Vegan children have stunted growth

[Andrew]

And for "bio fuel"

[Fredxx]

No, demand is rising to grow soy by plant eaters.

Cut it down to satisfy users of synthetic meat and the soil is exhausted very quickly.

Probably bare hills.

So less food overall, so this is all envy we're allowed to eat meat and you're not. If you were worried about efficient land use, wilding it is hardly a solution to your imaginary problem.

Quite, and we've cooked and eaten meat for thousands of years, as well as evolving the gene to digest milk.

[Fredxx]

I respect others' 'diets' I just wish they might respect mine.

[T i m]

OK ...

Not necessarily, but even if it was the case, what is there in non-meat / egg / dairy food that you can't eat?

If you want to offer them such hospitality yes, but are you saying you have never cooked and eaten veg, or had a salad, or Quorn?

If it's that much stress, don't invite them for a meal, or ask them if they would prefer to bring non meat / egg / milk based food in?

I'm sure if they were really friends they would prefer that than you getting all hot under the collar over it?

But isn't innocent of taking another creatures life, whereas their choice is.

Then I think you need to find better friends.

Well, the chances are you have been eating plenty of 'vegan food' all your life. ;-)

Because you are making the mistake about what it is you can eat (or if it's animals, how it's killed) when it's all about what you shouldn't (want to) or don't need to eat.

The chances are that your vegan friends weren't raised vegan and have chosen that lifestyle / diet since, so they know very well what meat / eggs / milk taste like and probably enjoyed it, just that now they prefer their food without all the associated death and suffering?

They are inviting you out for a game of tennis. You are inviting them out foxhunting, not golf.

So you would be happy to cater for them and their accidental food aversions but not some they choose themselves?

I'll take your word for that. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

<snip>

Really, you find their not wanting the blood of an innocent creature on their hands confusing, when it's completely avoidable?

Or 'more humane and compassionate / healthy / ecological' lifestyles?

The irony is that you should be happy they still respect you!

See elsewhere.

They are inviting you round for a game of cards. You are inviting them round for some dog fighting, not chess.

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

Nope, it's the exact same issue.

There is enough arable land to grow enough food to feed the entire world population 1.5x over.

If we weren't 'wasting space' to grow food for livestock, we could be using that space for growing other stuff, inc biofuels.

Cheers, T i m

[Tim+]

I see. YOU decide it?s a mistake and force hosts to accommodate your eating choices? I know perfectly well what I CAN eat. You choose to be ?anti-social? (as in conforming to normal societal rules) and insist that the world changes to accommodate you.

When you equate eating a diet that we evolved on (and made us who we are today) with killing for sport, it just reveals your fanaticism.

Tim

[alan_m]

Only if the diet of people in richer countries was lowered to match the diet of people in poorer countries - no great variety in food and no substitute meat products for vegans.

However, you seem to be also advocating "re-greening" of the countryside and more sustainable farming (aka low productivity farming).

[T i m]

Nope, as it stands now, unless you are trying to conflate content bias with nutritional quality? I haven't since going vegan and have no plans in the future ... to eat foods that I don't enjoy.

What I have done (at minor initial inconvenience) is stop eating things I shouldn't have been eating in the first place so I've not

*stopped* eating anything (I should).

What is all this 'substitute for meat' stuff? You talk of it like it's some elixir or multivitamin and it's neither. It's consumption is one of the current biggest causes of heard disease, bowel / colon cancer and diabetes and why ALL the medial health practitioners recommend you cut down on meat and increase the consumption of fruit, veg, nuts etc. I'm not aware of anyone being advise to cut down on their intake of fruit and veg (other than people going OTT with fruit smoothies etc).

I'm not, I'm not a farmer, the scientists and farmers are because they know what we are doing is both destructive and unsustainable.

Ok, when did we do for *thousands* of years before we had the means to artificially fertilise the land? A, 'crop rotation', just the act of leaving a field to go fallow for one in four years (or somesuch, remembering it from school) is enough to keep the land fertile.

Plus, someone developed a fertiliser that was (blind) tested by a specialist in the field and he determined it was the best quality fertiliser he'd ever seen. It was made from plant waste.

Cheers, T i m

p.s. I have a mate who is a big meat eater and who has to regularly take stuff (like Fybogel, doctors orders) to keep him 'moving' (for risk of something more serious). The chances are, that would happen naturally (and more naturally) if he ate less meat and more fruit / veg.

[Fredxx]

Some say more than that.

No, the population would simply grow to match the food source.

[Fredxx]

After preparing and cooking there would be no blood. More likely some splashed gravy.

By improving animal welfare, something that is independent on whether guests are vegan or not.

I don't respect fanatics. I don't expect any respect from a fanatic in return.

Quite.

Nope, only a sicko would think inviting guests round for a meal is equivalent to dog fighting.

You are sick, get help.

[T i m]

I doubt it very much! ;-)

Nope, who is forcing anything on anyone?

I'm sure you do, even if it's not good for you, the animals, the other humans or the planet.

Only the world as you see it today. It's not my world or a world we

*will* all be living in in the future.

Whoosh. It's funny how a simple but accurate analogy confuses people who are already very confused.

The analogy should have said it all, but 'of course' you won't want to consider it because you haven't yet got that it is you that *IS* the foxhuner and the others not.

Just because we have done something doesn't mean it's right (now or ever) to have done it. All you can say is that 'it's what we once did' and need not have any greater relevance or bearing other than that.

So, if you invite *anyone* round and offer them a glass of water the chances are 'most people' would be willing / able to drink it. Offer them a glass of wine, a beer, tea with milk or sugar and you are now

*assuming* they should drink it, just because you or 'most people' do.

Just because 'most people' currently eat meat (although *millions of people don't for all sorts of reasons), doesn't mean that of all the 'social norms' should or would be acceptable to everyone (when it obviously isn't).

There is no one I know that if invited round for 'a meal' wouldn't eat and hopefully enjoy most of the vegan meals I cook and none of them could tell me that for religious, cultural, allergy or any other reason that the meal *must* include meat?

A council has stipulated that all it's buffets should be vegan because in that case *everyone* can eat them. No faffing about with how some poor animal has been killied or if it's fish, foul, hooven or 'dirty'.

Cheers, T i m

[Fredxx]

Yet, by your own admission you pass a kebab shop a crave eating a kebab.

Any deterioration in health through a vegan diet is slow, you won't notice the effects over an extended period of time. For B12 it can take years.

We evolved to cook and eat meat, and to digest milk. We should be eating food we have evolved to eat.

It is something you have mentioned numerous times. You had tofurkey for christmas

Yes, we should cut down on meat and processed foods, but for a healthy diet we should still consume the foods we have evolved to consume.

There are numerous articles on eating sugar laden fruit and of course smoothies.

[Fredxx]

It's not an analogy. There is no confusion.

When it comes to a natural wholesome diet, and the known damage it does to children it is extremely relevant.

It is a social norm to accept hospitality.

I'm sure I would enjoy a meal you cooked for me too. That isn't the issue here.

Some gluten sensitive friends would disagree with the "everyone can eat them".

Personally I would ensure all diets are considered, perhaps apart from strict religious requirements, but certainly wouldn't pander to a fanatic's desire to force all attendees to eat plant food.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I'm not so sure its a real effect, it could be that its a statistical problem. Often when you look into these trials and findings, you find so called weighting factors that would seem logical, but can skew the results. Also of course a balanced diet is just as important for plant diets as they are for omnivorous ones and there is the snag of course, who decides what is the correct diet. Brian

[Spike]

So in your Post-Truth world, habitat loss and consequent species loss is to be celebrated just so long as it supports your anti-meat-eating veganist crusade.

Not if you've been conditioned to add a thin, cold gruel to your mug of tea, both of the ingredients of which came by ship.

[Spike]

At one time ALL [on T i m ' s scale] medical practitioners recommended smoking as it had a mild antiseptic effect and so warded off colds and flu.

[Spike]

Before the trees, there was a glacier about a km thick, but 'global warming' some tens of thousands of years before the Industrial Age, got rid of it. Shouldn't we go back to those times instead, as interglacial warm periods are quite short when compared to the glacials?

[Spike]

No! No!

T i m prefers 'Plant Pioneers', [meat free chicken-style pieces].

[Spike]

Wrong.

The problem is the inefficient use of land for subsistence farming.