Vegan cooking class

[Youphoric]

It is why I go out of my way and pay more to ensure I am getting my food from somewhere that does not support such practices.

x2

Hooray for Whole Foods!

(Do any of you have those?)

There's 15 billion of them here.

[eo000]

I TRY to get the tortured fruits and vegetables. It tastes better knowing that their suffering is leading to mine. 

[Beefy]

I TRY to get the tortured fruits and vegetables. It tastes better knowing that their suffering is leading to mine. 

Both you and the fruit had it coming.

[BigDun]

The way to enlightenment is through compassion.

[Beefy]

The way to enlightenment is through compassion.

Or via the switch on the wall.

[Bishamonten]

It is not necessary to treat the animals the way they are treated, period.  It might be more cost effective, but then again I say that shouldn't be more important then showing that which we feast upon some respect.

If you really want to get down to it, it has become completely unnecessary to eat meat at all, as we have created so much synthetic food that meat is no longer necessary for its nutritional value.  So why do we continue to take the life of creatures when we don't have to?  Because we rationalize it.

Synthetics are expensive.  Again, I have a cheaper more natural way of getting the required vitamans and sustenance needed.  The removal of such a source is foolish to say nothing of it being based only on 'morality'.  Expensive food products at the exclusion of low-cost meat means families will go malnourished.  Some people may suck, but the choice to deny poor to borderline poor families the required nutrients for 'morals' lacks logic

And yes, all morality is subjective.  I find all forms of torture to be abhorrent, though I can see the merit of it in certain situations.  I do not find that the meat industries have a legitmate reason to torture.

Think about your dog.  Or your cat.  You know this animal well.  You know it feels pain and happiness and is quite self-aware.  We get upset every time we see a new story about pet abuse.  And yet this other animal abuse is somehow rationalized as being okay.  They might not be as smart as dogs and cats but they sure as heck know what pain is.  Even fish have had successful tests to prove they sense some pain.

Simply, falstaff is -mine-.  The choice to do with him is mine within the confines of the law.  As such, I've spent time connecting with him, training him, and bonding with him.  His species does not effect this - I have eaten dog.  Were I to spend time rearing a calf as a pet, I'd be unwilling to slaughter it.  But the definition stays the same:  He is a pet.  He is not being reared for food.

The fact that we take advantage of other species lesser abilities and then rationalize our abhorrent behavior towards them disturbs me greatly.  Humans suck.

Does that mean all meat-eaters are bastards?  No, though I bet many are for a variety of reasons.  But it does mean that as a populace we ought to at least have the respect to pay attention to how that food is making it to our table, and to not support unnecessary cruelty where it is found.

It is possible, I imagine, to live a happy, healthy life right up to the point where we blast the bolt into your head.

Cruelty for cruelties sake is both fruitless and undeniably 'wrong' and there are laws in place to limit and punish such actions.  However, you continue to fight for the 'moral highground' while ignoring the 'pragmatic ground' it is surrounded by. 

[Beefy]

Cruelty for cruelties sake is both fruitless and undeniably 'wrong' and there are laws in place to limit and punish such actions.  However, you continue to fight for the 'moral highground' while ignoring the 'pragmatic ground' it is surrounded by. 

There is nothing pragmatic about torture.  The bottom line does not make another creature's life worth less.

[Beefy]

Synthetics are expensive.  Again, I have a cheaper more natural way of getting the required vitamans and sustenance needed.  The removal of such a source is foolish to say nothing of it being based only on 'morality'.  Expensive food products at the exclusion of low-cost meat means families will go malnourished.  Some people may suck, but the choice to deny poor to borderline poor families the required nutrients for 'morals' lacks logic

I would say that synthetics aren't just expensive, they're prohibitively so.  My point wasn't that everyone should eat tofu for the rest of their life, just that each of us has a choice in the modern world.  Most people can choose to diet without the expense of being at something else's life.

And yes, even the poor can go out and hunt their food.  And they can kill it and skin and do whatever.  And none of it involves torture.  None of it rationalizes the improper care of the animal.  It is killed when it is needed to be.  Until then, no worries.

And no one can really own another life.  You can be responsible, but you can't own a life. 

[meredith]

What the hell are you two going on about?  I'd like to take this moment to attach one of my favorite insensitive comics.

So fresh!

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Beefy]

Actually, I want to retract something.

Torture can be pragmatic.  It's rare, but it happens.  Sad, but true.

Also, we don't have enough adult discussions around here.

[nishi]

If you really want to get down to it, it has become completely unnecessary to eat meat at all, as we have created so much synthetic food that meat is no longer necessary for its nutritional value.

i'm not sure what you're talking about here. what kinds of 'synthetic food' are do you mean?

we are omnivores. depending on your genetic makeup, some people are more or less able to do without meat in their diets. certainly, the typical american diet includes too much meat. since i know tibetans, i also know that many of them become quite ill on diets that don't include a certain amount of meat - i also know people who don't tolerate meat at all.

having spent a great deal of time growing up on farms and with farmers - farmers who ate what they raised, be it fruit, vegetable, or animal - i certainly understand and support the idea of treating animals for food well. you can treat an animal well without making it a pet.

and i think its important to support healthy treatment - including slaugtering techniques - for the animals we eat, just like i think it's important to support healthy treatment of other things we eat. 

bish makes a good economic point, though - there are any number of people in this country who cannot afford to shop at whole foods. at what point does raising the price of meat production so they are unable to afford it become unethical? i'm not saying it's worth torturing animals so people have cheap food. but i am saying that it's something to keep in mind. and yes, these people should also be eating fruits and vegetables and grains and all that - but they also get the cheap kinds with all the pesticides.

i think that meat production and distribution in this country is an enormously complicated issue. that doesn't make torturing animals right either. we have allowed enormous operations to take over all aspects of food production, meat and dairy and fruts and vegetables - certainly moving back towards treating food animals better would move us back toward smaller farming operations. although then you have to find people willing to run small farms and live in the rural areas where farms are.

one of the things that makes meat so cheap is the enormous number of illegal aliens that are employed in the meat packing industries. so there's that to consider as well.....

[nishi]

And yes, even the poor can go out and hunt their food.  And they can kill it and skin and do whatever.  And none of it involves torture.  None of it rationalizes the improper care of the animal.  It is killed when it is needed to be.  Until then, no worries.

the poor people where i live don't live anywhere near a place to hunt their own food. plus, it's hard to get there on a bus.

and if you don't think hunting involves torture, you must know people who never ever miss their mark.

[nishi]

also, for the record: tofu is not a synthetic food. it is made from soybeans, a totally natural thing that we grow huge fields of here in kentucky. tofu isn't any more synthetic than butter.

[Bishamonten]

FACE FACTS PEOPLE!  I have sat in this thread for three pages and not made one -anal- or -meat packing- joke!  NOT ONE!  I'm DYING HERE!

[nishi]

FACE FACTS PEOPLE!  I have sat in this thread for three pages and not made one -anal- or -meat packing- joke!  NOT ONE!  I'm DYING HERE!

you come sit by me.

[nallen]

Do you know I was a hard core Vegan for 7 1/2 years?

[nishi]

i don't know how anyone handles vegan. vegarian, yes. vegan - that's already hardcore. you don't have to be more hardcore than that.

plants fear you.

[Beefy]

and if you don't think hunting involves torture, you must know people who never ever miss their mark.

Yes, some miss.  I guess I don't equate that as torture so much because the objective isn't actually torture.  It's a kill.

But then, don't get me started on my hunting rant.

Also, I know tofu isn't synthetic.  I just used it because it was easy.

[nallen]

i don't know how anyone handles vegan. vegarian, yes. vegan - that's already hardcore. you don't have to be more hardcore than that.

plants fear you.

By hardcore I mean I didn't eat refined sugar, instead of say a person who was vegan say on the weekdays, but no the weekends.  I was serious.  (why I am not now is well, another long long story)
I hated plants. 

An interesting point to bring up in a cruelity-free lifestyle is inconsistent with organic food production. Organically grown foods use blood meal as feritilizer, making them escentually the product of animal exploitation. 

When you stand with a cruelity free lifestyle you embrace technology and progress.   As the population of the world grows there may well come a time when our current means of producing food can no longer feed the population.  At this time the rich will still eat as they always have, but the poor will not.  Asking them to "live off the land" is a recipe for ecological diaster.  Just look at fishing off the coast of New England.  Leaving things to the "natural ways" is lunacy, our population is already far beyond it's natural limit, and natural populations controls are viewed as being evils.   Embracing technology and careful planning is the only escape in the long run.

[nishi]

and if you don't think hunting involves torture, you must know people who never ever miss their mark.

Yes, some miss.  I guess I don't equate that as torture so much because the objective isn't actually torture.  It's a kill.

But then, don't get me started on my hunting rant.

Also, I know tofu isn't synthetic.  I just used it because it was easy.

a lot miss. or at least take more than one shot for the kill. and if, let's say, it's a person who could easily buy organic and cruelty free meat at whole foods - as many hunters are - if hunting is a sport rather than an economic necessity, and you only kill on the first shot 50% or, generously, even 75% of the time .... why is that not torture? the objective, as you say, or raising food animals is for food production isn't torture - the objective is food production. miserable conditions is a byproduct of poor methodology, as an animal suffering a lingering death due to a lung shot is a byproduct of being a mediocre sport hunter.

[eo000]

i thought everything in the universe tasted the same?

[Beefy]

Again, don't get me started on "sport" hunting.

[nishi]

Again, don't get me started on "sport" hunting.

no, i agree. i could rant all day on sport hunting. it doesn't even need quotes, that's what it is.

i'd be interested to know the percentage of hunters that actually need to hunt for food, vs. the number of hunters who eat what they kill because they like game vs. the number of hunters who eat what they kill simply because they killed it and that's part of the deal, vs. the number of hunters who either give away what they kill or hunt animals that have nothing to do with food whatsoever.

and there are lots of ways that we torture animals that have nothing to do with food production. deer have lost their predators and now often starve to death because they're over-populated. and we don't even eat them. we just torture them because we fucked up their homes and their system of checks and balances.

[eo000]

do you get more points for track runners?

[Gamplayerx]

My uncle hunts.  He's the only "good ole boy" I know.  He eats what he kills, not because he has to or because he hunts to support his family (he's the dentist in his town), but because he - it seems to me- get a kicks out of being able to tell people that he himself shot whatever the heck it is.

He took me skeet shooting when I was about 7.  My first shot (missed) put me on my ass and nearly dislocated my shoulder, so I sat in the car until the gun business was over.  I didn't gain any bonus points that day.