Based on genetics, I will either die of cancer or a heart attack. Nothing I can do about it; one or the other will likely get me and sooner than it probably should. If I were to go vegan and add one year (and I think that's optimistic) to my life, would my life be worth living to never again eat a burger, turkey dinner or a really excellent sausage pizza? I say no. If you could prove to me that by switching to a vegan diet I could add 10 years to my life, I might consider it. However, at some point you have to answer this question: when is quantity of life more important than quality.
One thing I have never understood about (for lack of a better term) militant vegetarians is their apparent intolerance of people who continue to eat meat. No one here has questioned NoFlash's commitment to a vegetarian lifestyle, only his facts. However, NoFlash has suggested that those of us who do eat meat are intellectually stunted. There is an old phrase that is seldom invoked anymore: "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." No matter what, no one will ever convince all people to do one thing. Can't happen. We just need to find a way to put up with each other on our short journey on Earth.

 

queenfan,

If I ever offended, I apologize.

You could try an experiment and take on a raw vegan diet for 30 days. See how much you miss that sausage pizza then. You might convince yourself of an extra ten years.

Peace!

 

All the quotes that you provide noflash are philosophical reasons for not eating meat.

From a physiological standpoint the human body can and does digest meat. A vegan diet has no advantage over a balance diet that includes meat.

A poor vegan diet can be as harmful as a SAD diet.

 

Here are a few more quotes from Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA.

“Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it.”
— PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk, in the September 1989 issue of Vogue, Sep 1989

“Humans have grown like a cancer. We're the biggest blight on the face of the earth.”
— Washingtonian magazine, Feb 1990

“Six million people died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses. [emphasis added]”
— The Washington Post, Nov 1983

“There’s no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They’re all animals.”
— Washingtonian magazine, Aug 1986

“I will be the last person to condemn ALF [the Animal Liberation Front].”
— The New York Daily News, Dec 1997

“There is no hidden agenda....Our goal is total animal liberation. [emphasis added]”
— “Animal Rights 2002” convention, Jun 2002

“I don’t have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn’t be harming anything.”
— The Washington Post, Nov 1983

“I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down.”
— "National Animal Rights Convention", Jun 1997

“Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.”
— Harper's, Aug 1988

“In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether.”
— Newsday, Feb 1988

“The bottom line is that people don't have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats... If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind.”
— Animals, May 1993

“One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild ... they would have full lives, not wasting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV.”
— The Chicago Daily Herald, Mar 1990

“I openly hope that it [hoof-and-mouth disease] comes here. It will bring economic harm only for those who profit from giving people heart attacks and giving animals a concentration camp-like existence. It would be good for animals, good for human health and good for the environment.”
— ABC News interview, Apr 2001

“Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works.”
— Ingrid Newkirk, in the April 8, 2002 issue of US News & World Report , Apr 2002

 

Some evidence that meat is eaten in India.

http://www.hindu.com/2004/12/20/stor...2003042000.htm

 

Some weak evidence that all animals get cancer.

"Scientists have studied the benefits of shark cartilage for many years and have found that sharks are unique in that they almost never get cancer."

http://www.olympianlabs.com/html/pro...D=2&prodID=290

 

Actually, I wasn't talking about my local Indian restaurant, I was talking about my many Indian friends, my two trips to and more than six weeks total in India spread over two decades, and my travels through a number of the different regions of that country. Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana--- Meat is everywhere. Sure, once in a while we could find an all-vegetarian restaurant, usually buffet-style, but I would have to describe those as somewhat infrequent. In many places you could ask for the meat or the veg menu. I was staying and travelling with Indian friends, so it isn't as if I didn't see the 'real' India, either.

In fact, the one striking thing about restaurants in India that may help me make my point best is this: every restaurant, almost without exception, contains a section on the menu for Chinese food. I know, it's weird. Why do they do that? I have no idea. You don't find many Indian restaurants in the US that serve Chinese food, but in India it's like appetizers or dessert or something, just another section of the menu. Ever been to a vegetarian Chinese restaurant? Doubt it. I don't think I have.

This is the context in which I was analyzing your comments. I'm not saying there aren't vegetarians in India- certainly there are. But to describe the whole country as vegetarian or primarily vegetarian, and to say that meat is not traditional there, is simply a mischaracterization. I say this despite your appeal to the excellent authority of Gandhi, one of my very favorite people in the world; he did espouse a vegetarian diet but despite his popularity and influence, he did not speak for them all. The diversity of India is so incredible- 14 national languages, multitudes of different religions and cultural traditions- that a diversity of diets is unavoidable.

 

Thanks for that inisght.

I will not disagree that you found much omnivourism in India, but you cannot ignore the countries ties to Hinduism and vegetarianism.

My short blanket statement was a quick response to some other short blanket statement to the effect of "people cannot survive ase vegetarians". I was trying to use Hindus as an eg.

I don't know your thoughts on wikipedia but from:http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarian

Religious and spiritual

A market in India sells tasty ingredients for a vegetarian diet.Most vegetarians in the world are Hindu. Hinduism and Jainism in general teach vegetarianism, while Buddhism may or may not. Without any specific religion, some people in the Western world also follow a vegetarian diet because it may deepen inner spiritual connections (for example, James Redfield). Mahatma Gandhi said that spiritual experiences are greatly enhanced on a vegetarian diet.

[change] Hinduism
Hindus teach vegetarianism as a way to live with a minimum of hurt to other beings. In today’s world, about twenty percent of all Hindus are vegetarians. There are approximately 200 million vegetarians in India, the world's largest population of non meat eaters. More vegetarians live in the South of India than in the North, because the North is colder. For yoga and meditation, it is wise to be vegetarian. Therefore, priests are definitely vegetarian.

The Hindu who believes in non-injury or nonviolence (ahimsa) naturally adopts a vegetarian diet. [1] It is a matter of conscience more than anything else. The Vedic and Puranic scriptures of Hinduism explain that animals have souls and the act of killing animals brings bad karma because the killer will suffer the pain of the animal he has killed in this life or the next. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami adds that when we eat meat, fish, fowl and eggs, we absorb the vibration of the creatures into our nerves. This promotes fear, anger, jealousy, confusion, resentment and the like. [2] The Manu Dharma Shastras state, “When the diet is pure, the mind and heart are pure.” Generally there is the belief, based on scriptures such as Bhagavad Gita, that one's food shapes the personality, mood and mind. [3]

 

'kay, but I still think your assertions are a bit like calling Chicago a Polish city. Sure, there are a lot of Polish people here- more than in any other city in the US, more than most cities in Poland, even- but you'd be ignoring all the other cultures of people in the city. If your figure is right and there are 200 million vegetarians in India, that's still less than 20% of the 1.1 billion people who live there. [side note; I was doing a google search on '20 percent of america' to try to find commonalities that we probably wouldn't use to characterize the entire country, and came up with this interesting page: http://www.fb.org/index.php?fuseacti...room.fastfacts. Apparently 20% of America's workforce is employed by the agriculture industry. I wonder how much of that is veg and how much meat, and how many jobs might be lost or even gained if there were a major shift in the American diet.]

I've been both in northern and southern India, and it may well be true that the proportion of vegetarians differs between the two regions, but I couldn't have testified to that. I also find the theory that cold weather has something to do with vegetarianism a little odd, given the fact that it takes more crops to feed livestock than to make vegetarian dishes, so you might expect more meat to be available in warmer areas with longer growing seasons.

 

Seems contrary to me. Eskimos (Cold) eat almost entirely meat, likewise laplanders, greenlanders (although less so), icelanders, and to a less extent Argintina, Chile, and a lot of Scandinavia. The veggie consumption seems to be tropic or sub-tropic (hot) India, Southeast Asia, Polynesian (Less so), etc.

I think it might have had more to do with each cultures' ability to store certain types of food in the climates they initially dwelled in than with immediate food supplies. Also, mobile civilizations developed (out of necessity) more concentrated forms of nourishment (Cheese, Yogurts, Jerky, dried fruits, etc.). The mongols lived in a hot climate, but developed dairy products and animal based foodstuffs due to their mobile (and militaristic) nature. Of course, the next step was not to concentrate and carry it, but to just take it from someone else!

...Back to that "Moderation" thingie.