I am a Pescatarian

[Nique]

That means I'm a vegetarian + seafood. I thought I would share my experience with you guys, and invite you to share your foray into dieting or changing your diet permanently.

I have been doing this for about a month. I have also tried to avoid deep fried food, and have basically cut off soda almost completely. Originally I was going to go full on veggie - no meat whatsoever, but then I realized I would be cutting off more delicious food than I could bear. Specifically, sushi. I am realizing now how much more lean seafood generally seems to be and have decided that this diet is overall the optimal choice for me.

If you have not tried to expunge something bad from your diet ever, or even for a while, I encourage you to try it if for nothing else than personal curiosity. I have noticed a significant change in the way I feel on a daily basis, and it is especially apparent after I slip up and eat something I probably shouldn't. For instance, I had some pretty greasy and salty fries with my veggie-burger at a restaurant recently. This would have been a little more normal 2-3 months ago, but after a month of eating mostly fruit veggies cheese and fish, I didn't react too well to the fries. Nothing serious, but noticeable.

Also, even though I haven't lost weight, I feel lighter. I imagine this stems from digesting everything a lot more easily and thus being more comfortable. I still need to work on cutting my portions and I think not taking in too many carbs as well, but all that grease and fat out of my diet feels pretty good. It feels good to avoid fast food places as well, and to have a solid reason why I shouldn't go there - if there's nothing there I can eat, why go?

Anyway, I'm not following any special diet plan or anything other than what I've decided, and I can't really recommend anything specific as far as diet and exercise. But I was feeling pretty good about this and wanted to share. Feel free to ask me any questions you want and share your own stories as well.

[Wigmund]

I'm a Pescatarian

That means I'm a vegetarian + seafood.

And here I was thinking this was a thread about joining the Holy Order of Joe Pesci.




Ok, back to somewhat serious - I'm too much of an omnivore to go vegetarian or any of the phases thereof. I enjoy my steaks, ham, chicken, and whatever other animals can't get away from the butcher fast enough (oh god that reminds me, I need to see if my father bagged any deer this season). I'm a follower of the belief that humans are geared to eat whatever we can get our grubby hands on if it doesn't kill or severely poison us after eating it.

The thing that's bad about modern cuisine is that most foods are loaded down with preservatives and other artificial fillers that really aren't good for you in any decent quantities. Problem is, most foods that I can afford are cheap because they are loaded down with this shit. Going organic would be great, but it's too fucking expensive.

[McTahr]

Blah blah vegetarian for a long while. Weight lost, and general feeling up, but ability to find food fucking anywhere when eating out because vegetarian selection is the goddamn bigfoot way down.

Considering vegan, but I love chocolate milk in the name of a lost friend.

Oh, and I have weird dreams where I fuck up and eat meat at least once a week or so.

[Tev]

Oh, and I have weird dreams where I fuck up and eat meat at least once a week or so.That's your inner carnivore. It slumbers in the recesses of your mind dreams of steak.

[Amake]

I like being able to digest any food I encounter, so I'd never cut anything out from my diet entirely. Cutting down is another matter, but when it comes to health I find exercise more useful than any diet.

Let's talk about ethical vegetarianism too! Or as Steve Dallas once called it, food hugging hippie &#$%. Recent research has shown that vegetables have emotions - a guy hooked his plants up to polygraphs and found that they reacted to stress and pain, and even worried when he was thinking about a trip out of town he was planning to make. If it turns out cucumbers are silently screaming in pain when you chew them, would that make eating anything that has ever lived equally immoral? Or should we continue to feel bad about eating animals cause they have faces, like us?

[Seil]

I generally dislike diets, or getting rid of anything in my diet. It's not because I hate animals, but meat tastes good. I have recently started to drink a lot more water and eat a bit healthier - less deep fried, more rice, less junk food and alcohol.

[Great Cartoonist]

I just eat a whole bunch of foods from all categories. Steak, broccoli, goat cheese, rice vermicelli, black fungus--if it tastes good, I'll eat it.

And apparently, being extremely selective about what you eat could (http://stanford.wellsphere.com/health-education-article/vegan-diets-unhealthy-and-harmful-to-the-environment/652504) kill (http://www.cracked.com/article_16220_6-things-you-didnt-know-you-could-get-addicted-to.html) you. (http://www.newtreatments.org/vegetarian)

Also, spicy salmon rolls with avocado tastes great.

[Hanuman]

I stopped drinking the occasional soda the day I figured out that Kerosene is cheaper than any soda on the market.

A balanced diet that includes meat (seafood is meat) is necessary to being balanced health-wise, otherwise you'll have to figure out some way to ingest the BCAA level amino acids found in meat to help maintain your insulin levels, otherwise you'll get scrawny... muscle-wise.

[Lyaer]

I've been an ethical vegan, for all extents and purposes since I was maybe 13 (technically I'm more of an ethical vegetarian who additionally doesn't condone the practices of the mainstream dairy industry). To my knowledge, I've never slipped up in a huge way since I first went off dairy (I was raised vegetarian for "health" reasons based on my parents' religious beliefs and never tried meat), so I have no idea if I would have any negative reaction were I to (re)introduce animal products into my diet. I'm relatively healthy, but would be moreso if I exercised more and could remember to take my supplements. Definitely on the skinny side.

I was also diagnosed with a gluten sensitivity a few years ago, which I can say presents a much more restrictive diet than veganism ever has for me. I never noticed any cramps or anything before my diagnosis, which left me a little skeptical, so I've been experimenting lately, and I've found that I can eat some gluten here or there and feel perfectly fine, but if I overdo it, I start to get gas pains, so I mostly hold back still.

I find I can still eat a fairly diverse set of foods for a reasonable net price. I live in Portland, OR, though, which is a pretty diet conscious city on the whole, and I still find it a pain to eat out. There are some foods I miss (decent fake cheeses are rare, spendy, and limited to only a few flavors, and storebought breads are pretty much universally sub par, probably because egg and gluten are two of the most important binders in this culture--there are some good fake icecreams, though), but substitutes will only improve and diversify over time, with increasing demand.



Let's talk about ethical vegetarianism too! Or as Steve Dallas once called it, food hugging hippie &#$%. Recent research has shown that vegetables have emotions - a guy hooked his plants up to polygraphs and found that they reacted to stress and pain, and even worried when he was thinking about a trip out of town he was planning to make. If it turns out cucumbers are silently screaming in pain when you chew them, would that make eating anything that has ever lived equally immoral? Or should we continue to feel bad about eating animals cause they have faces, like us?

(I'm not entirely convinced yet that plants can genuinely suffer, but I'll accept that they do for the sake of argument.)

I would suggest we -will- continue to feel worse about eating animals because they have faces like us. All else being equal, similarity tends to breed empathy. As to it being equally immoral, if it can be demonstrated that plants feel pain and distress to the same degree as animals, then yes. I would argue that the most intuitive and relevant metric by which to determine whether something deserves moral consideration--that is, whether we should take its interest into account when making decisions, and avoid causing it undue pain and distress--is the extent to which that thing has an interest, or experiences pain and distress. Anything else--intelligence, achievement, language, ability to reciprocate moral treatment--is only tangentially relevant, and will tend to require arbitrary line drawing that highlights egocentrism in a given moral system.

You are of course right to point out hypocrisy in the animal rights movement, as in any other. However, if it is wrong to harm plants and animals, it does not therefore follow that because we do harm plants it would therefore be more right for us to harm animals as well. Furthermore, when you argue against the arbitrary line drawn between plants and animals on the basis that it is based on similarity to us, you should recognize that it applies just as well to the arbitrary line drawn between less intelligent animals and humans. Following this line of logic, it would seem that if we don't give sentient plants moral consideration, neither should we give humans moral consideration. Rather than argue that I should be able to kill and eat whomever I please, because we're going to kill something anyway, I would argue that we should stop hurting plants.

This is problematic, however. I don't advocate that humans stop eating. I certainly don't intend to stop eating myself. True, if humans were to allow themselves to die out, they would stop being directly responsible for the suffering of other species, but given the competitive nature of the natural world, it isn't as though plants and animals would have it all that much better without us. If anything, we would be eliminating the only group capable of even partially mitigating their suffering.

Now, I don't go around condemning people who eat meat--it's counterproductive, and I know that I also am a benefactor of a system that thrives on the exploitation of other species, regardless of where I draw the line, dietarily. But even if I did condemn meat eaters, I would have a very difficult time doing so in the cases of people whose only choices are to eat other animals or starve to death, as I have little doubt is the case for certain foraging societies, especially in hostile environments, etc. This is in the same vein that I wouldn't condemn someone for killing in self-defense. Likewise, I would find it difficult to condemn the entire human race for eating sentient plants, so long as this is our only viable option. But this certainly doesn't mean that I am happy with the state of affairs, or that I think we are wholly justified in killing for the sake of pleasure (as in recreational hunting beyond that necessary for population control, eating meat/sentient plants just for the taste, without regard to whether it is necessary for survival, or I guess absently plucking leaves etc.).

The solution? I would argue, the solution would be to continue work on artificial foods, until we can duplicate all of the flavors, textures, and nutrients we need and enjoy in a lab, cheaply, without involving any sentient lifeforms. This is a bit sci fi, for now, but as far as I can tell, not inconceivable. Barring this possibility, we should continue our research into plant and animal sentience, so we can at least prioritize which species are capable of the most suffering (to the extent it can be quantified), and continually shift toward phasing the "more sentient" species out of our diets and products, and minimizing the suffering of those that we are forced to kill or otherwise injure for our own survival.

I also advocate keeping our exploitation of sentient plants and animals as close to the bottom of the food chain as possible, since even if vegetables were to experience pain and distress to the same degree as a cow, you have to hurt a lot more plants to raise and mass produce enough cattle for people to live off of than you do to just live off of the plants themselves.

As far as reaching this point as a society, I think that the best thing anyone can do is just propagate the value that all sentient entities deserve moral consideration, and to participate in the market in such a way that it becomes more and more profitable for companies to make lifestyles like vegetarianism easier, cheaper, and tastier for those of us who would choose to dabble in them to one degree or another. If there is less demand for meat and more demand for good substitutes, then the market will respond, on the whole, by killing fewer animals, and producing more and higher quality substitutes, which is better for everybody. So I guess I wouldn't say that I don't care what other people eat, but I don't see much benefit to having too extreme an attitude against people who don't see it as a moral issue, or who do, but find it difficult to drastically change their diets, because it just polarizes the issue and makes people defensive--more resistant to any change, and more likely to react in the exact opposite direction.

The fact is, regardless of the pain that is caused, in the current social climate, it is very difficult to see human and non-human interests as equal, or in many cases even remotely comparable. While I personally tend to take a more objective, utilitarian approach to morality, I still do not personally care for animals with anything approaching the same empathy I do for other people, all else being equal. Any time anyone tries to introduce a new moral into a society, a lot of people are going to resist it. So much of morality is how people are raised, so new morals are unlikely to feel intuitive to the majority, and no one wants to be restricted from an activity that they don't see a problem with. It is my personal hope that this particular moral will catch on, and eventually people will look back at (people like) me with my moderate regard for animals and possibly plants with the same sort of mixed feelings with which I look back on people like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln for their halfway attitudes toward slavery and racial equality.

Edit: Er. Long vegan rant. I know. Didn't mean to derail, but I felt compelled to defend my position.

[McTahr]

So far as I can tell from what the internet says, mostly the research done is correlating APs in plants, especially in carnivorous plants, to that of nerve tissue and fibers in animals.

Which, honestly, is shaky at best without a CNS.

[DFM]

I cannot commit to any diet that would interfere with my breakfast of sugar bacon.

[Lyaer]

Yeah. In the end, we really can only go on what we can find with research, so if we can't find out with any reasonable degree of certainty that plants can suffer--if their biology does not resemble that of any known sentient entity closely enough for us to establish a basis for believing suffering is possible--then better to default negative. But at the same time, I hesitate to rule out the possibility that a sufficiently alien organism could experience something comparable enough to what we call suffering to be worthy of consideration, especially since I personally haven't studied biology (or neurology beyond what's covered in introductory Psych).

[Azisien]

My record for vegetarianism was three weeks, then I started craving burgers hard. Darn.

I found it difficult because I live in a house of meat eaters, with meat infused into every single meal.

I will say that during my foray, I experienced feelings similar to Nique. I can't rule vegetarianism out of my future, though. I admit to feeling a bit lost on where to start, but I haven't done much googling on the subject. Forget veganism for me too. If I have to give up meat, that just means I'll have to up the ante on my loves of milk, cheese, and carb. Me and my enslaved milk cows will just have to go down fighting (no doubt in an epic final charge of the Canadian Push campaign of the Dairy Wars of 2045).

[Lyaer]

There's also "Freeganism" which sounds stupid, but basically means you eat whatever is offered to you or that you can get your hands on, but only if it's free, so you're not participating in the market. Or I think that's the rationale, you'd have to ask an actual Freegan. It seems to me at least as ethically responsible as veganism etc, except that if you eat someone else's food then they might have to buy it again sooner. But it does have the advantage of being able to eat at other people's houses without having to risk offending them by declining food, and thus is probably better PR than veganism in some regards.

[Azisien]

Sounds like [hardcore] Jainism [monks], except you wear clothes!

[Osterbaum]

Guys seriosly! How come nobody has mentioned ECOLOGICAL vegetarianism?

[Nique]

ECOLOGICAL vegetarianism?


Issat like... eco-vege-terriorism? Carrot bombs mabye?

[Lyaer]

No. Pumpkin bombs. Like the Green Goblin.

Innit like mass production of cattle -> methane, overgrazing, etc types of stuff?

[Magus]

There's also "Freeganism" which sounds stupid, but basically means you eat whatever is offered to you or that you can get your hands on, but only if it's free, so you're not participating in the market. Or I think that's the rationale, you'd have to ask an actual Freegan. It seems to me at least as ethically responsible as veganism etc, except that if you eat someone else's food then they might have to buy it again sooner. But it does have the advantage of being able to eat at other people's houses without having to risk offending them by declining food, and thus is probably better PR than veganism in some regards.

Oddly enough, the only episode of The Goode Family (a family of politically sensitive hippy types) I watched ripped on Freeganism HARD, mainly because it sounds like you're bumming food off of people, except it's probably actually more like being like Jesus where he walked around accepting gifts as opposed to worrying about money. Unless you think Jesus was a bum (debatable). Also by accepting foods from people who've just participated in the market, it seems like you'd be vicariously supporting the market to an extent. So freegans should live on farming communes. I'm totally for freegans living on farming communes.

[Lyaer]

Ah. For some reason I just assumed they were like market-Vegans. Like they'd shop like Vegans but then go around eating meat out of trashcans, so it didn't go to waste. So I'm thinking "I'm all for that!" But your way makes more sense, in hindsight. I mean, as a movement.

Anyway. Eating people who die of natural causes = perfectly ethical (long as loved ones don't mind) but probably unhealthy. Yes? No?

[Wigmund]

Anyway. Eating people who die of natural causes = perfectly ethical (long as loved ones don't mind) but probably unhealthy. Yes? No?

A human body has all the nutrients a human body needs.

[BitVyper]

Depends on what you mean by "natural causes." Diseased meat is still diseased meat any way you slice it (hur hur).

Otherwise, see Wigmund's post.

[Odjn]

I have personally killed a pig and helped to roast it so I don't know.

And here I was thinking this was a thread about joining the Holy Order of Joe Pesci.


This is what I thought this thread would be about.

This is what this thread should be about.

Also portland is pretty sweet.

[Funka Genocide]

I've got to say that none of this makes any practical sense, and instead of wide eyed idealism with questionable at best foundations, I'd advocate a more honest scientific assessment of a proper human diet, as opposed to the shameful marketing ploy that is the government sponsored food pyramid.

I also wish they'd stop putting so much fucking sugar and salt into everything. After I lived in Japan for 3 years, I can totally see why we're all a bunch of fat fucks sucking corn syrup out of cardboard tubs.

[BitVyper]

Everybody knows the Food Pyramid is actually The Grain Sentry anyway.

[Azisien]

I've got to say that none of this makes any practical sense, and instead of wide eyed idealism with questionable at best foundations, I'd advocate a more honest scientific assessment of a proper human diet, as opposed to the shameful marketing ploy that is the government sponsored food pyramid.

For the sake of discussion, can this be substantiated beyond the obvious pooh-pooh? It's a fair consideration, I guess, except I've never seen a government food pyramid that actually supports vegetarianism or veganism? Or pescatarian really, though I suppose that'd be possible according to Canada's.

[PyrosNine]

Pyros eats anything and everything and if he was hungry and there was nothing to eat he'd run out into the woods and kill a deer in the woods with his bare hands and feast on it' succulent juices and meatstuffs.

I can't really live on a diet of any sort, owing to my short attention span and memory, but I don't really need to, as my shrew-like metabolism means I can keep my weight low as long as I do the bare minimum of physical exercise, and of course I'll only eat when I'm hungry and never because nobody loves me.

As for pescatarianism (because Fish are just floating meaty plants) and vegetarianism, my view of them is that it may be somewhat of a social elitism thing, as you can only be a vegetarian if you live in technically upper class that can allow for your new eating habits. Even if vegetarian food can be cheap, the availability and ease of obtaining it varies depending on how developed your surroundings are. Now granted, in the scale I'm using, much of proper America and Europe have what is needed to allow for vegetarian eating, but we still have places on this earth, situations where the idea of not eating meat is laughable because the effort just to get a meal of anything is the hard enough.

[Premmy]

I eat people, But you allready know this.

[Lyaer]

I guess if you're looking down on people who have no practical way (or substantially less practical ways than you have) to survive at a decent or possibly subdecent standard of living without eating meat, then yeah, that's probably elitist. I don't see how it is elitist just to give up meat because you can, though. Elitism is attitude.

Easy vegetarianism might be a luxury, though. I'll give you that. Ease of any given choice, moral or otherwise, probably will not be evenly distributed.

[Nique]

I don't get it... I'm elitist b/c I'm trying not to eat fast food and goddammit I should because it's there and I should appreciate it since there are starving children in Japan?

[katiuska]

Issat like... eco-vege-terriorism? Carrot bombs mabye?

He means vegetarianism based on ecological concerns. Basically, it takes a fuckload of resources to farm lifestock and it's a, if not the, major cause of deforestation. It also takes a lot of resources for agriculture, but it's arguably one step toward a more sustainable system. I'm going to leave it at that, because frankly I don't really care about arguing over vegetarian beliefs, but a lot of vegetarian reading gives space this argument because it raises more practical issues than "eating animals is wrong guys."

[Odjn]

I eat people, But you allready know this.

Lookit da baby, he's trying to be badass. Aw, adorable.

[Osterbaum]

He means vegetarianism based on ecological concerns. Basically, it takes a fuckload of resources to farm lifestock and it's a, if not the, major cause of deforestation. It also takes a lot of resources for agriculture, but it's arguably one step toward a more sustainable system. I'm going to leave it at that, because frankly I don't really care about arguing over vegetarian beliefs, but a lot of vegetarian reading gives space this argument because it raises more practical issues than "eating animals is wrong guys."
This, basically. Although the ecological and evironmental problems that arise from extensive lifestock farming are more numerous still.

[Premmy]

Lookit da baby, he's trying to be badass. Aw, adorable.

Less cannibal, more horn-dog.

[Ecks]

Lookit da baby, he's trying to be Fifthfiend. Aw, adorable.

Fixed that for ya. ;)

[Funka Genocide]

For the sake of discussion, can this be substantiated beyond the obvious pooh-pooh? It's a fair consideration, I guess, except I've never seen a government food pyramid that actually supports vegetarianism or veganism? Or pescatarian really, though I suppose that'd be possible according to Canada's.


You seem to have placed question marks at the end of statements which aren't technically questions, which makes it harder to reply.

To be frank, I don't think you understood what I was saying and I don't understand what you are saying, so using those two basic admissions as a starting point, here we go!

I guess I'll begin by reiterating my main points.

1.) I think any sort of morally motivated diet is unlikely to have any basis in logic or utilitarian fact. It's just a belief system, which doesn't need to be substantiated by anything more than the heartfelt desires of its practitioners.

2.) The American food pyramid is not based on a scientifically defined healthy diet, but on the desired consumption of marketable foodstuffs. Such obvious fallacies as putting processed carbohydrates as the base (white flour is almost completely devoid of nutritional value, as are most pastas.) as well as giving dairy products their own niche (it is unnatural for a human being to consume dairy products after being weened from breast feeding, there is no way that they make up a substantial portion of a scientifically proper diet.) lead me to believe that it's only a means to supporting American agricultural and food production industries.

So, what I meant to say was that cutting out meat because meat used to have a face is silly, and our government blatantly lies to us about what we should be eating. Basically, one of the most important facets of human existence, what we consume to continue living, is a half understood mish-mash of hearsay and fuzzy feelings and I want none of it.

[bluestarultor]

You seem to have placed question marks at the end of statements which aren't technically questions, which makes it harder to reply.

To be frank, I don't think you understood what I was saying and I don't understand what you are saying, so using those two basic admissions as a starting point, here we go!

I guess I'll begin by reiterating my main points.

1.) I think any sort of morally motivated diet is unlikely to have any basis in logic or utilitarian fact. It's just a belief system, which doesn't need to be substantiated by anything more than the heartfelt desires of its practitioners.

2.) The American food pyramid is not based on a scientifically defined healthy diet, but on the desired consumption of marketable foodstuffs. Such obvious fallacies as putting processed carbohydrates as the base (white flour is almost completely devoid of nutritional value, as are most pastas.) as well as giving dairy products their own niche (it is unnatural for a human being to consume dairy products after being weened from breast feeding, there is no way that they make up a substantial portion of a scientifically proper diet.) lead me to believe that it's only a means to supporting American agricultural and food production industries.

So, what I meant to say was that cutting out meat because meat used to have a face is silly, and our government blatantly lies to us about what we should be eating. Basically, one of the most important facets of human existence, what we consume to continue living, is a half understood mish-mash of hearsay and fuzzy feelings and I want none of it.

It seems you haven't seen the new food pyramid. That's fine. It's an easy mistake. With how unintelligible it is, I'm sure many people think it's a logo.


Also, put simply, humans have been eating dairy since the dawn of agrarian civilization, meaning before recorded history. During recorded history, the Mongols were famous for making a pseudo-yogurt out of fermented horse milk and using it as a staple food. In areas with goats, goat milk was often a staple food item either alone or made into cheese. Milk is such a good source of protein and nutrients that SNAKES drink it. Ever see a snake with a set of jugs? Well, maybe you did, but then it probably walked around at conventions along with a cornucopia of other wildlife not acting like it was supposed to. Wolves posing suggestively with rabbits and all. The point being we humans are omnivores, which means we om-nom-nom anything not moving faster than we are, meaning milk is fair game and has the bonus of being healthy and delicious.

[synkr0nized]

Meat is too good not to eat it.

Unrelated, but Pyros why do you begin posts in the third person and then slip back into first?

[PyrosNine]

There is an answer to this, but I've been doing it for the longest time without any complaints so that I've somewhat forgotten it.

Probably that I wrote each part in a separate frame of mind and the change of perspective allows others to differentiate between Pyros being silly and me being somewhat serious, as far as I can be serious.

Oddly enough, i think I've only gotten one other person to call me out on it, everyone else just assumes I'm crazy or something.

[Funka Genocide]

I am not aware of a new official US food guide pyramid, a link would be nice as google seems to turn up a lot of unofficial (but slightly more sensical) results.

Edit: ok found it, it's still fucking stupid. Your point is invalid.

It doesn't describe why those food groups are important, or how they interact with your physiology. It's just word of god bullshit to market to children. It's useless. Advanced nutrtitional science needs to be a mandatory part of primary and secondary school curriculums, but this will never happen as an informed populace is one that doesn't buy gallons of milk and eat at Mc Donalds.

Also, I never said that dairy products weren't delicious or an integral part of human culture, just that making the argument that they are a natural part of a human diet is silly. If we take the human animal, minus the traipsings of culture and civilization, it is very unlikely that he'd have regular access to dairy products. Only with the advent of domestic animals does this occur. So while froma cultural perspective of course it's normal to consume dairy products, from a bare bones biological perspective it doesn't make much sense. (which is why it doesn't deserve its slot of the pyramid, you don't "need" dairy to be healthy, just like you don't need to eat processed grain products.)

[EVILNess]

*Milk Hate*

Well, humans have cookies so your point is rendered moot.:cool:

[Funka Genocide]

Well then... I suppose that's that.

[Azisien]

Well, that's better.

1.) I think any sort of morally motivated diet is unlikely to have any basis in logic or utilitarian fact. It's just a belief system, which doesn't need to be substantiated by anything more than the heartfelt desires of its practitioners.

Logic or utility might not be what's lacking, in fact, those are the two that might support morally motivated diets the most. But I think I understand what you're getting at, based on your earlier post: some kind of scientifically assessed optimal diet or range of diets out of a lab? Nothing wrong with that either, really.

But for the sake of avoiding 10 page discussion about cookies and dicks, why wouldn't logic apply? Logic is more of a tool. If you accept the premises as true, anything can be proven. So yes, things like moral vegetarianism/veganism/whateverism are just a belief system, but they're as valid as yours, or mine.

Utility is an even better one because I think veganism is argued by Peter Singer in 1st year philosophy courses using utilitarianism mostly. It depends what kind of utility you're going for. Happiness? Lack of suffering? Money? Population of polar bears? And who is considered part of the pool of your utility measurement? Activists would argue not just humans, but most sentient organisms. Concessions are often made with simply higher animals, mammals, primates, etc. But if you accept the premise of including these groups as well as humans, a utilitarian approach towards happiness or reducing suffering almost begs stuff like veganism.

2.) The American food pyramid is not based on a scientifically defined healthy diet, but on the desired consumption of marketable foodstuffs. Such obvious fallacies as putting processed carbohydrates as the base (white flour is almost completely devoid of nutritional value, as are most pastas.) as well as giving dairy products their own niche (it is unnatural for a human being to consume dairy products after being weened from breast feeding, there is no way that they make up a substantial portion of a scientifically proper diet.) lead me to believe that it's only a means to supporting American agricultural and food production industries.

*covers mouth in horror* The American government is lying to the populace? I don't buy it.

Also, I never said that dairy products weren't delicious or an integral part of human culture, just that making the argument that they are a natural part of a human diet is silly. If we take the human animal, minus the traipsings of culture and civilization, it is very unlikely that he'd have regular access to dairy products. Only with the advent of domestic animals does this occur. So while froma cultural perspective of course it's normal to consume dairy products, from a bare bones biological perspective it doesn't make much sense. (which is why it doesn't deserve its slot of the pyramid, you don't "need" dairy to be healthy, just like you don't need to eat processed grain products.)

Though I have to say, coming from an Italian family, I was grown rather heavily on both pastas and milk. Oodles and oodles of milk. I still drink like a gallon and a half of milk a week to date, and I'm perfectly healthy, though I am prone to mooing fits.

The concept of us not being "biologically fit" to consume dairy is a little odd though. We have the genes to do it and the natural symbiosis with bacteria where we can't. There are various intolerances around, but that's diversity for you. Perhaps 20,000 years ago humans would have been a little at odds trying to drink cow/goat/whatever milk, but now it's a part of us. As part of us as fingernails (also a relatively new invention!).

I suppose I should have prefaced this by saying Canada doesn't seem to have the ridiculous and scary hormones circulating in the milk that the US does. I'm sure Monsanto will find a way to fuck us eventually, but for now, chocolate milk anyone?

[Funka Genocide]

I meant utilitarian philsophy from a purely survival of the species/self perspective, I should have been more concise.

Also, to clarify further, I never said we lacked the necessary biological processes to metabolize dairy products, I just said that their inclusion in our diets is a bit of an aberration and that they don't constitute an absolutely necessary portion of the human diet. (Although, many people do suffer from lactose intolerance.)

And yes, the horrible shit they put in American milk is enough to put me off it, I suspect other countries enjoy much more wholesome cow juice.

(To be perfectly clear, I love delicious cheeses and enjoy ice cream, I'm not against dairy products as a whole, I am against the fallacious concept that they are an integral part of the human diet that needs to be consumed on a daily basis at mimimum levels. It would be much easier to argue for or against this premise if, say for example, the american food guide pyramid wasn't a bunch of random fucking rainbow bright color by numbers cock-suckery and instead actually constituted a logical, scientific primer on the way our digestive and cellular systems worked in conjunction with the basic chemical building blocks of the food we eat.)

Your sarcasm is duly noted, however just because its a common occurrence for our governing bodies to lie to us doesn't mean I can't be upset about it to some degree.

[BitVyper]

just that making the argument that they are a natural part of a human diet is silly.

How long do we have to drink milk before it qualifies? Several millenia not enough? Long enough to have become lactose tolerant in a large chunk of humanity not enough?

If we take the human animal, minus the traipsings of culture and civilization

Culture has been one of humanity's defining traits since almost the dawn of our species. Evidence of things like music, a tendency to bury the dead and care for our elders are among the differences that separate us from the earlier homo species. As I recall, we've even got evidence of culture among the neanderthals - one of their similarities with homo sapiens - so this goes a long way back. Stripping culture away from humans is like taking the trunk and floppy ears away from elephants. It's a bit easier to picture us without civilisation since there's still a few places where that happens, but then our diets have more to do with what's available than what we digest the easiest.

Also we were domesticating animals and practicing some form of agriculture long before any evidence of civilisation existed. And we've found evidence that milk was probably being drank in some quanitity as far back as 6500 BC - which predates Sumeria by quite a lot. So yes, humans without civilisation have had access to milk. Of course I doubt they drank too much of it, since they wouldn't have been lactose tolerant, but over the next seven thousand plus years, they drank enough that we are.

Now if you're trying to talk about what a human without social groups or access to anything that has resulted from our social structures at all would do, the answer is "probably die."

I still drink like a gallon and a half of milk a week to date

*High fives*

I drink about the same.

[Funka Genocide]

6500BC was indeed a long time ago, however I believe the earliest modern human fossils date back to somewhere around 195,000 years ago.

[BitVyper]

6500BC was indeed a long time ago, however I believe the earliest modern human fossils date back to somewhere around 195,000 years ago.

Er, well yeah. That wasn't really the point. The point is that 6500 BC is well before anything that has been called the dawn of civilisation.

[DFM]

Only by about a thousand years or so, unless I'm misremembering the history classes I half paid attention to.

[bluestarultor]

I think everyone is missing the point that milk has a motherload of vitamins and nutrients. To the point that FUCKING SNAKES ACTIVELY GO AFTER THE STUFF. If there is ANY animal that has no business drinking milk, it is a range of species that do not lactate. Milk is insanely healthy and is an easy way to get several essential nutrients, along with healthy fats and sugars. You can remove it from the human diet, but why the fuck would you want to? That's like saying you can abstain from fruits and vegetables and take a ton of vitamins, but the idea of it it just plain stupid. I use that example because it highlights why vegetarianism is dumb. You can cut meats out of the diet, but we're physiologically built to eat the stuff and need the nutrients.

Every food item has a place in the human diet, or we wouldn't be able to eat it.


EDIT: @DFM: 1000 years is a good chunk of time, though. That's, assuming a 50-year life span to be generous for the time, over 20 generations.

[DFM]

If we're not supposed to eat cows how come they're made out of food?

[bluestarultor]

If we're not supposed to eat cows how come they're made out of food?

My point exactly.

[Azisien]

6500BC was indeed a long time ago, however I believe the earliest modern human fossils date back to somewhere around 195,000 years ago.

Hey man, progress is progress, even if it's new!

[BitVyper]

Only by about a thousand years or so, unless I'm misremembering the history classes I half paid attention to.

More like 1500, but yeah, thereabouts. A millenia and a half is a pretty wide margin for milk to have beat civilisation by. It only looks small in comparison with the other numbers being tossed around, which aren't really related.

[Premmy]

If we're not supposed to eat cows how come they're made out of food?

My point exactly.

You really should'nt take anything DFM says in a debate as back-up. He IS DFM after all, That's like using my points, it's gonna devolve into dicks at some point.

[bluestarultor]

You really should'nt take anything DFM says in a debate as back-up. He IS DFM after all, That's like using my points, it's gonna devolve into dicks at some point.

Well, you know, there IS this penis bar, that serves all dick all the time. It's kind of like a sushi bar, only it exclusively serves penis.

[Premmy]

If there's one thing I Know, is that somewhere, somehow, that is very much true.

[Fenris]

Probably in Japan.

[Krylo]

Probably in Japan.

Actually it's in my living room, but there's just the one penis. I just wipe it down with a rag between customers.

[Premmy]

Then why was it so dirty when I went?

[DFM]

It was in your butt.

[Wigmund]

It was in your butt.

Poo-poo platter?

[Premmy]

See, now why you got to make things dirty? Here we're talking about dicks and butt-sex, and you gotta make a poo joke, How Uncultured of you.

[Krylo]

In addition to where its been, I only have the one rag. It doesn't work so well near the end of the night.

[Funka Genocide]

I've been doing a bit of research on the biological processing of milk in the human body as well as it's chemical composition. I coupled that with some research on the American dairy industry, it's practices and social impact.

Basically, what I've come up with is that like many American agricultural industries, it lobbies pretty hard to further it's agenda. I've also come to the somewhat startling conclusion that dairy's inclusion on the food pyramid is a form of American Anglo-centrism.

Nearly 75% of Native and African Americans are lactose intolerant to some degree, and 90% of Asian Americans are. In fact, one of the only races of humans that are by and large lactose tolerant are, you may have guessed it, those of Northern European Decent (I believe those of Indian decent might also be tolerant for the most part).

I won't go into all the details of how a lactose intolerant person reacts to lactose, but suffice it to say that they would be best served by staying away from dairy products.

So, combining the high earning potential of dairy products, the lobbying power of that earning potential with American law makers, the general biological intolerance of dairy in a significant portion of Americans and the availability of all nutrients in milk from other sources (mainly vegetables like broccoli and kale which have calcium in similar amounts and equivalent or greater bioavailability.) I have substantiated my initial claim that dairy does not belong on the food pyramid.

Also, snakes don't drink milk, if you believe that you are either extremely gullible or have access to some wondrous information I do not. What you may have witnessed is an act by snake charmers who starve snakes for weeks and then present them with milk, the hapless snakes have little choice but to drink it. They die soon afterwards. Snakes do not have the necessary enzymes to properly digest milk, lactase is found only in young mammals and adult humans that are lactose tolerant.

My point about modern humans being around for a lot longer than 8500 years was just to prove that my hypothetical situation of no established civilization and no (if you want to nitpick then replace no in this instance with "rudimentary") culture could have existed somewhere in the 185,000 or so years before the advent of agrarian society.

[Archbio]

Cheese is awesome.

[Funka Genocide]

I feel betrayed by cheese, it's delicious and I can't live without it but...

It's built itself a world of lies and delusion, it can't just be what it is. It isn't satisfied with just being delicious, it has to usurp a position in the lives and diets of all Americans by brute force.

Cheese is the Emperor Palpatine of food products.

[DFM]

Sometimes when I make sugar bacon I will put serrano cheese on it.

[Amake]

I feel betrayed by cheese, it's delicious and I can't live without it but...

It's built itself a world of lies and delusion, it can't just be what it is. It isn't satisfied with just being delicious, it has to usurp a position in the lives and diets of all Americans by brute force.

Cheese is the Emperor Palpatine of food products. Are you saying. . .the cheese is a lie?

I don't even care, I could never live without cheese. And not just because my bones would shrivel up and shatter in a stiff breeze and fall like confetti without that calcium.

[Nique]

Yeah I'm right there with you with the evils of dairy thing but I cannot expunge cheese from my diet. My diet =! ethical consumerism.

[Premmy]

Yeah I'm right there with you with the evils of dairy thing but I cannot expunge cheese from my diet. My diet =! ethical consumerism.
I would'nt say it's an issue of ethics in consumption so much as ethics in advertising. Like, if dairy was presented as a luxury or non-essential thing instead of a necessity, it'd be cool.

[Geminex]

That pretty much applies to everything. If society's attitude were "Hey, you don't need that!" instead of "OMG MORE MORE MORE" we'd be consuming way less than we are at the moment.

Edit:
Seriously, we're like the cookie monster, eating mindlessly, losing most of what we have in crumbs and chunks that fall past our greedily gaping mouths.

Of course, the alternative would be either oscar the grouch (a more socialist society type) or... whatever sesame street character best symbolizes anarchy.

[Nique]

Socialism =! Anarchy. Like not at all. Maybe you weren't meaning it to sound like that though.

Oscar would be the best poster child for Anarchy, whereas Socialism? Man take your pick cause that show is ALL about sharing. Good catch on the Cookie Monster as Consumerism/ Capitalism though.

[Premmy]

Socialism =! Anarchy. Like not at all. Maybe you weren't meaning it to sound like that though.

It felt more like
Cookie Monster=Consumerism
Oscar=Socialism
? =Anarchy

[Funka Genocide]

Motherfuckin' Animal dude. He's all about anarchy. (I don't remember if he was on sesame street or just the muppet things though... they had crossovers right?)

Although, a few years back I had to listen to that tickle me Elmo thing go off for like a week straight when one of my cousins had it, if that laugh doesn't espouse violent overthrow of all government rule then maybe I'm just crazy.