Posted on 03/29/2009 10:16:02 AM PDT by nickcarraway
QUESTION: what do you get when you cross moral snobbery with a lack of taste? Answer: a vegan.
This may be tough on a group of people who want nothing more than to live a life free of cruelty. But, while there are many things in the world that are worse than evangelical vegetarianism — pre-season football and question time spring to mind — there are few that are more joyless and depressing.
Vegans, you see, exist so that others may feel guilt about something completely normal: the desire to eat food that is tasty, nourishing and appropriate to our physical specifications.
Humans require certain basic nutrients to function, and to be vegan is to spend your life thinking about where you're going to get your next fix of vitamin B12.
Not that they'll admit it. The vegans who write letters to newspapers and ring talkback radio rhapsodise about the culinary options available to them, and many of them seem to believe it. Perhaps their brains are so starved of essential trace minerals that they really think that spurning all animal-based products improves the range and quality of their diet.
The centrepiece of the vegan creed is that killing or domesticating animals for food production is cruel and immoral. It's a position that raises all sorts of questions, from those about the cognitive level of animals and whether they experience true emotion, to those about where you draw the line.
For example, is it all right to eat grain grown on a farm that kills millions of insects that would otherwise devour the crops? If vegans won't eat honey, as many won't, the logical answer is "no". And just how far down the evolutionary ladder are we willing to go — Save the Microbes has a certain ring to it.
Lately the V-movement has added a second ingredient to its guilt cocktail — the environment. Raising animals is bad for the planet. To which one could reply: "Yes. And so is printing books, growing chickpeas and living in a house."
At some point, you need to balance what's good for people against what's good for the Earth (which, by the by, is an awfully tough old ball of rock that has already seen off millions of species and will see off millions more, including ours, before it is one day consumed by the sun).
Which brings us round to the big problem with veganism, which is that it's not so much pro-animal as anti-people. At the same time it raises up animals, it diminishes humanity. Noted thinker and the intellectual spearhead of the no-meat movement Peter Singer has summed it up thus: "But pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being that suffers is not a member of our species."
You could dismiss this as the "Awww, aren't they cute" reflex elevated to a moral philosophy, but it certainly sets up an interesting hypothetical: how would we live in a world where cows have equal rights with humans? What does a cow want from life, and how would we provide it? What would we do with the millions of cows we already have? Will they be prepared to follow our laws and share our values? Would a cow pass the Australian citizenship test (even one without the question about Don Bradman)?
The point being that humans are the only creatures on earth in a cerebral position to consider such matters, which does give us a certain status. While it's unfashionable for us Western-world types to claim any sort of superiority over anyone or anything, we are smarter than the average bear, bird and even dolphin.
Animals never think twice about devouring each other, often while the devouree is still alive and bleating. We definitely have an obligation to raise, keep and slaughter animals in the most humane manner possible. But survival of the species is a messy business, and instead of wringing our hands we should occasionally give ourselves a pat on the back for being so good at it.
It's better than the alternative.
One of the other things that people are particularly good at is making choices, and there's nothing at all wrong with choosing not to eat animal products.
The problem is with zealotry. When a vegetarian comes to dinner, I wouldn't feed them meat, nor would I lecture them on the benefits of doing so. Because, if there's one thing worse than having high-minded zealots jam their dogma down your throat, it's when they want to do it literally.
Michael Coulter, a recovering vegetarian, is production editor of The Sunday Age.
self ping for later ...Vegans would usher us into the new age dark age.
The flatus these Vegans emit has got to contribute to air pollution...
“If God didn’t want us to eat animals, why did He make them out of meat?” — Homer Simpson
I consumed a Patty-Melt yesterday and I liked it. What annoys me to no end about this group in question is: they are most likely of the pro-choice mindset, well it is my choice to eat meat and do not tell me what to do with my body!!!!!! Porterhouse-Medium-Well, Patty-Melts, Bacon Wrapped Hot Dogs - spell: YUMMYYYYYYY!!!!!!!/Just Asking - seoul62........
Boy, glad I’m not a vegan. As a plain old vegetarian, I subsist on “Choicest Hops, Rice and Best Barley Malt.” I let my cats eat the critters around here. It’s OK with me as long as they don’t lick my face.
—— FREE the plankton, KILL the whales ——
All this Veganism stuff can only be adhered to by very wealthy people in a society that is very advanced. If these same dolts had to forage for food or lived in a third-world type place, their veganism would be tossed out the door.
How easy it is to have all these “holier-than-thou” standards when one lives a cushy life.
In full agreement, these dolts need to have an attitude adjustment and spend a week at Ted Nugent’s Spirit Wild Ranch in Texas. I need to see that picture again of Soros getting creamed pied again./Just Asking - seoul62.......
If vegan food is so right, why does most of it imitate the flavor of foods they reject?
I’m still waiting for the PETA and Vegan people to show how serious they are by volunteering their bodies to be Small Pox reservations.
Who said that the reason Indians have so many more famines than the Chinese is that the Indians can’t eat (almost anything), while the Chinese eat anything (and do it by calling it a delicacy)?
Indians are vegetarian (but not vegan) and nearly starve often. Chinese eat anything, and were until recently one of the most populous nations in the world.
AMEN! Well said! Kudos! *standing on my chair clapping and cheering*
*Ping* for your thoughtful consideration.
China is still the most populous country in the world but India is expected to pass China about 2025 or so. The 3 countries that used to form British India (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh), if they were still a unit, would have about 140 million more people than China.
Wow! Excellent point!
As far as I'm concerned, we're all just here for the ride, at God's favor. ANYTHING that happens on planet Earth is temporary. It's striving after vanity to think otherwise.
The Florida peninsula will once again be half-way submerged in water as it has countless times past, and who knows how many now-"protected" wetlands will be under who knows how many feet of sea. And the Florida peninsula will once again be twice as big as it is now because of dropped sea levels ... as it has countless times past, and who knows how many now-"protected" wetlands will be so high and dry that virtually of their native wildlife will die off. Will vain Vegan scientists be kindly transporting turtles, which have been here since before the dinosaurs, to ensure that they don't be come extict? *sigh* Man o manischevitz.
In the meantime, we divine-blessed humans are able to treat each other in such a way that we can, if we choose (as in, the Judeo-Christian ethic) to thrive and survive through virtually any calamity. Say we had an ice age sneak up on us fast, and suddenly our best growing lands were shifted the heck out of California and Arizona (I believe it's safe to say that probably lot of the cotton in the clothes you are presently wearing was grown in Arizona), and up into the central western part of the nation. Just a what if. We have the technology and know-how to, in our own private and unity self interest, via the free market, to grow food nearly anywhere, and to generate energy to manufacture and adapt.
What Godless, superstitious fools would be wasting their time warring and killing each other and themselves in blaming each other for causing the climate change?
*sigh* I hope everyone intrigued by this thread has read Michael Crichton's "State of Fear." Everyone conservative in America should read that book.
Meat is murder... tasty, tasty murder.
Actually, if the vegan crowd allowed just salmon and eggs into their diet, they could shun all other animal products and be completely healthy without too much trouble. But their stubbornness will do them in.
Guess what's in the crock pot this fine Sunday afternoon...
P eople for
E ating
T asty
A nimals
Indians weren’t vegetarians. They ate buffalo and venison etc. And they fished abundantly as well. They also ate things like prairie dogs and so on.
Oops. Did you mean Indians from India? Okay, my response was about Native American Indians.
I remember back a few years ago that my nephew, after a 1 1/2 years at college, was suddenly a vegetarian. Now, I respected his decision, but he was very cocky and self-assured about it (you know how kids are). He was eating all this organic stuff from the grocery store such as Boca Burgers and Morning Star, etc. etc. Now, I have no issue with people who choose to do this, but let’s be honest; and I told my nephew this too. That stuff is pricey and lots of people in this world, and even in the U.S. can’t afford it so Vegetarianism and Veganism are essentially practices of wealthy, elite societies.
And another Freeper on here made a good point about India. They won’t eat animals b/c they might be reincarnated versions of their relatives, so they starve over there. I think the Devil himself came up with vegetarianism as a “religious practice” and for some, it truly IS religious.
Yes, Indians from India.
I’m a vegetarian for my health. I think others can be healthier if they were vegetarians too, but it’s up to each individual to choose. What a concept - live and let live!
I’d be healthier if I exercised more and gave up scotch too... but why break up the trifecta? ;)
Let’s all live the way we want. Whatever religion or diet we prefer. Vive la difference. You have your lifestyle and you hate it when they criticize it. Are you fair enough to let other people have theirs too?
Enjoy life while you can. Apparently the nanny state intends to legislate every activity they can think of.
Have one for me too. :)
I’ll drink to your health. Seems like a safe bet. :)
I had a v-8 vega but it was a squareback and red.
Thanks FRiend. That means a lot to me, since I am on dialysis and recovering from multiple myeloma. Hence the healthy diet. But it was prayer that healed me.
Purty!!
what do you get when you cross moral snobbery with a lack of taste? Answer: a vegan.[singing] Hitler was a vegetarian, too...
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