I've seen the ads and the latest one featuring an orangutan.

Dear Mr Baker,

If you have the time and, lets face it, the energy, I'd be grateful if you could explain something to me.

In your vision of a future where all of mankind exists in health and harmony on a plant-based diet, where do you suppose the fertiliser for the plant crops will come from? Without using animal effluvia as fertiliser we'd not be able to sustain the current volume of plant growth. In your vision you are wanting greater volume of growth for less input of energy. Clearly that's not viable, so I wonder what you intend to use in place of that fertiliser source.

This is by no means the only hole in your argument, but in justifying your position I think that perhaps it's only fair that I let you learn to walk before expecting you to run.

Regards

The Real World

PETA has joined the ranks of the Phelps family and Scientologists to me....all I hear is wind. Nothing they say or do affects my life or life decisions in any way. The sooner we stop giving nutbags our ear, the sooner they'll go away.

MEAT IS MURDER!

Tasty, tasty murder

I think everyone should switch to a vegetarian diet and that we should listen to the voice of reason. How would we feel if we were the item on the menu? How would we like to be cooped up our whole lives, only to become an entree?

I'd sympathize with your argument there, but I have a brain... thus I think and unless I see cows committing acts of terrorism against 'their human captors who raise them for food', which denotes some sort of intelligence, I am going to keep eating my steak medium rare; my chicken grilled and my fish baked, pls...

Along with a side of veggies...

Not only is Mr. Baker's argument garbage, but it is also exaggerated. Who in this world would consume enough meat, by his/herself, to die of heart disease or other 'meat-eater caused illnesses'? What is the speed of consumption?

Mr. Baker is assuming that all meat eaters eat meat any time, all the time. Which is really not the case. People may enjoy a steak 1-2 a week (me; it's more like 2-3 times a month) and that promotes good health.

Everything in moderation, Mr. Baker...

Also, I really know what goes on in slaughter houses... I don't really feel the need to be concerned. It's not like I frequent those places all the time and sympathize with the livestock...

Cooped up, like those poor souls stuck in cubicles all their lives? *salivates at thought of offices/meat markets*

What about free-range meat, or game? No creature from Kingdom Animalia which enters my mouth has spent time cooped up anywhere prior to the freezer. I'm not a real meat-eater (maybe 3-5 meaty meals/month), but I really don't see a problem with eating tasty animals, particularly living in a place where getting proper nutrition from meat alternatives can be tricky.

Ok...I admit I was playing "devil's advocate" since I don't think anyone here agrees with PETA (or if they do...aren't admitting it here). I agree that in moderation meat is not only tasty but healthy. If you look at our biological build-up, we are built to be omnivorous. What we get from meat is necessary to our health. yes a well balanced vegetarian diet will work, but so much personal research must be done...I say pass the bacon!

some pro vegetarian stuff..

i'm not mr. baker, but i know that you need several kg of plants to make a kg of meat, so to provide plant based food for the whole mankind would actually require less plants, compared to the omnivorous diet. and there are efficient chemical fertilizers.. i don't know what they're made from, though.


animals have brains, too.. just because they're not as intelligent as you, they can feel pain all the same. and that's reason enough for me to sympathize with them. and of course cows can't do anything about their state, that's not an argument.. child slaves can't do anything either, no reason to think that child slavery is ok ;)

yes, i don't think that that makes sense either. moderate consumption of animal products is just as healthy as vegetarian or vegan diets, if all are well planned. just not as healthy for the animals of course :/

yeah, almost nobody does that. if people would be confronted with that stuff every day, there would be way more vegetarians, i think :/


we can get everything that's important in meat from other animal products and almost everything (except for vitamin b12) from plants. meat is not necessary at all.
being vegetarien is really easy actually. just leave out the meat and eat some legumes, tofu, grains, etc.. instead (try it for a week or so and see how easy it is). being vegan is harder but possible, too.

If Merlin says I should eat meat, then I will eat meat. Wizards > Activists.

I've tried it for a while (not out of personal choice...but financial)...but soy just doesn't taste as good as bacon...

PS. BACON FLAVORED ICE CREAM!!!!

Incorrect... A child can run away if/when he/she chooses to. Tell me, Mr. Shrink to the Bovine... Do cows have multiple personalities too? Can you milk Besie and butcher Milna? (same cow)

A round of applause to the one person in the entire internet who has heard a cow say: "No!, Please Stop! That Hurts!" Because I sure haven't.



If an animal has led a healthy life, fed the foods it was supposed to eat during its life time, then I don't see why you could say that it didn't lead a heathy life. Life, until death. I anxiously await the day a predator comes along and chooses human kind as it's meal of choice, in spite of other food sources.

No... there would be more diseases...

What I don't understand amidst all this is the hypocrisy of it all. Vegan lifestyles totally and utterly ignore the fact that plants are, in fact, alive and that they too feel their own version of pain.

They should all admit that they don't like to eat animals because they succumb magnificently to the anthropomorphic fallacy, as well as that cute little cow's face.

I have had my steers run me up a tree. More often then not, I went into their pasture on horseback as they were just plain mean.

I find it sad you don't sympathize with the livestock, especially if you really know what goes on in a slaughterhouse. It seems so cold.

I do, and I have raised my own meat for my freezer as well as taken game in the field. I always feel bad about it and hope I did the animal justice by raising it well, or by taking its life quickly.

All animals want to live and none want to die willingly for someone elses meal.

I have. They bellow, the fuss, they try to escape the pain. If you are familiar with slaughtering and have seen it done, you can see they are in pain, although they cannot say it in our language.



And do you really think that happens?

Food Inc Site

Food Inc Trailer

If you raise cattle to feed the hungry, you can't sympathize with something that is to become sustenance only because you know what is being raised for.

I sympathize with say... my cat... because it is an animal of companionship. I am not going to eat my cat. If I were raising a cow for companionship, you bet I am going to give a damn someone wants to eat my cow. But no... I was raised around cattle too... My grandmother even named a cow after me; which turned out to be the whore of the herd... then, it died. I was not around, but I am sure she made a taste meal for poor people that are hungry in the backwoods of where I grew up.

I'll give you that...

I know it doesn't happen and thus I eat, 2-3 a month, a nice grass-fed, non-antibiotic steak. Those suckers are EXPENSIVE!

But I do it, to support the local cattle rancher who knows that grain-fed cattle is not natural and they work to make sure that what is on your plate is what nature intended to be on your plate, because I know, if you had a say so, your raised cattle would be 100% grass-fed.

Plus, as food advocates, my husband and I eat organic and local grown.

AND THAT! is why I cannot rid my home of gnats...

I think you can sympathize, whether it is the family cow or the cows that were born into their lot in life to serve as dinner for someone. I don't believe in apathy over "Oh well, it's just a cow".

People NEED to care. Problem is, no one really wants to. Who wants to think about the death of their dinner? It's far easier to see it neatly packaged in cellophane waiting for you to pick it up.

If people had to kill their own dinner, as in the olden days, there would be far more veggies on the menu, I am sure.

Well, conditions and treatment have got to improve. Healthier animals are healthier for us.

Grass fed beef is very high in Omega three's. But the public doesn't get that, as it is all feed lot, grain fed beef. And then we have fat laden, artery clogging meat on our plates.

They are given hormones of which we get.

They are kept in filth, improperly slaughtered due to speed of the line, moving animals, improperly stunned animals and unintentionally spewing bowel matter into the meat. People DIE from E-coli and there have been massive recalls in beef in the past few yrs.

Ideally, you either pay more for quality food, or will end up paying down the road in health care costs. I don't believe you can have health care reform without agriculture reform.

And yes, my beef is indeed grass fed. I also support and look foward to locally grown produce.

yeah right, so all the child slaves are just dumb and it's their own fault that they don't run away..

it takes little empathy to understand that message in "cow language". OF COURSE THEY DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH. what do you expect?



yes, that's right. if you really only eat that kind of meat, i wouldn't see a problem with it. so if your friends go to a fast food place, you order vegetarian stuff? and if you're invited to their house, you say things like "no thanks, no lasagna for me, it has non-grass-fed-beef in it"?


not really funny to me :/