I was amused by the clearly tongue-in-cheek letter from the lady threatening to eat a Big Mac [“Fries With That?”, Feb. 28] if some vegans didn’t stop writing their drivel about the joys of eating veggies. Put your hand on the organic carrot, and be saved.
There was a [subsequent] firestorm criticizing her for advocating animal cruelty and being socially and ecologically irresponsible. Oh, gimme a break!
I have a few questions for these animal-cruelty types:
1. Why, when talking about your dietary “religion,” do you come off as supercilious, patronizing and condescending? It is not going to get you many converts.
2. Do you ever criticize the cougar when she drops on a deer from a tree branch and rides him for a quarter-mile, then wrenches his neck; or the falcon, dropping out of deep space on the duck and riding it to earth before tucking in?
3. What’re we gonna do, arrest these beasts? Oh, you say, we’re socially, spiritually, ecologically conscious and should be more responsible than the beasts. Horse apples! We, too, are a part of the natural process.
4. Why don’t you worry about the cruelty of your own species to others of the same? You are like the church (mentioning no names) that converted a small, hunter-gatherer tribe of Native Americans to Christianity and an agrarian way of life. All the tribe died out, but this was considered a “victory” because all the “Indios” were converted.
Now, for the how-the-horse-ate-corn department:
1. Any responsible biologist will tell you that humans are omnivores with a sharp tendency towards carnivory. Tools found in archaeological digs were not made for spearing veggies, but for getting maximum protein with minimum effort.
2. Humans’ closest relative, the chimpanzee, is not strictly vegetarian. Chimps actually hunt small gazelles, baboons, monkeys … .
3. People who eat meat are not trying to sponsor cruelty. Many of them are animal-rights activists in one form or another.
4. If you want to make things easier on animals, try to get the places that kill them to be more humane about it. Don’t try to get people to stop altogether. It ain’t happening.
5. Eating meat is not necessarily unhealthy. I know a woman who is 101 years old, still active, and has eaten meat every day of her life.
The flame letters have been out of line and abusive. I don’t wish to abuse anyone. I am just a nice guy who likes chili con carne and a hamburger cooked medium.
i must add that studies prove that not eating meat will lead to physical impudancy as well as personality, as the rest of us so often have to tend with when you realy dont find a meat eater going about harrasing the vegans about lack of sex drive….. eat some flesh, stand upright and thank the cave man for killing the animals needed to feed, clothe and pretty much helped us evolve.
In The Scientific Basis of Vegetarianism, Dr. William Harris analyzes hundreds of studies and concludes that the evidence is irrefutable that eating meat leads to cardiovascular disease, various cancers, diabetes, osteoporosis, and other illnesses-a $123 billion cost directly attributable to meat-eating, and this is a conservative figure, as it doesn’t even include costs attributable to lost productivity and premature death. It also doesn’t include costs attributable to the 60 to 70 percent of food poisonings (including 6,000 deaths) that are linked to meat intake or the ill effects on human health of consuming animals who have been pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. In fact, the U.S. surgeon general indicates that 69 percent of U.S. deaths are diet-related.
Nutritional researcher T. Colin Campbell, who studied exhaustive data collected from thousands of people over the course of 10 years, concurs: “The vast majority of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and other forms of degenerative illness can be prevented simply by adopting a plant-based diet.”
Additional studies tell us that vegetarians live, on average, 6 to 10 years longer than meat eaters and suffer from heart disease half as freguently.
So my question is, if eating meat is so natural, why will it shorten your life and make you sick? You can point to the spears of cavemen all you want, but the fact is that your diet is making you fat, sick, and killing you off at a younger age. If either of you can point to medical data that refutes this PLEASE DO, because in all the years of researching vegetarianism I haven’t come accross any.
http://www.beyondveg.com/cat/frank-talk/index.shtml
A very good web site “debunking” (their words, not mine)the vegetarian way of life. Lots of evidence, none of it anecdotal, all of it backed up by data.
Too much of anything is too much. Many people do not eat a balanced diet. Of course if you look at the Inuit (formerly Eskimo), they almost never ate veggies in the old days,because there were none to be had. Their former name came from the Chippewa “Ayooskemau”, meaning “Eaters of Raw Meat”. One guy in the ’60’s became famous for a “high protein low carbohydrate diet”, taken from these people. Most of them were healthy into old age.
I spent over an hour on the web link you provided reading up, and aside from anthropological data about hunter-gatherer societies, the site uses 90% of its space to denounce raw food vegan diets, almost nothing about vegetarianism. As far as the data you mentioned, I found lots of stories of people who rejected the raw foods movement but not a single shred of evidence rejecting my initial claim that meat will make you fat, sick, and kill you. Not one shred of data casting doubt on a well balanced vegetarian diet as the optimal diet for a human being. I would suggest you actually read the site before claiming “Lots of evidence, none of it anecdotal, all of it backed up by data.”
As far as your “stories” go, I’m sure there are people who have smoked for years and seem to be in good health, or alcoholics who live until they’re 90, these people are called statistical anomalies whose actions do not reflect the reality for 98% of us. I asked for medical studies, dietary data that would refute my claim that meat will make you fat, sick, and eventually kill, while a plant based diet will allow you to live, on average, a long and healthy life. Surely you can come up with one comprehensive study if you were right and I was wrong???
And I have one more challenge, if my eating nothing but a plant based diet is so unhealthy, then I challenge any of you to eat nothing but meat for 3 months, while I eat my plant based diet, and we’ll meet for a 2 mile run. If meat is as great as you say it is you should destroy my punny vegan self, shouldn’t you? Any takers??
Boulderjf, shut up. Just shut your stupid mouth. “I challenge you….” Blah, Blah, Blah! What is this, a penis measuring contest? Alex is truly a nice guy who likes what he likes and is certainly sick and tired of hearing abusive and self-righteous people like you talk down to others. Yes, there might be empirical evidence for pro-vegetarianism. Yes, it might be better for a person to have a vegetarian diet. However, you and all these other “liberal thinkers” are not open to anything else but your own ideas. I fully salute Alex in speaking his mind and I think the majority of Asheville would appreciate you at least giving him a little respect on his opinion rather than lamblasting him with your “any takers” threat. C’mon man, give us all a break.
“Yes, it might be better for a person to have a vegetarian diet.”
Corey on behalf of vegetarians all over the Asheville area, I humbly accept your defeat.
And although I never mentioned the liberal/conservative debate, as this is essentially a dietary argument, I will say thank you for proving another suspicion of mine. Conservatives know how to pick fights, they just have no concept of victory (Iraq anybody?)
A few things here boulderjf:
“liberal thinkers” does not mean liberal politics, it simply implies that a person thinks outside the box. I applaude you for thinking outside the box. It is what makes this country go ’round.
This humble acceptance of your victory? There is no victory over me or anyone else. I wrote that letter because I thought you challenging someone to a race on a blog site was quite pompous.
You made great points in your letter up until you started measuring penises with your angry “any takers” threat. I think people might take people like you more seriously if you were to simply lay off the testosterone.
Again, well written letter sir, however lay off the threats.
By the way, I too am a vegetarian. I am also a registered Democrat who does not support the war in Iraq.
Jade (Boulderjf), on behalf of liberal meat eaters all over the Asheville area, I would humbly point out here it’s the militant vegetarians picking the fight here.
Studies showing that people eating crappy diets high in carbs, poor quality meat and not enough vegetables have higher rates of heart disease are not really the point here, are they?
I mean, is that what you’ve got to call us immoral?
Easy, folks, easy. I am indeed a Liberal, and totally against the (undeclared, illegal, immoral, badly managed) war in Iraq (Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam, after all). As the author of this letter, I was just trying to give back to the Vegan/veggie community who reacted to the letter threatening to eat a Big Mac.
First, I will not take you up on your challenge; I grew out of challenges long ago. Besides, I also learned long ago that there is no such thing as a “fair fight”, so I rarely fight, and if forced into it, will not fight “fair”.
As to diet, why the anger and near threats? I mean, are you really wanting a 2 mile run, or something else? Honestly, you don’t sound like a peace loving person to me. Please pull in your horns. Plus, I simply refuse to eat nothing but meat for any length of time. I am not adapted to such a diet, and do like my veggies. Still more, I do not deride your dietary ways, I am a live and let live person, so why can you not be? When I can afford it, I try to buy organic, free range, humanely raised meat, dairy and egg products, and sign every petition I can find that promotes humane treatment of domestic animals.
Please don’t preach to me. And Johnny and Cory, thanks for your support; um, can you maybe be nice? Um, ah, there probably is a nice way of telling someone to “shut your mouth” without offending them. I probably offended them enough… (grin, wink).
I have some vegetarian friends, and even one self proclaimed vegan, but they eat fish????
I don’t care what they eat, or not, but when they assume they have the privilege of telling me what I should eat, then I draw the line, and have made that perfectly clear to them. If that ends a friendship (it never has), they they weren’t friends to begin with.
Your “choice” is affecting all living things in a direct fashion. Eating meat is literally destroying the planet on which we live and the evidence is beyond doubt. You do have a choice to live as you see fit, you do not have a choice to destroy the planet on which all of us depend.
Before we had a language, our species was eating meat, then we discovered fire, and the meat got even better. Tonight we enjoyed the heck out of smoked pork shoulder that we just had for dinner, yummy, and it is only in your distorted view that this is destroying the planet. I am so sick of people making up ‘tall tales’ in some vain attempt to justify their beliefs.
Vegetarian: Old Indian word meaning ‘poor hunter’