Thousands of Animals Slaughtered?

[Secret Chief]

My statements about satan's role in the corruption of creation have no relevance to the issue of whether or not my argument about sugar and vegan diets was logically sound and true.

Fair enough, but what relevance does satan have to this thread?

 

[Secret Chief]

If one is not keen on the logical fallacy of "argument by assertion" one should not make references to god, satan and "the pre-flood world," three very big assertions. If they are not relevant to the thread one should not bring up these assertions OR if one considers them to be relevant to the thread one needs to demonstrate the existence of said assertions. Otherwise it is just argument by assertion of your favoured delusions.

 

[icehorse]

You're strawmanning my argument with an ad hominem by falsely claiming I don't put a high value on math or science.

Ok, how many people do you think you could feed using the "high altitude" regions, and other marginal regions you keep mentioning? A million? A hundred million? A billion?

I think your math is off by orders of magnitude. But ultimately you're the one making the claims about how we could better use this land, so since you made these claims, I'll let you back them up.

You are falsely trying to claim your argument is based on math and science but mine isn't. But just because you claim that doesn't make it true just because you assert it's true.

No, I asked you what your values were. I said "if", because it's not clear based on your posts.

 

[Samantha Rinne]

Sacrificed animals, perhaps, but with animals raised for slaughter, the reclaiming is not just of "land," but also of food directly grown to feed the animals. Food that could otherwise be fed to human beings - or that could stop being grown altogether in favor of other, more human-consumption-friendly crops.

The only reason a human being could possibly "need" "animal based food" is if their locality is incapable of producing the completely viable alternatives to animal-based proteins like nuts and beans, and their society can't/wont' trade for such things.

If we all worked together, then localities that could produce the protein-heavy items like nuts and beans could trade to those who produce carbohydrate-heavy crops like potatoes and rice. And those who produce things like nutritional yeast and other bacteria-based yields could kick their production into overdrive, and expand their businesses for the production of those hard-to-get nutrients like B12.

The main point being - if we all worked together to insure that everyone got the various nutrients they needed, we could feed the world with far less work going into agriculture. As it stands, some countries (like the U.S.) feed animals the lion's share of agricultural produce. For example, the estimates are that potentially 800 million people could be fed with the vegetation grown to feed U.S. livestock alone.

Actually you're missing the point.

Most countries used to grow cattle on wild scrub land where grass only grew. These cattle were better for you, and allowed crap land to be used while people grow crops for food. Vegetarianism is not the proper model, it involves putting to death millions of cattle, then clearing large tracts of land for farming (losing animal habitats). Traditional farming is the answer.

People who only eat vegetables typically need to take multivitamins, and are missing certain key aminio acids. Plus, the grass fed model is less damaging to underground wildlife such as rabbits, snakes, and moles, not to memtion less trees are destroyed (providing haven for deer and such). In Australia, this is basically how they do things, just let cattle graze and then pick them up. Grass-fed beef is also healthier, and needs less hormones and antibiotics. Instead, most cows are on a feedlot, while we grow corn for them. Despite never moving from rhat spot, this is nasty meat (often supplemented with commercial waste like potato chips and chocolate nibs), and still not as fatty and delicious as wagyu or kobe beef.

 

[Twilight Hue]

What bothers you about animal sacrifice?

I think its over the waste of an animals life if it was arbitrarily discarded and never used.

 

[Harel13]

I think its over the waste of an animals life if it was arbitrarily discarded and never used.

I'll take your answer. I assume I'm being ignored by the OP, very likely because of his last "ban [insert religious subject]" thread. I would have liked to hear his view, considering he posts vague OPs. Oh well.

 

[Secret Chief]

People who only eat vegetables typically need to take multivitamins, and are missing certain key aminio acids.

Whichever vegetarian diet one follows (eg vegan, ovo, lacto...), in the "developed West" it is certainly possible not to need multivitamins and avoid missing any essential nutrients. B12, D, iodine etc can all be obtained through a varied and balanced diet. These days many foodstuffs are fortified with such things (for example iodine in plant milk).

 

[Augustus]

Why don't we all eat mung bean and lentil casserole? Seriously. Why not? The most important thing is not how your food tastes, but what it does for your body and health. Would you agree? Couldn't we all share a bounty of mung bean and lentil casserole if we were more conscious of what we ate as it affected or promoted our health and less concerned with how well it made our senses produce a pleasurable response?

I'm of the opinion that eating meat is good for your health though, and there is plenty of scientific evidence to support this.

I am also aware that you could say there are scientific studies that show benefits for vegetarian diets which is true, but lacking incontrovertible proof either way and given the terrible record of nutrition advice over the past century or so, I'll stick with the heuristic of what we've been doing longest.

 

[Tambourine]

I'm of the opinion that eating meat is good for your health though, and there is plenty of scientific evidence to support this.

There is also plenty of scientific evidence to refute it. But of course, you already said that you eat meat because you like the taste, so I don't really see the point of argueing over irrelevant details such as health benefits.

 

[Tambourine]

I have not made that claim.

I'm pretty sure nobody in this thread has made that claim, but I guess those strawmen won't fight themselves.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Actually you're missing the point.

What point is that?

Most countries used to grow cattle on wild scrub land where grass only grew. These cattle were better for you, and allowed crap land to be used while people grow crops for food.

You start out okay here - nothing really amiss that I can see... but then here comes the crap...

Vegetarianism is not the proper model, it involves putting to death millions of cattle

Say what? Putting to death millions of cattle?! What?? This is already happening... all day every day. What the hell are you going on about? The reality is also that WE (humans) created those cattle when they wouldn't have existed in the numbers that they do in the first place. Vegetarianism DOES NOT involve the slaying of ANY animals. Give me a damn break. All it would actually involve (if everyone were suddenly to go vegetarian) is continuing to slaughter the animals until they were at manageable levels for whatever other uses they had or for transition to the wild. And actually - our fault again here - the cows that exist today likely aren't even suitable for life in the wild. Completely our fault. We are to blame for both the number of cows in existence at this moment, and the state in which they exist - very likely completely unable to fend for themselves. Humans are to blame. "Vegetarianism" is NOT to blame. How ridiculous.

People who only eat vegetables typically need to take multivitamins, and are missing certain key aminio acids.

Simply not true. People who approach vegetarianism INCORRECTLY may have problems, but all you have to do (seriously, this is ALL of it) is make sure you eat a variety of vegetation, fruit, nuts and beans and then make sure you have a source of vitamin B12 - fortified cereals, the aforementioned nutritional yeast, or some form of vitamin (which I DO NOT take - EVER). I have been vegan/vegetarian for over 10 years. No vitamins. None. Nada. I eat a wide variety of vegetables and fruits - make sure I get nuts/beans/seeds in there, and then barely even rely at all on even fortified cereals or nutritional yeast. A lot of the processed stuff you can buy at the store contains varying amounts of B12 anyway.

The knowledge I have come to on this score is that most people ARE TOO PICKY to be vegetarian. They want to say "Oh... I don't eat spinach/asparagus/broccoli/artichoke/eggplant/insert-unpopular-vegetable-here". In other words... they are big BABIES. Whining, crying babies, who are keen on spitting out the vegetable-based baby-foods their mom tries feeding them and will only accept Hawaiin Delight. Freaking babies. Pshh...

Plus, the grass fed model is less damaging to underground wildlife such as rabbits, snakes, and moles, not to memtion less trees are destroyed (providing haven for deer and such). In Australia, this is basically how they do things, just let cattle graze and then pick them up. Grass-fed beef is also healthier, and needs less hormones and antibiotics. Instead, most cows are on a feedlot, while we grow corn for them. Despite never moving from rhat spot, this is nasty meat (often supplemented with commercial waste like potato chips and chocolate nibs), and still not as fatty and delicious as wagyu or kobe beef.

I don't doubt any of this... nor do I care. You seem to have missed my point - which was entirely that humans DO NOT require animal-based nutrition of any kind. Not in today's world, where the intricacies of vegetable based nutrition are known and can easily be managed by anyone willing to take a very little time, and not be picky eaters.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I'm of the opinion that eating meat is good for your health though, and there is plenty of scientific evidence to support this.

I am also aware that you could say there are scientific studies that show benefits for vegetarian diets which is true, but lacking incontrovertible proof either way and given the terrible record of nutrition advice over the past century or so, I'll stick with the heuristic of what we've been doing longest.

I, personally, have seen not a lick of any sort of health-related issues of any kind, having been vegetarian/vegan for over 10 years. Not a single thing. As I mentioned to another poster, my experience so far has informed me that the people who encounter issues with being vegetarian are not eating a large enough variety of vegetation/nuts/seeds/beans. They are trying to stick to "what they like", holding on to their childhood likes and dislikes, while simply cutting out meat. And I admit that that isn't going to work well for them. The takeaway there is: don't be picky. And some day, our very lives may depend on that exact advice.

 

[Rise]

Most of what you posted is already refuted by what I said prior. You either didn't understand the points I was making, or didn't read them.

Sacrificed animals, perhaps, but with animals raised for slaughter, the reclaiming is not just of "land," but also of food directly grown to feed the animals. Food that could otherwise be fed to human beings - or that could stop being grown altogether in favor of other, more human-consumption-friendly crops.

The problems with your claims:

1. Animals are often grazed on land that is not suitable for agriculture. So nothing is being taken away from food production in those cases.

2. In the vast majority of the world today, and historically, animals are never fed human edible plants like corn. It's not economically feasible to do so even if they wanted to. What happens in the USA is an inefficient abberation that doesn't represent how most of the world is growing their meat.

3. Your problem is that you talk as though this is the only way to raise meat, or even that it represents how most meat is raised. But it's not even true of the majority of beef in the US. Where the overwhelming majority of their growth is done off grass and scrubland - not corn feedlots. And those acres are very often not suitable to agriculture for a variety of reasons. You couldn't feed a cow only grains even if you wanted to. They'd die. That's why they can only handle getting fattened up for a short period before slaughter at feedlots.

Only things in the USA like poultry could said to be grown almost entirely based off grains. That's why other parts of the world can have trouble keeping poultry for eggs to supplement their diet - you often need a surplus of human edible food in order to keep them. You can feed poultry entirely off food and some yard waste if you generate enough of it, but you need a relatively large amount to support even a small number of chickens year round. So that's why large scale production has turned to grains.

So without access to eggs, eating grassfed animals ends up being an easier and more economical way to supplement your diet with what is lacking.

The only reason a human being could possibly "need" "animal based food" is if their locality is incapable of producing the completely viable alternatives to animal-based proteins like nuts and beans, and their society can't/wont' trade for such things.

There are many problems with your claim:

1. Nuts and beans don't give vitamin B12.

2. Most parts of the world don't have a plethora of nuts available for the average person's consumption. This is again another skewed perspective you have as a relatively rich westerner who can have nuts from every continent put on your plate every day, all year round, on demand. The bulk of most people's diets are grains and legumes for a reason. There isn't a lot of provision made for fruits, veggies, and nuts in most people groups around the world. For practical reasons of labor, land, ecology, and/or economics.

3. You will be malnourished of other nutrients and minerals if you don't replace the lack of animal protein in your diet with a range of veggies, fruits, nuts, and seeds. This is not a luxury most regions and people groups have the capability to do because of ecological, technological, and economic limitations. This is because the bulk of their diet tends to be grains, legumes, and/or starchy roots. That by itself doesn't give them what they need, but supplementing it with animal protein is one of the simplest way to shore up their weak nutritional areas.

4. There is no example of a long lived people group (defined as those that regularly have people living to be over 100 in relatively good health) where they don't eat at least some meat. This suggests it's not as easy as you think it is to get everything you truly need without animal protein.

Although I think raw veganism shows great promise as a path to longevity, when done right, it really depends a lot on living in the right climate or being economically well connected in order to pull off properly.

We also really don't yet have any examples of people who have gone the distance on raw veganism in order to assess whether or not it truly results in more longevity. I do know of some in their 80s or early 90s who are in great health and look relatively young for their age. But the real test will be whether or not they live to be around 100 or older. They also only switched to raw veganism later in life, past the age of 30. So we do have to question if that distorts the results. Because the early formative years are where a lot of nutritional deficiencies can manifest themselves strongly in debilitating conditions. Whereas adults can brush it off easier.

If we all worked together, then localities that could produce the protein-heavy items like nuts and beans could trade to those
who produce carbohydrate-heavy crops like potatoes and rice. And those who produce things like nutritional yeast and other bacteria-based yields could kick their production into overdrive, and expand their businesses for the production of those hard-to-get nutrients like B12.

There are many faults with your claim which are based in ignorance of the realities on the ground.

1. Not all ecologies can grow the variety of different plants needed.

2. If they can, they might not be able to grow sufficient quantity or quality due to various factors.

3. Many areas struggle to even meet their calorie needs, and don't feel they have the resources to spare growing plant based nutritional variety.

4. Most of the world isn't logistically well connected enough to receive food from halfway around the world. Likewise, they have no logistics network for export.

5. Most of the world doesn't have the capability to produce exports of sufficient value, or in sufficient quantity, to give them the money they need to engage in those trades. The ability to export means nothing without a willing buyer.

In fact, your argument only proves what I said earlier: That your privileged western position has given you an incredibly skewed belief about how people around the world should eat.

You represent a very small proportion of the world. How you get food delivered to your community, and how you pay for that, is an abberation against the norm the rest of the world lives with.

The main point being - if we all worked together to insure that everyone got the various nutrients they needed, we could feed the world with far less work going into agriculture.

Pie in the sky nonsense because you can't replicate what you enjoy in the west over the entire world by just decreeing it should be so. You need a realistic plan - not just platitudes.

It's not a realistic plan because how the west acquires it's food isn't realistic to begin with. It's inefficient, wasteful, ecologically unsustainable, and not resistant to catastrophe that would shock the delicate system we've set up. It's also entirely dependent on expensive and technologically advanced logistical infrastructure and machinery. Which is not something you can just pull out of your pocket and start passing out all over the world like candy.

As it stands, some countries (like the U.S.) feed animals the lion's share of agricultural produce. For example, the estimates are that potentially 800 million people could be fed with the vegetation grown to feed U.S. livestock alone.

There's several problems with this statement of yours:

1. Your statement is completely and utterly irrelevant to how most of the world gets their meat. Much the world is not growing grains to produce meat for consumption because it's not economical for them to do so.

2. The USA is a net exporter of crops even after feeding a large portion of it to our animals. This proves that we aren't wasting land that would otherwise be used to feed our people. We're using excess land for it.

3. Even if we grew crops on that land with the intent of exporting it, we'd have no market of buyers for it. Because the people who need it most don't have dollars. Because they don't export enough of significance in order to get their hands on those dollars.

For us to do what you advocate we'd have to have the US government pay people to go farm grain on this land. Not allow people to do anything else with it. And pay them lucratively enough so that they aren't lured away by other more profitable sectors of agriculture. And then after all that expensive subsidization, we'd then need to just go pass it out for free around the world because those people don't have sufficient money to pay for that expensive subsidized grain. Of course, our government would also have to pay transportation and communications networks to deliver it to those parts of the world, because they don't have the means or the money to do so either. Further adding to the subsidization burden.

Now we're getting more into political/social/economic territory than ecology. You might be a card carrying communist who actually believes that is a good idea, but why that would be a horrendous, harmful, and unsustainable idea is another topic of debate entirely. For the sake of keeping things on topic, I wouldn't try to get into that particular debate in this particular thread.

 

[Rise]

Ok, how many people do you think you could feed using the "high altitude" regions, and other marginal regions you keep mentioning? A million? A hundred million? A billion?

Before I must answer your question you first must demonstrate what relevance it would have to disproving anything I said.

If you try to answer that you will realize your question is not actually relevant to what I argued.

I think your math is off by orders of magnitude.

What math exactly? Wrong in what way exactly?
You haven't put forth any argument of substance against anything specific I've said.
You haven't even quoted specifically what you think you're trying to take issue with.

That's the problem I identified with your previous post. You're just stating I'm wrong and the math is on your side but you aren't quantifying or qualifying any specifics about what exactly you think is wrong with anything I said or why.

That's why you're guilty of the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.

You need to give specific reasons why you think I'm wrong, not just claim I am and claim "science and math" are on your side without ever making any attempt to demonstrate why you think the math and science is supposedly on your side.

But ultimately you're the one making the claims about how we could better use this land, so since you made these claims, I'll let you back them up.

I'd be happy to back up any specific claim I've made (That is, if I haven't already. In many cases I already have).

But in order for me to do that you first must be able to cite what specific claim you want backed up.

You're talking in such vague generalities that it's not even clear what specifically you are trying to claim is wrong.

 

[Rise]

If one is not keen on the logical fallacy of "argument by assertion" one should not make references to god, satan and "the pre-flood world," three very big assertions.

You don't understand what an "argument by assertion" is.
Argument by assertion - RationalWiki

Stating something as though it's true is not by itself a fallacy.

It only becomes a fallacy when you try to argue against someone's point by merely asserting it is wrong, or merely asserting something contrary to what they said, without attempting to give valid arguments or facts to support your assertion.

Your assertion by itself does not constitute a valid counter argument. Which is why trying to use an unproven assertion as a counter argument is a fallacy.

None of the things I posted about the Bible you are referring to fall under the category of an assertion fallacy. Because none of those statements I made were being used as evidence to support my arguments about ecology.

You won't be able to post a single quote that supports claiming I committed the fallacy of assertion with regards to referencing things in the Bible as true. If you tried I would be able to demonstrate why that specific quote doesn't fall under that fallacy.

 

[Piculet]

There is also plenty of scientific evidence to refute it. But of course, you already said that you eat meat because you like the taste, so I don't really see the point of argueing over irrelevant details such as health benefits.

You mean there's scientific evidence that proves the claim that eating meat is good for your health, is false? I demand evidence.

 

[Rise]

You start out okay here - nothing really amiss that I can see... but then here comes the crap...

They made a valid counter point and you gave no valid response to it.
Simply calling it "crap" doesn't disprove it.

Your point stands disproven unless you can offer a valid counter argument to it.

You ignored the entire main point they made. Which was the same point I also made. And then simply avoided it and went on to argue about other issues that really aren't that relevant to the core issue you ignored.

Say what? Putting to death millions of cattle?! What?? This is already happening... all day every day. What the hell are you going on about? The reality is also that WE (humans) created those cattle when they wouldn't have existed in the numbers that they do in the first place.

If you're talking about that specific breed of bovine - maybe. But if you're talking about the existence of millions of bovines in the USA in general, then your claim is false.

It's estimated there could have been more bison in North America in 1600 than there are cows in North America today.

Basically all we did was kill off one type of bovine and replace it with another type.

Massed herbivores roving the landscape have always been a fixture of history and ecology.

If you removed humans from the equation, there would be more bovines than there are today as they multipled and spread over the landscape of the entire earth.

Because the farmland, public lands, and cities would provide for more pastureland, and there would be no hunting pressure from humans. Yeah, there would be hunting pressure from carnivores, but historically they have never killed enough bovines to prevent them from increasing in numbers. It's humans who have historically had the capability to make bovines extinct off a landscape. As with the Bison of North America.

People who approach vegetarianism INCORRECTLY may have problems, but all you have to do (seriously, this is ALL of it) is make sure you eat a variety of vegetation, fruit, nuts and beans and then make sure you have a source of vitamin B12 - fortified cereals, the aforementioned nutritional yeast, or some form of vitamin (which I DO NOT take - EVER).

You've missed the entire point that most people in the world don't have the luxury of engaging in that kind of diet, for all the reasons I already gave.

That's why they are dependent on animal protein to make up the holes in their nutrition.

It is an arrogant and narrowly ignorant perspective to think these people slaughtering animals in poor and undeveloped lands should just get over it and decide to eat like you do.

The knowledge I have come to on this score is that most people ARE TOO PICKY to be vegetarian. They want to say "Oh... I don't eat spinach/asparagus/broccoli/artichoke/eggplant/insert-unpopular-vegetable-here". In other words... they are big BABIES. Whining, crying babies, who are keen on spitting out the vegetable-based baby-foods their mom tries feeding them and will only accept Hawaiin Delight. Freaking babies. Pshh...

You're also showing the ignorance of your narrow perspective when you describe what you think is the main barrier to others going vegan. You're describing an exclusively western issue.

You have no idea what the realities are of people around the world living a subsistence lifestyle which makes them dependent on meat to survive. They have real ecological, economic, and technological barriers (which I've already talked about) that prevent them from eating the way you do as a relatively rich westerner.

I don't doubt any of this... nor do I care. You seem to have missed my point - which was entirely that humans DO NOT require animal-based nutrition of any kind.

I already gave you a lot of reasons why they do require it around the world, and have historically required it.
You haven't disputed any of those reasons.

 

[Piculet]

Whichever vegetarian diet one follows (eg vegan, ovo, lacto...), in the "developed West" it is certainly possible not to need multivitamins and avoid missing any essential nutrients. B12, D, iodine etc can all be obtained through a varied and balanced diet. These days many foodstuffs are fortified with such things (for example iodine in plant milk).

She did say typically. I don't know statistics, but have heard it said that most vegetarians are not getting all the nutrients they need from their food. False?

 

[Rise]

Fair enough, but what relevance does satan have to this thread?

If you took the time to go read the context of those statements, it should become apparent to you what their relevance was.

I'll tell you what though: If you pull up a specific quote of something I said about satan in this thread, and you can't figure out what it's relevance is to the discussion based on the context in which you find that quote, then post that quote and I will be happy to explain it's relevance to you.

The last time you tried claiming something I was arguing wasn't relevant I disproved your claim and demonstrated where the relevance entry point was.
You didn't try to dispute that but just ignored it after I proved you wrong.

So now you're trying the same tactic, apparently not learning from your first mistake.

 

[Tambourine]

1. Your statement is completely and utterly irrelevant to how most of the world gets their meat. Much the world is not growing grains to produce meat for consumption because it's not economical for them to do so.

Do you have any data on this?
What data I could find does not distinguish between land use for grazing, and land use for growing feed crops.