So should we only eat organic fruits and vegies?

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ha. How does being a vegan improve your health?

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Doesn't anyone listen to what I say?

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Your health may be an obvious one as well, but let me explain anyway. Most, actually all of the cholesterol people ingest comes from animal products: meat, eggs, dairy, they all have cholesterol. (and saturated fat too) Vegans average cholesterol levels are way lower than the national average. (Keep in mind that most peoples livers produce cholesterol for the body to use so you can't be deficient in it) Also, all the things that the animal ingests or breathes in, i.e. chemicals, pollutants, goes into the animal and often in the body fat (as is with the case of the carcinogen dioxin). Have you heard about the levels of arsenic found in chickens? Prime example.

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its not unhelathy to be a vegetarian adnits not unhealthy to eat meat. if you meat however you must also eat a proper balance.

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Well duh.

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Finally. Someone in their right mind responding to this page.

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That wasn't a knock on me, was it?

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Being a vega is bad for your health. People have almost starved on those diets.

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Proof please. Even if that does happen, it's probably because they weren't eating right. Like with any diet, things can go horribly wrong if it isn't planned out correctly and if you aren't eating the right things. (like junk food for example)
You make it sound like there is absolutely nothing one can eat on a vegan diet and that's not true. www.veganstore.com Veganism is not the same as anorexia. (although some people say they're veg just to get out of eating certain things and that can be a symptom of an eating disorder)
Alicia Silverstone is vegan and she isn't starving to death.

And one more thing, just in case people still believe what Bananapple07 said, then read this:

"For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other; they all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from dust, and all turn to dust again."
-- Ecclesiastes, 3:19-20.

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Originally posted by bella123:

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3. Your health

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ha. How does being a vegan improve your health?

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Being a vega is bad for your health. People have almost starved on those diets.

ouch

Finally. Someone in their right mind responding to this page.

i dont think it matters what you eat so long as you are healthy. its not unhelathy to be a vegetarian adnits not unhealthy to eat meat. if you meat however you must also eat a proper balance. there is nothing wrong with eating animals. so long as we dont abuse our resources.

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3. Your health

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ha. How does being a vegan improve your health?

thanks slewinca, next time i go to a restaurant i'll get a salad instead of the cheese burger. My friend says she's gonna laugh as soon as i quit sports and my metabolism slows down (i eat a lot, but it doesnt show). No time like the present to get habits settled. I'm gonna go to the underwear thread now. tata

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I laughed when I read that even though I never read the thread about underwear, what was that all about?

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It's in spirituality...Its a laugh, check it out

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Ooooh. I don't like that sentence.

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Finally we agree on something, EarthGoddess.

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God created humans above animals.

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With that reasoning, you could say that because of that, we can abuse animals all we want and God doesn't care. But as the story of Balaam's donkey in the book of Numbers (it's near the end) clearly illustrates, God does not approve of the unneccesary abuse of animals. Back in Biblical times, animals killed for food weren't treated like they are today (www.factoryfarming.com), but now they most often are raised cruelly and not allowed to do the things they were meant to do (chickens dustbathing and raising their chicks, etc.), so it is really a choice between cruelty to animals and preventing that cruelty.

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This is almost as bad as the thread about underwear.

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I laughed when I read that even though I never read the thread about underwear, what was that all about?

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i must say slewinca, you sure know your stuff.

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Aw, thanks, I try my best
And you don't have to go vegan all at once or anything like that, try for instance eating veg when you're not at home, like in school, restaurants, etc. I'll admit, I don't think the way I let my mom know I wanted to go veg wasn't the right way to go, I avoided the chicken on my plate and gave it to the dogs She found out and got very mad, but now I'm vegetarian and my folks are trying faux meats with me.
Try to subtily let your mom know that you're interested in animal rights and vegetarianism and see what she thinks. Offer to cook (if you can) vegetarian alternatives yourself so there isn't more work put on her to make dinner. It may be a gradual thing, you might not be veg right away, but just keep working on it. You'll get there eventually
(if you need veg recipies, try www.vegcooking.com)

i must say slewinca, you sure know your stuff. i guess i just dont have the motivation to be a vegan. my mom cooks chicken for dinner and i'm not one to complain about what she made for me to eat, sure i could have a bowl of cereal but she spent time making it and she probably wouldnt let me continue missing out on her dinners. i guess mostly it comes down to americans being lazy and not wanting to spend the time it takes to not eat meat (ie: washing veggies and fruits as apposed to warming up a pre-cooked chicken). also, those of you saying this thread is a waste of time....you are the ones on the thread in the first place, you are also insulting the people who feel deeply about this subject (i'll admit, i'm not insulted but hey, someone might be). where is the thread on underwear? i need a laugh

This is almost as bad as the thread about underwear.

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God created humans above animals.

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Ooooh. I don't like that sentence.

well, i think that it's ok for christians to eaat meat cuz God created humans above animals.

[yawn]
doesn't there being a smaller population of animals help a possibility of there eventually being an overpopulation?

And also, yes there is a lot of cholesterol and more health risks in being a meat-eater. But don't Americans also have a lower life expentantcy and/or higher chance of being obese than those other countries like Germany and Mexico that eat the same amount if not more fatty and fried foods? yes, we should watch what we eat, and people can of course be vegetarian for their own personal health needs, but not all Christians should necessarily be vegetarian.


Man I'm so tired of this thread

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How about you tell me 4 good reasons besides religion and ethics why to be a vegan

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Easy.

1. Animals
2. The environment
3. Your health
4. Human welfare

The animals one has kind of the "well duh!" factor but it's still a good reason. If you wouldn't want your dog or cat (or whatever animal you may have) abused, then why pay someone to abuse an animal for you to eat? Wait, that was an ethical argument wasn't it? Darn...
Wait! In the U.S. alone, 9 billion land animals are killed for food every year, about 8 billion of them are chickens. That's way more than the amount of animals killed in shelters, labs or by hunting.

The environment is affected by meat/egg/dairy production in many ways, one is through pollution of waterways from manure pits from dairy farms that have overflowed, another is through desertification of land due to overgrazing by cattle, another is the severe decline of fish populations in recent years that has the potential to seriously affect the ocean ecosystem, another is the vast amounts of fuel used to take the animals to slaughter, and then to the grocery store, and then for the grocery store to keep the meat at a cool temperature all creates a lot of pollution. And one more way meat affects the environment (although it's a more benign one) is the non-biodegradable packaging used to package meat products.

Your health may be an obvious one as well, but let me explain anyway. Most, actually all of the cholesterol people ingest comes from animal products: meat, eggs, dairy, they all have cholesterol. (and saturated fat too) Vegans average cholesterol levels are way lower than the national average. (Keep in mind that most poeples livers produce cholesterol for the body to use so you can't be deficient in it) Also, all the things that the animal ingests or breathes in, i.e. chemicals, pollutants, goes into the animal and often in the body fat (as is with the case of the carcinogen dioxin). Have you heard about the levels of arsenic found in chickens? Prime example.

And human welfare, that one may be stumping you but there is a factor of that here. For one, working in a slaughterhouse is a horrible job, the injury and illness rate is high and most of the workers are poor, illiterate, and often unable to speak english. The pay is low and the turnover is high. (around %100 per year!)
There's also the hunger argument: %40 of thw world's grain harvest is used to feed livestock, not people. U.S. livestock alone consume about one-third of the world's total grain harvest, as well as more than %70 percent of the grain grown in the U.S. The more a cow is milked, the more grain she needs. Imagine if there were less livestock to feed because the people who can afford to go veg did, where would the food go? To people (hopefully). Of course, going veg won't solve the problem of hunger completely, there are a lot of other factors that contribute to it, but it's a start.

If you need anymore info on veganism, click here: www.veganoutreach.org (It's not like AA, I swear!)

Ok what i meant was that SOME of our food is from hunting depending on who we are and if they didnt hunt the animal population would sky rocket.

Do you mind telling me another way in your own opinion, that we should be vegans..i mean, besides the fact that it's in the bible. The bible says nothing about your own morals, but only sets paths unto which you should go by. How about you tell me 4 good reasons besides religion and ethics why to be a vegan

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i did'nt crawl my way to the top of the food chain to eat veggies!!

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The thing is, you didn't crawl your way to the top of the food chain, your ancestors did. You inherited your place, you didn't fight for it. And now that we are on top, we don't have to struggle to survive anymore like we did in the stone age. We can sit back, relax, and eat what we want whenever we want. While you're at it, you might as well say "I didn't crawl to the top of the food chain to buy food from a grocery store!!" because that's pretty much the same thing.

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oh come on brittney, how can you be so niave? You drink milk don't you? Cow's suffer for that! You eat cheese don't you? animals suffer for that.

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Give the kid a break! She would probably be vegan if she could, but she's only 13 and her parents probably don't want her to go vegan. And by the way, being vegetarian/vegan or whatever is about reducing suffering, not eliminating it, because that would be impossible. It's boycotting cruelty, that's all. I could turn this around and say to you "Do you wear converse all-star sneakers or gap clothes? People suffer for that!" (In sweatshops if you're wondering) but I'm just going to use that as an example because I'm a nice person

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Ok hunting is wrong and thats is mostly how we get out meat supply, but would you rather them be shot or would you rather them starve to death by over population?

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OK, let me get this straight, are you saying that most of the meat we eat come from hunted animals? That makes no sense. Since when have you seen a truly wild cow in north america? Around 6% of the US's population hunts, so a majority of our meat isn't hunted, it's farmed. Farmers raise animals, sent them to slaughterhouses, cows and pigs are shot in the head with a captive bolt gun (different from a bullet-type gun), chickens and turkeys have their heads dipped in electrified water, and then their throuts are slit. They are not hunted. Got it? And by the way, if the majority of the population were to go vegetarian/vegan, it obviously wouldn't happen all at once. It would be a gradual thing. As this would happen, farmers would breed less cows, pigs and chickens, meaning that there wouldn't be a cow/pig/chicken overpopulation problem.
If you would like to rephrase your comment, I suggest you do it now so I can understand the point you're trying to make here.

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99% of genetics used in foods present in our diets is that of genetic farming. This is most reklevant in fruits and vegetables in which you yourself eat.

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I don't know where you got the 99% statistic, but you have a point. A lot of the fruits and vegetables we have today are genetically engeneered (GE), mostly for pesticide resistance. But by eating organic fruits and vegetables, you for the most part avoid GE foods (although they may be tainted with genes from GE plants due to pollen distribution, but that's a whole other matter)

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Originally posted by sangryteen:
i did'nt crawl my way to the top of the food chain to eat veggies!! I <3 MEAT! YUM YUM YUMMY!

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Totally agree