I seriously think I'm becoming a carnivore because of this thread.

Now THAT will be unhealthy.

Unhealthy or not, death by scurvy is just the coolest. I mean, why do you think pirates are so popular?

Not if you believe in the Atkin's Diet.

There is nothing cool about scurvy. Believe me.

Isn't Atkins about eating whatever you want and losing weight? I don't think it was about eating only meat.

As far as I know there is not a single living creature that can live on meat alone. It doesn't have enough vitamins and stuff.

I can't understand how some of you can defend vegeterianism because it's unnatural or savage, when the world's animals have been feasting on each other for as long as we can tell. AND, then you'll go ahead and defend something such as homosexuality with the statement that since the animals have been proven to do it, it is natural.

You can't have one without the other. Some of you need to really step back at take a look at what you're saying, because it's entirely hypocritical (this wasn't intended at any individual in particular, I just find it really amusing).

Alcar...

Wait... are you homophobic??

And i really think that Vegetarianism is a bad thing... I mean, if it's because of the thing they put in meat so that it doesn't rot as fast, just buy some ecological meat... If it's because of religion... Well i never heard of a religion that tells you not to eat meat O.o...

Simple answer: vegetarianism sucks. Eat meat you pussy.

No way. I believe homosexuality is natural. All I was saying is that some people will defend two issues on one basis - but that basis will be one where they agree with it one day, but don't the next.

I mean, how can you say (EXAMPLE) homosexuality is right / natural because the animals do it, but then turn around and say that eating meat from animals is wrong, EVEN THOUGH the animals do it.

Alcar...

Thats how humans work, Alcar. Get used to it. Stupidity is slowly taking over the world, so you better be ready for it.

Being vegetarian is fine, it's not in any way unhealthy if you watch what you eat and make sure you get all the vitamins and stuff you need. The reasons for being a vegetarian can be questionable, but are no reason to presure someone to go back to eating meat. After all, it's not hurting anyone.
Veganists are a whole diffrent story though. Not only don't these people eat meat. They don't want anything to do with anything that came from animals, including milk, cheese, leather, ect. That seriously cuts down on the stuff you can eat, and can thus be very unhealthy.

Could you elaborate on the meaning of that post for me?

Carnivorous reptiles only eat meat. Hence the use of the word carnivorous.

You mean snakes and the like? The kind of reptiles that eat prey that eat green food?
Carnivor doesn't automaticly mean they eat ONLY meat. Sure, they won't eat a carrot, but they get the vegies from the stomachs of their natural prey. Thats why you will never see one carnivor eat another.

Example: A big cat such as a tiger is concidered a carnivor because it eats meat. Yet, when it kills a prey it will always start eating from it's stomach first because there are vegies in there from the victims last meal. That way, without realy knowing it they still get their vegies in.

That same principle goes for pretty much every animal as far as I know, including most bigger reptiles such as snakes and lizards and stuff.

First of all, most predatory animals start eating their prey's stomachs first because it's one of the softest and virtually bone free parts of the body. N O T because they have some deep urge to consume partially digested plant matter.

Second of all, reptiles get the vitamins and such that the prey items body has ALREADY digested and processed.

Don't step to me, son.


Oh, and for the record, the dictionary defines a c a r n i v o r o u s as:

"Main Entry: car·niv·o·rous
Pronunciation: kär-'niv-(&-)r&s
Function: adjective
1 : subsisting or feeding on animal tissues
2 : of or relating to the carnivores —car·niv·o·rous·ly adverb —car·niv·o·rous·ness noun"

When you said "Carnivor doesn't automaticly mean they eat ONLY meat." I believe the word you were actually reaching for was omnivorous.

Bullshit here. The whole topic is just...buorgh!

I didn't mean it like that. I meant that they do that instinctivly, as you said, instinctively going for the softest spot first and getting their vegies in the process.

And if we would follow the dictionary, a lot of animals we concider carnivores right now should actualy be called omnivores then? Doesn't sound right to me. A lot of 'carnivores' still get vegies in, so yea...

They're carnivores because they don't INTENTIONALLY eat plant matter.

Christ, you certainly are dense.

Thats what I said in my first post dude... We've been talking past each other.

You're missing an important point, Alcar. Sexual orientation has no effect on other people (taking all relationships as consenting). Eating meat has an effect on all the living organisms that have to be slaughtered to provide that meat. The point of morality is to ensure that societies, and in the bigger picture, life on Earth, can get along in the most constructive way.

Drawing parallels to the diets of other species is too limited in its scope. It's natural for a few female arthropods to eat their male mates after copulation, but I wouldn't accept that as a legitimate excuse for such behaviour in humans. Wild animals don't have the mental capacity to reconsider their diets, and probably not the body chemistry to allow it. We do (on the whole) in both cases. Wild animals are confined to their territories and climates. Technology allows us to have spread over the planet and also spread the crop we'd need to support a vegetarian climate.

Then there's the more environmental arguement, as Nate pointed out, which is a result of all that spreading.

I've never thought about it before, but ponder this: people aren't getting more stupid. People on the whole are actually becoming more intelligent and wise, but they're trying to apply their knowledge and wisdom to many more things before they can. People in all walks of life are becoming versed in business, politics, ethics and the arts whereas before they'd all be farmers out on the field. Modern life expects this. We're just not becoming smarter at a fast enough rate. That's utterly unrelated to the topic, but the way, but I thought it would be much more poigniant and purposeful than debating food chains.

True, true.

I don't think eating animals is wrong, I just think it's mean. I mean, you may as well be a cannibal, it's all the same shite.

It's not mean, it's ****ing nature.

Animals eat eachother; humans are animals. We have the intelligence to turn animal killing into an industry and all of a sudden it's mean? No.

But industries aren't natural, so you've just contradicted yourself.

Don't you believe that being mean is wrong?

How is surviving mean? ...
Cows, pigs, chickens. In the meat industry their nothing more but a product. Bred and raised for the sole purpose of being cut to pieces and ending up on a store shelf.
And doesn't being a canibal involve eating your own species. How is that in any way related to eating other species. That doesn't make ANY sence.
Killing other animals is a part of nature and is the most normal thing on this planet. IT'S NOT MEAN!!

If animals have the cognitive capacity to use certain tools to there advantage, then they do so. Humans happen to be advanced enough to develop their basic tools into machinery and the like.

Sounds pretty natural to me.

I can see we have a lot of openminded vegetarians here...

Fuck you, I'm entitled to an opinion. Pornography is an industry, but has it made the human race progress?

Not necessarily. Mean is more of an irritation than calling something wrong outright.

You're all missing the point here, chaps. Would you consider a hunter killing a small child mean?

Well, many of us wouldn't, because we're all dark cunts. But that's irrelevant. I just thinking taking another life is 'mean', forgive me for not using my time to go to dictionary.com.

Hey! It's like the good ol' days, isn't it chaps? :dodgy:

Who said anything about progress? Having meat as an industry is convenient.

Uh, yes, because he's not going to eat it.

It is really up to you but I say you are missing out in killing the animals at reasonally population. :p cheeky comment:

Even Abe would eat a paramite pie and scarb cakes and one time a great relish of Meech Munches. As I gather these are meat products, yes? In our world who are the glukkons the farmers?

If you kill an animal and don't eat it or use it for your own survival, then yes it's mean. Thats why I hate the hunters that kill for fun and stuff.
But if you kill an animal so you can eat it, then you kill it with a purpose. There isn't anything wrong or mean about that.

I eat wildlife all the time, but I don't kill it.

The car in front killed it.

Oh. Are you people talking about "industry" in the sense that it's referring to machinery, or the type of goods produced?

Because if it's the latter, I misunderstood the connotation of "industry" that you guys are using, and I retract my previous statement.

Seriously, eat road kill. If it's not squashed or rotten, its good. Perhaps even "morally vegetarian". Its the cheaper way to get pheasant.

Bullet Magnet; if no-one responded to your post, you can probably assume we did read it, but decided it wasn't worth responding to. You don't need to repeat the 'joke'. And I use that last word loosely.

But on a side note: noted ethicist and vegetarian Peter Singer has said that he has no ethical problem with eating road kill, as that animal would not have been raised and killed intentionally for eating.
Atkins is about eating lots of protein and no carbohydrates. This generally means eating meat for most meals. It's virtually impossible to follow the Atkin's diet as a vegetarian.

Joke? Nononononononononononono! This was serious.

There are pheasant where I- oh never mind. You never will believe me. We made it into a casserole. there are websites on cooking that stuff.

Are you nucking futs?
Eat road kill?
I could understand when it comes from McDonald's and it's quick and convenient, but making a casserole from roadkill?
Taking the time, to prepare an animal that has been flattened by the filthy tires of countless vehicles driven by rednecks, teenagers, and overweight soccer moms alike, into an edible form is just... double-u, tee, eff.

No, seriously.

I've been talking about industries as social system by which a population can exceed its natural carrying capacity - the stable number of that species that can exist in a stable ecosystem. Other species may use tools, but as yet we've never seen those tools as a positive feedback system, only a negative one that leads to the crashing of that population to a mean, sustainable level. Eating meat, whatever the ethical implications to the individual living creatures, requires far too much of the planet's resources to adequately sustain the human population. Either our numbers will, sooner or later, plummet, or we can adapt to reduce the parasitic relationship we have with ‘nature’.

I've never heard of this person, but I've never considered eating meat to be wrong, just the killing of animals to provide it. If an animal dies naturally (or, as I sit here speculating, is killed to stop its suffering), I wouldn't condone discarding its carcass. Road kill is a slightly different matter asI abhor driving.

It's not just a matter of surviving. Vegetarians can survive. They can also have just as high a quality of life as anyone else. In modern society, meat is a luxury, more so even than the entertainment media, and one that requires much more energy be taken from the environment, and one that pretty much necessitates the slaughter of animals.

Thats where I have to disagree. Meat is not a luxery. Meat is a basic food product just like anything else. Us human beings eat both plants and meat, thats our nature. Thats our instinct and it's 'basicly' about surviving. If you kill an animal so you can eat it, you eat it and thus you survive for another day.

It may be a basic food product if you catagorise all possible foods, but it's not necessary for the survival of most people, so it's not a matter of eating meat in order to survive.

I would be interested in what studies you know of that have found meat-eating to be an instinct. It could be learnt behaviour. Certainly the friends I have who grew up in a meat-free environment never consider eating meat.

I don't know of any studies, but we are equiped to process meat, as has been pointed out earlier in this thread. We have the digestive system to handle it, and we have the dental equipment to chew it.

And well yea, it could be a taught thing. But then again, humans as a race have reached a point where everything needs to be taught. If you were to keep a baby in a concrete bunker, feed it trough a hospital tube and stuff, 18 years later it wouldn't know anything about having to eat something using their mouth. At least, thats what I think.

We're equipped to process meat because back when we had to capture our own prey to complement our diet of the local crops and wild plants it gave us an evolutionary advantage. Now we have access to a vegetarian diet that can completely sustain us, yet we're eating more meat than ever, and that's having a negative impact on most people's health.

Human parents have few offspring, but in return there is a big parental investment that allows us to learn a lot during our lifetimes, so our innate knowledge has dwindled. If you put a newborn in sensory/behavioural deprivation, obviously there's nothing for it to learn, but if you were to let it grow up in the world on its own it could easily learn to feed itself. It would probably eat meat.

But then we're not all raising ourselves in the tropical rainforest, we're living in a social environment that allows us to become educated about the consequences of living in that same social environment. If we were wild and depended on meat for survival, I wouldn't be here arguing otherwise.