Quite an interesting website although i will be eating Plaice tonight 
Vegetarian
Moderators: Loopz, usernick, legspin, jof, the PLA
meat and me
legspin made some good points.
interesting that there's so many of "us".
When I say "us", I don't want to imply I'm one of the purists among us; I was raised on a fish & fowl based diet, with green flavour.
So, I'm one of those impossible cases... I try and not to categorize myself as a vegetarian, but rather as someone who doesn't eat red meat (except that chicken gets sometimes pretty RED, to be fair!).
Lately, I've rarely touched chicken (and that has got nothing to do with the avian flu). You know, I've learned to avoid certain unhealthy and/or unsavory industrial products. I don't do aspartame-laden soft drinks, and I try and avoid MSG flavour-enhanced foods. Also, I put things in the microwave as a last resort only.
For me meat-eating is problematic, to say the least... I don't want to force anyone to do anything, but I can take part in trying to change people's minds at least.
A few points:
1) What's problematic, for one, is the idea that since animals can't speak, they have nothing to say - or even that there's consequently no-one (no "soul") to speak of! I happen to think we can speak of human subjects for convenience sake, but there's at least as much exciting intelligent action going on inside our furry and feathery friends than in most of my friends.
2) I have nothing against killing for hunger's sake, but as is widely known, direct "from-field-to-mouth" agriculture yields more efficient crops than cattle-oriented agriculture. That is to say: the need certainly doesn't exist, except if the need is the need to feel having satisfied one's lust for meat-based foods.
3) I mentioned earlier my aversion to all the harmful and diluted forms of food sold to us over-the-counter for the sake of cost-efficiency and convenience. In fact, good chicken can feel pretty "fresh", as opposed to, say, canned tuna, but mass-produced chicken meat does follow all sorts of odious channels of production and distribution, which makes it lose some of its "natural" flavour, especially in the packaging.
4) I see little point in eating meat (even white meat - which btw DOES include fish, unless your definition of an "animal" is highly idiosyncratic!) for the sake of a "balanced" diet, since for fatty acids and protein you can consume alternative products.
5) Besides: I would claim there's an unwarranted emphasis on muscle-mass building substances in our culture, as opposed to those contributing to a fluid and healthy metabolism (peristalsis, stomach acidity, blood pressure, cell respiration etc...). The Atkins diet is just one extreme example of this.
In the end game, I'm sticking to my mixed diet, but there are numerous advantages to a more veggie-oriented diet, not the least of which is purifying my karma.
interesting that there's so many of "us".
When I say "us", I don't want to imply I'm one of the purists among us; I was raised on a fish & fowl based diet, with green flavour.
So, I'm one of those impossible cases... I try and not to categorize myself as a vegetarian, but rather as someone who doesn't eat red meat (except that chicken gets sometimes pretty RED, to be fair!).
Lately, I've rarely touched chicken (and that has got nothing to do with the avian flu). You know, I've learned to avoid certain unhealthy and/or unsavory industrial products. I don't do aspartame-laden soft drinks, and I try and avoid MSG flavour-enhanced foods. Also, I put things in the microwave as a last resort only.
For me meat-eating is problematic, to say the least... I don't want to force anyone to do anything, but I can take part in trying to change people's minds at least.
A few points:
1) What's problematic, for one, is the idea that since animals can't speak, they have nothing to say - or even that there's consequently no-one (no "soul") to speak of! I happen to think we can speak of human subjects for convenience sake, but there's at least as much exciting intelligent action going on inside our furry and feathery friends than in most of my friends.
2) I have nothing against killing for hunger's sake, but as is widely known, direct "from-field-to-mouth" agriculture yields more efficient crops than cattle-oriented agriculture. That is to say: the need certainly doesn't exist, except if the need is the need to feel having satisfied one's lust for meat-based foods.
3) I mentioned earlier my aversion to all the harmful and diluted forms of food sold to us over-the-counter for the sake of cost-efficiency and convenience. In fact, good chicken can feel pretty "fresh", as opposed to, say, canned tuna, but mass-produced chicken meat does follow all sorts of odious channels of production and distribution, which makes it lose some of its "natural" flavour, especially in the packaging.
4) I see little point in eating meat (even white meat - which btw DOES include fish, unless your definition of an "animal" is highly idiosyncratic!) for the sake of a "balanced" diet, since for fatty acids and protein you can consume alternative products.
5) Besides: I would claim there's an unwarranted emphasis on muscle-mass building substances in our culture, as opposed to those contributing to a fluid and healthy metabolism (peristalsis, stomach acidity, blood pressure, cell respiration etc...). The Atkins diet is just one extreme example of this.
In the end game, I'm sticking to my mixed diet, but there are numerous advantages to a more veggie-oriented diet, not the least of which is purifying my karma.
It's a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake