw?
Original post by marcusfox
One of the major arguments against veganism being a natural diet is that it is not possible to bring up a very young child in a vegan lifestyle.


You keep repeating this point and I don't know where you're getting it from, except for a couple of news stories about parents who happen to be vegan being charged with neglect. Carnists get charged with neglect all the time. There are plenty of people bringing up happy, healthy vegan kids and I look forward to being one of them.
Reply 243
Original post by inspiration91
Now you know :smile: Do you eat eggs btw?


Yeah ...BUT now i can eat them without a guilty conscience :biggrin:
Do you?
Original post by Abc1234x
Yeah ...BUT now i can eat them without a guilty conscience :biggrin:
Do you?


Oh okay good :smile: Yeah I eat everything lol
Original post by the_alba
You keep repeating this point and I don't know where you're getting it from, except for a couple of news stories about parents who happen to be vegan being charged with neglect. Carnists get charged with neglect all the time. There are plenty of people bringing up happy, healthy vegan kids and I look forward to being one of them.


Carnists? get over yourself please.

The reason they are brought up as an example of neglect is because they try to force this particular unsuitable diet on their children who are too young to choose and too young to know any better. Therefore the fact that they are vegan parents is relevant to the neglect.

When you have found a couple of examples of 'Carnists' being charged with neglect because they only fed their child meat, be sure to let me know.

I suppose you've been brought up as a vegan from birth and not one animal product has ever passed through your lips either.
Original post by marcusfox
Carnists? get over yourself please.


How rude :lolwut:

Original post by marcusfox
The reason they are brought up as an example of neglect is because they try to force this particular unsuitable diet on their children who are too young to choose and too young to know any better. Therefore the fact that they are vegan parents is relevant to the neglect.

When you have found a couple of examples of 'Carnists' being charged with neglect because they only fed their child meat, be sure to let me know.


You have this wrong, but your prejudice isn't letting you see how. Only feeding a child a plant-based diet is not neglectful; starving it is. The media manage to yoke these two separate things together, which is irresponsible of them, because they have little to gain from challenging the stereotypes on which they base their stories. For example, the case of a ‘vegan child’ dying after being fed solely on soy milk and apple juice was covered as if the boy died of veganism. He didn’t, he died of having parents who thought he could live on soy milk and apple juice. That is not a vegan diet, that’s a death warrant. Duh. But at no point does the media point out that ‘soy milk and apple juice’ is not what vegans live on. Similarly with the case in France: the parents gave the baby clay baths instead of vitamins, and refused medicine; this too has zero to do with veganism. The parents clearly had problems, as do all parents who starve their children; but for the media, when a vegan parents neglects their child it’s somehow *because* they’re vegan.

Some Christians refuse to let their children receive life-saving medical treatment, but people tend to understand that most Christians don’t do this, just a mad fringe group who shouldn’t have children in the first place. The same applies here. I'm in touch with a lot of vegan families worldwide and the children I know thrive.

Original post by marcusfox
I suppose you've been brought up as a vegan from birth and not one animal product has ever passed through your lips either.

If only! :smile:
Original post by the_alba
If only! :smile:


Then your parents had the sense to feed you with a mixed diet containing all the nutrients a growing boy needs and leave you to make the decision when you are older for yourself.

When you are very young, a vegan diet isn't suitable and never provides adequate nutrients that you need in your first formative years.
Original post by marcusfox
Then your parents had the sense to feed you with a mixed diet containing all the nutrients a growing boy needs and leave you to make the decision when you are older for yourself.

When you are very young, a vegan diet isn't suitable and never provides adequate nutrients that you need in your first formative years.


I was a growing girl :smile: I've read the research and have concluded that it *is* healthy to raise children on a balanced mixed vegan diet such as these little nippers eat. If my child had specific needs or was a fussy eater I would of course be flexible, but not to the extent of giving them meat, or any product of industrial farms.

And the bit about 'waiting till they are old enough to make the decision themselves' always baffles me: by feeding kids meat you are making a political decision on their behalf, but just because it's a mainstream one it's not questioned. I never chose to chow down on dead animals when I was young, and frankly I find it a bit gross that I did, and that this decision was out of my hands. Obviously I enjoyed the food at the time, and the meat received a lot of positive reinforcement (McDonald's = treat for being good; Sunday roast = happy day with grandma). My diet was very bland and limited before I went to university. A vegan diet tends to be a lot more exotic and flavoursome than what most meat-eaters live on.
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 249
Original post by inspiration91
Oh okay good :smile: Yeah I eat everything lol


Haha, that sounds a lot like me
Original post by the_alba
I was a growing girl :smile: I've read the research and have concluded that it *is* healthy to raise children on a balanced mixed vegan diet such as these little nippers eat. If my child had specific needs or was a fussy eater I would of course be flexible, but not to the extent of giving them meat, or any product of industrial farms.

And the bit about 'waiting till they are old enough to make the decision themselves' always baffles me: by feeding kids meat you are making a political decision on their behalf, but just because it's a mainstream one it's not questioned. I never chose to chow down on dead animals when I was young, and frankly I find it a bit gross that I did, and that this decision was out of my hands. Obviously I enjoyed the food at the time, and the meat received a lot of positive reinforcement (McDonald's = treat for being good; Sunday roast = happy day with grandma). My diet was very bland and limited before I went to university. A vegan diet tends to be a lot more exotic and flavoursome than what most meat-eaters live on.


Hmmm, it's not a 'political decision' to choose to feed them a natural diet. From the Vegan Society website:

The only reliable vegan sources of B12 are foods fortified with B12 (including some plant milks, some soy products and some breakfast cereals) and B12 supplements.


Without industrial fermentation of the bacteria to provide the supplements and fortifying agents, you are relying on bacterial cross contamination of product. And the right bacteria at that. Not exactly the natural, healthy option that is being punted by most vegans.

The omnivore gets theirs through the food chain as they are meant to. Eggs and meat being good sources, and if you have an ethical dilemma, you can get eggs where no chicken was ever harmed.

I don't get it. You yourself said that you enjoyed eating meat. Let me ask you, how on earth do you go from a "bland and limited" diet to "exotic and flavoursome" by deciding to eschew animal products? This isn't a meatist thing, honestly, it just doesn't make sense to me.

Surely by having more choice, by which I mean animal AND plant based products, you can do just as much "exotic and flavoursome" as you can by choosing only plants, if not more so, as it means you have much more choice.

Of course some non-vegans don't eat particularly well. Quite a large number in fact, which is why we have such a big problem with obesity these days. But surely that's an argument for thinking about what you eat, not for being vegan?
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by marcusfox
Hmmm, it's not a 'political decision' to choose to feed them a natural diet.

Choosing to either encourage or reject the exploitation of nonhuman animals is always going to be a political decision, but I can very well see how most people wouldn't think of it like that. There is still some way to go to making people see that meat is a choice, not a given, and that the choice comes with some serious moral questions.

Eating a mixed diet is natural; my vegan diet is as mixed (at least) as the diets of healthy carnivores. I understand that the B12 thing can make people throw their hands up and say, ‘well, this isn’t natural, I’m not doing it’; I get that. For me, the choice between taking a supplement or exploiting animals is a no-brainer, but it’s not like that for most people. People look for excuses against veganism (or even vegetarianism), while making excuses for the many aberrations associated with the meat, dairy, and egg industries, which are themselves unnatural in many ways (most people don't have the means or the time to ensure that every animal product they use comes from 'happy', healthy, drug-free animals - and it's virtually impossible to do so anyway).

Original post by marcusfox
The omnivore gets theirs through the food chain as they are meant to. Eggs and meat being good sources, and if you have an ethical dilemma, you can get eggs where no chicken was ever harmed.


Please show me a chicken farm where the male population isn’t killed soon after hatching, and where layers aren’t slaughtered if they become ‘unproductive’. The egg industry is necessarily tied to large-scale death, even if the chickens are ‘organic’ (which itself is a misunderstood term). If I had my own chickens, and they were healthy, I would consider using some of their eggs for tortillas, perhaps.

Original post by marcusfox
I don't get it. You yourself said that you enjoyed eating meat. Let me ask you, how on earth do you go from a "bland and limited" diet to "exotic and flavoursome" by deciding to eschew animal products? This isn't a meatist thing, honestly, it just doesn't make sense to me.


You grew up in Ireland and you’re asking me this? :tongue: My partner (from Co. Wicklow) and I (British) both grew up on the standard dinner fare of most ordinary families: meat and two veg. Apart from the occasional spag bol, all the flavour we’d get was from the sauces we’d put on our meat. I thought that vegetarians ate the same, but without the meat (so just a bit of boiled potato and carrot, then).

But going veggie, and then vegan, woke me up to food and its possibilities. My family are still at their pork chops, but I’m cooking a huge range of foods, because just as having meat on the plate can make a domestic cook lazy (hence the meat and two veg model), taking out the meat forces you to get more creative. We now cook loads of East Asian and Indian food, Spanish tapas dishes, spicy rice dishes, along with the more usual things like pasta and pizza and chilli tacos and the like. I realise many meat-eaters do this too, but the point is that going from an ordinary meat-eating background to veganism opened up a world of flavour and experiment to both me and my partner, and that has been a really good thing.

Of course, at bad restaurants the situation is often quite the reverse, and we can be treated very badly. I go to a lot of academic conferences, and I’ll never forget how at the conference meal in Trieste last year, everyone got some creamy frutti di mare thing, whereas we (and the Kosher diners) we given a fistful of fries and a blob of raw mozzarella. I rofl’d.


Original post by marcusfox
Of course some non-vegans don't eat particularly well. Quite a large number in fact, which is why we have such a big problem with obesity these days. But surely that's an argument for thinking about what you eat, not for being vegan?


I agree that everyone should think harder about what they eat but not in an obsessive, control-freaky way, but certainly in terms of both general health and ethics. I also accept that some people, especially of the older generation, will never be persuaded to cut down on their meat. I’m a vegan for ethical reasons, not health reasons I do it because I’d like animal use to end (and I know that’s a pipe dream at this stage!) So to me there’s no real argument against being vegan, I see it as the least we humans can do for animals. That said, If you’d met me two years ago I’d probably have been tucking into a chicken baguette without even thinking about it, so I try not to get all uppity about people who eat meat, as I can remember doing it without thinking. But of course, I *would* like them to change, I can’t pretend that I wouldn’t. A lot of people assume vegans are *so* self-righteous and smug, but the feeling I get at a restaurant with my friends isn’t smugness, it’s sadness. But I know that I see what's on their plates differently from them, so I don't say anything. I just hope that one day they will see it too.
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by the_alba
Choosing to either encourage or reject the exploitation of nonhuman animals is always going to be a political decision, but I can very well see how most people wouldn't think of it like that. There is still some way to go to making people see that meat is a choice, not a given, and that the choice comes with some serious moral questions.


Written just like a true politician.

Original post by the_alba
Eating a mixed diet is natural; my vegan diet is as mixed (at least) as the diets of healthy carnivores. I understand that the B12 thing can make people throw their hands up and say, ‘well, this isn’t natural, I’m not doing it’; I get that. For me, the choice between taking a supplement or exploiting animals is a no-brainer, but it’s not like that for most people. People look for excuses against veganism (or even vegetarianism), while making excuses for the many aberrations associated with the meat, dairy, and egg industries, which are themselves unnatural in many ways (most people don't have the means or the time to ensure that every animal product they use comes from 'happy', healthy, drug-free animals - and it's virtually impossible to do so anyway).


And you're not making excuses against eating meat?

Original post by the_alba
Please show me a chicken farm where the male population isn’t killed soon after hatching, and where layers aren’t slaughtered if they become ‘unproductive’. The egg industry is necessarily tied to large-scale death, even if the chickens are ‘organic’ (which itself is a misunderstood term). If I had my own chickens, and they were healthy, I would consider using some of their eggs for tortillas, perhaps.


Well there you go, you said it yourself, the chickens you keep in your garden. If you care so much about animals, why not? Nevertheless, even eggs from such chickens would go agaisnt the very strict ethos of veganism.

Original post by the_alba
You grew up in Ireland and you’re asking me this? :tongue: My partner (from Co. Wicklow) and I (British) both grew up on the standard dinner fare of most ordinary families: meat and two veg. Apart from the occasional spag bol, all the flavour we’d get was from the sauces we’d put on our meat. I thought that vegetarians ate the same, but without the meat (so just a bit of boiled potato and carrot, then).

But going veggie, and then vegan, woke me up to food and its possibilities. My family are still at their pork chops, but I’m cooking a huge range of foods, because just as having meat on the plate can make a domestic cook lazy (hence the meat and two veg model), taking out the meat forces you to get more creative. We now cook loads of East Asian and Indian food, Spanish tapas dishes, spicy rice dishes, along with the more usual things like pasta and pizza and chilli tacos and the like. I realise many meat-eaters do this too, but the point is that going from an ordinary meat-eating background to veganism opened up a world of flavour and experiment to both me and my partner, and that has been a really good thing.


So you can't do as much with meat and plants as you can with just plants. That's a complete logical fail.

The whole point of your argument is to eat with more variety, I get that, but it does not follow from that that cutting out meat is the answer.

If you were to apply that argument to its conclusion, a poor mixed animal and plant based diet would become even more poor by cutting out the animal based stuff.

Original post by the_alba
Of course, at bad restaurants the situation is often quite the reverse, and we can be treated very badly. I go to a lot of academic conferences, and I’ll never forget how at the conference meal in Trieste last year, everyone got some creamy frutti di mare thing, whereas we (and the Kosher diners) we given a fistful of fries and a blob of raw mozzarella. I rofl’d.


Some restauraunts are bad, some aren't. They will want to cater to the majority of the population as well as offering a choice for vegans when they pop in. Naturally they will have more choice on their menu that suits the majority, unless their unique selling point is the vegan courses they offer. Such restauraunts are usually run by vegans, for vegans and will not offer any meat products. Still, nice to see the double standard there. Still not relevant to veganism/omnivorous argument though.

Original post by the_alba
I agree that everyone should think harder about what they eat but not in an obsessive, control-freaky way, but certainly in terms of both general health and ethics. I also accept that some people, especially of the older generation, will never be persuaded to cut down on their meat. I’m a vegan for ethical reasons, not health reasons I do it because I’d like animal use to end (and I know that’s a pipe dream at this stage!) So to me there’s no real argument against being vegan, I see it as the least we humans can do for animals. That said, If you’d met me two years ago I’d probably have been tucking into a chicken baguette without even thinking about it, so I try not to get all uppity about people who eat meat, as I can remember doing it without thinking. But of course, I *would* like them to change, I can’t pretend that I wouldn’t. A lot of people assume vegans are *so* self-righteous and smug, but the feeling I get at a restaurant with my friends isn’t smugness, it’s sadness. But I know that I see what's on their plates differently from them, so I don't say anything. I just hope that one day they will see it too.


Why sadness? Surely not for them, but the animals that were being killed for their food. Because I'm sure they are happy with what they are eating, and are fully aware that the meat didn't just magically appear, and that a chicken or other animal was almost certainly killed in the process.
Original post by marcusfox
x


I'm not sure why you're on the attack so much, but you're going round in circles here and trying to take me with you. My reason for not eating meat is that I don't think animals are ours to exploit. My lifestyle shows that it is a possible and positive choice. You're refusing to see any of my points, because you're spoiling for an argument without wanting to make any concessions at all or even just be civil. I make concessions ('I can see the argument for...'; 'I understand why some people might say...') and I think I've been fairly civil with you. I now see that you're poised to pick apart everything I say just for the sake of it, which is not a debate or a discussion, and is not anything resembling contructive. I could answer your points, but I don't feel like you're listening. Good luck (in the Irish sense).
Original post by marcusfox
Cat and dog meat is eaten in Switzerland and South Korea, and whilst the latter is not a western country, their society and quality of life is broadly equivalent to that in which we live. Whilst I wouldn't like someone to eat my own pet cat, I have no objection to humans eating cat, just as many people with pet farm animals like chickens wouldn't like people eating their specific pets, but don't mind people eating chickens.


Didn't know about Switzerland but I'm not sure what you go by as a western country since I have seen different criteria for those. I've heard of Israel being considered as a non-western country but never South Korea. The main thing which made me think about meat in general is why people object to eating specific animals and then harp on about the Japanese whaling or the Canadians seal culling when I thought it was people throwing stones from glass houses.

Original post by marcusfox
Well, regarding the death penalty, those campaigning for its reintroduction are not in as small a minority as are those who object to using animals as food. In addition, the human race as a whole would not be affected to as great an extent by using the death penalty to do away with criminals - as they do in many countries - if you read post 187, I have explained in detail why the whole world becoming vegan would be a total fail.


So, do you support the reintroduction of the death penalty since it was abolished against majority rule yes or no?

Original post by marcusfox
And if you apply a variant of Kant's Categorical imperative - what's wrong for all, is wrong for one.


I've not come across any of Kant's work so I'll have to read up on this.

Original post by marcusfox
Probably because of two factors - those who follow a vegan diet are in the minority and most vegan parents recognise that they won't be able to do it. Only when these parents are stupid enough to try to bring up their child on a strict vegan diet and inevitably fail, it is thus a rare and newsworthy occasion compared to the omnivorous majority. Secondly, it shows that it is a lot easier to screw up on a poorly constructed vegan diet than it is on a mixed diet where you don't really care about proportions and portions of what you eat.


You don't think the media consider veganism as deviance and enforce cultural hegemony on issues relating to veganism and animal rights in general?
Original post by the_alba
I'm not sure why you're on the attack so much, but you're going round in circles here and trying to take me with you. My reason for not eating meat is that I don't think animals are ours to exploit. My lifestyle shows that it is a possible and positive choice. You're refusing to see any of my points, because you're spoiling for an argument without wanting to make any concessions at all or even just be civil. I make concessions ('I can see the argument for...'; 'I understand why some people might say...') and I think I've been fairly civil with you. I now see that you're poised to pick apart everything I say just for the sake of it, which is not a debate or a discussion, and is not anything resembling contructive. I could answer your points, but I don't feel like you're listening. Good luck (in the Irish sense).


Which is the typical vegan philosophy. However, also typical of many vegans is the preachy "I'm so much better because of it" attitude, or at the very least trying to moralise your choices and feel sadness when others don't see it that way. Sadness that they could be so much better. Diet is a personal choice, and you shoud respect that.

Perhaps the best 'moral' example to follow is that of Jainism vegetarianism which doesn't involve the killing or suffering of any other creature, including bacteria, and yet they have a healthy natural diet including milk and dairy for complete nutrients and protein, as they have been doing for centuries.

Yet mainstream veganism eschews these eggs and milk as cruel, they say simply because of the conditions in intensive farming environments, yet even if the eggs and dairy were to match that compatible with Jainism, vegans would still decry it as 'exploiting animals'.

The whole point is not about exploiting animals, but about intensive farming. Vegans and vegetarians see the beef, pork or chicken on the supermarket shelves and weep for the victims. They see the PETA propaganda videos. Yet they will happily guzzle down on products stamped 'suitable for vegans' when they were produced by modern farming methods.

Crop agriculture, even if you exclude invertebrates, is devastating to small animals, reptiles, birds and mammals. The plough destroys burrows of animals living close to the surface and their young. Combine harvesters and other machinery kill some animals and destroy their cover. Predatory birds have learned this, and swoop in for the kill.

Yet all these animals that die to produce foods suitable for vegan consumption are somehow invisible, and therefore it doesn't happen. This reality has no effect on the vegan who can happily enjoy his or her food without any ethical dilemmas whatsoever, as long as it can be ticked off on the vegan approved list.

It's wrong to say meat eaters don't have sympathy for the rights of animals which should be grazing in fields, yet are confined to pens and battery houses. It is legitimate to challenge this. But the only way to get rid of these intensive farming practices would be to suggest that every country in the world were to control and reduce its population, and the needs for such vast quantities of food.

As for the rest, I've been very civil with you, yet you take it as some sort of personal attack? Why? There is really nowhere to go with the argument once you're done with "I think eating meat is a normal human function" and you reply "I think it is wrong to eat animals". We know you think it's wrong. It's not like anyone is going to come up with a new logical insight to change minds. There is no point in repeating that eating meat is wrong because it is entirely based on emotion.

And I don't see how it is a personal attack to point out the fact that if you can eat an 'exotic and flavoursome' diet on only plants, you can do just as well, if not better on meat and plants combined. The fact that some people are lazy and choose not to do so does not mean that they would be any better off if they were to go vegan.

The fact is though, that we are what we are, and we do human things. One of those is that our bodies and minds have evolved to be omnivores.
Original post by NDGAARONDI
Didn't know about Switzerland but I'm not sure what you go by as a western country since I have seen different criteria for those. I've heard of Israel being considered as a non-western country but never South Korea. The main thing which made me think about meat in general is why people object to eating specific animals and then harp on about the Japanese whaling or the Canadians seal culling when I thought it was people throwing stones from glass houses.


To some extent, vegetarians cry about animals on the supermarket shelves, but are happy with food that ticks the vegan boxes, even if it involves suffering and death in the fields where it was harvested. I believe we touched on Jainism a while ago, and I can't argue with their diet in the slightest. I would argue though if they tried to tell me why they were better than me because of it.

Original post by NDGAARONDI
So, do you support the reintroduction of the death penalty since it was abolished against majority rule yes or no?


No, simply because it is irreversible should it happen that a miscarriage of justice should occur. I don't see how this is relevant to veganism though. It is possible you are trying to argue the moral value of majority view in society, but there would hardly be as much of a majority as those who believe it is right to eat animals. Clearly, we hold human life in much higher regard than that of an animal, and also value the lives of some humans more than others. I don't see the problem with this.

Original post by NDGAARONDI
I've not come across any of Kant's work so I'll have to read up on this.

You don't think the media consider veganism as deviance and enforce cultural hegemony on issues relating to veganism and animal rights in general?


I think that the journalists as a whole will be omnivores, just as most professions selected from society without regard to their dietary preferences. They aren't writing an article on veganism, they are writing an article on how much easier it is to spectacularly fail to eat properly if you cut out what most humans the world over regularly eat. What reinforces the 'deviant' view is the overt 'militancy' of those participating in these particular vegan fails. If you look at these articles they are all militant vegans.
Reply 257
I think most pisitarians that do it for moral grounds do it on the grounds that fish dont feel pain rather than its creulto kill

Wether its been proven that fish cant feel pain or not is a different matter. Im vegetarian i just think its creul to kill painfree or not
Reply 258
Original post by velociraptor
I think it's utterly cruel of you to write with so many mistakes. My eyes are bleeding.


Sorry tablet (**** with touch keyboard), dodgy internet connection (keeps failing every two seconds so i have to rewrite replys) and im dyslexic, so ayee...
Original post by ed_sodium
Sorry tablet (**** with touch keyboard), dodgy internet connection (keeps failing every two seconds so i have to rewrite replys) and im dyslexic, so ayee...


Fair enough. I apologise

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