I agree NJ. I'm actually pretty supportive of vegetarianism and remember what it was like living in a conservative community when I was a veg and having to justify myself all the time. I think for instance that having vegetarian meals at events makes alot of sense - everyone can eat vegetarian (as long as there are some vegan options) and it leaves the responsibility of taking an animal's life with the individual. One of the big issues for me in eating out is that I have much less control over eating ethically with regards to meat. Often I tell people I am mostly vegetarian so that I don't have to eat factory chicken or pork or whatever. I'm lucky in that now most people I eat with are also ethical eaters. I'm having a go at Nickolas not because he's veg, but because he's being a dick.
You're having a long running conversation here, in a thread in an online community. You've just said that most of the people here are dirty and smelly and can't tell they're dirty because they're used to it. But a clean person like yourself can tell that the rest of us are dirty and smelly, because you are basically pure where we are not, by our own actions. I have no idea whether your world views are useful or not, but I do know that that kind of behaviour doesn't go down well in most places. I'm struggling to think of any situation where I think that would be appropriate. Maybe you are here to be offensive. That's why I called your behaviour dickish.
Candida is a normal part of human gut flora. What's the connection with milk? (apart from the obvious one of pasteurised milk having no live, gut balancing microbes).
Seems to me that the don't-eat-meat, don't-eat-dairy-food, nutritionalist discussion really misses one of the fundamental problems we (especially the West) have with food - Stop eatin' so fricken much of it!!! And stop eating the poisoned crap. I'm basically a vego, I don't eat conventional farm meat. But, I will eat the occasional rooster because it would be a stupid waste of life and energy if I didn't. I may eat home grown pigs in the future, if it fits in with my sustainable permaculture system. I think permaculture needs to move beyond the mis-guided thoughts that to save the world we need to stop eating meat. That is just naive and counter-productive. Yes, we need to eat a lot less of it, but we need to eat a lot less of everything (my apologies to the third world folks out there trying to scrape together a bowl of rice for the family). Come on folks, imagine if you were reading this thread from somewhere in Africa! Ask yourself, when was the last time you were really hungry?
Source: https://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/candidiasis3.html I knew someone that had a problem with candida. However, after a GI Bypass and losing over 250lbs, the problem went away completely.... ..as did the diabetes, high blood pressure & other problems.
Milk is not a refined carbohydrate, it's a whole food (if you get unhomogenised) that brings alot of nutrients along with the milk sugars. The lactose content of yoghurt and other fermented milk foods is much lower. The candida diet is very extreme and many people find themselves in a vicious circle of avoidance and then intolerance. Stay on the diet long enough and you will end up malnourished, and most people with candida imbalances go onto the diet from years of eating a deficient diet anyway (empty carbs). There are people who recover from candida imbalances by eating a sensible wholefoods diet with attention to probiotic foods to rebalance the gut flora (including drinking raw milk because of the beneficial microbes that it brings). I agree avoiding refined sugar and 'empty' foods made with white flour are important, and someone might need to stop drinking milk for a while, but that's a very different thing from saying that milk causes candida problems.
It's not normal, natural or nice (Morrissey). As a long term vegetarian (35 years) I have heard all of the reasons why we should eat meat (right down to the bible says so - which it doesn't). I assume people do this because they somehow feel guilty that they enjoy something that causes pain and suffering and so have to attack people who don't. My answer to all of their rationalizations is that if people were intended to eat meat they would eat it raw, and wouldn't care if it was alive (just spitting out the guts and bones as a dog or cat will). We would be able to buy guinea pigs or rabbits to eat as a snack, just like we do an apple. I would eat meat if it were necessary for my survival, but it isn't so I don't.
Right. But do you accept that for some people eating meat is necessary for their health (and thus their survival)?
I accept its necessary for survival if there isn't anything else to eat (I would probably eat a human if I really had to). However I don't believe there is anything in meat you can't get from vegetable (or bacterial) sources. Most recent data says eating meat actually shortens your life.
As a long term (predominantly) vegetarian, Ive heard all the excuses for why people shouldnt eat meat too. My question, specifically to vegos, is of they are so concerned with welfare to be a t the brunt of meat eaters vitriole, then why do they continue eating dairy and eggs. The too causes death and suffering on animals as a basic end to production in this overly centralised industry. I think there is a case that our levels of sophistication have allowed us to not just rely on food for survival, but also as a matter of culture and enjoyment... for most of us. I still think this debate is one for the over-indulged urbanised first world mentality that has severed its biological umbilical. I cant imagine people in West Africa debating this at the moment and question anyone who treads the moral high ground with their "ethical" eating as to whether they can grow and sustain their own lot first.
But would you eat a potato straight out of the ground without washing or cooking it? Or cassava (which would make you pretty sick)? There are reasons that cultures went to the effort to apply heat to their meat when it would have been easier just to hoe in to it fresh - and the killing of bacteria and parasites was probably it. Not that they were too precious to admit that it was a living creature before daddy dragged it back to the hut. In many parts of the world you can buy live animals at the markets to take home to eat. Live and let live. I don't have a problem with people choosing to be fruitarian, vegan, rawfoodists, vegetarian or whatever. If you came to my place I'd do my best to prepare a meal to respect that, and if I ate at your place I'd eat what you served me. But I don't like being cast as some evil freak because I eat meat.
It's kind of like me coming to your place eco. I've never lived in a tropical climate but I've read lots about it, and read lots of permaculture books (although not really anything about tropical permaculture), so I think I know what is best. I come and stand in your garden and tell you that you are wrong for planting x, y, z in this or that way, and the reason I know this is because not just because I have read lots about permaculture but because I have superior morals. I'm sure many people are tempted to be like this, because their own thoughts are so important to them, but it's hardly permaculture. And this is a permaculture forum.
Pebs you are welcome to come walk my garden any time. You can even tell me what you think I'm doing wrong and I won't get upset. But if someone tells me that I'm not allowed to make my own mind up about the information they have shared with me, or suggests that what I'm doing is morally suspect - that's when I'd get a bit huffy....
It wouldn't have been "easier" to eat raw meat due to small teeth in humans. Cooking enabled smaller teeth to chew the meat, smaller teeth enabled room for larger brains. There is evidence if pre-humans had not started cooking meat and other foods they would not have been able to develop larger brains which led to what we now know as Homo sapiens sapiens, ourselves. It's lovely to think we'd be here if we'd stayed vegans, but, likely we would be more like gorillas and not even much like chimpanzees (who eat meat, raw, with their big teeth) and not very smart.
I do, my energy level resembles that of a hummingbird without meat. Very manic. I have attempted veganism 4x in my life. The closest I get is abstaining from cow. A better question would be can either side accept that perhaps the need to eat isn't the correct phrasing, but rather the question of surviving vs . thriving. Yes I survive without meat protein, but I do not thrive well. Thank my wife for that insight.
Ooops. I must be an oddball ... yes, I would (and have, and will again) taken a potato fresh from the ground, rub it a bit (like you would an apple) and bite into it's perfect crunch. I rather do like raw potato (and, from that, can tell a good one from an all-so-ran very quickly, and anything even remotely green is definately spittable ... I wouldn't even eat those ones cooked!). My brother did the same with cassava, travelling overseas with his family one year. Silly fellow! Made his breathing system tighten up to the point of difficulty quite quickly. He won't make that mistake again! I don't like much meat (don't eat it much or often), but if it's exceptionally good, I have also been known to eat it raw (red and fish, never eaten raw bird, and probably never will). I'm as fussy with my meat as I am with my raw potato ... if it's not good enough to eat raw, it's probably not good. Oddly enough, I'm coming around to the idea that the very life-force of the food contributes to how good (or bad) it tastes. A sad creature, as a for-instance, makes foul tasting food, cooked or otherwise. A creature who lived a good life, and met a quick (unknowing) death, tastes better. Oddly, the meat tells the story of the death (in taste), the fat tells the story of the whole life. And ... my mother, not knowing that this topic was on forum, can also smell meat-eaters.
It's not comforting, cheery or kind The thread here started out as being about how humans are not physically created to eat meat and my remarks were addressed at that. I don't care what anyone else eats (most of my friends eat meat), it's entirely up to them. My point was if its natural to eat meat then why do most people have an aversion to it in its raw state? What kind of predator has to have someone else kill the meat for it and then disguise it with sauces and herbs (and often has to force its children to eat it)? Sheep will eat baby birds if they find them, but that doesn't make them created to eat meat. Eating meat does have some advantages as a source of compact nutrition for survival situations, but it is hardly necessary in the present day. As for giving energy it also makes people more aggressive and violent (to pop open another can of worms).
