Why do people become vegans?!
Why do people become vegans?
i dont understand this at all, i mean our bodies are versitile and CAN survive on the crap these people eat but not without supplementing AA's and vitamins/minerals
why would someone go against how we evolved or were created(if you believe in that sort of thing)
it seems like the 'trendy' thing to do to me
5 months ago
B.V. of protein sources
Whole Egg: 93.7
Cow’s Milk: 91
Egg Whites: 83
Fish: 83
Casein: 80
Beef: 80
Chicken: 79
Soy: 74
Wheat Gluten: 54
Kidney Beans: 49
thats gotta mean something, the fact that some types of proteins are processed better by our bodies...ill stick to a healthy diet
Answers:
5 months ago
B.V. of protein sources
Whole Egg: 93.7
Cow’s Milk: 91
Egg Whites: 83
Fish: 83
Casein: 80
Beef: 80
Chicken: 79
Soy: 74
Wheat Gluten: 54
Kidney Beans: 49
thats gotta mean something, the fact that some types of proteins are processed better by our bodies...ill stick to a healthy diet
It IS trendy. It's advanced "Earth-Muffinism". It's unhealthy and unnatural. To have a conscience related to eating "anything with a face" is really idiotic because "vegans" have a conscience about eating only certain SIZES of life, since we murder creatures by the billions every time we shower, use deodorant, shampoo our hair, wash our hands, clean the kitchen sink, do the laundry, take anti-biotics, spray the house for bugs, drive, or even walk. Every breath we take sucks into our lungs and to their deaths thousands of helpless, tiny lifeforms. Such silliness. And, where the heck do they think those vitamin b and other supplements COME from, anyway? I love telling vegans eating their politically correct jello salad that jello, by the way, and most "supplements", are made from grounded up horses' hooves. Too funny. What a person does or does not chose to eat is his own business. But, a pure vegan diet during pregnancy or fed to children should be a serious crime. RN.
Later: Not to confuse Earth-Muffins, but few people have a problem with vegetarianism, which makes perfect and economic trophic energy sense. The weirdo-ism comes into play with VEGANS and their mysticism related to the spiritual "purity" of absolute elimination of animal protein from the human diet. Subjective, magical-thinking breeds feebleminded "trends" such as this. It comes and go throughout history, usually about the time Christians and other fanatics start burning down libraries of science.
it's an eating disorder that yes has somehow become quite trendy in america.
just like everything in america it's over the top. exaggerated. there was a big push to eat healthy. these people can't see the logical limits. most of the new trendy vegans are not really vegans anyway. ever see a real vegan? borderline anemic, undernourished, most have some sort of anxiety disorder, etc. etc. etc.
Some believe there are health benefits.
Others protest the mistreatment of cattle. T
some think its healthier than having meat rotting in your system, others do it for religious reasons, and some for the reasons of not wanting to see animals suffer for our dinner. stop being judgmental and grow up, its none of your business what others do.
People become one because of animal rites and the health of it!
I have been a vegetarian for 3 years and i do it because of animal rites and im glad a came one cause i have lost 20kilos! =D
They think that eating meat helped build brain size, because of protein, which led to our superior intelligence. If you think I'm lying then look it up. That's why animal rights people are so dumb.
Do animal rights people protest animals eating other animals? If the reason is because the other animal has to eat meat, then why not sacrifice yourself to save the rabbit. I won't give a damn. I'll eat the rabbit you save.
The more highly evolved the animal, the more complex is the brain structure. Human beings have the most complex brains of all animals. Evolutionary forces have also resulted in a progressive increase in the size of the brain. In vertebrates lower than mammals, the brain is small. In meat-eating animals, particularly primates, the brain increases dramatically in size.-from the source(encarta)
WTF?b-12 is the only thing,that's it.They have b-12 patches,shots,foods,and vitamins.How is what I eat crap?I eat all natural foods.What is your pantry filled with?Cheeze-its,oreos,chips,so... all that other processed ****.Humans can eat meat,but we don't have to.You don't need cow's milk,just like you don't need rat's milk or dog's milk.And eggs are just cholesterol bombs.And I don't want to support factory farming.How am I going against how we evolved.animals aren't supposed to be filled with hormones and antibiotics,yet you eat animals filled with them,so you too are going against nature.and why do you even care what someone else eats?
1.Caring for the enviroment-
America's meat eating habits are bad.Half of the water used in the U.S. is used for animal agriculture.Our topsoil is damaged by raising animals for food,we only have about 6 inches of topsoil left,it takes 500 years for 1 inch of topsoil to be created.Every year in the US an area the size of Connecticut is lost to topsoil erosion--85% of this erosion is associated with livestock production.
.Animals create a huge amount of waste,a population of 60,000 pigs creates the same amount of waste as a group of 240,000 people,and our poop is flushed and filtered so the water can be used again,animals' waste is put into a manure lagoon or a small amount can be put back into soil,but most of it builds up.Think about what I said before
60,000 pigs=240,000 people
and now think of the 10 billion animals raised for food each year.Imagine the waste created.The number of farm animals on earth has risen fivefold since 1950: humans are now outnumbered three to one. Livestock already consume half the world's grain, and their numbers are still growing almost exponentially.This is why biotechnology - whose promoters claim that it will feed the world - has been deployed to produce not food but feed: it allows farmers to switch from grains which keep people alive to the production of more lucrative crops for livestock. Within as little as 10 years, the world will be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world's animals or it continues to feed the world's people. It cannot do both.
The impending crisis will be accelerated by the depletion of both phosphate fertiliser and the water used to grow crops. Every kilogram of beef we consume, according to research by the agronomists David Pimental and Robert Goodland, requires around 100,000 litres of water. Aquifers are beginning the run dry all over the world, largely because of abstraction by farmers.Approximately 1.3 billion cattle populate the earth at any one time. They exist artificially in these vast numbers to satisfy the excessive human demand for the meat and by-products they provide. Their combined weight exceeds that of the entire human population. By sheer numbers, their consequent appetite for the world's resources, have made them a primary cause for the destruction of the environment. In the US, feedlot cattle yield one pound of meat for every 16 pounds of feed. (Within the 12-year period preceding 1992, the number of chickens worldwide increased 132% to 17.2 billion.)It takes an average of 2,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of meat. According to Newsweek, "The water that goes into a 1,000 pound steer could float a destroyer." In contrast, it takes only 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat.Feeding the average meat-eating American requires 3-1/4 acres of land per year. Feeding a person who eats no food derived from animals requires only 1/6 acre per year. Recent marginal growth in animal protein consumption in increasingly affluent developing countries has led to huge increases in the need for feed grains. In 1995, quite suddenly, China went from being an exporter to an importer of grain. World shortages are predicted as both populations and meat consumption rise together--an unsustainable combination. Early in 1996, the world was down to a 48-day supply of grain. According to Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute, the world "may have crossed a threshold where even the best efforts of governments to build stocks may not be enough."The passage of local laws favoring massive corporate pork operations in North Carolina recently propelled the state into the number two spot in national hog production, practically overnight. In terms of manure, the state might as well have grafted the human population of New York City onto its coastal plain, times two! Studies by North Carolina State University estimate that half of the some 2,500 open hog manure cesspools (euphemistically termed "lagoons"), now needed as part of hog productions there, are leaking contaminants such as nitrate--a chemical linked to blue-baby syndrome--into the ground water. In the summer of 1995, at least five lagoons actually broke open, letting loose tens of millions of gallons of hog waste into rivers and on to neighboring farm lands. No mechanical method of retrieval exists that cleans contaminants from groundwater. Only nature is able to purify things again; and that could take several generations.Worldwide demand for fish, along with advances in fishing methods--sonar, driftnets, floating refrigerated fish packing factories--is bringing ocean species, one after another, to the brink of extinction. In the Nov., '95 edition of Scientific American, Carl Safina writes, "For the past two decades, the fishing industry has had increasingly to face the result of extracting [fish] faster than fish populations [can] reproduce." Research reveals that the intended cure--aquaculture (fish farming)--actually hastens the trend toward fish extinction, while disrupting delicate coastal ecosystems at the same time.A scientist, reporting in the industry publication Confinement, calculated in 1976 that the planet's entire petroleum reserves would be exhausted in 13 years if the whole world were to take on the diet and technological methods of farming used in the US. Trees are being cut down at an alarming rate in the US, as well as around the world, for meat production. If tomorrow people in the US made a radical change away from their meat-centered diets, an area of land the size of all of Texas and most of Oklahoma could be returned to forest.It is estimated that livestock production accounts for twice the amount of pollution in the US as that produced by industrial sources. Livestock in the US produce 20 times the excrement of the entire US population. Since farm animals today spend much or all of their lives in factory sheds or feedlots, their waste no longer serves to fertilize pastures a little at a time. One poultry researcher, according to United Poultry Concerns literature, explains: "A one-million-hen complex will produce 125 tons of wet manure a day." To responsibly store, disperse, or degrade this amount of animal waste is simply not possible. Much of the waste inevitably is flushed into rivers and streams. Becoming a vegetarian does more to clean up our nation's water than any other single action.Methane is one of the four greenhouse gasses that contributes to the environmental trend known as global warming. The 1.3 billion cattle in the world produce one fifth of all the methane emitted into the atmosphere.Meat contains no essential nutrients that cannot be obtained directly from plant sources. By cycling grain through livestock, we lose 90% of the protein, 96% of the calories, all of its carbohydrates, and all of its nutritional fiber.Agricultural engineers have compared the energy costs of producing poultry, pork and other meats with the energy costs of producing a number of plant foods. It was found that even the least efficient plant food was nearly 10 times as efficient in returning food energy as the most energy efficient animal food.Since so much fossil fuel is needed to produce it, beef could be considered a petroleum product. With factory housing, irrigation, trucking, and refrigeration, as well as petrochemical fertilizer production requiring vast amounts of energy, approximately one gallon of gasoline goes into every pound of grain-fed beef.The direct and hidden costs of soil erosion and runoff in the US, mostly attributable to cattle and feed crop production, is estimated at $44 billion a year. Each pound of feedlot beef can be equated with 35 pounds of eroded topsoil.A nationwide switch to a pure vegetarian diet would allow us to cut our oil imports by 60%.Compared to a vegan diet, three days of a typical American diet requires as much water as you use for showering all year (assuming you shower every day). acre of land can produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes, but only 165 pounds of beef. In the U.S., 260 million acres of forest have been destroyed for use as agricultural land to support our meat diet (over 1 acre per person). Since 1967, the rate of deforestation has been one acre every five seconds. For every acre cleared for urban development, seven acres are cleared to graze animals or grow feed for them.
2.Caring for animals-
To see how meat ends up on your plate go here(http://meat.org/)
Around eight billion animals are killed for food every year in the U.S. alone -- a number greater than the entire human population of the planet. Each meat-eating American eats the equivalent of about 24 animals per year. What's worse, modern agricultural methods mean that animals are raised in cramped confinement operations instead of the pastures from childhood picture books -- a practice known as factory farming. Chickens are crammed into cages with no free space, and are debeaked to keep them from pecking each other to death. Animals are pumped full of various powerful drugs to kill diseases resulting from filthy living conditions, and to make them grow or produce faster than nature intended. When cows and chickens stop producing as much milk and eggs as the younger animals, they're unceremoniously slaughtered and made into low-grade meat (fast food and pet food). For some, vegetarianism and veganism are ways to refuse to participate in the commodification of animals.In the official words of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), The Animal Welfare Act, as passed by the US Congress, "specifically excludes animals raised for food or fiber." With virtually no protection of farm animals (at either the federal, or on the state level), institutional cruelty and abuse have become the norm. In legal terms--which is where it counts in a for-profit environment--cruelty and abuse of farm animals is, for the most part, simply not against the law in the United States of America.Pigs in today's factory indoor facilities are likely to be stacked two and three decks high, each solitarily imprisoned in a bin--a cage just a bit larger than a pig's body. Those pigs who live through their stress and fright will adopt coping behaviors--from pacing, to repetitive rocking, to incessant biting of, or banging on, the bars. Industry blames the animals; it calls these behaviors "vices"So-called "redskins" are those chickens which--on the conveyer belts to their deaths--missed not only the brine-filled electrified stunning trough, but the knife that was to cut their throats. Their deaths occurred in the scald tank where feathers are loosened before plucking. Industry throws aside piles of them every day.Farm animals in our factory sheds today are supposed to have their drug intakes stopped at proscribed intervals prior to slaughter to avoid residues ending up in the final consumer product. Withdrawal schedules, however, are not always properly followed. With so many different drugs, the regimens can be complex, with written instructions often not very coherent. Due to the mechanized nature of today's conveyer belt feeding systems, troughs of old, drug-laden feed may not get cleaned away when withdrawal should begin. In addition, since farm animals are often fed animal waste as well as animal flesh, drug and pesticide residues continue to be recycled.About 98% of all milk in the US is produced using factory methods. Part of factory life for a cow includes dangerous levels of drugs administered to boost milk output. Due to selective breeding, cows already produce at least two and a half times the amount of milk of yesterday's pastured counterpart. Then, as of February, 1994, farmers were given the go-ahead to use the genetically engineered hormone Bovine Somatotropin (BST) on their herds. Designed to boost milk output by an additional 15 percent, milk per cow statistics are already showing the effects nationwide. A cow naturally has at least a 20-year lifespan; today's stressed out cows, however, become hamburger in less than 4 years, as a cow's ability to give milk quickly diminishes under modern conditions.In today's factory henhouse, certain lighting schedules will be employed to maintain an illusion of eternal spring--a technique that keeps egg production up to speed. When production drops off, the birds may be put through a brutal forced molt, induced by days of starvation and darkness. Some, and often many, of the birds will inevitably die in the process. Cruelty can be a regular occurrence at stockyards. Sick and crippled farm animals, called "downers," may lie suffering for days until dragged by chain to slaughter. The downer phenomenon would drastically be reduced if all stockyards refused to allow ranchers to make any money on them. (Slaughter of a living creature affords a rancher a better price than "dead-on-arrival" meat.) With every one of their natural instincts restricted and unfulfilled, pigs in today's factories will take to "tail-biting." Insane, bored and frustrated, these naturally intelligent and playful creatures may be driven to gnawing neurotically on one another's pig tails and hind ends. If not prevented, a mauled pig may die from an attack. Mauled pigs cannot be sold, so they become a problem to the producer. The answer? Pig tails are routinely amputated, and pigs are kept in total darkness except for feeding time.In egg factories all over the country, male chicks are weeded out and disposed of by "chick-pullers." Over half a million chicks a day are stuffed en masse into plastic bags where they are crushed and suffocated. Or they may be ground up while still alive to be fed to livestock or used as fertilizer.A male calf born to a cow--what does the farmer do with this useless by-product of the dairy industry? After the calf's birth, if he is not immediately slaughtered, more than likely he'll be taken to a veal factory. There, he will be locked up in a stall and chained by his head to prevent him from turning around for his entire life. He'll be fed a special diet without iron or roughage. He will be injected with antibiotics and hormones to keep him alive and to make him grow. He will be kept in darkness except for feeding time. The result? A nearly full-grown animal with flesh as tender and milky white as a newborn's. The beauty of the system from the standpoint of the veal industry is that meat from today's so called "crate" veal will still fetch the premium price it always did when such flesh came only from a baby calf, just a lot more of it.
A method used to crank up pork production is to take piglets away from their mothers soon after birth. The forced weaning allows the sow to end her lactating period so she can become pregnant again. To prevent piglet death due to the emotional loss, a mechanical teat may serve as a substitute. Tending to the mother's emotional loss has no economic value and so is given no consideration.Chicken feathers, guts, and waste water, which normally need to be discarded during processing, are routinely "recycled" back to the layer and broiler houses as feed. Industry experts believe that along with unclean slaughtering and processing techniques, this forced cannibalism is leading to the rampant salmonella epidemic in poultry plants. To produce foie gras, a duck or goose is force-fed huge quantities of grain three times a day with a feeder tube. This torturous process goes on for 28 days before slaughter, causing stomachs sometimes to burst. Livers, diseased and swollen to several times normal size by this process, are considered a delicacy which sell for about $12 an ounce. About 7,000 tons are produced worldwide per year.
We no longer live in a prehistoric society where our survival depends on how fast we can catch something. Actually, we are so far removed from our own survival that if the "civilized" aspect of our societ.. technology etc., would crumble, most everyone, meat eaters included would die.
We live in an advanced age when all our needs can easily be met, and by someone else. We have all of our dietary needs met in grocery stores without ever having to kill or torture. So why bother? Vegans simply want to go through their lives without destroying, killing or causing suffering throughout their days. No one is perfect of course, but they do what they can to "be the change they wish to see in the world."
I personally decided that I do not need dead animals to survive or be healthy, and therefore meat and animal products were a luxury. I ate them because I thought they tasted good. But no one/thing should have to suffer so I can have a luxury.
It is not so much a matter of why-bother-being-a-vegan, but a matter of why should I bother choosing non-vegan things.
If I need deodorant, why by by the stuff made of beaver testicles and animal parts and was tested by torturing bunnies, cats or dogs when I can select the one that was never used to hurt anyone. Why chose, the flesh of an animal who lived in disgusting, painful and unsanitary conditions, when I can chose a plant-based version.
Why cause suffering when I don't need to? Also, why cause suffering to the environment. This is the only planet we have, and it isn't doing so well. Cutting out the meat industry would be a great way to save it before it is too late.
That is why I think many people are vegans.
....Of course, I am working under the assumption that you are actually interested in learning about other people's lifestyles and reasoning. You may just want to complain about people who are different than you and pretend to listen to their answers so you can reiterate your beliefs of putting others down. You know, whatever makes you happy. But if you do want an actual answer, this is mine.
Trendy? Try being vegan for a day, and see how trendy it is. Most feel isolated and alone in their veganism, for whatever their reasons. Hostility is what you will find. Even being a homosexual is more trendy than being vegan!
Also, I think it is wonderful that we live in a world where you can be vegan and actually live. You still have to follow the advice of eating whole live food, and not dead processed food to have health. I love how you say CRAP these people eat. Yes, eating fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and tofu and sprouts, and all that CRAP. I will tell you that most do not supplement their diets. All the vitamins and minerals are in the food that they eat! And the Vitamin B-12 supplement is something they do supplement with, but guess what? They are finding out that even people who are not vegan need Vitamin B-12. Without supplementing Vitamin B-12, brain degenerative diseases (senility, AlZiehmer's disease, Parkenson's, etc.) settle in. They are finding out that alcohol abuse and eating high hydrogenated fat processed products (acid reflux disease) are causing Vitamin B-12 to not be absorbed by the body. Thus, we are all in the same boat on that one.
Yes, to live in a world where no body bothers to understand anything.
Or they let advertisers of companies tell them what is best for their bodies. (Dairy and Meat does the body good).
Wonderful isn't it?
dont understand this at all, i mean our bodies are versitile and CAN survive on the crap these people eat but not without supplementing AA's and vitamins/minerals"
- Wrong, you should try getting your nutritional information from the latter half of the last century. And when did fruits and vegetables, natural foods become crap, and fried chicken and coke become health foods?
"why would someone go against how we evolved or were created(if you believe in that sort of thing)"
- Well, since we can survive just fine without supplementation I would be willing to argue that we have evolved to eat this way. Our closest ancestors, primates, eat this way for the most part.
"it seems like the 'trendy' thing to do to me"
- Their have been vegetarians for over 2000 years at least, and probably for a good wile before that. Hardly a trend.
Why? We don't agree with people treating animals as property, and people can survive just fine without using animals, so therefore we do not use animals to the extent possible wile still living in society.
Edit:
@ Andy B:
"We cannot naturally get all the nutrients we need without animal products naturally. Vitamin B12 cannot be got, even now, without animal products or supplements, and a lack of it can cause anaemia and impending death. 60% of vegans even now have some level of B12 deficiency, as opposed to no meat eaters, which says something about how well adapted we are to a vegan diet."
-This is blatantly untrue on many levels.
A study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society shows that older people have lower blood levels of a chemical called homotranscobalamin II that carries vitamin B12 into the cells (1), so they need higher blood levels to have normal tissue levels. Since low-normal blood level of vitamin B12 do not rule out B12 deficiency, the diagnosis of pernicious anemia is often made late in the course of the disease after people have suffered permanent nerve damage. According to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, two percent of Americans over 60 have low blood levels of vitamin B12 (2), but the incidence of vitamin B12 deficiency causing nerve damage in older people is much higher than that, sometimes as high a 50 percent (3,4). This means that many older people who are diagnosed with senility actually suffer from lack of vitamin B12 which can be cured by taking vitamin B supplements. Many cannot correct their B12 deficiency with diet changes, because the problem is caused by failure to absorb B12 in the intestines (5).
All of the Vitamin B12 in the world ultimately comes from bacteria.? Neither plants nor animals can synthesize it.? But plants can be contaminated with B12 when they come in contact with soil bacteria that produce it.? Animal foods are rich in B12 only because animals eat foods that are contaminated with it or because bacteria living in an animal's intestines make it.(6)
The animal products are not necessary, but luckily for us B12 is not an animal product.
"...That owes to that vegtables can now be sold all year round, even out of season, and can be flown into the country from all over the world. In bygone times people could only eat the relatively small range of plants that grew in their ecosytem, and only when they were in season. Thus many more nutrients would have been unavailable and still more unavaillable for most of he year."
- This is completely irrelevant. We don't live in bygone times, and they have no bearing on this discussion.
"Evolution doesn't take that in the future it might be possible to get all the nessasary nutrients from other sources. If enough nutrients cannot be got to support veganism in the wild, it isn't natural."
- I agree, eating a 100% Vegan diet is not "natural." Neither is eating animals pumped with antibiotics that were intensely farmed. or eating GMO crops, neither is farming crops for that matter. We do not live in the natural world, we have effectively removed ourselves from the natural world. What is natural does not apply to the great majority of human activates, what makes it apply here?
"Our closest living relatives, Chimps, eat meat on a regular basis. True, many other primates are herbivores, but frankly that makes little difference. Most primates are very far detatched from us homonids, and we cannot effectively determine diet from them, as so much evolution has gone on since we left the trees."
- That may be true, however if we are talking about what is natural that is as close as we have at the moment. A Vegetarian diet is closer to the diet of a Primate then the way the other 98% of America eats.
it is more healty than animal fat.
1. i dont think veganism is 'trendy' at all. i am the only vegan i know personally, other than the vegans here in this section.
2. what is wrong with a lifestyle that does not involve causing pain to any living creatures? i think it would be a great thing if veganism did become a majority.
3. you do not need supplements. b12 you can get from kidney beans, and calcium and protein comes from many many other foods besides milk and meat.
I agree.
@ Matt H
"Well, since we can survive just fine without supplementation I would be willing to argue that we have evolved to eat this way. Our closest ancestors, primates, eat this way for the most part."
We cannot naturally get all the nutrients we need without animal products naturally. Vitamin B12 cannot be got, even now, without animal products or supplements, and a lack of it can cause anaemia and impending death. 60% of vegans even now have some level of B12 deficiency, as opposed to no meat eaters, which says something about how well adapted we are to a vegan diet.
Even the vegan society says vegans need supplements for B12
http://www.vegansociety.com/html/food/nu...
All other nutrients can be got natually. That owes to that vegtables can now be sold all year round, even out of season, and can be flown into the country from all over the world. In bygone times people could only eat the relatively small range of plants that grew in their ecosytem, and only when they were in season. Thus many more nutrients would have been unavailable and still more unavaillable for most of he year. Until very recently it would have been impossible for a vegan human to live naturally without dying very quickly. Evolution doesn't take that in the future it might be possible to get all the nessasary nutrients from other sources. If enough nutrients cannot be got to support veganism in the wild, it isn't natural.
Our closest living relatives, Chimps, eat meat on a regular basis. True, many other primates are herbivores, but frankly that makes little difference. Most primates are very far detatched from us homonids, and we cannot effectively determine diet from them, as so much evolution has gone on since we left the trees.
Still, it is thought the common ancestor we had with aped ate meat, and austrolopithicines and other early hominids ate meat. In fact, pretty hominid which is our ancestor has been shown to, going way back before we could be considered human.