Talk:Vegetarianism/Archive 1
|
|
"Vegetarianism has strong links to many religious traditions, including Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism, and others."
Taoism? Really? I've never heard this.
dont know why its in my subconscious, but you can check it out on google.
http://www.sinica.edu.tw/tit/dining/0795_EatVegetarian.html for example.
Interesting! Thanks! -- took a look at the page, and now I'm hungry! :-)
This article needs: explanation of different reasons vegetarians are vegetarians (I've listed 3, there are several more), explanations of different levels of vegetarianism (some people eat tuna & call themselves veg, others eat dairy and eggs, etc.--just to comment on the word's different uses); also a debunking of that damn "what do you do for protein" bit everyone feels compelled to throw in, ignoring that Hank Aaron, Carl Lewis, and Billie Jean King all apparently got enough protein). :-)
Claudine said she'd have an article for Vegetarianism soon.
Ok, thanks. --KQ
Would Putting quotes around Harming in the ovo-lacto vegetarian sentance be biased? --mincus
- Probably would, unless you could medically prove that the animal is in worse shape after collection than before. IMHO of course :-) --Anders T?lind
- I think that would be rather easy considering the way they are treated, the drugs that are used to increase productivity, and what happens to them after they can no longer produce. Perhaps we could just agree on a way of stating it without using the word?
Alright, this is looking good! I've incorporated my text. We still need to address the nutritional concerns (both for and against), and some scientific facts to back up my very basic discussion of the ecological concerns. Perhaps also some history of vegetarian movements and the gradual acceptance of vegetarianism in mainstream western society.
Mincus and Anders, what do you think of my use of the word 'exploitation'? I still feel guilty about eating cheese. 8-> -- Claudine
- Very nice Claudine! Some of the arguments against vegetarianism are The bible (We have dominion over the animals, so was can do with them as we please +various quotes that show that God loves us if we kill animals), Plants hurt too, and aninmals kill animals and they would kill us given the chance. Um... I was thinking about writing this part up... but I think that I might be biased in favour of not eating meat, so I think that I will leave this to someone else. Perhaps I will see if I can do the nutrition myths part... --mincus
Regarding the Vitamin B12 problem: Is B12 in milk and eggs? Furthermore, I once read that B12 is in foods that have been processed by certain bacteria, and the German "Sauerkraut" was given as an example. Sauerkraut is cabbage made sour and digestable by bacteria (or yeast?). --AxelBoldt
- B12 cannot be gotten reliably from most plant sources. Although most sea plants have a good amount of B12 it can and usually is lost from processing. The best source of B12 for vegetarians and vegans is from nutritional yeast or from B12 fortified: cereals, soy milk, and other "fake" vegetarian and vegan foods. As a side note, the bacteria in your intestines produce minute amounts of B12, and you can also get B12 from not washing your hands properly, but neither methods produce enough of the daily required amounts of B12. Also, if you had eaten meat previously, your body can store up to 20-30 years of the vitamin in your system before you would start showing signs of defecincy. -- mincus
Ok, how about milk, eggs, Sauerkraut? --AxelBoldt
- Sorry about that... got on a little rant and forgot the main question ;) B12 is produced by bacteria and is found mainly in meat, eggs, and dairy products. Almost everyone agrees that plants are not a good source of the vitamin. --mincus
Then we still need to settle the Sauerkraut question. There's certainly bacteria or yeast involved, so it's possible that it has B12. Also, you mentioned yeast: how much would one have to consume, and in what form? Thanks --AxelBoldt
- Im unable to find any sources that will say and backup that you can get a sufficent amount of B12 from vegetables (including sauerkraut), most feel that the only way to be sure is through suppliments or fortified food. It is suggested by the FDA that you have 6 mcg (micrograms) of B12 a day. A quick look through my kitchen shows me that 1 glass of soy milk gives one 50% of your daily intake, 1 B12 suppliment in tablet form give 8,333% (not a mistype), and 1 serving of Nutritional Yeast (16g) gives 130%. --mincus
How do we resolve the first sentence: "Vegetarianism is the practice of not consuming the flesh ... or products of animals." with a paragraph 7: "In everyday language, 'vegetarianism' is usually synonymous with ovo-lacto vegetarianism, which tolerates the consumption of animal products". Are we suggesting that ovo-lacto Vegetarianism isn't really Vegetarianism? Or is O.L. a form of vegetarianism? Would it be ok to modify the first sentence? -D
- I would like to suggest again, that we show that vegetarians just do not eat meat, foul and fish(but they could still wear animal products and such), whereas vegan will not partake (eat, use, wear) any animal products or by-products. --mincus
There are more people calling themselves vegetarian than conforming with the definition of "vegetarian" (that is, a person who eats no meat). Since "meat" = "animal flesh as food," then technically eggs and fish are both meat (fish are animals; eggs are simply animals that haven't yet hatched. Come on, now, obviously they're not plants.) Anyway so many people eating eggs and meat, but not chicken, beef, or pork, call themselves "vegetarian," these other terms have sprung up to disambiguate: ovo-lacto vegetarian: eats eggs and dairy products but is otherwise vegetarian. Lacto-vegetarian: eats dairy products but not eggs. There are also the so-called "semi-vegetarians" (not my definition) who either occasionally eat meat, fish, or poultry; or eat some of those but not the other; or who might be a mollo-vegetarian (eats mollusks like clams and scallops) or crusto-vegetarian (eats crustaceans like crabs and shrimp) or even "ento-vegetarians" (eats insects. no, that's not a joke). Anyway, so in short: people use the term to mean a lot more than its traditional definition. The situation's a bit sloppy.
Anyway, so in answer to your question: we resolve the first sentence carefully, with diplomacy. :-) --Koyaanis Qatsi
- Fair enough ;) Then perhaps we need to research what all the different names are and add something about each. Also I think we need to fix/add fact to backup the part about what vegetarians do and do not get enough of. And, just a neat little note, eggs that people eat will never hatch, as they are unfertilized.
Also because they'll be chewed up and digested. Thank you. Thank you. You've been a great crowd. --KQ
- hehe, spose I was begging for that ;)
I wasn't suggesting that Vegetarianism includes people who eat meat (though I understand some would disagree.) All I'm suggesting is that we remove "products" from the first sentence. Or, how about "... is the practice of not consuming the flesh, parts, and in some cases, the products of animals." Heck, I'm just gonna change it. Change it back if you disagree, and I won't mess with it again. -D
One of the things I love about Wikipedia: take a day 'off' and there are all these improvements!
Mincus, I think I'll have to start work on that postmodern theology article I've been thinking about. The first chapter of Genesis is a favourite justification for anti-vegetarian and anti-environmentalist arguments. What other examples were you thinking of? A liberal postmodern Christian might interpret the Creation story in Genesis as saying that humans are naturally more powerful than other animals, so we have a duty to take care of the earth's resources and use them wisely. In this view, abattoirs, battery farms and fur coats are *not* good things.
More stuff for my ToDo list.. 8-> -- Claudine
On the Vitamin B12 issue, it is simply not true that there are not good sources available to a strict vegetable based diet. The fermented soy bean product called Tempeh is an excellent source and can easily provide more than enough. The average daily requirement is only a few micrograms. Tempeh is used in Indonesia and other far eastern countries and is used extensively in the Macrobiotic diet. Ian
"[...] organic food principles and vegetarianism are both concerned with reducing the amount of artificial processing applied to food."
I dispute this! Vegetarianism is concerned only with the removal of bits of dead animals from the diet. It has nothing to do with artificial processing. I am a strict vegetarian, but I don't much care how much processing is done to food. In fact, I'm looking forward to the day when any type of food can be easily and cheaply synthesised. That would solve all the problems of world hunger, and completely scupper any (already dubious) claims that we need to kill animals for food. :) Sorry, am I veering off into crazy-land? Back to the point: can anyone suggest a way of rewording the above into something that is actually true...? -- Oliver Pereira 02:49 Nov 24, 2002 (UTC)
Oh, and another thing... Can we change the illustration? It looks terribly unappetising. Just a bunch of leaves and things. Can we replace it with a picture of a nice pizza? :) -- Oliver Pereira 02:49 Nov 24, 2002 (UTC)
Thanks, KQ. I think the article sounds better now. I don't know these "tofutti cuties", though: I'll have to look out for them. Perhaps we could put a picture of them up here, alongside the pizza. ;) -- Oliver Pereira 02:32 Nov 25, 2002 (UTC)
- You're welcome. The tofutti cuties are vegan ice cream sandwiches, made from tofu. the mint chocolate chip ones are IMHO quite good. :-) --KQ
Explanation for my edits: it seemed to me that the article was simply too preachy, e.g. making ethical claims outright rather than bracketing them as being the POV of certain vegetarians, and holding out vegans as "more committed" to an ideal (when in fact many vegetarians are not so out of idealism at all).
In Huxley's Island, there are trained birds who flit about reminding people, "Here and now, folks, here and now." Sometimes I wish Wikipedia had a few digital birds to say "NPOV, folks, NPOV." :) --FOo
Dead link: (http://www.eatright.org/adap1197.html).
Generally a fine article in its current form. Since the examples under the headings Varities and Motivations have lent themselves to paragraph form, I'd recommend converting these sections from bulleted lists to a standard textual form as one might find in a print encyclopedia.
"Many people intuitively find meat thoroughly disgusting, particularly when raw, and simply prefer to abstain from animal flesh." -- Still fairly NPOV in the use of "thoroughly".
"In both environmental and economic terms the cost of raising a kilogram of animal protein is many times the cost of growing a kilogram of vegetable protein." -- Some quantification would be helpful.
"There are also nutritional considerations which encourage diets emphasising fruit, vegetables and cereals and minimising meat and fat intake." -- Discussion of fat in nutrition is getting its proper due of late. It's important to note that minimizing "fat" of any and all kinds (as is implied here) is not recommended, and the notion of reducing fat intake is directed at those prone to consume saturated fats and other less desirable variants. See for instance the statements about studies of fat consumption in the recent Scientific American article Rebuilding the Food Pyramid (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?colID=1&articleID=0007C5B6-7152-1DF6-9733809EC588EEDF). Let's not give poor, underappreciated olive oil a bad reputation. --Rethunk
- Also: in today's world, it's much more difficult and more of a hassle to maintain a healthy and interesting vegetarian diet than to maintain (say) a standard American diet (whether you consider that heathy or not). This has several implications for this article; e.g. "for most people the only motivation for eating meat is simply the pleasure of eating it" is clearly not true. --Alex
Regarding whether fish can suffer: My problem with this is that this paragraph, and most of the whole article, seem slanted. I wouldn't say that it's overtly pro-vegetarianism, but you can certainly tell it was mostly written by pro-vegetarians. It gives plenty of time for the minutiae of pro-vegetarian arguments, and very little time to the common objections (which it then proceeds to refute).
So, back to the specifics: How can you have any evidence either way about whether a fish can "experience morally significant suffering"? To me, saying that "this assertion is not backed by any hard evidence" gives the suggestion that it's probably not true, when in fact it's neither true nor false - it's an opinion.
The part about the octopus is even more biased. The point of this article is not to give anyone pause, it's to present facts.
It's a very difficult question of whether a certain animal is sentient, has emotions, or can suffer, and if so, are these feelings the same as the equivalent feelings in humans, or are they similar, or are they even in the same ballpark? This paragraph leaves the distinct impression that these questions are fairly well settled - that if one gave it enough thought one would necessarily come to the conclusion that fish can "experience morally significant suffering". That's simply not the case.
- Yes it is, as you can easily determine by causing pain to an animal and observing its reaction. In the US, there are even laws against unnecessary cruelty to animals. The "moral significance" of causing suffering to others, on the other hand, is mainly a question of faith and not provable with current scientific methods. Mkweise 23:04 Jan 30, 2003 (UTC)
- Great seque to my favorite short story, on this very topic: The Soul of Mark III Beast (http://junkerhq.net/CS/MarkIII.html) --GG
IMO everything in this paragraph needs weasel words like "some vegetarians think." I'll try fixing this up soon. --GG
- Actually, I agree with GG, and I was the one who brought up the octopus. The article doesn't feel right at the moment. I dislike weasel words, though. I think we need to re-write chunks altogether rather than disfiguring it with that irritating "some people say" style of faux-neutrality. --GrahamN 23:07 Jan 30, 2003 (UTC)
I made some major changes in this direction. Let me know if you think I went too far.
- Removed most of the section on fish feelings - it was preachy, and was irrelevant to the topic at hand (the definition of vegetarianism)
- Removed the section on Judaism. You can keep kosher and not be vegetarian, in fact I'm sure the vast majority of orthodox Jews aren't vegetarians. If you're out and about in a non-orthodox area, then you probably have to eat vegetarian meals to keep kosher, true, but that's far from being vegetarian.
- Removed the list of Christian vegetarians - not relevant. If a religious movement encourages vegetarianism that's one thing, but simply because someone is a vegetarian and a Christian doesn't make them worthy of mention here.
- Added some weasel words to the environmental section.
- Removed most of the detail from the animal rights section. That belongs on the animal rights page, not here.
- Same with the section on organic food.
--GG
- I moved the list of Christian vegetarians to List of notable vegetarians - that certainly is a more appropriate place for it. I don't know enough about Jewish dietary rules to have an opinion as to the accuracy/appropriateness of the paragraph on that you removed. I'm glad that tumor of a paragraph about fish feelings is gone - it had gotten completely rediculous. I will rephrase and add back the paragraph about leather etc., because many vegetarians (including about a billion Hinuds) would consider wearing leather or washing with soap made from tallow a breach of their vegetarianism. Also I will see if I can dig up the source of the UN study (or was it Club of Rome?) and quote it properly in place of that generalized statement about economic and environmental cost of meat production. Mkweise 23:35 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)
- Now that a lot of the tangential stuff has been pruned, this article is looking much better, in my opinion. --GrahamN 01:42 Feb 24, 2003 (UTC)
- Since I wrote that last commment the thing seems to have grown back to its previous state as a wild, untamed, overgrown mess. I may have a go at pruning it back if I find time. GrahamN 00:24, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/vegetarian.html (The Naive Vegetarian)
- this link is still dead as of 2003-02-15 (host second-opinions.co.uk not responding) --mkweise
- it still works for me 2003-02-16, could it be blocked on your side? GGano
- Neither I nor my ISP run any sort of blocking software, my best guess is that a router between me and that host is still affected by the slammer worm. Here's a trace:
- it still works for me 2003-02-16, could it be blocked on your side? GGano
Tracing route to www.second-opinions.co.uk [80.189.94.38] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 30 ms 50 ms 50 ms 10.92.216.1 2 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms 172.30.142.145 3 20 ms 20 ms 10 ms 172.30.142.187 4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 172.30.138.237 5 40 ms 10 ms 20 ms 172.30.138.250 6 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 68.80.0.234 7 10 ms 10 ms 20 ms POS4-0.hsipaccess2.Philadelphia1.Level3.net [63.208.100.69] 8 10 ms 60 ms 40 ms ge-6-2-1.mp2.Philadelphia1.level3.net [209.247..37] 9 20 ms 20 ms 40 ms so-3-0-0.mp1.NewYork1.Level3.net [64.159.1.41] 10 110 ms 81 ms 90 ms so-0-0-0.mp1.London1.Level3.net [212.187.128.15] 11 130 ms 80 ms 141 ms so-1-0-0.mp1.London2.Level3.net [212.187.128.49 12 150 ms 80 ms 80 ms gige10-0.ipcolo1.London2.Level3.net [212.187.12.135] 13 80 ms 120 ms 110 ms 195.50.116.58 14 * * * Request timed out. 15 * * * Request timed out. 16 * * * Request timed out. 17 * * * Request timed out. 18 * * * Request timed out. 19 * * * Request timed out. 20 * * * Request timed out. 21 * * * Request timed out. 22 * * * Request timed out. 23 * * * Request timed out. 24 * * * Request timed out. 25 * * * Request timed out. 26 * * * Request timed out. 27 * * * Request timed out. 28 * * * Request timed out. 29 * * * Request timed out. 30 * * * Request timed out.
- Mkweise 21:24 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)
- It's there now, I just checked. The link works fine for me quercus robur 21:32 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)