[OT] Any vegans here?

[eyeknow]

ok, so that is nothing short of disgusting........(honestly..........
bit of the dry throat barf just happened..........)

[Meef Chaloin]

So, are vegans allowed to 'swallow'?

might depend on if you are catholic or possibly jainist

[noisetonepause]

I represent VEGANS FOR WAR. We love cold blooded murder but we want to keep it in the family.

[subterFUSE]

I said it before, and I'll say it again.


I love animals.... They're delicious.

[err_eur]

I keep forgetting..........


DON'T ARGUE WITH IDIOTS, THEY ONLY DRAG YOU DOWN TO THEIR LEVEL AND BEAT YOU WITH EXPERIENCE

[hambone1]

Yet we keep doing it...

[frankie123]

I keep forgetting..........


DON'T ARGUE WITH IDIOTS, THEY ONLY DRAG YOU DOWN TO THEIR LEVEL AND BEAT YOU WITH EXPERIENCE

You do realize the whole font thing isn't helping you not look like an egomaniac?

[mercyplease]

havent read all the pages here but feel like a need to post, was vegetarian for 6 years and now eat everything again, it's all a question of balance. i got tired of having to be exclusive and making life difficult for myself and those around me....i can and do go veggie for a week here and there, but i also enjoy being with the fam's eating a steak in the summer or going to a new restaurant and trying whatever sounds the most interesting on the menu. I cant imagine travelling this world and not exploring the food out there...did it many years ago on my first trip to europe, eating bad curries in veg restaurants....but in india this spring discovered some incredible food i never would have had i been veg (and this is india! the most veggie concious place on the planet!) when it comes down to it, if i was hungry and an animal was there i would easily be able to kill it gut it and eat it. that was the turning point psychologically for me, to realize i would, if neccessary do the killin deed myself.....if you couldn't and won't best of luck to you and respect...i worked in battery farms while travelling a few years back and didn't have much sympathy for the chickens....they are some dumb ass animals. not deserving of some of the farming practices they endure, but also not an animal that garners much empathy. Spent my canadian thanksgiving making mushroom risotto for my veggie girlfriend and tucked into some kick ass free range turkey afterwards...balance baby

This was th emost stupid post on the thread. You sir have no moral conviction of your own. You have justified your treachary toward the animals in the name of balance and being the odd one out at family gatherings. You say you were vegetarian for six years so I assume you did it for the animals but then you say

worked in battery farms while travelling a few years back and didn't have much sympathy for the chickens....they are some dumb ass animals.

Coming from a former 6 year veggie. Traitor, remind me not to have you on the battlefield next to me.

it's all a question of balance. i got tired of having to be exclusive and making life difficult for myself and those around me

Exclusive? when i was a vegetarian twenty years ago it was difficult there was little choice. Now yo uhave an abundance of choice and no excuse.

Today I feel terrible guilt that I eat white meat again. Im not heavy in to it but I still contribute to the mass killing of animals. I dont like myself in this area but at least I am not justifying it in any way. I am also a traitor im just man enough to admit it and not give bullhsit excuses like this

also enjoy being with the fam's eating a steak in the summer or going to a new restaurant

[frankie123]

I tell you, I can't imagine anything more annoying then having to modify where I'm going to eat with a group of friends, just for one person. In new york, I can totally see being a vegan an uncomfortable inconvinience as far as going out to eat.


I used to eat at a vegan restaurant all the time, was next to my college. I actually enjoyed the food a lot, though I have a pallete for all food, can't say I've ever eaten anything that I found kind of gross, besides some fast food.

[err_eur]

number one, the reason I use larger font size is because I this small font is simply bad for your eyes to look at constantly. I get headaches reading this stuff.


second, I have a lot of ex-veggie friends that say the same thing about "balance" and blah blah blah....you just don't want to make any sacrifices anymore. You just gave in and became selfish like most people. It's all a load of bullshit. An ex-Nyc inhabitant I never had a problem eating out, there are tons of places to find great vegan/veggie foods there.

what it boils down to is how much self-discipline one has. Are you ruled by your belly or your mind? Don't try to rationalize or justify it, just accept that it's more important to you to eat what you want than to feel any concern or respect for another entity's existence.
Stuffing your face is more important than their well-being. Simple as that.

Just like here, in "America", we are willing to let 300,000 to 600,000 Iraqis to die so that we can drive around in our cars......listening to the cd player, going through the Drive-thru at Burger King.......people openly tell me that they don't give a shit who has to pay as long as we get "our" oil and gasoline.

Same basic attitude.
Don't try and act like you don't have a choice, either. Every time you put that food into your mouth you are making a choice.....you are choosing YOU and what YOU want, who cares about anyone else. You may not be consciously aware of the choice, but it is a decision.

Selfishness and sociopathy plain and simple, and I'm sure many of you will GLEEFULLY admit to being selfish and sociopathic, so what's the problem? Just be yourself and admit that you don't give a shit.....and don't whine when you find yourself on the short end of the stick someday.

[frankie123]

First of all, you might as well stop posting slaughterhouse photos because they don't make an impression on me. My grandfather owns a meat and dairy farm in argentina, and I've seen it up close and personal.


Your points about self discipline don't apply to me. I eat meat mainly because It provides me with the nutrition I need as an athlete, not only because I like the taste of it. It has nothing to do with "stuffing my face".

Stop plugging your whole selfish ways theme, because it seems that your are incredibly selfish in your ways also.

[Welkin]

ERR_EUR! http://www.bumsteer.com/buyonline.htm

thought you might be interested.

sorry I couldn't resist .. you just take your self too seriously...
you're on the verge of sounding like some psychotic religious fanatic.
I'm waiting to hear you say " either your with us, or against us" and start sending
in the troops to exterminate all selfish sociopaths in the name of christianity or veganism...
people might listen to your points and ideas more easily if they
weren't put so offensively. but the way you carry on most people will just dismiss
anything you have to say. As I said before I respect your reasons for what you eat

however in regards to your statement about plants not having a nervous system therefore inferring
that they do not feel pain the way animals or humans do.
I am wondering how that proves anything. it only tells me that we can empathize with animals easier because they are more like us.
but how do you truly know plants don't feel pain? have you ever been a plant. ever had a carrot tell you how it experiences the sunlight
and the wind and what its like for it to die?
it's selfish of you to assume that have an advanced level of consciousness to a plant. because the truth is you don't really know . '
all you know is that it doesn't have a brain and a nervous system. so you logically decide its stupid and can't feel or understand anything.
well have you ever considered that it's consciousness might be beyond your comprehension or understanding? is that even possible?
in a world as vast and full of wonder as the one we are lucky at all to live in.
with the millions of incredibally different life forms from ants to dustmites to germs to waterbears to fungi to flowers etc. could it be possible that plants feel
something...or even have knowledge and understanding beyond humans...

or NO is it just so easy to assume Humans are the most intelligent and important life forms on the planet...or even perhaps the entire universe....

here is a picture of a water bear by the way....it's microscopic....it can be completely dried out for months with no food or water but comeback to life as soon as its hydrated




anyways....I should probably get back to making music.....

peace

[sqook]

number one, the reason I use larger font size is because I this small font is simply bad for your eyes to look at constantly. I get headaches reading this stuff.

(Annoyingly large font size tag removed )

If small fonts annoy you (which I can definitely understand), then please go to the preferences of your web browser, and change the default font to 14-point-blue-something. My mother can email you with further instructions on this if you require them. This way, you can read everybody's posts in big-ass-readable-blue, instead of just yours. And in the end, everybody wins. Oh, and btw, for pages like ableton's which use a custom stylesheet which would override this, you can make your own CSS stylesheet and make your browser use it instead.


As far as the discussion at hand goes, I've been veggie for 10+ years, and am healthy and doing great. I've tread the vegan thing twice, and although I sympathize with its philosophy, I think that it is frankly a bit impractical given the nature of our society. Sadly, our civilization has been based on animal biproducts for thousands of years, and this is unlikely to change anytime soon.

However, what really blows my mind is how upset people can get about other people's eating preferences. Getting upset about someone smoking next to you is one thing, but eating a cheeseburger? Or, for that matter, a tofu burger? C'mon people... there are more important issues in the world that concern us at the moment.

[missjade]

well said, sqook ':D'

just wanted to respond to the person who posted about milk & eggs being okay to eat because animals don’t have to die for them… I thought the same thing until I read up on it recently.

<DISCLAIMER: I am NOT preaching to anyone about going vegan or vegetarian. it’s a personal choice for me and I could care less about what anyone else decides to do. I’m just as annoyed by bitter, self-righteous people who need to force their opinions on everyone else, but there’s a difference between someone blindly imposing their beliefs on you (and being just as ignorant as the people they claim to hate), and being exposed to certain truths. hell, I’ve eaten meat for 27 years without a 2nd thought and just recently became aware of what goes on in the dairy and meat industries … I just wanted to share the knowledge

if it pisses you off, then you don’t have to read it. it’s just for people that might not know and would like to….>

MILK

cows are constantly kept pregnant (by artificial insemination or being “serviced” by a bull) to produce milk 10 months out of the year. they live their entire lives in concrete stalls where they’re attached to electric machines that pump them 3 times a day. they’re often injected with growth hormones to boost production, which can lead to mastitis (a painful inflammation of the udders). when the cow’s milk production wanes after about 4 years, she is sent to the slaughterhouse. a healthy cow can normally live up to 25 years.

while milk production doesn’t involve the immediate death of cows, they all end up getting killed when they are no longer profitable. organic farms might be less abusive, but there are no regulations or penalties regarding this and the cows still end up getting slaughtered.

the veal industry is a direct result of the dairy industry since male calves can’t be used for milk production. Hours after birth, the baby calves are taken from their mothers and raised in dark stalls, chained by their necks and unable to take a step or even turn around their whole lives so their muscles don’t develop and their meat stays tender. they are also fed an iron-deficient diet (to keep their flesh white and make their meat more valuable), which causes severe anemia. they are then slaughtered when they are a few days old (or up to 16 weeks), or raised for beef.

EGGS

laying hens live in battery cages where about 4-11 birds are crammed inside a space the size of a newspaper (though their wingspan is 32 inches). they hardly have any room to move around or stretch their wings, and their feet sometimes grow around the wire floor of the cages. the cages are stacked, so the birds are covered in feces and urine from the ones above.

since such large numbers of them live in these warehouses (up to 40,000—400 times the amount of a normal pecking order, which is their social hierarchy system), they react to stress by pecking at each other. to cut losses, egg farmers slice their beaks off with a hot knife or a guillotine-like machine when they are only a few hours old. this can be compared to cutting the flesh under your fingernails—so painful that they sometimes die from shock.

sometimes, the birds are “force-molted”—deprived of food and water for up to 2 weeks to shock them into a laying cycle. this process messes up their immune system and increases the risk of their eggs containing salmonella.

both debeaking and force-molting procedures are carried out even on “free-range” hens.

when they are no longer profitable (after about 1-2 years), they are killed and chicks are hatched to replace them. every year, millions of baby male chicks, who are unable to lay eggs, are killed by suffocating them in garbage bags or crushing them up in a grinder.


anyway.... don't want to perpetuate the antagonistic vibes that this discussion brought up, but thought it was important to mention.

[frankie123]

well said, sqook ':D'

just wanted to respond to the person who posted about milk & eggs being okay to eat because animals don’t have to die for them… I thought the same thing until I read up on it recently.

<DISCLAIMER: I am NOT preaching to anyone about going vegan or vegetarian. it’s a personal choice for me and I could care less about what anyone else decides to do. I’m just as annoyed by bitter, self-righteous people who need to force their opinions on everyone else, but there’s a difference between someone blindly imposing their beliefs on you (and being just as ignorant as the people they claim to hate), and being exposed to certain truths. hell, I’ve eaten meat for 27 years without a 2nd thought and just recently became aware of what goes on in the dairy and meat industries … I just wanted to share the knowledge

if it pisses you off, then you don’t have to read it. it’s just for people that might not know and would like to….>

MILK

cows are constantly kept pregnant (by artificial insemination or being “serviced” by a bull) to produce milk 10 months out of the year. they live their entire lives in concrete stalls where they’re attached to electric machines that pump them 3 times a day. they’re often injected with growth hormones to boost production, which can lead to mastitis (a painful inflammation of the udders). when the cow’s milk production wanes after about 4 years, she is sent to the slaughterhouse. a healthy cow can normally live up to 25 years.

It's untrue that milk cows live their entire lives in concrete stalls. I've been to a couple of milk farms in argentina and the US, milk cows usually have it good, they get to spend most of the day grazing.

A lot of propaganda gets thrown around about animals living in cages till death, it is true that a good number of animals are treated like that, but theirs also a good number of animals that aren't treated poorly.