The writer of the letter "Vegetarians are Too Pushy about their Lifestyle" [Nov. 4] stated that most of the vegetarians he knows are "excessively pale and overweight." He needs to widen his circle and get out more. Science tells us that, on average, vegetarians weigh 3 to 20 percent less than meat-eaters. Vegetarians also experience lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc., but the letter-writer said he didn't see much advantage to being a vegetarian.
Vegetarian and vegan athletes include Milwaukee Brewers slugger Prince Fielder, NBA guard Salim Stoudamire, four-time NBA champ John Salley, former NFLers Desmond Howard and Ricky Williams, NHL star George Laraque, track stars Carl Lewis and Edwin Moses, Pro Bowl tight end Tony Gonzalez, Ultimate Fighter Mac Danzig, and champion ultramarathon runner Scott Jurek. None strike me as either pale or overweight.
Other well-known vegetarians and vegans include Alicia Silverstone, Paul McCartney, Joan Jett, James Cromwell, Jorja Fox, Kevin Nealon, Emily Deschanel, Ellen DeGeneres and Moby, just to name a few. They all look pretty healthy to me.
I'd be happy to keep my vegan lifestyle to myself and leave the flesh-eaters alone, but their lifestyle is killing animals, killing the planet and killing people. I can keep silent and ignore the inevitable demise of the planet by meat-eaters, or I can speak up to help change things for the better. I choose the latter.
— Terri David
Asheville
You forgot: Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, Jim Jones, and Charles Manson. I didn’t want your list to be incomplete. :)
Jason, you left out a few more flesh eaters: Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, and Monica Lewinski.
Meat eaters usually just are not thinking about what they are eating. Especially hotdogs and sausage. Would anyone eat them if they knew they contained organ meats, anuses, colon skin tubing, genitals, eye balls,and such. If meat eaters want to see where their food of choice come from, take a trip out to a slaughterhouse sometime. Boy what a fitting name that is. Most people with an average amount of sympathy will find the experience beyond disturbing…downright cruel and disgusting. Yet we buy neatly packaged meat, even at places like Greenlife and Earthfare, which are supposed “healthfood” stores.
There is an old veggie saw that bears repeating. It is simple, straight forward, and true:
MEAT IS MURDER.
Why does Stewart David seem to have pre-emptive access to opinion/letters columns of the MX? He and his pack of PETA-pals are clogging the arteries of mountain expression. Last week I had to switch off 88.1FM as he started bleeding onto the airways. I can understand his fear of animals. I’ve been kicked by a horse, stepped on by by cattle and pecked by poultry. Frigg’n plants just stand there before the slaughter/harvest. I like food that can fight back. Back to the point. Let’s give Dave “meatless” Stew-art his very own MX PETA page every week. Then, we that choose to can, skip his manure and read about our neighbors other concerns.
Thats funny, like being a vegan excuses you from murder, how do you think they gather the grain? Those machines kill the field mice that inhabit the fields and other creatures including bugs.
Get over yourself you dont eat meat, good for you. What else you want, your YOUR lifestyle don’t expect everyone to embrace yours because you try to act you really care.
Asheville Dweller, LOL, are you serious about moral equivilency between being a vegetarian and a meat eater? Obviously you are joking. To hide your subconscious guilt at being an accessory after the fact to the murder, dissection and consumption of said dead body parts of other warm blooded mammals like cows and pigs and sheep? And God forbid, BABY cows and sheep. The difference here, for those who don’t understand you are joking, is that field mice are killed by accident. Cows are killed on purpose so they can be consumed by people with perverted taste buds.
I’ve been a vegetarian for many years. I never think of eating “meat”. Not only don’t want it, but the thought of eating it is cause for revulsion. I enjoy good tasting “crueltry-free” and healthy foodstuffs. I am very happy living this way. I have plenty of energy and health, and mental clarity. It is not only NOT necessary to eat animal body parts for nutrition, but vegetarians are healthier not having all that yuk clogging up their systems and putting them at risk for heart disease, stroke, or colon cancer.
I suggest meat eaters give a vegetarian diet a try for at least 2 weeks. I think you’ll find that you feel better, and save money at the grocery checkout line.
Meat eaters are not killing the planet or people.
mtndow,
I was on WNCW, 88.7, not WCQS, 88.1. If you know anyone who has an open mind and would like to hear why environmentalists don’t eat meat, here’s a link to the show, which aired on 11-22:
http://www.oursoutherncommunity.org/showarchives.htm
You need to calm down and quit making silly assumptions. I’ve been around animals all of my adult life, and have rescued and cared for goats, horses, cows, chickens, pigs, and turkeys. I’m not fearful of them, I just belive in compassion. You seem to be filled with fear…of change.
[b]I suggest meat eaters give a vegetarian diet a try for at least 2 weeks. I think you’ll find that you feel better, and save money at the grocery checkout line. [/b]
Right, because “meat eaters” eat nothing but meat, 24 hours a day.
The average progressive meat eater in Asheville eats meat 3 times a day, with each meal. That adds a hefty increase to the checkout bill. If you leave out the Meat (dead animal body parts), the bill is noticeably lower, even with the selection of organic veggies and fruits.
Why is it that so many of us young “keep Asheville weird” progressives want “the man” to change to be green, to embrace socialism, etc, yet we don’t want to change our own lifestyle to cut down on our own carbon footprint? The raising of food animals, their slaughter, and “processing”, leaves an enormous carbon footprint as Al Gore and Stewart David have pointed out. Let us young hip green progressive do our own part to lessen the carbon footprint on mother earth by not eating the flesh of other animals, which is like the most silly thing to do.
We can do it! Yes we can!
Progressive Meat eater oh that is classy . . . Got to work that word in whenever you think of good ol Narrowminded Asheville.
Yes, I bet this person knows all about the average meat eater in Asheville NC. And I bet that he knows how many veggies that person consumes, because yes Meat Eaters eat veggies too.
How about this, how about you go on not eating meat and I go along eating my meat and vegtables and you can get off your “im better then you” high horse because, your really not.
Peacewarrior, your posts are as ridiculous as this article.
The difference in a nutshell: When a meat eater hears about someone else not eating meat, they usually think, “OK by me. To each her own.” When a strident vegetarian doesn’t want to eat meat, they often don’t believe other people should be allowed too, either. (Sounds a bit like Big Brother-in-Training to me….)