There was a debate in the letters section of the London edition of The Metro paper regarding vegetarianism recently. One carnivore wrote that vegetarians aren't as ethical as they claim to be because forests are being destroyed to create land for growing soya.Excuse me, but most of the soya being grown is feed for livestock and land is also being cleared at exponential rates for cattle with which to feed greedy human-carnivore mouths. At least what we veggies eat doesn't emit greenhouse-gases into the atmosphere. Cars and cows are as bad as each other.
Frankly, I would have thought Mad Cow Disease and then Bird Flu would have turned people off meat. But, morbid or contrarian creatures that people tend to be (I'm not quite sure which), eating meat has never been more popular. After all, how many people went for a "meal" at McDonald's or Burger King after watching the movie Fast Food Nation? I'm willing to bet a lot more than you'd suspect.
I suspect a lot of this has to do with these super-annoying twits known as "foodies." You know, the types that brag about having eaten penguin feet or deer pancreas and about how wonderful and brave and open to all experiences that they are? And the 1,001 varieties of cooking programs on television do nothing to discourage these people. Personally, I can't think of anything sadder than bragging about the food you've eaten. Tell me that you've run a marathon or climbed Mt. Everest and I'll be a hell of a lot more impressed. And also tell me that you did it strictly on a vegetarian diet, which you could.
Listen, if you want to consider youself "superior" simply because you choose to clog your arteries with saturated animal fats, go for it. If you want to laugh at us veggies for being weak fairies with insufficient protein levels—which isn't at all true, as I gained ten pounds of muscle working out in the gym for a year on a vegetarian diet—then you go ahead with this fallacy. But be under no assumptions whatsoever as to what the more environmentally friendly option is. It's not even a contest, folks.
5 comments:
I just can't go veg. I find that when I don't have my protien, I am not well, and I find tha vegatable proteins, such as soy don't quite do it for me.
As for your opinions of foodies, you are spot on. Give me some plain old American farm cooking and that is what I like.
I'm a carnivore. Not that I need it at every meal, or even every day; but, I'm kinda like Eden. I'm not well if I haven't had the red beef for a few days. Sometimes I just crave me a nice burger or sirloin steak (and prime rib is my fave).
The only beef (ha, beef!) I have with vegetarians is that some of them insist on inflicting their lifestyle on others.....as if eating meat is sooo bad. Don't even get me started with PETA.
I try to eat veggies but I don't really like the taste of them. I'll eat some in soups, sandwiches or on pizza. Thank goodness for Green pills ^.^/\/
As for the debate to not eat meat because it's cruel, well that may be so, however allot of the time when veggies are harvested the plants are destroyed by the machines used to do it.
You could argue that plants are there that most plants are there to be consumed, but also aren't some animals? You just have to look at the animal kingdom to see that animals feast on each other. Is it so wrong for us to do the same?
Also I am not condoning the inhumane slaughter and treatments of livestock. That is wrong, and something needs to be done about that!
I think it's all in the mind when people say they 'need' meat. I remember you said exactly the same Hon, before we got married, but you soon found you didn't need meat. You gave up red meat first, when we were still pen friends, then when you moved in with me, you gave up all meat.
I couldn't go veggie either - it's not just meat, but also the other products which are animal derived..
and no, I wouldn't argue that it made me superior...
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