this really is a big one. think of all the people you meet over the course of a decade, then imagine that a fair number of those people all went to the trouble of making the same joke at your expense. something you'd normally laugh off as good natured ribbing eventually becomes the mental equivalent of sandpaper on the inside of your eyelids.

vegetarianism means your not getting a healthy diet and are low in protein..hate to say this, but if that were true then why are bulls 500+ kilogram and only eat grass? why is it horses have the best immune systems of all animals and only eat grass? why is it primates have vast intelligence and are herbivore? should i continue?

I am not gonna rag on anyone..i eat meat, but i know where my meat comes from, i know how it is reared, i know how it was killed. The argument that people need meat to be big and strong and smart is simply not true. The argument that people only need 80g of protein every 3 days is true..we don't need to have half pound prime rib steaks..you have been fooled..the world could eat only 30% of the meat it does and still be exactly as healthy...you have been lead to believe that a good "steak dinner" must be huge...you have also been lead to believe that vegetarianism is bad...and it is, simply because wheat is bleached and fucked, rice is stripped of all its nutrition so it can be easily cooked in 4 minutes in the mircowave, fruits are sprayed to death, vegetables are imported when they should be grown locally for optimum nutrition, veges are harvested way to early before they have matured, shit is now being genetically modified to hell...that is why vegetarianism can be a hard diet to sustain off...not because it is bad full stop...it is because retails and manufacturers now sell us our food...we have forgotten to simply go the farmer them self as it was meant to be.
In my opinion fuck arguing over meat eating is bad or vegetarianism is bad...the shit industry does to your food before you even get it is what is really bad for you..stop fighting each other and fight who your real enemy is here.

I apologize for my badly written piece above. When I get steamed I seem to forget punctuation and grammar. Eating Meat is not bad for you, nor is eating exclusively vegetables. What is bad for you is that when you look on the side of food and see;
*e621
*hydrogenated oil
*preservative
*anti oxidant
*mono gobble-e-goop
*pesticide/fungicide
*flavour enchancer
That is what is truly bad for you.

Again, I'm not arguing that predation causes intelligence. Only that high levels of protein are a necessary condition for developing a large brain.

As for gorillas lack of protein in their diet...did their ancestors also lack protein in their diets?

There is no "pinnacle" of evolution. A species either survives, or it doesn't. Those that do all win. Those that die out all lose. But there's no ideal design for an organism, and neither intelligence nor level on the food chain has any relation to evolutionary success. Look at insects.

I thought of humans, but rules them out because humans aren't naturally prey for anything. Lions, tigers, bears, sharks, and other predators might prey on us opportunistically, but not as a matter of course.

Rodents and octopi I'll give you, though.

If we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?

I'm and omnivore and anthropogenic CO2 climate change sceptic, but I find the following quote rather compelling.

Just cutting back a bit of you meat intake, can have huge CO2 savings (if your so inclined).

If I do this, can I get rid of the stupid emissions cans off my Suzuki road bike?

Here's the thing, I have never been yelled at by a feminist for opening/holding a door for someone, and I have never been yelled at by a veg*ian for eating meat. I can not tell you how many times I have heard the stories though. I am not saying those people don't exist - but I think they exist in the minds of people who want them to, more than they do in the real world.

Now I know I am contradicting my theory with this next issue, but my girlfriend is a vegetarian and she CONSTANTLY gets shit from people, family - friends - total strangers... CONSTANTLY. She rarely tells people she is a veggie, she doesn't ask for special meals. but I see this a lot. If she politely asks if the restaurant has baked potatoes , "but could you hold the bacon?" - I am surprised how fast this turns into - "you don't eat meat?"... "but what about protein", "well your shoes are leather, what about that..." and most every other quote from this thread.

There really does seem to be a lot of Veggie backlash, for all the seemingly oppressed meat eaters out-there.

other thought -

What happened to all the evolutionary skills it took to figure out how to harvest seeds, grow crops, and plan irrigation systems? Even the most basic evolutionary skill of "don't eat the poison ones - they smell/look like this..." would come into play somewhere.

AND lastly, to rock your world -
VENUS FLYTRAPS, PITCHER PLANTS and other Carnivorous or at least inscetivorous (?) plants. How much bigger is their brain compared to their prey.

Sadly the only Vegan I have ever met In Person was also a member of the KKK. He was Not nice and was quote Preachy

Because they have different digestive systems than humans and produce proteins that we do not.

i've been "in the club" for over 2 years now and have not regretted it once. I did it for the animals but the health benefits(and there are) don't hurt. And I get all my protein before you ask, kthx.

I've had this same argument a million times and it's always the same. You don't like vegs, fine. You're probably not going to change them by being rude and shoving meat in their face. 3 people this week alone told me to "just eat meat". Ohhh well, coming from you it changes everything and I now hate animals. Fix me a hamburger. Sorry, just as you're stuck on your corpse I'm stuck on my vegetables, thankyouverymuch.

I have NEVER once told a meat-eater "hey, don't eat that it's murder!" or "do you know that's rotting in your colon right now?" Even when they're parading their "meal" in front of me, saying how great dead cow tastes. It's absolutely disrespectful and unfair, especially when the least I've said is "I don't eat meat". How could you condemn somebody because they're trying to make the world a little better? Honestly, it's ridiculous. RIDICULOUS. Do you yell at people picking up the trash you threw everywhere? (Probably, because you're ridiculous.)

I never bring it up that I'm veg unless someone asks, or is talking about killing cats or something. But even then I use RESPECT, which EVERYONE deserves. Including animals.

We could talk about it all day and the meat-eaters are still going to be addicted(b/c that's what it is) to dead things and the vegs are going to continue to love everything(becausewe'rebetter.)


Have a wonderful day!

Well, gee, I can't imagine why someone would want to needle you about being a vegetarian.

Look, there are jerks here on both sides. There are the jerks who will say "You're a vegetarian? Haha, watch me chew with my mouth open!" Then there are the jerks who will say "I'm better than you because I'm not addicted to eating rotting corpse" (And I get that you were probably joking, but there are those who will say those things in earnest.) Maybe I'm a little sensitive to it because where I live and in the group of people I run with, I'm actually a bit in the minority with my dietary choices. (As Margot_Dent alluded to earlier, I have to import people from different parts of the country to eat hot dogs with.) I never have a problem with my veggie friends because my friends never give me shit about it. If they did, they would cease to be my friends. I imagine you feel the same way.

So, you know, I'm sorry that people are dicks sometimes. When confronted with that, we can either choose to look at the situation with a sense of humor and tact, or we can let it consume us to the point of bitterness and self-superiority. It's not easy to let things slide or roll with the punches (trust me, I know), but it's usually better than the alternative.

Is is pathetic that I saw "steamed" in a comment on a story about vegetarians and giggled like a little girl?

Umm, maybe I missed the boat, but since when the hell are antioxidants bad for you?

-TM

You, sir, are like a bearded Buddha.

-TM