Obviously, in the third line, that was supposed to be "forcibly from" was supposed to be "forcibly removed from."

Dear god, I have no idea what happened in that last comment either. I swear I haven't been drinking mid-day again.

I understand that this is probably what happens on most small farms.  And Greg did not specifically talk about any of those issues.  But theoretically those things do not need to happen.  Thus they probably don't happen on 100% of farms, and those it does happen on can be changed.  And you have no evidence that this is happening on the farm he works for.

It's a matter of economics, Cole. Farms trying to make any money at all or even trying to approach breaking even can't afford to keep non-milk-producing cows alive for their full natural life span, just like they can't afford to keep all the babies those cows must give birth to, year after year, to keep the milk flowing.

Saying that the separation of calf and cow and slaughter of both "probably [doesn't] happen on 100% of farms" and that these practices can be changed implies that there is a serious number of places where this doesn't happen and that it would be economically possible for the other places (i.e., essentially all dairies) to "change" and still be businesses or still supply remotely near the amount of dairy they and their customers seek. But the farm you're envisioning is a fantasy; in reality, there are essentially no places where this actually happens. You may find a few cows in Hare Krishna communities who are allowed to live into their twenties, regardless of whether they're producing milk, but that's about it. Beyond those few--that fraction of a fraction of a percent--we're talking about millions of cows and calves who are indeed tormented and slaughtered, whether as newborns or as seven-year-olds at a third their natural life span, and whether by factory farms or organic farms.

It is simply not possible--or sustainable, in multiple ways--for dairies to "allow" the cows and calves whom they are exploiting to live full lives. Separation and slaughter, of infants and mothers alike, are inherent to the dairy business.

By caring enough about the cows to not turn their farms into factory farms in the first place people have shown that they don't care about just the bottom line.  Yeah, it's not really economically feasible, but that doesn't matter to everyone.  Some people rescue cows and spend money raising them to old age and letting them die naturally.  If there are people who do that without milking their cows then there can be people who do that and still milk their cows.

You make a valid point about how the majority of the dairy industry is run.  But we're not talking about how the industry is run or the majority of farms.  We're talking about individuals.  And until we have evidence of this dairy farm doing those things we cannot justify attacking them based on what other dairy farms do.  Because of what the majority of people do, if I knew nothing about you other than you had pets, by your justifications, I could attack you for making them do stupid tricks for your amusement, rubbing their nose in their own crap, and keeping them in tiny cages in your backyard.

Thanks for your thoughtful response, Greg, and for responding politely when my own tone was a bit frustrated.

But I still disagree with a lot of what you're saying here. Whether the calves are raised for "beef" or "baby beef" or "veal" by people who in your opinion treat them decently while they're briefly alive, they're still killed, yes.

But you're also ignoring that breaking of bonds. Male and female calves both would normally suckle for several months--not a couple weeks--and mother and offspring do form very real emotional bonds (with daughters remaining near their mothers into adulthood), and this so-called humane operation still breaks that bond, still causes the cows and their babies that suffering, just so that humans can have the milk intended for the calves (which they do not need)--and I absolutely consider that breaking of the bonds, that emotional trauma inflicted, to be mistreatment. These cows have their babies, whom they love, prematurely torn away from them year after year. And there's nothing "humane" about that.

Please remember too that it's not just the calves who are slaughtered. All those cows will be killed at the slaughterhouse eventually too when they stop being money-makers. Seems like the ultimate form of mistreatment to me.

What I should have said there, of course, is that female calves would remain with their mothers into adulthood if allowed. Obviously, that doesn't happen in animal agriculture.

Calves staying with their mothers forever does not happen in nature either.  You had predators, mountain lions, wolves, etc that worked in a predator prey world.  You want to talk about inhumane, watch a wolf pack take down a buffalo.

As far as the calves being striped away from mom, some dairies keep the calves on during the day and separate them at night, milking once in the morning.

As far as being economically viable, if they are able to hire you to sell the milk then it must be.  Also it points out how our system today is so out of whack and returning to a local system is needed.

However, the righteous indignation of the fringe that rarely sets foot on a farm, that seem to want to drive policy to ensure everyone lives lives up to their standards seems as draconian as the Bush administration.  The White houses call to have people report any emails that they believe to contain lies about health care reform, and yet we have no details of a plan the government wants to implement.  Yet those in congress will keep their cushy plan.

Cowboy logic - if pro is the opposite of con then congress must be the opposite of progress.

As far as being profitable, maybe if you eliminated grain subsidies, small farms would thrive. 

In addition, those below who post as to how bad livestock is for the environment.  Maybe you ought to look to the health of the topsoil, which is not very good.  Though it was created in an environment with ruminants and predators herding them, with stampedes that trampled trees and left the environment looking pretty abysmal.  

So maybe those studies that show how bad livestock are for it, are as fraudulent and biased as a drug companies.

Maybe that wasn't such a good analogy, in retrospect.

It wasn't, thank you for respectfully admitting it.

But I do have a question: replace the cow with your dog/cat - that is if you have a companion animal(s) - would you do the same thing to them? Would you kill puppies and kittens so you can take milk from your dog/cat? If so - well - you are correct in that you are not as morally mature as ARA's - but if not why? Why is there a difference between cows and dogs/cats? Or puppies and kittens and calves? Are they not all sentient beings and cute little babies?

I don't have pets.  Living in a city, with such a hectic life, it wouldn't be right for me to try and care for one right now.

I really dislike the term sentient beings too.  We're all animals, lets just call it what it is.

And to answer your question, yes, if there was a market for dog/cat milk, or hell, human milk, I'd think about it.  

I don't think of myself as a cruel, evil or violent person...just a curious one.

Greg,

I admire you for not taking anything personally and for being willing to reevaluate your position. It's usually the case that when we are breaking out of the long-standing tradition we've been indoctrinated in since our youth, we realize we haven't considered all the ramifications of our actions, and we have reasoned things through logically. But it's also blessedly true that when we desire enough to know the truth and amend our ways according to that truth, we find it relatively easy to shed past beliefs and behaviors.

I trust that, since you call yourself curious, that trait will lead you to the clear understanding that when humans steal milk meant for calves and kids and lambs, nothing good can come of it for anyone, because nothing good is coming of it from the theft's victims.  

I trust, too, that your imagination is big enough to include the "other" animals (besides us humans, as you put it) and their feelings in your gentle embrace. Thanks for being willing to let your mind and heart go deeper and higher and wider -- to be EXTREME, if not MILITANT (smiles), in your loving embrace of all living beings (does that phrase work for you?). You'll find that the freedom and power that this purer love brings you is like no other, for it frees and gives power to all in your sphere of thought and action.

Hey, maybe you'll be one of those "farmed animal" sanctuary founders some day, Greg!

Bless you for caring and growing. That's what this Change.org site is all about!

Thanks for your kind words, Olivia.  I think we all strive for some kind of ultimate understanding of the very complicated relationship we have with nature.

And yes, I do like the term living beings much better, =).

Oops. I meant to write, in my first paragraph above, that "...we HAVEN'T reasoned things through logically." But I guess you intelligent readers figured that out, logically!

Greg, I don't consider you to be "cruel, evil or violent" either. Most of us grew up eating meat and drinking milk and thinking it was a part of a normal, healthy life. The way I look at is this - most people simply don't know how animals are treated on farms, nor do they understand the health and environmental problems caused by animal based diets. I try to encourage people to learn about these things so they can make better choices for themselves and for those around them. It's a difficult thing to do because many people become upset, offended and defensive when their long held beliefs, traditions and worldviews are challenged.

I think a good reason to distinguish sentient beings from living beings is that sentient beings (most animals) are able to feel pain and suffer whereas living beings (including plants and bacteria) lack the ability to suffer the way animals do. I believe plants, and all life, deserve our respect and consideration, but I think most people would agree there is a big difference between mowing a lawn and sawing the legs off of a cat. The difference is that cats are more than just living beings, they are sentient beings.

I've nodded my head reading your every word (all spoken in a kind, measured voice) in your several posts, Allen. You suddenly popped up out of nowhere, like a well-timed, cooling zephyr. I hope you stick around!

Please do your homework. The latest studies show that grass-fed cows emit significantly LESS methane than their grain-fed counterparts. And the China study has significant flaws in it. (Folic acid is found in higher quantities in animal foods than in vegetable foods, for example). That the author has significant ties to PETA makes the conclusions he draws in the study (many not supported by his own evidence!) as dubious as anything put out by Big Agra.

While humans may not need dairy to survive, many will choose it, just as they have for 20,000 years.

Dawn: People have been choosing to rape and kill for thousands of years too. Not the strongest argument for continuing to do something you know to require unnecessary violence.

http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/culture_changeable_and_not_an_excuse_for_eating_animals

Dawn, your last post is rather confusing. T. Colin Campbell, the author of the China Study, has been at the forefront of nutrition research for more than 40 years, predating PETA by decades. He is Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, has had a long career in research, teaching and development of national and international programs on diet, nutrition and health. He received his master’s degree and Ph.D. from Cornell, and served as a Research Associate at MIT. His studies have ranged from work in the Philippines developing a nationwide program for feeding malnourished children to the organization and directorship of a nationwide study on diet, health and disease in the People's Republic of China, commonly known as the China Study, the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted. He also managed a large laboratory based program of research on the basic biology of the relationship of diet with disease, especially concerning cancer. He has been a member of several expert committees that developed national and international policy on diet and cancer, food labeling, food safety issues and saccharin toxicity. He is probably best known for his work as Senior Science Advisor during the formative years of the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) and the World Cancer Research Fund. AICR awarded him the 1998 Lifetime Achievement Award in Cancer Research. I think he is a very reputable source for nutritional information. But even still, he is just one source among many that point to the major health problems associated with consuming dairy and other animal products.

As for the methane production of cows, I also have a very reputable and recent source. According to a January 2009 interview with Ki C Fanning, a livestock nutritionist with Great Plains Livestock Consulting, Inc., in Eagle, Nebraska, “Grain is higher in digestibility than forages, and as a result, grains produce about four times less CH4 than forages. Cattle lose about 8 percent of the energy from grass to CH4 production but only about 2 percent of the energy of feedlot diets to CH4 production.

Allen, here's a reference to less methane: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/21/farmers-cut-cow-emissions_n_218540.html

But one must also consider the amount of methane produced by rice patties, and other sources which are far greater than the dairy/beef industry. By this argument, cars could be considered immoral because of the gross harm they cause for all of us. (And in fact, I think they are!)

And as for the China study, I do not doubt the man's credentials, but he draws some stunning conclusions in the book that are not supported by his own evidence. Campbell used the data selectively to suit his agenda for the book.

The actual China study (not the book by the same name) doesn't support the vegan diet at all, in fact none of the people studied were vegan. In fact the longest lived people on earth (okinawans and japanese) are not vegans, but they eat heaps of vegetables and a wide variety, legumes, rice, fish, small amounts of meat, and no dairy.

One thing I noticed from the REAL China Study was that the rural chinese are more likely to die from infectious disease such as TB and Pneumonia than westerners. They do not have a life expectancy greater than ours!

Many claims made in this book are in defiance of medical history and common sense.

Degenerative diseases emerged explosively in the 20th century following the introduction of yellow seed oils and white flour and white sugar. Yet people have been consuming animal products since long before the 20th century. The explosive growth of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease does not correspond to an explosion in the consumption of animal foods. It doesn't explain why the French, Swiss, Massai, and Eskimos are healthier than Americans, despite their diets rich in saturated animal fats.

Furthermore, the ACTUAL study (which can be found in Chen J, et al. Diet, life-style, and mortality in China: A study of the characteristics of 65 Chinese counties. Oxford, UK; Ithaca, N.Y. Oxford University Press; Cornell University Press, 1990.), show that consumption of animal protein - especially meat - was associated with a 29% REDUCED risk of mortality, not an increased risk, as Campbell claims. For that matter, the study also shows a reduced risk of cancer in those who consume alcohol and tobacco use.

He also makes many causation/correlation fallacies as well. For example, countries that have the highest Wii possession per capita have the highest rates of obesity. This does not mean at the INDIVIDUAL LEVEL, however, that owning a Wii causes obesity. In fact, the opposite might be true at the level of the individual. The book is chock full of these types of logical fallacies.

His book has generated a tremendous amount of criticism. Here are just a few sites with critique:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=385

http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-8e.shtml

http://bradmarshall.blogspot.com/2005/12/is-wheat-killing-us-introduction-maybe.html

http://www.westonaprice.org/bookreviews/chinastudy.html

http://www.amazon.com/Colin-Campbell-Doesnt-China-Study/forum/Fx1YJPR95OHW08P/Tx3QD9DFF9KLKFN/1/ref=cm_cd_ef_rt_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=1932100660

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Campbell-Masterjohn.html

But then this thread isn't about the China Study.

I don't have time to respond to all of this today, but I will at least direct you to a response to your "but in the wild..." argument:

http://www.animalperson.net/animal_person/2009/08/on-the-wild.html

It's not "on the farm" or "in the wild" for these animals. They are created to be used, tormented, and killed.

And whether you specifically are one of the very, very, very few who sincerely "need" to eat animal flesh, Timothy, I can't judge obviously. But I've yet to be convinced that there's anyone who truly "needs" dairy.

asking what kind of life a manipulated, domesticated animal would live, in the wild, isn't a very valid point (to us, you know, militant vegans, anyway).

the wild oxen, from which cows were domesticated, would live the wild-animal-life you described and experience wild-animal-death, just as they were intended to.

most (militant) vegans would probably agree that turning domesticated animals out into the wild would be exteremly cruel ... as is, continuing to breed them into an existence soley to serve our wants.

but, as far as "what would i choose" ... i'd choose water, just like all the other grown-up animals on the planet.

When I say "militant" I mean that you criticize my food needs as if they are political choices, which they are not.

I am not one of the "very very few" to need to eat meat. There are many who need to, and there is very little in the way of predictive science to decide who, in fact, be healthy -long term- on plant material alone.

I can produce other sources that say all people's are NOT best served by plant based diets. I'm not in this to have a battle of statistics.

You say that someone can have a vegan diet and not get all they need because it is not balanced. Did you  read my whole post? I spent over 6 MONTHS with expert vegan dieticians, paid real money, and still I had zero success. Negative success in fact, in most cases. I tried a number of supplement regimes and dietary changes and none worked. My body simply would not respond to the forms in which some vitamins and minerals are found in plants. This is also true of inuits, native americans, and others to a great extent.

Lactose intolerance DOES have to do with pasteurization. I know that lactose is milk sugar, and that it is undigestible by common yeast (which is why its a problem in our gut). It is the lactAse that is absent in pasteurized milk products that causes folks to be able to digest things when they consume raw milk products, since lactAse allows us to break lactOse down when we can't synthesize it ourselves. Only people with lactOse allergies, or with unusually high sensitivity, are still unable to digest dairy if it is consumed in raw form.

The China study is Bunk, as interpreted by your friend there. Read up above on the excellent articles published that seriously question its scientific basis.

And hey, why draw the line at animals? Are you saying that plants are not sentient? Why do you say that? Why don't you say that eating bean sprouts is the same as eating infants? Or eating seeds is the same as eating fetuses? There is simply no objective criterion to draw the line at plants whatsoever, except that its "far enough" away from our own species to be comfortable mass murdering billions of entities daily to stoke your body with food. You say "we -have- to eat plants" to survive but I am saying that many have to eat meat, so why is the line drawn there? Is it that plants aren't soft, furry and have eyes? I think thats rather prejudiced of you, actually. I revere ALL life, including plants, and I only do what is necessary for my body to survive and thrive, given the limitations placed upon me.

Besides, eating plants does, in fact, kill millions of animals yearly. Even if you eat 100% organic (which I do try to do), the number of rodents, reptiles and birds killed due to the harvesting of plants is almost uncountable.

Its just not as simple as "go vegan". There are a host of other factors that always seem to get lost in the haze of zealotry.

First sentence, first post on this thread (as far as I can tell), called people here "militant", who were, in my opinion, discussing issues quite civilly. Now you've called us prejudiced. I'm sorry that you feel so threatened by our views and this discussion. That really isn't what veganism is about.

Dawn has posted here about her somewhat unique dietary needs - she's managed to make that (somewhat) "real" to me as I've been thinking about - how would I cope, if I had similar allergies; how would I balance my ethics with, you know, not starving. I appreciate her taking the time to discuss with me ... I think it's always good to practice putting yourself in someone else's place. In fact, that's a little closer to what veganism is about, isn't it?

Our food choices are ethical choices, much like our political choices. The happiness, welfare and very lives of many animals, human and non, hang in the balance over both food and political choices.

And, yes, I suspect there could be legitimate, physical circumstances that would cause me to compromise my ethical views about "food" animals. I hope however, that I wouldn't wield any made compromises as a sword, to attack others for pointing out that animals have a right to exist as 'more' than a means to someone else's end. I hope I wouldn't hold myself up as an exception that invalidates the rule of "do as little harm as possible" ... I hope I would always recognize a compromise for what it was - a compromise that, in no way, alters the ideal.

I also hope that I would fully investigate, research and be convinced and satisfied that there were no alternatives available to me.

As far as 'objective criteria' for not eating plants, there is - they have no nervous system - and I'll go on at the risk of being repetitive to everyone else on the board because it must be new for you - it's reasonable to assume that were plants don't experinece life as we do since they lack anything similar to our nervous system. Could we one day learn otherwise? Of course. Should that faint possibility hold us back from doing all we can do, with the knowledge we currently have? Of course not.

Let's call using statements like "plants could be just like animals so we just as well eat animals", "harvesting plants kills lots of animals so why descriminate" as reasons to throw up our hands and give up ... let's call those statements what they are - excuses.

I need to be clear about one thing: It's not like some of us "poor things" with allergies or health issues or whatever simply can't eat vegan. Or that those who eat animal products just "haven't seen the light." Or that we have no compassion for animals. That would presuppose that veganism was the ideal diet for humanity, and anyone who can't or won't is aberrant.

I could ask the same thing of vegans: "Maybe you all just haven't tried hard enough to eat meat, especially from local, sustainable, humanely raised sources. I don't think you've exhausted all your resources yet. Wait, I have a nutritionist you should see! Have you tried digestive enzymes or probiotics? Have you tried raising chickens in your backyard for eggs? Maybe if you went fishing with me you would appreciate how sublime it can be. You know, this meat has been blessed by a rabbi/hallal authority/priest/whatever... Here's a book and a bunch of studies to show that we are really omnivores and that we can't reach optimal health without the fat-soluble vitamins that are so easily absorbed from animal products. Just read them and you'll see the light."

You'd laugh at me right? You'd think I was arrogant and belittling, right? Unfortunately some of the posters on this thread have taken this same attitude towards nonvegans, some rather aggressively. I think this is what the poster was pointing to when he said some were "militant."

The fact is--completely regardless of health--we don't all share the same values. Some of us see the harm of all life as wrong and eat nothing but fruit. The fruitarians/Jainists would see you vegans as inhumane and cruel, as only "partly" enlightened. The raw foodist think vegans who eat cooked food are poisoning themselves. There are some who won't eat anything with emotions, but they eat fish. The point is: food values are personal and largely arbitrary.

Some people (like myself) see keeping pets as the ultimate in egocentric animal abuse. Some people are pro-life and some are pro-choice. Some support the death penalty, some don't. Some support the war, some don't. Some equate animal life with human life to varying degrees, some don't. It's that simple. And no one is going to convert someone to their way of life by telling the other that their way is wrong. Period.

There's nothing wrong with people who eat animals and animal foods, we just don't share your values.

And just because the meat and dairy industry needs serious mega-reform doesn't mean we should all stop eating animals. (By this argument we should stop eating all conventionally-grown food altogether immediately.) The fact that the demand for local grass-fed dairy and meat is growing by leaps and bounds is testament to the fact that many people just don't feel that--at its root--eating animal products is equivalent to abuse and murder.

Furthermore, sustainable agriculture is simply not possible without animals. Agriculture and husbandry evolved codependently together. Without the manure and labor of domesticated animals (chickens will eliminate pest problems, geese will weed, goats will clear, horses will plow, cows will mow, etc.) we simply wouldn't have organic agriculture or permaculture at all. And as we run out of oil to make synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and run tractors and harvesters, etc. we will need domestic animals on our farms for our very survival. Their demise is our demise, unless we want to go back to hunting and gathering.

So I have no qualms with people who eat vegan because of their ethics or religion. My religion (Judaism) sanctifies the eating of certain animals and forbids the eating of others, so I get it. But there is nothing "wrong" or "immoral" about people who choose to eat humanely and sustainably-raised animal foods simply because they like them, so I will not make any apologetic arguments about not being vegan.

Yes, our values differ. I'm sure there were (and still are) unapologetic slave-owners. I'm sure there are misogynists who will always think women are inferior to men. Are they wrong? Should no one  speak out against their viewpoints? Is there anything wrong with a dog owner beating his dog? Maybe his training philosophy and methods merely differ from mine?

But I think the point here, at least with the original poster - he was saying his dairy was not cruel. He didn't even mention the calves at first because he had no idea what happened to them. Furthermore, he was telling animal activists what they *should* be doing  - promoting similar dairies because they.are.not.cruel.   Even from a welfare standpoint, that's inaccurate (at least to most animal rights' activists, who he was imploring to start doing the promoting).

Is "humane" better for individual animals? Well, it depends a lot on whose definition of humane is used, doesn't it? To me, that's one practical place where "welfare vs. rights" breaks down - how can you even define humane? What, you get some committee to come up with humane standards? It's just a big mess. Obviously, the original poster's idea of humane differs from many people's here. Some people's idea of humane is a sticker on their meat that says so. When the use of another living animal is optional, it seems the only truly humane thing to do is decline to use.

But I have to disagree - our food values and choices are not arbitrary to the animals in the slaughterhouses.

You imply that I must think that treating humans poorly is acceptable if I eat meat. Hmmm.

You imply that I must think that torturing animals is acceptable if I eat meat. Hmmm.

You imply that vegan is the best way to eat and the rest of us are somehow morally deficient, unenlightened or just plain stupid if we don't abstain. Hmmm.

Gosh many vegans on this post seem to think very little of people unlike yourselves. Way to rally for your cause!

It is these very types of belittling implications that I take issue with in my last post. You can stand up for your beliefs all you wish, but you will only continue to put people off by implying (or even accusing) that there is something wrong with them by not living your way.

I find it ironic that you would mention pet ownership, as this is the ultimate form of "using" an animal for one's own purposes, and includes forced neutering, forced breeding, caging (keeping an animal indoors), leashing, crating, application of poisons in the form of flea medicines, vaccinations (tested on animals and containing animal ingredients), and all sorts of things that treat the animal like property owned. And yet, most pet owners consider themselves humane and compassionate in doing these things.

Frankly, it is a sin in many religions to consider animals to be equal to humans with all the same rights, and also at the same time, it is also a sin to be cruel to animals, which is part of why Jews, Muslims and orthodox Christians have such stringent rules about what constitutes humane meat eating. Meat eating and compassion are not mutually exclusive thank you.

And like I said, just because the meat and dairy industry needs mega-reform for many reasons does not mean humans are going to—or even should— quit eating meat. The fact that so many now shop for local, humanely raised meat and dairy is testament to this.

As is understood in most spiritual paths, the taking of an animal life to sustain a human life should be a sanctified, measured endeavor. We believe animals should be part of our diets, but we don't think treating an animal in a way that makes them, us and the planet sick just to make a buck is the way to do it.

I can't be any more clear than I have been in my umpteen posts, and I will not accept anymore ad hominem attacks on my character because I do not share the vegan philosophy.

I'm sorry if you felt your character attacked ... your post just seemed to be taking the "it's all relative" path - you'll do what you want, I'll do what I want and everything's good, equally moral, equally correct.

Seems to me, that a normal extention of such relativism is to allow other groups (slaveowners, dog abusers, sexists, etc) whose actions we "all" agree are against our own personal value systems, that same relativism and say "if it works for them, it's good for them".

I certainly wasn't implying you, personally, thought any of those things acceptable.

(Incidentally, mentioning pet ownership doesn't mean I'm supportive of it. Rescue and care for who is here, yes. Breed more? no.)

As far as the "so many do it" argument - I can't not comment on this, the second time. Any ideas about the rate of infidelity in monogamous (human) relationships? I don't know any numbers, but I bet they're pretty high. The fact that "so many do X"  says nothing of whether or not X is a good thing to do.

I did not make a "so many do it" argument. I stated that many people are choosing meat and dairy from non-factory sources because they are aware of the abuses of animal and environment inherent in factory animal operations. That's all.

There are many good reasons that people choose to eat animal products, starting with they don't believe that animals have the same rights that people do. Or that they are the same "order" of being that humans are. That doesn't mean that we think they should be tortured either.

Other reasons include nutrition and the fact that many vitamins and other nutrients can only be found in adequate, efficient and absorbable quantities from animal products. Vitamin pills are not a viable option for many of the world's people for many reasons. And (for example) manufactured, isolated b-12 is NOT at all the same as whole food b-12 with all of its natural cofactors and helper nutrients, and in fact is vastly inferior.

Other reasons include cultural and religious practices. Try telling the Amish to quit driving horsecarts or the Massai to quit cattle farming or the Japanese to quit fishing or an orthodox Jew to take the lamb shank off his Passover seder plate!

And then there's the fact that you can't have sustainable agriculture without raising animals too. So it makes economic sense as well as nutritional sense to make best use of all food resources on a farm.

My point was simply to say that for extremely valid reasons meat eating is deeply embedded in human life and has been for our entire half million years of existence. And there is nothing wrong with this. We wouldn't have survived this long without eating animal foods.

Veganism has only become a viable option for *some* people in the past 50 or so years, and only for people in wealthy western nations. And were it not for modern chemistry to make vitamin pills to fill the gaps in vegan diets, (which will disappear in an instant if the Codex law is passed) it still wouldn't be.

Meat eating cannot be equated with infidelity or slavery or anything else related to human behavior toward humans because how we treat animals and how we treat each other are categorically different. Killing a bug is not the same as killing a hen and killing a cat is not the same as killing a child. Humans are on a different par.

Just as the coyote feels no remorse in eating the hen, I do not feel bad about eating animals either. It is in my animal nature and my biology to consume foods that bring health and energy to my body. But because I live in modern society where my food is farmed rather than hunted and gathered, and because I live in a country that is, on the whole, gluttonous and wasteful about everything, my higher human consciousness wants that consumption to be moderate, culturally connected, healthy, sustainable, and humane.

Good night.

I think saying there's such a huge market for humane meat is a "so many buy it, eat it. it must be ok" is a "so many do it" argument. You first said the market is a testament to the fact that people don't believe eating meat is murder.

But you know, if there is such a huge market for *humane* products (I don't know enough about it to know but I'm sure there is more demand than supply), it at least would show people think there is something wrong with the traditional system. I think we both agree on that.

No one is trying to say - at least I'm not trying to say - killing a bug is the same as killing a hen or killing a cat is the same as killing a child. I don't personally believe these are the same but you know what, I really don't think all this "same" business matters that much either. I've frequently heard it from the religious standpoint, that it's a sin or sacrilege to equate animals with humans, that humans are above animals - a different par as you say.

And I think those beliefs, if carried out, would also prevent one from optional animal use. That it can actually be because we are "above" the animals, that we show them the ultimate mercy of not taking their lives arbitrarily just because we like how they taste, just because we can. Matthew Scully makes this point, in Dominion, much better than I ever could.

Again, not getting the point either of us is making.

I do, in fact, believe eating meat is "murder" in a sense. It is the taking of a life, generally speaking, against its will.. for we must assume that all living beings (except perhaps humans) have an absolutely unbreakable will to survive at all costs. This is not strictly speaking true, but its a fair assumption, and one that is being made by all vegans when these arguments are made.

But you see, I don't disagree that we are killing beings in order to eat them. It is true. You use the word "murder" in order to emotionally charge the content. Folks are also fond of using terms like "forcibly impregnate" and such, to make things seem more shocking. I don't and won't do that, except perhaps in a comparative sense. I think you would be taken more seriously if you followed suit.

In any event, the difference is that I believe (backed by any number of cultural and scientific sources) we have no choice but to eat meat in order to be healthy. And so, I do not regret it, and in fact whenever I eat meat I give thanks to the animal that gave its life so that I could be healthy.

i didn't decide to live in a body that required murder in order to survive. That decision was made for me by the universe. And so I do not have remorse towards, but I do have compassion for. the anmals that have died so that I may live healthy.

Yes, The Buddha said we should not eat meat, and in the one case mentioned, very strongly so.

He also said practitioners should eat whatever food is given them in their begging bowl, even if it included meat. And this is the key.. it is a simple step to realize, we are all practitioners.

To understand why this contradiction is there in the texts, is to understand why contradictions are used as teaching tools at all in spiritual context. Tibetan Buddhists sanction eating meat quite strongly, and in fact are required to eat meat and drink alcohol at a Ganapuja. Why? I invite you to read about it.. I couldn't gve it justice in 1000 words or less.

So, in other words, we are asking you to "step off". This isn't an empirical argument.. its a "religious" one. And you can't prove those with statistics and numbers.

So let me see if I understand: you're trying to "reduce" the animal rights' side of the debate to a religous argument (i.e. something for which there's no 'right' or 'wrong') but you simultaneously want us to believe that there are scientific reasons (some-to-many) people can't thrive on an vegan diet. And we're to believe that based on a few peoples' subjective, non-scientific experiences? When our own subjective experiences and quite a bit of reputable scientific data say otherwise?

The Buddha said many things, and many of them are contradictory. I am not a Jainist, I am a Tibetan Buddhist. The Vajrayana path allows for meat eating.

Each has their path. Each according to their means.

Somehow, I doubt your expertise regarding what a "SIGNIFICANT percentage of us" need and can get nutritionally from plant sources is greater than that of the American Dietetic Association: http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML.htm. And "careful vegan" doesn't exactly have an agreed-upon meaning or say anything significant.

And why you think an argument in which you assume a "local" omnivorous diet and a long-transport-of-food vegan diet holds water is beyond me. Vegans can eat locally too.

The period became a part of the URL and made it invalid; my apologies: http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML.htm

Hi Dawn,

Thanks for your insights. I don’t disagree that some Buddists eat meat and that many cultures have a long tradition of eating meat and other animals products. Some cultures also have a long history of women’s rights abuses, slavery and warfare. I don’t think that tradition or religion is an excuse for cruelty or injustice.

From what I have learned, evolution has not designed humans to eat meat. In fact, humans are descended from apes and apes are almost exclusively vegetarian. Gorillas and orangutans are entirely vegan. Chimpanzees, the closest living relatives to humans, derive 95% of their diets from plants, 4% from termites, and 1% from small birds, reptiles and mammals. However, only the males eat meat, not the females, and the whole things seems more of a dominance ritual than a dietary necessity.

Our human ancestors began eating meat about 2 million years ago. However, it appears that they were mostly scavenging and not hunting. Even still, meat eating was relatively rare because eating uncooked flesh is rather dangerous for humans because we don’t have the acidic stomach juices of carnivores needed to kill the deadly bacteria found on rotting carcasses. But, in times of food scarcity, scavenging the remains of carcasses was probably necessary for human survival.

The use of fire by humans began about 500,000 years ago. Once humans had the means to cook meat they began eating more of it. Hunting appeared shortly after. Paleoanthropologists like Katharine Milton from the University of California in Berkeley think that the diets of most primitive human cultures was predominately vegetarian. Although some northern societies may have relied more heavily on meat to get through cold winters, it appears that most human societies thrived on 90 – 95% vegetarian diets.

Leading nutritionists and doctors like Dr. Milton Mills say that although humans have eaten meat for thousands of years, our physiology has remained very similar to that of apes and other herbivorous animals. Certainly humans are not ruminants like cows, but we do have very similar anatomies to other herbivores.

For example, carnivores and omnivores have wide mouth openings and can only move their jaws up and down. Herbivores and humans have small mouth openings and can move our jaws up and down and from side to side to better grind plant matter. Although humans have canine teeth (just like horses), our teeth are nothing like the long, sharp teeth of carnivores who can rip flesh from bone. Our teeth are much better suited to tearing through the skin of an apple. We had to invent knives to cut through meat. Likewise, while carnivores have sharp claws or talons, herbivores and humans have hooves or soft nails that are unsuited to ripping through flesh.

Unlike humans and other herbivores, the saliva of carnivorous and omnivorous animals does not contain digestive enzymes. When eating, mammalian carnivores gorge rapidly and do not chew their food. They are incapable of choking to death from food. Humans and other animals must chew their food thoroughly and mixing food with our saliva is an important part of digestion. Further down the digestive tract, carnivores have short intestinal tracts in order to pass the digested meat quickly before it has a chance to putrefy and cause disease. Herbivores and humans have long intestinal tracts in order to fully digest plant materials. Unfortunately, meat has a tendency to putrefy in our intestines and can lead to colon cancer.

Further proving my point, I think, the American Dietetic Association and many other nutritionist groups say that eating a plant based diet is optimal for human health while consuming meat and other animal based foods contributes to many serious and deadly diseases including heart disease (the leading killer in the US), cancer (the #2 killer), stroke (the #3 killer), diabetes (a leading cause of death in the US), osteoporosis and on and on. The ADA says that vegan diets are appropriate for everyone, during any and all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, infancy and childhood. Leading nutritionists say that well-planned vegan diets can easily meet all human nutritional needs and are not lacking in any vitamins, minerals or other nutrients.

Clearly, humans are not adapted to eating meat and certainly not in the quantities that are eaten in modern times. Perhaps during periods of food shortages and starvation it might be wise to consider supplementing one’s diet with meat, but considering obesity is quickly overtaking smoking as the leading cause of preventable deaths in this country I don’t think that hunger is much of an issue in this country.

However, hunger is a huge issue in other countries and according to researchers at Cornell University American farmers are wasting enough edible grains and other crops on farm animals to feed 800 million starving people. In Ethiopia and other third world countries where starvation is rampant, the governments are exporting valuable grains and other food crops to Western countries (supply and demand) so that we can feed it to farm animals.

I could go on and on and on, but really I don’t have the time. I encourage anyone who is interested tossing aside outdated assumptions about diet to look into the many health, environmental and animal welfare benefits of adopting a vegan lifestyle. A few good places to start include books like the China Study, Food Revolution and Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food. Some good websites include GoVeg.com, TryVeg.com, and VegforLife.org.

I’m not out to get you. I am on your side and am only trying to help. Good luck.

While I wouldn't normally offer my opinion about dietary choices, the author of this blog did ask for comments. You can't fault us for obliging him. Also, just because others may have different views of morality shoudl not stop people from speaking out against injustice. While I wouldn't normally question someone's choice in recreational activities, I will speak up and even attempt to stop someone who thinks it is amusing to kick puppies or set cats on fire. I don't care if they share my view of morality or not. Similarly, I will not stand by silently while people needlessly abuse and kill cows, pigs, chickens or other animals simply because they enjoy the taste of their flesh.

I am a nutritionist and the percentages I sited in my post for pyroluria alone (10% of population) are significant.

Careful vegan means I ate very, very well, mostly organic vegetables I grew myself. I also worked on an organic farm and was outside every day with access to the best produce. I am allergic to wheat, rice, corn and soy so I had to be very careful. It was the lack of DHA and Vitamin D that wore out my health.

that *is* quite a lot of food allergies, which would certainly make a vegan diet more of a challenge for me.

just out of curiosity, did you develop them while being vegan or were they "pre-existing"?

Allen,

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I used to work for the ADA, and honestly, I have no faith in almost anything they say. They are a corporate interest organization and cowtow constantly to Big Agra, especially the GMO soybean industry.

I've seen some people thrive on a vegan diet, and I've seen others totally languish eating the same foods. There are websites full of people who lost their health after living vegan or raw. It is not for everyone.

More and more scientific evidence is showing that we are genetically and metabolically different from each other, and as a result have different food requirements. For example, people with ancestry from tropical regions near the equator tend to do better on a more carb-based, plant diet, because that is what people adapted to eating there over hundreds of thousands of years. In a country full of people from all over like the US, you will find many different metabolic types.

The great apes do eat mostly plants, but notably, they all eat a lot of insects, which provide whole vitamin A, vitamin D, zinc and B-12, which are typically missing in a plant-based diet. And as you mentioned, chimps and bonobos hunt for small mammals.

We could have a study-siting battle and I could give you just as much evidence from paleoanthropologists studying ancient bones and DNA who have concluded that we evolved omnivorously, and that in most regions except tropical, meat formed 40% or more of the diets of paleolithic peoples.

I already said I think our optimal diet should be mostly plants and mostly raw. And I don't think taking vitamins to make up for deficiencies in the vegan diet (like vitamin D, b-12, etc.) is sustainable. We did not evolve with vitamin pills. To me, there is something inherently wrong from having to take a vitamin to get what I need to survive, when the foods are readily available.

I will not argue with you that the standard American diet has MAJOR problems. But there are many people around the world eating traditional omnivorous diets that do not have cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or any of the other food-related illnesses Americans suffer. The Massai for example.

As to the morality or alleged cruelty of domesticating animals and consuming animal products, with the notable exception of industrial factory farming, we will have to agree to disagree.

My food allergies occurred while I was vegan, which I was for most of my life up until 10 years ago (I'm 37). I cannot eat grains, nuts, and soy, period. Ironically, I am allergic to milk as well. (Not lactose intolerant--casein allergic).

Nevertheless, I support the right of people to choose to eat animal products that are humanely and ecologically raised.

funny, so i've been thinking, since your post, of vegan stuff i'd be "allowed" on your version of a vegan diet and was thinking, "i'd be ok, but maybe lack a little variety in the grain department".

but nuts, i wouldn't get nuts? no quinoa, millet? certainly potatoes are ok? beans? oats?

somewhere, you said you don't think vitamins are 'sustainable' - you really don't take anything? seems like a much longer "can't eat" list than "meat and dairy" to me.

Jill, I don't eat nuts or millet, quinoa or oats. No grains or seed-like grains, period. Nor do I eat potatoes, but mostly because I don't like them. I don't eat starches as I don't digest them well, and some outright give me major problems.

Evolutionarily, we only began eating grains very recently (blood type AB was part of this adaptation), and some people (increasingly more and more people have celiac, autoimmune diseases, autism or other grain sensitivities) just haven't adapted.

That said, there are sooooo many other things to eat besides grains, nuts, soy and dairy.

dawn - i somehow never noticed this reply yesterday.

type AB, that's me! =) hopefully, that bodes well for my intestines and future food allergies.

i'm beginning to wonder just what would i eat, were i to take the "union" of our cant-eat-lists. beans, fruits and veggies, i guess. i don't know if that'd work out too well. maybe? but i do love a potato, so that'd help. :)

it is curious about why so many people are developing food-related problems ... are we diagnosing more, hearing more, or are we actually getting sicker?  curious if you've heard anything about the non-allergenic line of non-gmo soybeans? i stumbled across an article about it a while back and have thought about it, again, with this food-allergy post.

AB's tend to be better able to eat grains than type O's for example. But this is a generalization. Most raw foodists eat only fruits and veggies, with some nuts and seeds--no beans, potatoes or grains at all, nothing that can't be eaten raw. And fruitarians eat only sweet and vegetable fruits. So there are many flavors of vegans, each vying for who has the "perfect," most enlightened diet.

No one has proven why there is such a huge increase in food sensitivities and allergies, or why celiac disease, autism and other autoimmune diseases have increased 4-10x or more in the last two decades. But I have my theories, shared by many others:

Latest science shows that all of these autoimmune illnesses and other digestive maladies (from IBS to autism to lupus to rheumatoid arthritis, etc.) have their root cause in the gut. An imbalanced gut flora that "leaks" releases food proteins into the blood stream, which then travel around the body and are attacked (rightfully) as foreign invaders. This sets up a cascade of inflammation and other degenerative symptoms.

Americans (and Westerns) have extremely unhealthy guts. We have eliminated the naturally probiotic foods from our diets (like kefir, yogurt, raw dairy (YES DAIRY!), sauerkraut, kvass, etc.) in favor of pasteurized foods that have no life. We drink chlorinated water, we use antibiotics and antibacterials like they are going out of style--all of which destroy the beneficial bacteria living on and within us. Then we heap on lots and lots of sugar and nutritionally bankrupt starches which foster the growth of parasites, yeasts and other bad flora.

And the icing on the cake: this epidemic of autoimmune and allergy is almost in perfect synch with the introduction of genetically engineered foods. These pseudo-foods have been engineered  with the use of bacteria to contain pesticides in every cell. And it has been shown in several studies that these bacteria in the cells of GMO foods can and do transfer into the lining of the gut--essentially colonizing our gut with pesticide-producing microflora.

The majority of our immune system is located in our intestines. By treating our gut so poorly, we have created an entire society with compromised immunity. Depending on lifestyle, genetics, etc. this leaves the individual open to a host of possible illnesses from cancer to autism to IBS to colitis to lupus to schizophrenia to celiac disease and on and on... all of these gut-related illnesses.

Eating probiotic foods like the ones mentioned above and eliminating habits that kill our intestinal flora is key to prevention of leaky gut and the diseases it causes. Healing the problem after the fact is very difficult, but again, can only be truly accomplished through diet, herbs and other alternative therapies that restore gut health, and liver and adrenal function. But that is waaay beyond the scope of this thread, and I've droned on too long anyway.

Best to you...

Eric, I appreciate your post, but you have made several factual errors about nutrition that I cannot leave uncorrected.

- CLA is found in pasture-raised eggs, grass-fed beef and dairy. While not shown to be essential at this time, CLA has known weight-regulating and tumor-preventing/shrinking capacities.

- It is estimated that 30% or more of the population has thyroid problems, which is a lot of people with Vitamin A conversion problems. There are even more diabetics. All of them need vitamin A now before they are cured, if that is possible. And I already stated that I think supplements are unsustainable and greatly inferior to whole food nutrition. Vitamin A is synthetically produced and often toxic if you are not careful, yet food-based Vitamin A is never toxic no matter how much liver (or whatever source) you eat.

- Vitamin D is not found in plant foods in any quantity that is helpful, but it can be synthesized on yeast, which is where the vegan supplement comes from. People of African descent and many others at higher latitudes just cannot get enough Vitamin D from the sun, especially during the winter. A study just came out this week showing that 75% of American children are Vitamin D deficient.

Again, we did not evolve taking vitamin pills, but we can get as much D as other populations free of chronic disease (who get 15-20x more vitamin D than we do) by eating organ meats or even by taking cod liver oil.

-Numerous studies show that plant sources of Omega-3, including seaweed, simply do not convert well into AA or DHA. You have to eat PLATES of seaweed to get the DHA of one serving of fish. That doesn't mean you can't get all the other omega-3s (EPA, GLA, etc.) from greens, nuts and seeds.

- I agree that rice and soy are not necessary in any diet, nor are grains, but the majority of vegans rely heavily on them, which is problematic. 95% of all soy (and potatoes and corn and sugar) in the US is genetically engineered.

- Nutritional yeast is fortified with b-12, it doesn't naturally have it. Actually there is lots of b-12 in shellfish, meat, liver and more. It is found in the actual flesh of the animal. B-12 is not bacteria dependent, and if it was we'd be in trouble because most humans do not have the gut flora bacteria necessary for this conversion the way cows do.

Furthermore, yeasts are considered domesticated organisms (one of the first ones actually), propagated for our purposes only. Does yeast not have rights too, or no, because we can't so readily identify with it the way we can a fuzzy animal? I say this facetiously, but really, it begs the question...

What about breeding dogs and cats? Or forced neutering of strays? Flea collars? Bees and honey? Do you swat mosquitos?

There are also many studies showing that plants feel fear in anticipation of being harvested and pain when being cut or "abused." They show it electro-chemically because they have no other voice. Should we stop harvesting plants because it violates their right to live free from harm? There are some who go to this extreme and only eat fruit! How far do you go?

Thanks for honoring the choices that people make and not berating them or me. I respect the choice that you have made based on your values.

I make mine based on my values, and I do not equate, for example, raising a chicken in my backyard (or a small farm) for eggs or a goat/cow for milk with factory farming or with animal cruelty.

I do not hold animals on the same levels of humans, though I do not advocate for anything other than humane treatment (for our sake, not theirs; Nature has no mercy.)

Thanks for pointing out my factual errors.  None of these errors though take away from my point that you don't need meat to get proper nutrition... though in some cases, where a person has a disease or an allergy they may need a supplement.

So it seems we agree that many people can live just fine on a vegan diet.  We also seem to agree that many people don't do so well on them. Mainly due to some allergy or medical issue.  We also agree that they could do better if they took some vitamin supplement, though you don't believe in vitamins.  Correct me if i'm wrong.

I personally take no supplements but I did when I first went vegan just to be sure I was doing things right.  But I know that feeling of wanting to be as natural as possible and wanting to avoid them. I currently feel great and as healthy as ever as a vegan and am also a very active athlete.

You say that we did not evolve taking supplements.  But we also did not evolve eating cooked foods.  Nor did we definitely evolve eating meat (I know that is highly debateable and the majority of anthropologists would say we evolved eating at least some). If we did evolve eating meat, we certainly did not evolve eating anywhere near the amounts we eat in the world today.  And not any sort of milk since our evolution took place before the domestication of livestock. We also evolved with no pills or modern medicine, operations, doctor visits, immunizations, radiation from computer screens, use of the internet, vehicular transportation, modern electricity, etc.  How do you pick and choose which things you do not allow yourself that were not found in our evolutionary past and which you do?

You also say that vitamins are not sustainable.  I'd love to know more about this and what your source is.  But meat production is not sustainable by any means.  It causes more global warming than all transportation in the world combined.  I understand that you may buy only local, grass fed meat and that is certainly a more ecological way to go.  It is unfortunate that you are in the vast minority if you live somewhere where this sort of meat is available and can afford it.  I certainly agree it is a wonderful option as compared to the factory farm.

Finally, your last point asking why is it ok to kill yeast and plants but not animals.  This is an important one and if you want to understand why most people go vegan, this is it.  Its because animals have a nervous system.  Thus they are able to feel pain.  Also animals feel fear and love for their children because they have very similar brains to our own, and our brains evolved directly from theirs.  (The main difference in our brains is the size of our frontal cortex which is where rational thought and language happen).  All these things mean that they can suffer.  This is what it means to be vegan.  You want to limit the suffering in the world as best you can.  You look in your dog or cats eyes, and you recognize something of yourself there.  You see the same when you visit farm animals and you know they are not much different than your dog or cat and deserve the same respect.  You know you can't stop all the suffering but that is no reason not to do what you can.  I respect you for doing what you can in that you eat animals who were raised with at least some measure of respect before the act of slaughter.  I also recognize that none of us can ever REALLY know if a plant or yeast feels pain or suffers, but as I heard it written earlier, its really hard to debate with someone who is seriously trying to suggest that mowing the lawn is in the same ballpark as sawing off a cat's legs.  If you still want to insist that plants suffer than you must also realize that to save the most number of plants from suffering would still mean a vegan diet is best because 16 times the number of plants are killed on a meat based diet because you have to grow so many plants to raise the animals.  It is so easy not to allow yourself to see that farm animals suffer whether on a "humane" farm or not.  So easy to gloss over it as so many of us were raised to do and as I did for so long.  So easy to push anything not human into a big category of "not us" and lump plants and animals into the same category of "stuff I can use".  I hope you'll make an attempt to see them as the beautiful sentient creatures I believe them to be.

Best to you!

"When a human being kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why then should man expect mercy from God? It is unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give."

—Isaac Bashevis Singer, writer and Nobel laureate (1902–1991)

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
—Albert Schweitzer, French philosopher, physician, and musician (Nobel 1952)

"Flesh eating is unprovoked murder."
—Ben Franklin

Eric, you are one of the most reasonable and down to earth vegans I have met lately. You are strong in your opinion without resorting to nastiness or stuffing your ideas down my throat. This is refreshing.

I was vegetarian or vegan for 20 years. I am very familiar with the sentient argument. Of course I get it that animals are beautiful sentient creatures. If the criteria is sentience, fear, love, and concern for children, then vegans could eat fish, insects, honey, and reptiles, just as the great apes do, and never need a vitamin supplement. But most don't.

But as a nutritionist, a botanist, organic farmer, and a deeply spiritual person, I don't think sentience ends with mammals.

Increasing scientific evidence demonstrating the intelligence and sentience of plants notwithstanding, I can feel the intelligence in insects, fish, reptiles, plants and other creatures that don't have "emotions" and concern for their young as we understand it. And yet I must eat. So I do so mindfully, and with joy, respect and honor, because I believe my God commands me to do so.

For the record, I try to live as sustainably as possible. I am constantly balancing the modern world with a simpler, healthier life with less technology and other stuff. I am old enough to remember a slower life with TVs with dials and 8-track tapes.

I am a Paleo-dieter. I don't eat grains or dairy, nor do I eat anything that comes in a package, box, jar, or bottle, except coconut, olive, palm and sesame oils.

I don't take vitamins or pharm drugs because I don't support the chemical industry, nor did we evolve to consume them. And they are vastly inferior to whole food nutrition which our Creator provided for us.

Though I had many pets growing up, I don't support keeping companion animals because I think breeding and keeping an animal solely for emotional comfort and pleasure is the ultimate form of egotism, slavery and abuse.

I do not use modern medicine unless it is absolutely necessary (say a broken bone or major wound). In fact I think the medical industry is totally corrupted by Big Pharma. I don't immunize as I don't want heavy metals and by-products of infected animals injected into me. (BTW, the new H1N1 vaccine was cultured from the diseased kidneys of green monkeys!)

I didn't use a car for most of my life until sprawl made it absolutely necessary. I don't use toiletry products that contain chemicals; I even make my own toothpaste. (it's easy)

I am moving to an off-the-grid ecovillage where I will raise almost all my own food. I will raise domesticated animals because any sustainable agriculture system MUST include animals for their manure, their labor and their unique abilities (ducks will weed your garden, hens will eat your pests).

Agriculture and husbandry evolved together and are utterly codependent in a sustainable permaculture system. And as oil runs out and we cannot use petroleum and natural gas to power tractors and make fertilizers, domesticated farm animals will be crucial to our survival, whether we eat them or not.

I have slaughtered and rendered an animal with my own hands, wasting nothing. It is dirty and sacred business. If everyone knew what that was like, we would eat less meat. And yet, like traditional cultures that have been eating animal foods for milennia, we would still do so. But like most traditional cultures, we would do so with great reverence for the cycle of life.

Thanks for a thoughtful exchange.

Yes, I agree, Jill, that there are bad diets of all types. cheese pizza vegetarianism is just another version of the Standard high-carb, processed food, American Diet! But there are plenty of people who have languished after eating a very healthy, balanced vegan or raw diet. Sometimes it is after years of built-up deficiency--as was my case. I do much better eating no carbs/starches and more greens, fruits and animal foods. And as a nutritionist, this is something I see often.

Jill, the point is that we are not all the same, nor all have the same requirements. Just because there is a subset of humans who can be healthy on a vegan diet, does not mean ALL can. This is increasingly being shown to be true, however the medical establishment is very loathe to admit to this sort of variability.

And now you have three people who are telling you "Honest, REALLY, we tried REALLY HARD to be vegans for a LONG time and it didn't work for us" We didn't eat unbalanced diets.. we were all careful, and still it failed for our bodies. So please, dont make the generalization that if veganism doesn't work for us we screwed it up. That means the Vegan dieticians I used were wrong., and let me tell you.. they were very hard core and knowledgeable.

i'm by no means an expert on this ... to be honest, it's not something i've thought about that much so my questions are honest and from the assumpitions i have about a vegan diet, which may be completely wrong - so please correct me, point out correct info, etc. =)

you mention dwinding wildlife due to grain and soy fields. i have no doubt that happens, but my first thought is - how much of that grain and soy is going to feed animals, which would, in turn feed people? i've read something like: it takes a 1/6th acre to feed one vegan, a 1/3rd acre to feed one vegetarian and over 3 acres/meat-eater. if accurate, the best approach to use less land/kill less wildlife seems a vegan diet. there are similar numbers for water-useage.

i think there's a big difference here, in necessity ... but maybe that's just a justification on my part because i have to eat something and am not fortunate enough to own a farm of my own yet, though that's the dream (not a stick-built house with a white picket fence, just some land will do! =).

for animal-products, it's absolutely necessary for animals to be killed to provide, well, animal products. for plant-products, animal-death is not necessary/primary purpose? i'm sure animals die in the harvesting process. i'm sure farmers do all sorts of awful things to protect their crops. i once lived in an apartment complex that put rat poison/traps OUTSIDE ... i couldn't believe it ... it's one thing, to put them inside (although still unexcusable) but seeing them outside really got to me - the poor rats, weren't even "allowed" to be outside?! The local Whole Foods is designed in such a way that it's easy for birds to get in but apparently not so easy for them to get out. If I ever get that farm, I'll probably kill some earthworms planting in my garden, no matter how careful I dig. It's unfortunate and sad.

You don't sound like you're doing this, but I have met people who bring up similiar issues, about how it's impossible to be 100% vegan. and they're right. but they just that as an excuse to not do as much as they could, personally, do. and that's also unfortunate and sad.

The trouble with that comparison is that it assumes equivalent land use for crops and livestock.

Cows and chickens and pigs can eat materials we can't eat, and on land that is unfit for crops, and thrive quite nicely. They are actually turning undigestable plant matter into edible material if they are pastured properly.

What that means is that raising more livestock on pasture would not consume any appreciable amount of cropland, and would in fact reduce the amount of cropland needed (given higher meat consumption by humans) which would in turn gve a boost to wildlife (as wildlife highly values the same land we do for crops), reduce the amount of fertilzer runoff into our waterways, and so on.

There are many perspectives.

"Anecdotal" evidence of a few rare cows or goats occasionally lactating without pregnancy. Honestly, my reaction to that: big deal. Reports of what you're describing, of any significant lactation without pregnancy, are not remotely common. And the notion of making a profit off what you're describing is all but unheard of. I don't understand the point of using, in these such debates, these rarest of the rare examples that still couldn't supply the demand for dairy even if that demand dropped drastically. They don't provide a realistic way for people to consume dairy. A much easier, much simpler, and much more humane solution is simply not to consume something you don't need in the first place.

Allen, I think you have confused my post with the posting of others. I never called anyone a zealot, though I do take issue with many of the ad hominem attacks on this list thus far. I also do not advocate the blood type diet, though there is substantial evidence to suggest that people with genetic backgrounds from various parts of the world (and correlatively often different blood types) have different metabolic types and process protein, carbohydrate fat and absorb nutrients differently because of this genetic makeup. Which is why many people don't do well on vegan diets, and others don't do very well eating much meat. Furthermore, I quoted the ACTUAL China Study which demonstrates that disease rates go DOWN with meat consumption. Campbell cherry picked the data and anyone with half a brain can read the original source and see that.

I also don't dispute that people can be healed from disease by eating more plants. But the lipid/cholesterol theory has been debunked by many peer-reviewed scientists. It is the greater nutrition that eating more plants brings that heals, not the absence of meat. The healthiest and longest lived peoples on the earth are omnivores, and they do eat animal products of many types. They just don't eat copious quantities of grain-fed, antibiotic and steroid fed, sick animals and processed food the way Westerners do.

You said, You’ve also tried to make this point several times: “There's nothing wrong with people who eat animals and animal foods, we just don't share your values.” Can you explain to me how that is different than any of the following phrases: “There is nothing wrong with stealing, we just don’t share your values.” Or “There is nothing wrong with setting cats on fire, we just don’t share your values.” Or “There is nothing wrong with dumping toxic waste into a public stream, we just don’t share your values.”

I answered this on a previous post to Jill, and these are straw man arguments. The way we treat humans is categorically different than the way we treat animals and other lower forms of life. We do not treat animals with cruelty, not for their sake but for ours. We are the only ones who have the sense and conscience to be affected by torturing an animal. A cat will play and torture her prey all day, prolonging the death for her own pleasure and not even eat it. Sustainable farmers make the slaughter of food as quick and humane as possible because to do otherwise would be an affront to THEM, not to the animal.

I will quote from my last post to Jill:

There are many good reasons that people choose to eat animal products, starting with they don't believe that animals have the same rights that people do. Or that they are the same "order" of being that humans are. That doesn't mean that we think they should be tortured either.

Other reasons include nutrition and the fact that many vitamins and other nutrients can only be found in adequate, efficient and absorbable quantities from animal products. Vitamin pills are not a viable option for many of the world's people for many reasons. And (for example) manufactured, isolated b-12 is NOT at all the same as whole food b-12 with all of its natural cofactors and helper nutrients, and in fact is vastly inferior.

Nothing any vegan has said here has precluded the consumption of fish, eggs, insects which also provide the nutrients missing from a vegan diet: cholesterol, CLA, AA, DHA, Vitamins D, preformed A, K2, and B-12, as well as dense sources of other B vitamins, well-absorbed heme form of iron, zinc and more.

Other reasons include cultural and religious practices. Try telling the Amish to quit driving horsecarts or the Massai to quit cattle farming or the Japanese to quit fishing or an orthodox Jew to take the lamb shank off his Passover seder plate!

And then there's the fact that you can't have sustainable agriculture without raising animals too. So it makes economic sense as well as nutritional sense to make best use of all food resources on a farm.

My point was simply to say that for extremely valid and important reasons meat eating is deeply embedded in human life and has been for our entire millions of years of existence. And there is nothing wrong with this. We wouldn't have survived this long as a species without eating animal foods. And many of us still can't survive without them.

Veganism has only become a viable option for *some* people in the past 50 or so years, and only for people in wealthy western nations. And were it not for modern chemistry to make vitamin pills to fill the gaps in vegan diets, (which will disappear in an instant if the Codex law is passed) it still wouldn't be.

Meat eating cannot be equated with infidelity or slavery or stealing or anything else related to human behavior toward humans because how we treat animals and how we treat each other are categorically different. Killing a bug is not the same as killing a hen and killing a cat is not the same as killing a child. Humans are on a different par.

But to argue on same line of reasoning, just as the coyote feels no remorse in eating the hen, I do not feel bad about eating animals either. It is in my animal nature and my innate biology to consume foods that bring health and energy to my body, which includes animal foods and the large quantity of concentrated nutrients that only they can provide. I am part of Nature, modernity notwithstanding.

But because I live in an overpopulated modern society where my food is farmed rather than hunted and gathered, and because I live in a country that is, on the whole, gluttonous and wasteful about everything, my higher human consciousness wants that consumption to be moderate, culturally connected, healthy, sustainable, and humane. (For humanity's sake, not for the animals)

Dawn, I believe the overwhelming scientific evidence is stacked against you. The largest and most respected nutritional group in the world (the ADA) says that disease rates go up with meat consumption and down with plant based foods. Contrary to your assertion, the China Study itself, the lead researchers from the study, and every major nutritional organization in the world all agree that meat and dairy products are linked to diseases in humans and that plant based foods can help prevent many of these same diseases. The American Dietetic Association and many other leading nutritionist groups all agree that plant based foods provide ample nutrition to sustain human health, for any person, during any stage in the life cycle.

I have found no evidence, and you have presented no evidence, that meat or dairy products are necessary for any human to be healthy (barring perhaps people with specific diseases). The few cases you mention (i.e. the Masai and Okinawans) actually disprove your assertions. For example, the Masai have been shown to have considerable arterial damage due to their diets and Okinawans have longer lives due to their mostly plant-based/dairy-free diets. Many of the rest of your claims appear to be anecdotal and/or unsupported by anything other than your own insistence that they are true. The only sources you have provided to back you claims come from Weston Price and other junk science brokers with no credibility in this debate. Further, you continue to try to confuse the issue by pointing out that highly processed junk foods that happen to be vegan are also unhealthy.

Contrary to your repeated assertions, sustainable agriculture is possible without farmed animal inputs. It’s called stock free farming (also now commonly referred to as veganic farming) and has been successfully employed by people around the world for centuries. Also contrary to your assertion, veganism has been practiced by millions of people for thousands of years (although it wasn’t called veganism until 1944). For centuries people have thrived on vegan diets without supplements. But even if veganism isn’t possible without modern scientific advances and supplements, so what? If a modern technological advance somehow allowed humans to do away with warfare (something our species has been engaged in for thousands of years), would you be against it because it is somehow more “natural” for people to fight wars and kill each other? Why not applaud advances that make it easier for people to cast away outdated and cruel practices in favor of humane and compassionate alternatives?

You claim that the way we ought to treat animals is morally and categorically different than then the way we ought to treat other humans. While I don’t necessarily disagree with that point, you are sidestepping the issue. Just because our treatment of other humans may be more morally relevant than our treatment of other animals does not mean that we are free to completely exclude animals from our sphere of moral concern. And, as was the original contention in this debate, simply calling something “humane” does not make it so. No matter what you call it, taking babies from their mothers and slitting their throats is not humane. People who are concerned about the ways that animals who are raised and killed for food are treated are right to speak out on their behalf, especially when invited to do so by the author of this blog.

We do have a moral obligation to treat animals fairly and humanely, whenever possible. We are supposed to be more “intelligent,” “enlightened, “more godly” or somehow better than other animals, right? So why not prove that we are better than other animals by not lowering ourselves to their standards. Sure, some animals eat other animals. Does that mean we should? Some animals eat their own young and rape as a form of procreation. Should we defend rape or infanticide on the basis that some animals do it? Some animals blindly follow each other off of cliffs. Should people blindly follow the unhealthy diets of our forefathers as some vague homage to tradition? Or should we continually look for better ways to do things. Should we leave our caves and clubs behind and venture into this brave new world we call modernity?

Also, I do not agree that religion or culture is ample excuse to harm others, whether the perpetrators of this harm are Amish, Masai, Japanese, orthodox Jews or otherwise. I question anyone who believes their God created animals with the ability to feel pain and to suffer and then commands them to cause animals pain and suffering. What kind of God is that? Not one I would worship. Many religious people I have spoken to refer to a kind and loving God who cares for all of creation and who admonishes those who needlessly hurt animals. And I’ve met many orthodox Jews who are vegan because of their religious conviction. Shame on anyone who uses religion as an excuse to be unmerciful.  

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hold anything against a person who truly needs to eat meat in order to survive. I think these are rare circumstances and that most, if not all, people can easily transition to a healthy and humane vegan diet if they care enough to do so. I apologize if anything I have written upsets or offends you, but for the animals sake, not for yours.  

"You are right that harvesting plant foods indirectly kills animals. But since we all need to eat plants to be healthy, these deaths are unavoidable. We should be working to reduce the amount of indirect deaths caused by plant based agriculture (i.e. choosing organic, veganic, or producing our own food when possible) but the necessary and accidental deaths of some small animals during crop production pales in comparison to the deaths of small animals during farm animal feed crop production. Also, I think there is a big difference between accidentally killing someone and killing them on purpose. Just because I might hit and kill an animal while driving my car does not mean I should go out of my way to run over wildlife."

Allen, I have missed most of this ongoing conversation, but I just caught up this evening, and just wanted to comment on one thing that was said in your reply (above)

Please do not disregard the wildlife that is not just killed accidentally, but the tens of thousands of larger animals killed (intentionally) to save the crops. They are trapped (very cruelly), shot, poisoned, and made to suffer for days and weeks in order to protect the grains, soy, etc.

They are coyotes, deer, elk, fox, and also many of the smaller animals such as the raccoon, rabbits, ground squirrels, and others. They are not accidental deaths. They are done with intention to kill in order to protect the harvest. Many cats and dogs are also caught in the traps, shot, and also poisoned as well if they accidentally walk through the fields. These may be "accidents", but the wildlife is killed intentionally. Just a note, to make that very clear. These animals are killed for vegan food, not just for protection of cattle and stock animals.

Good conversation. If only people realized that we are not just killing farmed animals. We kill ALL animals. The word "humane" is an oxymoron. Humans are the least humane of all animals, and the word itself doesn't make sense.

Size doesn't matter. Eating the farmer's profits does. Killing is killing. Where I live; it is not collateral damage, but murdering wildlife in large numbers to protect the harvest. Not just accidental and without intention.

Yes indeed Michele. Thanks for reiterating this. And not just to protect the harvest, but to create the field to grow in, and to water it too. Indeed the field mice, groundhogs, squirrels, etc. are all that are LEFT of the vast biodiversity of species that existed in the habitat before it was a farm.

Many of the world's species are endangered or near extinction because of agriculture, conventional or organic. Any large-scale farming operation (which is essential for staple cereals and soy) does this.

I've already stated that I used to work for the ADA. These are the same Big-Agra USDA supporting corporate shills who say there is no difference between organic and non-organic and GMO and non-GMO. You might as well have said the AMA or the Pharmaceutical Association or the Pesticide Manufacturere Association. The ADA holds as much weight to me as the Weston Price foundation does to you. (And BTW, the original work of Weston Price is highly regarded.)

Although vegan diets are undoubtedly beneficial in certain respects, they are detrimental in others, causing minor to serious health problems that often go unnoticed. Even the most informed, health-conscious vegans run the risk of malnutrition from lacking calcium, B-12, D, K2, and iron. These nutrients exist in only a handful of vegan foods or not at all. Therefore, while it is possible to get all of the essential nutrients on a vegan diet, it is extremely challenging and only a relatively wealthy and highly dedicated Western vegan is up to that challenge.

Vitamin B12, for instance, is only naturally-occurring in animal cells and yeast or mold cells. Since vegan sources of vitamin B12 are scarce, vegans must be vigilant about getting enough of this essential vitamin. This is an arduous task, made more difficult by the fact that some vegans altogether avoid yeast or bacterial products. These people must rely upon fortified foods and supplements.

There is no dispute that food-borne nutrients that naturally come with their co-factors are vastly superior to synthetic or isolated vitamin pills. Reliance upon artificial nutrient sources (vitamin pills, fortified foods, etc.) is an unhealthy practice and the industry that synthesizes and distributes these isolated vitamins uses wastes more resources than any type of farming. Many nutritionists including myself believe that nutrients should be delivered to the body in their natural packaging, which just isn’t feasible on a strict vegan diet.

I don't argue that eating a lot of plants is a healthy thing. But the concentrated dense nutrition available in animal foods cannot be discounted, this is why we eat them. They *concentrate* nutrients and convert them into more usable forms. We could eat a field of grass and simply become ill and malnourished. But by eating the eggs from the hen that ate the grass and the bugs, we are able to live quite well.

"Veganic" farming is not possible on a large population-feeding scale, only on a small-holding scale, because the only way to close the nutrient loop is to recycle all the human waste from all the food consumed back into the fields. Using the vegetation from one field to create compost cannot compensate for the loss to the soil. Furthermore,  manure lasts longer in the soil and releases less carbon back into the air than green cover crops. In sum, there is a net loss without animal poop, period, whether that's the human animal or otherwise.

Productive ecosystems with out animals do not exist, and if the point of sustainable ag is to mimic ecosystems, the whole idea of manure free farming is impossible. But veganic farms do not use manure of any type, and sewage sludge is obviously not allowed.

That's why there has never been a vegan civilization: On integrated farm systems, people discovered that they get extra concentrated nutrition for free, if they fed their hay, leaves, stems and other inedible plant parts. to animals and then ate the eggs, milk, or meat, additionally boosting productivity by using animal labor to farm and feces as fertilizer.

As a farmer and permaculturist, I would love to see everyone running their own small, integrated holding using hand tools alone, and being healthy enough to recycled 100% of their food waste and their own humanure, but that ain't going to happen anytime soon.

Finally, I believe there is a spectrum of what humans consider "compassion" for non-human life, and this is where the relativity argument comes in--but ONLY in relation to how we eat. It's not an either/or: either you value all life and be a barefoot, nomadic fruit-picker or value no life but your own, and eat 100% meat all you want however you can with total abandon.

There are vegans who will not eat anything but fruit because it results in the least amount of killing of any life anywhere: plants, animals, bacteria, insects, etc. Then there are more "moderate" vegans who don't eat animal foods, but might eat yeast or honey, or maybe wear wool if they know the source. Then there are lacto-ovo vegetarians. Then pescatarians. Then there are compassionate omnivores who work hard to eat humanely-raised animals in moderation and with gratitude and reverence. Then there are all the rest who have never truly considered the question.

I could make a very strong fruitarian argument that you are not truly compassionate for all living things in nature because you kill plants and yeast to eat. And you have not gone far enough in being vegan because plant agriculture that disturbs the soil is the one of the biggest contributors to animal death, carbon release and pollution. And frankly, if I were a fruitarian, I'd think you were full of excuses and rationalizations and justifications for eating yeast and carrots.

The fact is you have to take life to maintain life. It's messy stuff, eating. Those of us who have the privilege to do this kind of navel gazing each draw the line where we think it is best drawn according to our understanding of nutrition, spirituality, etc.

I was vegan for 15 years. I lived all your arguments. And I changed my mind after becoming a nutritionist, and environmentalist, and a farmer. We could argue the ethics of animal rights all year and never agree, just as we could around other issues like abortion, imprisonment, or even the existence of God.

The ad hominem attack that I fail to see "animal sufferering as worthy of consideration" or fail to "expand my circle of compassion to embrace the whole of nature" is where I leave this thread. Just as a Jainist would think you narrowminded and lacking in compassion, you seem to think the same of me. So what's the point in discussing any further? We have different versions of what consititutes "compassion" and different opinions on what humans need for nutrition.

Who is right? Who gets the prize for most reverent for life? Who gets to go to heaven? Who decides?

Not you or I.

"We may choose to temper the purposes to which we put lower animals with empathy and wisdom; but by virtue of our superior nature, we decide ... and if those decisions include the consumption of animals for human utilitarian purposes, then the limits on the uses we put the lower beasts are ones we set according to our individual human consciences." - J. Neil Schulman

Might I point everyone to a screenshot of the ad that popped up, when I visited the chetday site.

http://ataraktos.smugmug.com/gallery/9223807_P8HTh

In case anyone has trouble with the image link, it's offering a "Free cure from outer space".

Now, please, tell me how I'm supposed to take anything seriously on a site like that?

Ads by Google are random and varied. I got an ad for the Gabriel Method of weight loss. I hope you won't discount the writings of a noted vegan pioneer because of the luck of the draw on an external advertising service.

Turns out, this was not a Google ad at all:

http://www.chetday.com/aliencure.html

That was great for a laugh in my day. Despite the "outer space" part, the formula is a combination of powerful herbs that could indeed relieve many conditions, which is what the site is really about.

Nevertheless, there was a subtle tongue and cheek tone to the article, especially since at the end it said, "Click here to learn about natural
health aids that originate on planet earth."

Yes, I've found many noted, reputable scientific sites totally rely on readers detecting subtle tongue-in-check tones and comments to differentiate their site content from all the truly quack-pot rubbish out there.

But I agree, a good laugh, for me too. =)

Obviously you missed the tongue and cheek of my "who gets the prize" statements.

I know plenty of self-labeled vegans who eat honey and wear wool. I don't care what the "legal" definition is. These people call themselves vegan. I in fact am often surrounded by vegans. I have seen hundreds of people who have failed to thrive on vegan diets. It is partly what I base my practice on.

I am also a farmer and I am quite certain that without the input of human feces and human blood and bones (barring animal input), there is a net loss on "veganic" farms. The soil eats animals, and feeds them to plants and then the animals eat plants and other animals eat the animals. That's how (simplistically) the whole system works. It takes death to make life, period. And all life is sacred. I don't draw the line at nervous systems or whatever. By that argument vegans should eat bugs and fish and bacteria, but most don't.

In a very real sense plants, dogs, cats and cows (etc.) domesticated us, for their reproductive success and ease of life (up until factory farms) grew manyfold as a result of our interest in them. We are part of the natural cycle, not separate from it. I am proud to be exploited by my tomatoes and my chickens and by the soil organisms who will eat my dead body. And the whole idea of "enslavement" is a very one-sided, anthropocentric value judgement. Rather, I am "enslaved" to the amount of work it takes to keep up a farm and cultivate food. But it is a noble enslavement, keeping creatures alive and helping them reproduce and feeding all of them and ourselves well. All this is to say that humans live in a reciprocal relationship to the natural world. And we have abused that reciprocity by building big food factories, monoculture farms, and resource-sucking cities, and by eating plants without dispersing and returning their seeds to the soil. And the fact that many of us cannot live on a vegan diet and be healthy only confirms to me how deeply we are part of the natural life cycle.

Sorry, b-12 is made by bacteria, but stored in the tissues (especially the liver) of animals. Eating the tissues gives you b-12. Eating grass would give us b-12 too, but we can't do that, cause we don't have herbivorous digestive systems.

Then there's the lack of DHA, AA, and often zinc and other minerals that are not properly absorbed because of a lack of vitamins A and D.

And no, sunshine is not enough to get all the vitamin D you need, unless you live closer to the equator. I worked outside all day every day for years (no sun block) and was still Vitamin D deficient. And in my practice I see similar all the time.

I didn't say people could live fine on vegan diets and then contradict myself. I said vegans could survive if they took vitamins. Without them, most vegans cannot be vegan and be healthy in the long term.

You're right we have very different outlooks on life. I consider myself an omnivorous part of the cycle of life, and honor that it takes death to sustain my life and that my death will also sustain life. I find it beautiful and sacred actually. And I don't think you understand my position at all.

I disagree with your nutritional claims but you have your right to them.

You said that if veganism was all about nervous systems then they would eat insects, fish and bacteria.  Insects and fish DO have nervous systems.  Well developed ones in fact (especially fish and recent studies show that fish have highly sensitive lips where hooks go and are capable of feeling pain http://bit.ly/IZhYJ ).  An insect is a conscious being with a full nervous system including a brain.  (You may recall if you ever did a drosophilia fly lab that you would knock the flies unconscious). Its true bacteria do not have a nervous system, but of course vegans eat them.  Its impossible not to as bacteria are everywhere.  You seem quite confused about what a vegan is.  Though you believed yourself to be one perhaps you were not?  These are quite basic attributes of the vegan diet.  Perhaps the reason for your deficiencies were not vegan related at all?

Vegans also consider all life sacred, its just that they recognize that plants and yeasts and bacteria do not feel pain or suffer and therefore can be used as sustenance without causing another pain. 

Many vegans don't eat yeast. I've spent many years on the vegan boards and there are lots of hair-splitting disagreements as to what constitutes "true" veganism beyond not eating animal products. I've read the arguments about humane honey, yeast, fruitarianism, killing mosquitos, etc. There is no total monolithic consensus on the "perfect" vegan.

For 15 years I ate no grains, no soy, no meat, no dairy, no eggs, no fish, and no honey though I did eat yeasts. I also lived on a largely raw vegetable and fruit diet, most of which was picked hours before I ate it, with some oils, nuts, seeds, seaweed and yeast. I was active and outside almost all day every day. I ate like a horse, and had to to get enough calories to work that hard.

I suffered from a SEVERE lack of cholesterol, DHA/EPA and Vitamin D, despite all day sunshine and plenty of flaxseed and seaweed. I was also pretty low in zinc and B vitamins. My doctor and I are certain it was the vegan diet that caused these problems. Without a proper balance of omega 3 fatty acids, and enough cholesterol and saturated fat, a whole host of minor and major problems ensue, from depression to losing your period, to adrenal disfunction to stroke and more. Not everyone's liver makes enough cholesterol on its own. And without enough fat soluble A & D (found only in animal products), you can't get enough minerals.

Death is a fact of life, all will eat and be eaten, all life is sentient and interested in its own reproduction. Death in the service of life is not a bad thing, indeed it is necessary and noble. And if that death can be quick and painless after an easy life, (as humans ideally do for animals as opposed to how it goes in the wild), and there is no waste, how much the better.

If we are truly interested in reducing suffering, growing annual grains and soy kills more animals (and people) than animal farms ever will. Plough-crop or slash and burn agriculture (even organic or veganic) has done more to destroy habitat and life than any other human endeavor. Industrial agriculture (even organic) is the worst culprit of all.

Domestication is not domination. We think we because we understand genes and breeding that we are in control. You can insist that we are in dominion of animals and plants, but the 850 million worldwide acres of corn and 95 million US cows for which we break our backs and our banks would beg to differ.

The fact that we have spent millennia destroying our own habitat, killing myriad animals and humans, and compromising our own health all so we could hobble ourselves to grow/buy grains and other foods with little nutritional value but lots of addictive opioids is testament to how little control we really have, no matter how many cities we build or vitamin pills we make. Corn, rice, potatoes, wheat, sugar beet, et al. have us wrapped around their proverbial fingers.

We are part of nature, not separate from it. As an ominvore, I take my place in the food web where I belong with honor. I have great respect for animal life (after all I am one) and I eat only what my body requires to be healthy, like any good animal would.

It is the belief that we can continue to displace the natural world with cities and roads and factories and fields of monocropped annual plants like rice, corn and wheat that is truly inhumane, unsustainable and the source of true suffering for animals and all life. NOT whether or not I eat an egg from my own bug-fed hen, who has a better life with me than she ever would have had in the wild, even 20,000 years ago when she was wild herself.

What I continue to take issue with is the fact that many vegans take a "holier than thou" and "you just haven't seen the light" approach to those who don't share your philosophy.

I have never said you are somehow lacking or unenlightened for being vegan. I have never said your choice is in error. I have only said that it is not the best choice for a great many people for many cultural, nutritional, spiritual, philosophical and ecological reasons.

Part of the reason I quit being vegan (aside from it being physically unworkable for me and out of step with my spiritual understanding as a naturalist and farmer), is that vegans can often be so darned judgmental--even when they're trying to be civil. I don't like belonging to any club that separates "us" from "them."

The assumption that if I just knew enough, did enough, had enough education about the subject, read the right book, believed the right study or interest group, ate enough vitamins, saw the right doctor, understood the real meaning of suffering,  etc. I would be a vegan (and if not, then I am to be pitied) is arrogant, belittling, repellant, and very, very inhumane.

Mindful people each live according to their conscience, and mine is clear.

exactly my thoughts but said much better than I could have, Eric, regarding "us vs. them". It's such a common thread in so many issues and so much depends on whether one strives to define "us" as broadly as possible.

I do not "cling" to any worldview you describe. The Garden of Eden is a myth, unless you believe the world was actually made in 6 days. The Bible is full of laws about how to eat animals and how God wants us to sacrifice them. And it is also full of contradictory arguments too. Furthermore, the "Garden" you describe is often thought of as the fertile crescent, which is now barren of life thanks to  mostly "veganic" agriculture irrigated with water from the Tigris and Euphrates.

I am not comparing agriculture with farming; they are only different scales of the same destructive pattern. I am a Permaculturist. I advocate for small polycultural holdings that are integrated with animal life. And local food systems and foraging. And a return to heritage, heirloom and ancient animal and plant breeds that humans have enjoyed safely for millennia, instead of the inherently unhealthy, high-output, high-sugar species of plants and animals we have created for industrial production and pure profit motive.

And I do not consider factory animal farms to be anything other than destructive and we agree on this. Therefore they are not part of this argument. (And BTW, only 15% of grain crops are fed to livestock in the US. In Africa and Asia it is less than 1% The rest is consumed by humans.)

I do not advocate for dairy per se. I am allergic to it! I advocate for the right of humans to consume their food efficiently and humanely, including dairy.

And animal/human domestication is a reciprocal arrangement. Those who have the biology for milk digestion (which was a human biological adaptation resulting from living with cows for millennia), do not have health issues from consuming dairy products. (Asians do not typically, hence why Asians do poorly on dairy).

I still contend that plants and animals "exploit" us as much as we "exploit" them, if you can call biological cooperation for mutual reproductive success and survival "exploitation."

There is no life without animal death. Eating what you need to survive is not a selfish gain. Everything eats, nature is amoral and merciless and everything is constantly eating everything else. Thoughtful omnivores don't cause "needless" suffering, we participate in the natural web of life where we consume what our biology requires, which is an amoral act.

Inviting my hen to eat all the beetles off my beans is not making her suffer. In fact, I have made her life very easy and pleasant. And she will after a pampered life with many children around before a swift and noble death, instead of having 95% of her chicks killed and then eventually being slowly and painfully being torn apart herself by predators.

The Jains, like all vegans, lived off of the killing and labor of animals too. They just didn't do it themselves, they allowed non-Jain farmers to be their proxy. (The Jains didn't farm because they would have had to kill insects. It has been a religion mainly of merchants and traders). And the Jains were not a civilization, they were a sect within a civilization and could not have existed without their non-vegan brethren who "used" and killed animals by destroying habitat to create food.

To not be completely aware of where your food comes from and the lives lost in getting it is dishonest, and most vegans are unaware or conveniently overlook this. A comparison:

Grass fed steak and pasture raised eggs:

Topsoil: net GAIN, properly managed animals on rangeland (land inappropriate for agriculture) build topsoil, balance pest populations and create increased biodiversity by fertilizing and spreading seed. Properly grazed rangelands also sequester carbon. Without ruminants, rangelands turn to desert. Erosion: 0, Salination: 0, Habitat loss: 0

Pesticides/antibiotics: none

Water: enough to keep the animals alive, usually taken naturally from streams, plants, etc.

Loss of animal life to human activity: 1 animal which, if completely used, will feed a family of four for half a year and clothe them for longer.

Nutrition: At least 1/3 DV of Preformed Vitamin A, D, K2, Vitamin C, Omega 3, CLA, Zinc, Iron, Magnesium, Calcium, B-vitamins including B-12, Manganese, and more.

Bowl of Organic Beans and Rice with Tofu:

Topsoil: Net loss. Soy, Rice and Beans can only be grown and harvested by first clearing the land of almost all life using fossil-fuel powered machinery. They are only economical to grow on a large scale and must be irrigated requiring diversion or damming of rivers. Without the addition of animal manures from livestock or humanure (scant wildlife like groundhogs, mice, etc. are NOT enough to restore the nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and trace minerals to the soil.) there is a net loss in fertility too.

This is the reality of farming. And any farmer worth her ag degree will tell you this. Without animal manure and LOTS of it and the blood and bones of dead animals (including human animals) there is a net loss of fertility. Rock dust, etc. are outside inputs and deplete habitat and resources (net loss), composted veggie waste (net loss), green manure/cover crop (net loss because while it fixes nitrogen, it does not adequately replace phosphorus or potassium). Biochar - not enough of it, usually an outside input, and doesn't solve all nutrient issues. (net loss). The best organic/veganic ag can hope for is to break even, but only with enormous effort, including recycling humanure back into the land.

Erosion: YES, Salination: Absolutely! this is the Number 1 problem with staple crop agriculture, it has destroyed civilizations and created deserts worldwide. (look at Iraq, the former fertile crescent) Habitat Loss: VAST, causing billions of animal deaths and rendering the land uninhabitable for the survivors.

Pesticides/antibiotics: Antibiotics: none. Pesticides: For small pests, the cultivation and "exploitation" of beneficial predator insects. For large pests, if not employing ducks, guineas, or hens (which will eat your pests and love doing it), the use of organic pesticides like diatomaceous earth and BT will be necessary. DE and BT kill slowly and painfully.

Water: Billions of gallons for irrigation. Rice, beans and soy are incredibly thirsty crops, more than any others. Monoculture staple crop agriculture is destroying rivers, draining aquifers and salinating soil, rendering it barren for all life. How do you think rice paddies are made? river diversion. Wheat fields? habitat destruction and river diversion.

Nutrition: except for carbohydrate and protein, can't hold a candle to grass fed steak and pastured eggs. Plus the phytates in unfermented soy lead to mineral depletion.

Loss of animal life to human activity: Countless billions of birds, fish, insects, soil bacteria and ground fauna via habitat destruction, water loss, salination, erosion, harvesting and tilling machines, organic pesticide usage, and trapping and release to inappropriate habitat. (A groundhog can take out acres of plants in a single night and must be removed. they usually die after this "humane" process).

Simply put, there is more blood in a bowl of rice, beans and tofu than in a plate of grassfed steak and pastured eggs.

Just because the blood of a single animal isn't on a vegans hands personally doesn't mean their primary food sources didn't lead to vast death and destruction by proxy. Your food may be "humane" by one or two degrees of separation, but most vegans are participating in genocide by six.

I wish more vegans were aware and honest about this fact.

We can't all eat grains and soy and no animal foods. In fact, with only 20% of the earth suitable for agriculture, most people can't eat vegan and be healthy without importing food from other places, depleting soils and water and killing animals in locations far away. Being a vegan in Nebraska and putting coconut, seaweed and nutritional yeast on your food is an enormous LUXURY that most of the world cannot afford, and in fact, these very foods (when eaten in Nebraska) come at the expense of the rest of the world.

Agronomists do not believe that veganism is sustainable for the world, only for a relatively-wealthy sect within it. We just can't grow enough staples using farming. We don't have enough topsoil and water. And staple crops don't provide enough nutrition, period. But, a diverse diet with veggies and fruit uses up many times more water and resources, which means these foods won't grow just anywhere.

The Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Mayans etc. all died out because of the dismal failures of staple crop agriculture. These were peoples who ate very little animal foods per capita, but, were dependent on potatoes, rice, wheat, corn and other grains to provide the bulk of their calories.

But we can get more food and nutrients quite easily if our rivers were intact and full of fish, and our grasslands/rangelands were full of ruminants once again. In combination with animal-integrated, water-conserving, polycultural perennial small holdings, we are able to get all of our food from most areas of the world with a minimum of labor.

There are examples of small holdings using Permaculture all over the world in all climates that are exceedingly efficient, feeding dozens of people per acre, with little to no fossil fuel usage, no loss of habitat and an increase in topsoil. And they all have animals integrated into the system as necessary co-equal partners in the effort to survive. Polyface Farm is a famous local standout, but there are many others.

I think it is wonderful(!!!) that you advocate for a peaceful, non-violent co-existence with other animals. I do too. But I think you're a bit naive and/or out of touch to think that your rice and beans or other vegan foods are non-violent or peaceful. Or that we can live sustainably without actively cooperating with animals.

I don't take issue with your message, I like your message. I take issue with the often angry and self-righteous way in which vegans often deliver it, which is commonly in a way that says either directly or indirectly to the non-vegan, "you are wrong" and often, "you are bad."

I am neither.

Correction: 15% of TOTAL grain and soy production (broken down a lot of corn and soy go to livestock, but not wheat, barley, rice, etc.)

And if all that grain were fed to humans instead of livestock, we would still have a massive animal death and environmental destruction problem, as one of the vegan posters above noted so eloquently.

Dawn, as I think I mentioned previously, I do not think you are "bad" nor do I think that I, or other vegans, are superior. I wish that we could all debate these issues with humility, honesty and selflessness. I do, however, think that many of your assertions are simply wrong and often contradictory. For example, according to the USDA and other researchers more than half of the grains grown in this country are fed to farm animals. Also, the Jain philosophy prohibits accepting or purchasing food that was obtained or harvested in unnecessarily cruel ways.

It is impossible to debate with you because you misunderstand or misrepresent the facts. Another example: You say that if all the grain were fed to humans instead of livestock there would still be massive animal deaths (I assume you mean from the harvesting of the grain). But you conveniently ignore the fact that since animals require many times more grain protein then they return in the form of meat protein, many times more animals will be killed when grain is harvested to feed farm animals than when it is harvested to feed humans directly. Sidestepping the issue, you then rely on the fact that pasture raised farm animals do not require harvested grain and therefore contribute to less animals deaths. But it is unfair to compare pasture raised animal foods to traditional grain harvested human foods. A more honest comparison would be between pasture raised animals and veganic farming methods. Of course, without a shred of evidence, and despite the successful existence of many veganic farms around the world, you claim that veganic farming is impossible.

We both agree that monoculture crops, factory farms and other modern agriculture methods are unsustainable and harmful. Where we disagree is that for a true "partnership" between humans and other animals to exist, we cannot confine, manipulate and kill other animals. Our rivers and streams can be full of fish and our grasslands can be filled with ruminants once again even if we don't confine, manipulate and kill them. The feces, blood, bone and other animals inputs we both agree are necessary to maintain a healthy ecosystem can be maintained and encouraged without exploiting domestic animals. Encouraging wild animals to behave as wild animals do (and yes, even eating insects and other animals) is entirely different than "enslaving" and killing artificially created domestic animals. For starters, wild animals are free to live and die as nature intended. Domestic animals live and die at the hands of humans who are arrogant enough to believe they are wise enough to intervene in nature. The word "cooperation" can not be used accurately to describe the non-consensual confinement, servitude and one-sided killing of non-human animals by human animals.

I agree that the Garden of Eden is a myth. I believe all religions are myths. However, I think the moral of the story of Eden holds some relevance in this discussion. When [hu]mankind ate from the tree of knowledge we arrogantly assumed we knew better than God (or natural law). As punishment, we are forced to toil for sustenance, unlike other animals for which God still provides. A return to the Garden will require that [hu]mankind trust in the laws of nature and quit trying to manipulate other living beings to conform to our desires. The use and exploitation of domestic animals is a vain attempt to manipulate and exploit the natural world - and we do so at our own peril.

I would like to humbly suggest you set aside your prejudice against vegans and our philosophy. Most of us are fully aware of the fact that animals suffer and die when food crops are harvested via traditional farming methods. Some vegans may discount these deaths, but i think most understand that the vegan ideal is a realistic goal and not necessarily yet an actual reality.

Grains can only be grown in monoculture (veganic farm or not). They are not economic to be grown on a small scale. I have not researched this, but I would be highly surprised to find a veganic grain or soy farm producing on less than a five acres. You can't grow grains in a garden. It takes many pounds of grain to make one pound of animal. Well it also takes many pounds of grain to make one pound of human animal too. And our numbers are only growing...

You completely discount the vast devastation reaped on the world's civilizations by farming, the utter loss of habitat and desertification from growing cereals. I'm not talking about a few mice in a thresher, I'm talking about wholesale ecological genocide as was done in the fertile crescent and is happening now in the midwest and southern california as well as all over the world.

From an environmental justice perspective, we cannot all live on grains, even if we quit feeding them to livestock. And a vegan diet diverse enough to keep one healthy is only available sustainably to those few who live in the right climate and have the resources for it.

We are coming from totally different paradigms and this is why we cannot see each other. I would encourage you to spend several years trying to grow your own food to realize just how much death of sentient beings goes on to bring dinner to your table, even on a veganic farm. And just how much near impossible work it is to truly close the nutrient loop without a lot of animal input.

Despite what the Jainists may choose to conveniently overlook, as a gardener or farmer, you can't even put your shovel in the soil without killing millions of large and small creatures. To say that the life of a nematode or ant or shrew or vole is less worthy than that of a cow or coyote or eagle, and to justify their death with "well its inevitable, accidental collateral damage and we have to eat" is anthropocentric, specist arrogance and ignorance at its most brazen.

Any time you dig the soil or clear the land or harvest a crop, it is not an "accidental" or "unintentional" death for the creatures there. It is very, very intentional --killing totally on purpose--MURDER--because you cannot have a one without the other. They are inextricable.

Let me say it again: If you're going to do agriculture, you're purposefully going to kill lots and lots of animals, intentionally. Ignorance of how the process works is no excuse. Agriculture is more "murderous" than hunting or fishing or tending a few hens will ever be. You may not be actually eating the animals you murder by farming, but in some ways that's even worse because its wasteful.

You say, "Domistic animals live and die at the hands of humans who are arrogant enough to believe they are wise enough to intervene in nature."

It is arrogant to think you CANNOT intervene in nature. It is this arrogance that has led to nature's destruction.

You keep talking about "slavery" and "exploitation." These words are utterly foreign to a true understanding of nature, where we are all "slaves" and "exploiters." We are all "domesticated" by something or someone.

We are PART of nature, completely and inexorably. Our need to eat is not an intervention, it is a symbiotic cooperation we share with all living things. We are all "taking turns" eating and being eaten, "exploiting" and being "slaves." It is only the fact that we have made our selves so separate from the natural world that we have become arrogant enough to think otherwise.

Death is not a bad thing at all. Without it there is no life. Death for the purpose of eating is the way of the world. It is cities that are an intervention, clearing vast tracts of land to grow crops is an intervention, cars and roads are an intervention, making babies beyond the carrying capacity of our land is an intervention, factory farming is an intervention. All of which assumes that we are not part of nature.

The animist/naturalist ethic acknowledges that everything is totally dependent on everything else, that life itself is a series of mutual dependencies. Life and death are inseparable, and to reject one is to reject the other.

Beyond the destructive nature of an agricultural diet, any attempt to remove ourselves spiritually, emotionally or physically from the processes of life and death on this planet will only result in an anthropocentric, arrogant and ignorant culture based in dominance.

Death is not the problem. Our species' arrogance and ignorance is. It is this arrogance that turns death into "domination" and dinner into "torture."

Our ancestors (and remote, non-industrial traditional cultures today) who lived as part of nature never thought, I think I must be doing something immoral by hunting a deer. Rather, they felt they were doing something immoral by not killing it cleanly and quickly and giving great thanks for the life that sustained them. These cultures have taboos about gluttony, about tearing up their surroundings, about taking up more space than was necessary, because they fully embraced the mutual life-death dependency we have with all animals, plants and creatures on this planet.

It is our species ignorance and arrogance that keeps us from facing the true cost of our dinners. That lets us only care about things that are like us, in ways that matter only to us, while discounting into extinction all the lives that made ours possible.

I am glad you have the luxury to be vegan. The world does not share that luxury.

Speaking of luxury. It will always be more energetically expensive to consume animals than plants directly. Just check any biology text book under "trophic levels." Animal products, especially domestic animal-based foods, are always more resource intensive than plant-based foods. That's why there are far fewer carnivorous animals than there are herbivorous animals. Herbivorous diets are simply capable of feeding more critters than are carnivorous or even omnivorous diets. Again, we are talking basic textbook biology.

Agriculture has caused vast environmental destruction, but animal agriculture (being far more resource intensive) is far more destructive than plant based agriculture. Livestock grazing is a leading cause of threatened and endangered species, erosion, and desertification around the world. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation. Animal agrculture requires more land, more water and causes more pollution than plant based agriculture. But since some forms of plant based agriculture are harmful, I think the ultimate goal should be sustainable plant based agricultural systems.

For your information, I do my own veganic farming and am able to provide nearly 30% of my own food. I could probably do more, but I have to work for a living to pay my mortgage and other bills. The land I tend to is often visited by wild deer, turkeys, pheasents, ducks, geese and countless other wild animals. I don't see any reason to keep domestic animals or to hunt and kill wild animals when I can just as easily go out and pick some squash, tomatoes, beans, apples and strawberries in my garden.

As for the few insects or other small animals who I may occasionally kill with my hand trowel, I think most reasonable people would agree there is a big difference between intentional killing and unintentional killing. For example, manslaughter carries a stiffer penalty than first degree murder. But when discussing plant based agriculture we aren't talking about unintentional killing, we are talking about unavoidable killing. And don't forget that people cannot survive on meat alone so even non-vegans contribute to the unavoidable killing caused by plant based agriculture.

But the vegan argument isn't based on not killing (as you continuously assert), it is based on not causing needless suffering. I think it would be easy to show that cows, chickens and pigs are capable of suffering far greater than nemotodes and earthworms. For starters, cows, chickens and pigs have central nervous systems and complex brains, much like humans. They also have families and friends and complex social lives. And while nematodes and earthworms live free until they are killed by a plow, domestic animals are enslaved, mutilated without painkillers, confined, manipulated, exploited and then finally killed. In degrees of suffering, domestic animals have it far worse. In quantity of suffering and deaths caused, human omnivorism causes far more than veganism.

For further refutation of the idea that veganism causes more deaths than pastorlism, check out this link: http://homepage.uab.edu/nnobis/papers/least-harm.pdf

At the risk of being mean, I must admit that this conversation has become far more tedious than I can stand.

I wish you the best of luck and may those you encounter in life show you mercy and kindness.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. I do have the luxury of working near another veganic farm from which I am able to obtain even more of my food. I also happen to live near many animal based farms and have grown extremely wary of farmer's who claim to treat animals fairly. A short story as an example. One of my neighbors operates an organic, grass fed beef operation. We had always been on fairly friendly terms. One day I noticed that one of his cows was sick. Upon closer inspection I noticed she had cancer of the eye. I offered to pay for a vet to come out and have her euthanized, but he assured me that he would take care of it. For the next year I never saw that cow again and assumed she had been euthanized. But then I discovered that he had actually locked her away in his barn so that he could use her for breeding purposes. By the time she had birthed another calf for him, almost her entire face was missing from the cancer. I called animal control. When an officer arrived my neighbor simply walked out to the barn and shot the cow with his rifle to avoid being charged with cruelty to animals. The next day I noticed that he had killed another cow, split her down the center and hung her from a tree near the road. I assumed it was so that I would have to look at her every day as a reminder not to cross him again.

I've got more stories, but my point is that in my experience, people who have it in them to raise and kill animals for profit tend to be callous, cold and vendictive. I guess it comes with the territory. In contrast, the veganic farmers I know and other vegetable farmers are all kind, gentle and peaceful. We realize that we are a part of nature, but choose to be as other herbivores and cause as little suffering to other beings as possible. That is not true of the animal farmers I have met.

Allen,

I am glad that you don't intentionally kill the wildlife, and I do understand that many will unfortunately die accidentally. But...you are the exception, not the rule. I would love to think that most farmers would do the same, but they do not always have the best of intentions, but profit in mind. They farm for money, and don't consider letting the wildlife eat off of their land. I would be perfectly fine with them having to fence the animals out or let them graze and live in and around the fields, but I have to say that the farmers that I know don't think twice about trapping, shooting, or poisoning. They cause a lot of needless suffering. Just this afternoon I found a fawn (still with spots) in one of their traps. I couldn't save it, as it was dead already for a few days, and the doe was still standing nearby watching over her baby. Very sad to see. They will stand there sometimes for weeks, watching over the corpse. All for what? A few bucks worth of grain. Hmmm.

Many non-meat farmers are worse than the stock industry. (At least where I live) I live in cattle country, and nearby are fields of grain and soy, and other produce. They carry guns in their ATV's and pickups and shoot at will. The cattle farmers shoot the wolves, and soon we will have only a few left. They kill the wild animals to save their future hamburgers and veal. Neither is okay. We should have enough room for all species to live together.

Thank you for being the exception, Allen. I wish everyone had the kind of compassion that you do.

Allen, you keep talking to me as if I thought factory animal farming were ok. Of course confinement operations are destructive. Overgrazing destroys.
But proper grazing techniques that mimic natural ruminant migration/rotation patterns build topsoil and increase biodiversity.

You keep talking to me as if the choice were between eating only plants and only meat. Many scientists/nutritionists think the optimal human diet is only around 10-20% animal foods. But many traditional peoples like the Inuit must live on closer to 90%, because like all omnivores, we're opportunists.

From the description of your farm, it is a small holding, which makes it easier to close the nutrient loop, especially since you live in a temperate climate with forests and lots of biodiversity. But since Rodale can barely close the nutrient loop with domestic animals and outside inputs, I doubt you are doing the same. Unless you are clearing land for compostable materials, in which case you are destroying habitat, and with it, animals.

You probably also have money to buy seaweed and other special foods to help you get the nutrition you need on a vegan diet.

But what if you were 100% dependent on your gardens, without which you would have no food and no livelihood. And your beans suddenly became totally infested with beetles, your kale covered in cabbage looper worms, your lettuce deluged by snails and aphids? And then a groundhog dug under your fence and ate all your broccoli in one night, and would surely be back for more today? What then?

What if you lived in an arid land where the only thing that would grow were some seasonal fruit crops like dates, some grain, and lots of inedible scrub that only your cow can eat? Would you deny a person living in these conditions the milk, blood and meat (because you only eat the meat when you have to) they need to get enough nutrition to live?

Are the poverty-stricken Hindus so horrible because their main source of vitamin A is to enjoy (and even revere) milk and butter from all the free-roaming sacred cows in their towns? Are the Polynesians such immoral people for supplementing their very limited island plant life with fish and seafood?

Most of the world's population lives in climates and economic conditions where it is not possible to enjoy lush vegetable gardens and imported exotic foods like you do. Veganism (done in a way that is nutritionally sustainable) is not possible for the world. 

This is why we are omnivores, because humans spread themselves far and wide, often into places that are less than optimal for agriculture. Or we do "veganic" agriculture (because what else is farming in a third world country?) until we destroy all natural habitat and salinate the soil.

Most deforestation, historically, has been for plant agriculture, cooking fuel and building materials, not animals husbandry. Large scale animal husbandry (which I do NOT advocate) is a relatively recent modern phenomenon of privileged countries.

We've come a long way from a cow in the field and a half dozen hens running around the house, and I think that's a bad thing. But that doesn't mean that all domestic or wild animals suffer at the hands of humans. My hens do not suffer. They are not confined ever. They are free to leave in fact, but the come home to their very cozy, predator-safe coop like clockwork every evening. They will not be torn limb from limb by hawks if I can help it, and they will get to watch more than 5% of their offspring grow to adulthood.

And what is your point with the story about the beef farmer? My next door neighbor was a vegan who is also a drunk who beat his (vegan) wife, who in turn verbally abused their children in a way horrible enough to make me cry when I heard it pouring (regularly) out of their windows. I know another vegan who drives a Hummer, and another vegan family with 6(!) kids. It must be those vegans who are hypocritical, callous and judgmental. I guess it comes with the territory. (She says tongue in cheek)

Geez, what made you so hateful of non vegans?

But seriously, people of all ilk can be yucky. It comes with being in a selfish culture so utterly divorced from natural cycles and a sense of community accountibility.

We actually share a common challenge to overcome: factory farms of all types, and people who are not mindful of their consumption. But I don't suppose you see it that way.

Actually, this discussion was originally about how some small-scale dairy farms DO NOT mistreat their animals.  But hey, who can remember back that far at this point?

By the way, Allen, most of your comments on this thread have been thoughtful and respectful, which I appreciate.  But I think you've crossed the line here. 

I've acknowledged that my analogy of farmers treating their animals the same as they treat their children was unfortunate, and I would hope you could do the same for your comment above.

Hi Greg, I remember what the original discussion was about. You claimed that small-scale dairy farms do not mistreat animals. Others pointed out that you neglected certain key facts and brushed over certain abused with innaccurate euphemisms about how dairy cows are treated as good as a farmers kids.

I am simply pointing out that Dawn continues to use innaccurate misrepresentations of the very real abuses that farmed animals are forced to endure against their will. She continues to call animal agriculture practices, like dairy farming, a natural partnership by which both humans and non-human animals benefit. I am simply trying to point out the fallacy of such an assertion by putting Dawn in the position of the animals which she says are so much better off on farms than living free. Since Dawn seems incapable of viewing the situation from the perspective of those she exploits, I thought it might be helpful to create a hypethetical scenario in which she could participate in her ideal "partnership" from the point of view of the exploited, not the exploiter.

I, too, remember what the original discussion was about and I'm still wondering about how udder infections are handled on this particular small-scale dairy farm, what happens to the dairy cows once they are "spent", how far and under what conditions cows are transported to slaughter, once they're used up, etc.

Treated, killed and not far in trucks.

Excuse me if this isn't as elaborate of an answer as you want, but to be honest, wading through these comments is exhausting and I'm ready for it to end.

I think Allen *proposed* crossing the line ... it's the same line that is, in actuality, crossed every time we use another unnecessarily.

Maybe people who were offended by thinking his post, his words, crossed a line - will make that connection.

No. I have no problem with him using that example, in fact, it's a good one.  

But directing it specifically at Dawn and her family is out of line.  

Dairy cows are individuals, too and would have families if their families weren't torn apart.

The abuses of dairy farms are directed, specifically at dairy cows, and their would-be families.

And it's nothing so trivial as an example or a thought-exercise, either.

Ok, so we've now reached the point where you and I will never agree (and in fact, I think this is pretty much the area where sustainable food and AR people come to blows).

I do not view cows (or chickens or pigs for that matter) to be on the same level as humans, with the same rights as humans.  You can cite as many studies that show similar family structures, feelings, emotions, etc. but you won't change my mind.  

Animals have never been viewed this way outside of what really is a very tiny segment of the population, and most likely, never will be.

I'm not saying I'm right and your wrong, or that we should always follow the status quo just because it is what we've learned and become accustomed to.  What I am saying is that this is exactly why we disagree on animal agriculture, and since it is a personal, moral choice, I don't think we should spend so much energy fighting a battle neither of us can win.

I don't really view cows or chickens or pigs on the same level as humans either. Honestly, I don't even think this "same level" stuff makes sense. In a way, one could almost view that as speciest - that in order to find animals worthy, they must be EQUAL to humans - being "cow", "pig", "chicken" isn't good enough?

Maybe this is a lot "less" than most AR people, but personally, I believe anyone who can suffer and feel and enjoy deserves one, basic, simple consideration - not to exist merely as the means to another's unnecessary end.

However less-cruel your farm may be compared to factory farms, the cows there are no more than a means to the farm owner's end. I may concede that your farm is "*slightly* less cruel" than factory farms but since when should "not-maximally-cruel" win anyone a medal? And when should "slightly less cruel" become the same as "is not cruel"?

Sorry these posts seem overwhelming and too much to read through ... maybe next time, don't implore AR activists to promote something that's diametrically opposed to their core values. Welfarists, sure, you'll probably find a receptive audience with. And, hey, for all I know, they actually do give out those "not-maximally-cruel" medals. ;)

My apologies, I will never again ask AR people to step outside their moral boxes and try to see the other side of the issue.  I guess that's just too much to expect.

The entire third paragraph above just shows that you unwilling to engage in a realistic conversation about sustainable ag practices, which is fine.  All of us who live in the reality of animal consumption (whether that is good or bad) will continue to shape the conversation without the input of AR people (which in my opinion would be incredibly valuable if it consisted of anything other than "using animals for food is bad.")  

And for your information, they do in fact give out those kind of "medals"  http://animalwelfareapproved.org/ 

Greg, I've been consciously staying out of this thread since I gave my initial responses and since it started spinning out of control, and maybe if I weren't already so worn down from condescension and marginalization toward animal rights in general right now, this wouldn't rub me the wrong way to the extent that it does. But it does.

Your snarky remarks about AR--and your unsolicited advice about where animal rights advocates should be focusing their efforts or what they should be advocating--are incredibly frustrating because you keep ignoring what animal rights means. No, you won't get animal rights advocates to help you or others feel better about killing animals, and you won't get animal rights advocates to abandon their stance that killing animals for food is morally wrong because they're animal *rights* advocates. You're asking AR advocates to stop being AR advocates and to become welfarists and to give their blessing to the exploitation of, imposition of suffering on, and killing of animals. And then you act surprised and dismayed that AR advocates aren't willing to abandon their core ethical beliefs to support what you want them to support. It's baffling.

Animal rights advocates speak *for animals* and for their right to live. So yes, expecting AR advocates to stop speaking for animals in order to speak for and stand with the people who want to feel better about killing animals is indeed "too much to expect." You can stand up for and argue for whatever you want, but expecting animal advocates to join you, to spend their valuable energy and time telling people it's OK to kill animals--and then chastising them when they don't join you, when what you're asking them to support goes against the basics of what they're fighting for--is ridiculous and condescending and offensive.

All right, I'm tired and stressed and overwhelmed today, so the primary point I wanted to make got lost in exhausted rambling:

You're going to push for whatever you're going to push for, Greg, and it's clear that's not going to change. What's offensive here is that you're condescendingly demanding that animal rights advocates redirect their energy and activism--and change the very definition of animal rights--to support and accomodate you. You're not just saying "This is what I believe" and "That's what AR advocates believe." You're talking down to AR advocates and demanding that they work for something they don't believe in, at the expense of the animals, because it's what you, as someone who doesn't believe in animal rights, think animal rights should mean. I hope you see why this is troublesome to me.

Yes, Greg - I actually used to work for animalwelfareapproved's parent orginazation. Part of seeing what a mess it was, trying to standardize what constitutes "humane treatment", when the ultimate transport, slaughter and death happens just the same, helped me to realize that the only true way to treat animals humanely is to decline to use them. Anything less always seems to pit the animals' interests against the animal-owners' interests.

And, believe me, distinctions between terms like "less cruel" vs. "is not cruel", "humane" vs. "more humane" - every word of standards is poured over (and over and over), so pointing out the difference between saying a farm is not cruel, as you asserted in your post, vs. 'is less-cruel' or 'is more humane' is worth making, even from a welfare point of view.

It isn't that AR peeps can't SEE the other side of the issue. It's that most of them have seen it since birth, and then one day they began to awaken to that side as being a LIE. A LIE that one set of individuals is meant to take the life of other sets of individuals. And they rejected that LIE with all their heart, soul, mind -- and body. They don't have it in them to go backwards into the LIE and accept any part of it as true, because it isn't.

As long as we focus on what WE think WE need (i.e. milk from cows), we never open ourselves to the possibility that OTHERS' needs are equally important to them (i.e. cows and calves need one another, whether the cow is treated like a breeding machine or has natural interactions with a bull). A few far-seeing people who understood that dairy milk isn't necessary came up with some uncruel alternatives: almond milk, rice milk, soy milk, and so on.

How about if we consider starting our day thinking totally about the animals' legitimate needs and desires, which may or may not be similar or identical to our own (and it doesn't matter, as Jill pointed out). Suddenly our own seeming needs become trivial, pale in comparison, and, as with non-dairy milk products, can be answered in so many other, better-for-everyone ways! 

I can't imagine the abolitionists of the 1800s agreed to step out of their "moral box" to "engage in a realistic conversation about sustainable [human slavery] practices ..." just because they "live[d] in the reality of [human slavery] (whether that is good or bad...." Can you? I wouldn't have admired them if they did. And we wouldn't be where we are today if they had.

True reformers can't afford to accept the status quo, the norms. They feel responsible for evolving world thought beyond short-term fixes and for creating long-term solutions.

No one is saying that animal ag will end overnight. But if I were to pretend that it still NEEDS to exist, I would be deceiving myself and would be complicit in the very act I have gradually come to see as unethical, unnecessary, unmerciful and thus unjust -- to ALL, not only to the animals. 

I don't live in a box anymore. I feel like I live in a universal tent that has no zippers shutting anyone out! :-)

By the way, I didn't realize until typing this that these back-and-forths between Greg and Jill are in fact responses to a thread I started. To tell the truth, I'm a little confused by all the meanings of the words "crossed the line" being bandied about here. :-)

Excuse my snarkiness, Stephanie, because like you I am also exhausted by lack of respect many of the posters have shown toward my beliefs (however misguided you believe those are).

But I also think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying.  I am not (at least since the original post, and I now realize it was unrealistic) asking AR people to change how they think, or how they feel about animals. And I would never demand, as you say, anyone change their mind about anything they feel strongly about.  I really think that I've been exceptionally understanding and respectful (perhaps aside from my last comment), and don't think your characterization of me being offensive is warranted.  But you may disagree.

Here's my main frustration though:for once, I'd love to have a conversation that didn't immediately decend into an full-scale damnation of animal agriculture.  If that's how you feel, I understand and respect that.  But that's not going to get us anywhere.

If someone disagrees with animal agriculture, they could make the case for an alternative system that doesn't require the exploitation of animals.  We could then discuss how realistic such a system would be, the pros and cons of adopting such a system, etc.

If someone disagrees with animal agriculture, make the case for how to phase out animal consumption on a global scale.

I understand that my original post did not necessarily elicit these kinds of suggestions.  I'll admit that.  But this is the general problem I've had communicating with AR people on this site, and often I get so frustrated my responses come out more challenging then I mean them to.

Stephanie, you've made the arguments I mention above many times on the AR blog, and I always appreciate reading them.  But that is not how the discussion threads on posts like this usually turn out, unfortunately.  I think you'd agree with that.

But anyways, I never want to be viewed as someone who talks down to other people about their beliefs.  That's not who I am, and I don't believe that's what I've been doing.

Hopefully one day we can get past the who's right and who's wrong and start the "so what do we do about it?" conversation.

Greg-

"If someone disagrees with animal agriculture, they could make the case for an alternative system that doesn't require the exploitation of animals.  We could then discuss how realistic such a system would be, the pros and cons of adopting such a system, etc."

http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/veganic_farming_a_sustainable_and_compassionate_solution


"If someone disagrees with animal agriculture, make the case for how to phase out animal consumption on a global scale."

It's called incremental abolition- what most AR activists advocate for. That is, getting people to reduce their animal product consumption reduces the demand for meat, and less animals are raised for agriculture.

I personally advocate for relentless campaigns against animal agribusiness as well- I woul dlove to see SHAC style campaigning done against exectutives of Tyson, Perdue, etc.

This is also consistent w/ incremental aboltion. We know that a law will not be passed to ban all animal consumption overnight, so we support legislative campaigns, outreach/educational campaigns, and (in my case) non violent direct action campagins- AS LONG AS THEY CAMPAIGNS REDUCE ANIMAL CONSUMPTION, not merely replace one type of abuse with another. I think it's rpetty straightforward.

Yup, these kinds of constructive suggestions are exactly what I'm talking about.  And up until now, the conversation wasn't even close to touching on these topics. 

However I do think calling it "pretty straighforward" is assuming a lot.

Yeah, I didn't mean to come off as snarky- What I mean is that when I turned vegetarian at 14, having never seen a slaughterhouse video or read a pamphlet, I knew not a thing about the economics or worldy implications of veg*nism.

But when asked "what would we do if everyone went vegetarian? People's jobs would be lost and animals would run wild", even my ignorant high school freshman self came up with the conclusion "Well...it won't happen overnight. As demand for meat reduces, less animals will be bred and people will shift to different farming".

I guess that has always been very straightforward to me. There wouldn't be any economic catastrophes any more than there were when DVDs replaced VHS.

Abolition is the main thing that differentiates animal welfare advocates from animal rights advocates. Welfare advocates tend to believe that one-on-one vegan education is fine, but that our activism efforts should go to campaigns like Prop 2.

Abolitionists assert that this is an inefficient use of our time and money- it takes copious effort to change agriculture on a large scale, so if we're going to use that effort, why would we spend it on minor changes that slightly alleviate suffering, when we can advocate for exactly what we want?

There's a lot that AR and sustainable food people can agree on.  The need to consume less meat and stop industrialized animal production are perhaps where the greatest overlaps are.

But assuming that (even over a long period of time) people can just shift to a different kind of farming is wrong.  I'm not saying that it can't happen but, as you probably know, there are millions upon millions of acres of "farmed" land in the world that are not suitable to crop production.

Could we make that land suitable to grow crops? Probably.  But the sheer amount of fertilizer, pesticide, fossil fuel and most importantly, WATER needed to make that work is a scary proposition to me.  It takes massive inputs to grow crops on land that is meant to be used for something else (not necessarily animal production).

But this is all part of the discussion.  If we could eradicate animal agriculture completely but at the expense of our health and the environment, would it be worth it?

I'm not saying that is what would happen if everyone moved away from animal to plant based farming (as no one really knows this), but am curious how AR people would answer that question.

"If we could eradicate animal agriculture completely but at the expense of our health and the environment, would it be worth it?"

The short answer is "no, probably not". But it's much longer than that. I can't see that happening, since animal-less agriculture used 1/12 of the land to produce the same amount of calories. I don't think we'd need to try to grow crops where they're not meant to grow- we already have land being used to feed animals that could be used to feed way more people.

I am no expert in health, hunger or farming. I have read up probably more than the average person on these issues, but that's not saying much. I work at Farm Animal Rights Movement, and Dawn Moncrief, our executive director, has an organization called Well Fed World that focuses on these issues. She could probably answer these questions better than I. http://www.wellfedworld.org

One more thing- most environmental, sustainable food and AR activists acknowledge that human population needs to be decreased for us to be able to live sustainably. Any analysis of feeding the world, be it with plants or animals, and the environmental implications of either, need to take population reduction into consideration as well.

So while I said the answer is "no, probably not", it was not a complete answer, because the answer is that I see no reason a world without farmed animals would have to have negative health or enviromental effects.

"[A]s you probably know, there are millions upon millions of acres of "farmed" land in the world that are not suitable to crop production."

Depending on the region of the world obviously, some areas of land unsuitable for crop production can still be used to provide plant foods. There are many types of tree crops (especially nuts) which can grow in poor soils or hilly or rocky land where conventional cereals or vegetables cannot grow, and once established are fairly drought-resistant.

On another note, a study published in 2007 in The Land magazine (UK) looked at whether Britain could be totally self-sufficient and contrasted the following systems: chemical with livestock, chemical vegan, organic livestock, organic vegan, permaculture livestock and permaculture vegan (the permaculture systems include the country being self-sufficient in fibres and fuel in addition to food.)

With the current population, a chemical with livestock system would use 10.8 million hectares of land whilst a chemical vegan system would use only 3 million hectares of land (by far the most efficient use of land looked at).

Switching to organic, the report states that organic livestock would use 15.9 million hectares of land whilst organic vegan, 7.3 million hectares of land.

http://transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/CanBritain.pdf

The report acknowledges that the organic vegan system may have to include some humanure for soil fertility in addition to green manure, and perhaps a change in our mortuary habits would be needed for supplementary phosphorous..

However, I agree with Michael above that any system of sustainable living, whether omnivorous or vegan, requires a large reduction in human population to be viable.

There are lots of studies out there.  This one finds that diets that consist of small amounts of meat and dairy are more efficient (i.e. can feed more people) in regard to land use.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/diets.ag.footprint.sl.html

Thank you Susannah for the report showing that humanure and possibly human remains will be necessary to close the nutrient loop. I have tried to make this point several times. A soley plant-based agriculture cannot be sustainable. Animal poop in quantity (even if it is the human animal) is needed, and someone's bones (even if it is Grandma's) need to replace the phosphorus--we cannot continue to mine it from the ground.

Trouble is there is more taboo about sprinkling Grandma over the carrots than there is about using animal remains. This will be a big one to overcome.

Well actually, if you read what I wrote, I stated that humanure only MAY have to be used to close the nutrient loop, whereas you have copied it as will be necessary. The report states that humanure may be necessary in an organic livestock system too.

But the report also states that there are places in the UK and US that have been using solely green manure and getting respectable yields for many years and I've read other studies saying that it's possible to farm using only green manure.

However, either using green manure or humanure, and if this report can be trusted, doesn't this suggest that plant-based agriculture would be environmentally sustainable without recourse to using nonhuman animals at all? I think using humanure as well as green manure would be acceptable to most vegans.

As for using human remains as compost to supplement phosphoros, and needing a huge shift in society, well apparently in Sweden they're already doing it!!:

http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/eco-burial-turns-corpse-to-compost/

Most agronomists and sus. ag folks/ecologist etc. see phosphorus sustainability as the real lynchpin in sust. ag. It is easily depleted over the long term. But leave it to the Swedes to compost Grandma! They're always ahead of the curve and emminently practical.

Were it not for the fact that humanure is usually contaminated with pharmaceutical drugs and other serious toxins we flush down the toilet, I think we should be using it agriculturally, like many other places in the world without indoor plumbing do.

In the meantime, I'll have to settle for a composting toilet.

Allen, If you're going to make the comparison of animals and humans a straight, uncrossable line as you have above, then you have to take it all the way across ALL animal species. The death of a bug (which has a nervous system and an interest in its young) would thereby be as repugnant to you as the death of a cow. And therefore, like the Jains, you would be prevented from crossing this moral line by not participating in agriculture at all.

Be honest, even vegans are relative. Even vegans make the "well we have to eat" argument. You just draw the line in a different place, justifying the death of millions of insects and thousands of displaced animals with the fact that you didn't actually mean to kill them and eat them.

You continue to talk to me as if I think factory farming were OK. I am arguing the consumption of animals, whether by farming or by hunting and fishing, is an acceptable practice for an omnivorous species. I am not arguing about the HOW of it per se because we both agree that factory farming is cruel.

So in the spirit of your last missive: I agree with you Allen, I think we should pass laws right now forever banning the consumption of animals. Anyone caught "using" a dog for companionship, a hen for gardening, a burro for carrying, a horse for transport, or a fish for rice paddy fertilization will face 10-20 years in prison with hard labor. Anyone caught eating meat will spend life in prison with no parole—because that's how we treat murderers.

We'll round up all the dogs, cats, chickens, cows, sheep, etc. and put them on sanctuaries because we can't trust people to treat them humanely. Nevermind that they will continue to reproduce unchecked until they have destroyed the land of those santuaries. We certainly won't spay or neuter them or regulate their mating habits in any way because that would be an inhumane "intervention" in their natural lives and they might not like it. Nor can we set them free because they aren't wild and can't survive in the wild. We'll just keep building sanctuaries indefinitely so they don't get too crowded as they reproduce.

Meanwhile, when the billions of people who don't live in climates as favorable as yours, nor have enough money to import seaweed, goji berries and yeast are no longer allowed to eat eggs from their hens, or milk from their cows, I'll send them to your house where you can dole out bowls of soybeans and vitamin pills.

And when the cultural lifeways and good health of traditional peoples who hunt and fish and eat animal foods can no longer be sustained under the new law, I'll send them to your house where you can dole out bowls of soybeans and vitamin pills. But maybe they'll just quietly die out because those people are a throwback to those barbaric hunter-gather days we'd rather not having anything to do with anymore.

And, unlike Americans (or even Britons) who have virtually no cultural roots and foodways anymore and therefore are "free" to take up veganism or a life of processed food, those several million healthy people like the French, Thai, or Salvadorans who have omnivorous food traditions that go back thousands of years... well they will just have to change their cultures to be more like us, because well, they're morally wrong. I'll send them to your house so you can explain it to them.

And when we've run out of oil and can no longer industrially produce grains, rice or soybeans at all, I'll send everyone to your house so you can explain why hunting and fishing and eating animals is akin to eating their children, and give them some vitamin pills.

And when people in cold climates can no longer use leather, down, wool and fur to protect themselves from the elements, I'll send them to your house so you can explain how they'll just have to move because they don't have $500 for a North Face vegan parka, and now that it's scarce, all oil and recycled plastic usage has been diverted to more important things than making the gortex and plastic-based faux leather/fur/polyfill needed to keep them truly warm.

And since we can't use animal poop for fertilizer anymore, and we have no oil for synthetic fertilizer, and there isn't enough biomass around to make compost to feed the soil properly in these areas, we'll just let all those farms and rice paddies go back to nature. I'll send the displaced, starving millions to your house for some vitamins.

And all those millions of people who simply can't thrive on a vegan diet for various genetic, climatic and health reasons, we'll just let them suffer and die from painful chronic illnesses resulting from nutritional deficiencies because we're really herbivores after all, not omnivores, and all those people are maladaptive to the herbivore norm anyway. And besides, catching a fish for dinner is tantamount to putting a hook in your mother's mouth and eating her! And it's so much more sustainable and humane to ship vitamins, soybeans and corn all over the world--even to Siberia--than to let people hunt, farm and fish for their traditional diets.

Healthy, nutritionally-correct, ("carefully planned" to use the words of the ADA), veganism is a luxury of those relative few who have the means to eat that way, and the time to philosophize that  humans are so important that we can and should impose anthropocentric values on a natural world that simply doesn't operate that way.

Natures morals say, "eat or be eaten." But humans (including vegans) have thought we were too "magnificent" to live according to those rules for thousands of years--ergo, civilization, the biggest insult to other species every created.

Be grateful you have the genetics, climate, health and means to be a healthy vegan; there are three billion omnivorous people who would be more than willing to kill for something to eat other than a bowl of soybeans.

Since you have thrice now taken the debate into a nasty, disrespectful place, (as I have found to be a common "us the righteous" vs. "them the foolhardy and cruel" territory when talking to many vegans), I see no further reason to go around and around on this. Neither one of us is going to change our minds.

But thank you for helping invigorate my passion and hone my argument in this area.

Dawn, well you certainly have honed your skills at missing the point and misrepresenting the facts. I bet I could fertilize my garden with all the crap you laid out in your last post. Since you are having such a hard time with this, let’s take it slowly – point by point.

You say: “If you're going to make the comparison of animals and humans a straight, uncrossable line as you have above, then you have to take it all the way across ALL animal species. The death of a bug (which has a nervous system and an interest in its young) would thereby be as repugnant to you as the death of a cow.”

I say, the intentional and needless killing of insects is certainly repugnant, but there are important and relevant differences between insects and more cerebrally complex animals like pigs, chickens and humans. However, the “line” for vegans is to not cause needless suffering and to reduce the necessary harm we cause others to the best of our ability. By choosing to eat plants instead of animals we refuse to participate in causing needless suffering and we reduce the amount of necessary suffering we cause others.

You say: “You just draw the line in a different place, justifying the death of millions of insects and thousands of displaced animals with the fact that you didn't actually mean to kill them and eat them.”

I say, no actually, I just realize that people who eat animals kill, maim and displace even more animals than those who choose to eat plants directly.

You say: “You continue to talk to me as if I think factory farming were OK. I am arguing the consumption of animals, whether by farming or by hunting and fishing, is an acceptable practice for an omnivorous species.”

I say, I realize you are against factory farming. I just don’t think using words or phrases like ‘humane,’ ‘not cruel’ or ‘partnership’ are accurate ways to describe what happens to dairy cows and their calves on traditional, small scale farms. I would also argue that humans are only behaviorally omnivorous. As I have outlined earlier, our evolutionary history as apes and our current physiology is much better adapted to eating plants than animals.

You sarcastically say: “I think we should pass laws right now forever banning the consumption of animals. Anyone caught ‘using’ a dog for companionship, a hen for gardening, a burro for carrying, a horse for transport, or a fish for rice paddy fertilization will face 10-20 years in prison with hard labor. Anyone caught eating meat will spend life in prison with no parole—because that’s how we treat murderers.”

I say, who said anything about making laws to ban meat eating? I realize that as an animal farmer you are probably used to forcing your will on others. I prefer to encourage people to change their own behaviors for their own benefit and for the benefit of others.

You say, sarcastically, “We'll round up all the dogs, cats, chickens, cows, sheep, etc. and put them on sanctuaries because we can't trust people to treat them humanely. Nevermind that they will continue to reproduce unchecked until they have destroyed the land of those santuaries. We certainly won't spay or neuter them or regulate their mating habits in any way because that would be an inhumane "intervention" in their natural lives and they might not like it. Nor can we set them free because they aren't wild and can't survive in the wild. We'll just keep building sanctuaries indefinitely so they don't get too crowded as they reproduce.”

I say, as human creations, domestic animals are the responsibility of humans. I don’t see anything wrong with caring for domestic animals at a shelter or sanctuary. Of course, true animal sanctuaries do spay and neuter the animals and take other steps to prevent breeding – and I support those efforts. There are wild counterparts to most domestic species, so I see no reason not to allow domestic animals to cease to exist. Even with the best of care, the rescued domestic animals at sanctuary suffer greatly due to their breeding by humans. We can prevent a lot of suffering by doing away with domestic animals.

You say, “Meanwhile, when the billions of people who don't live in climates as favorable as yours, nor have enough money to import seaweed, goji berries and yeast are no longer allowed to eat eggs from their hens, or milk from their cows, I'll send them to your house where you can dole out bowls of soybeans and vitamin pills.”

I say, I live in New York state. It is hardly temperate here. I do not import seaweed, goji berries or yeast, nor do I take vitamins. Most of the world’s people actually live in climates that are extremely favorable to veganic farming methods and already do quite well without chicken eggs or cows’ milk. And if American stopped eating so much meat, milk and eggs, we could easily feed the billions of starving people in the world. But instead, Western countries import soy, corn and grains from starving third world countries to fatten farm animals.

You say, “But maybe they'll just quietly die out because those people are a throwback to those barbaric hunter-gather days we'd rather not having anything to do with anymore.”

I say, I prefer hunter-gatherer societies to modern Western societies because they tend to eat much less meat, milk and eggs. I prefer sustenance hunters to animal farmers because at least they allow the animals to live free as nature intended.

You say: “those several million healthy people like the French, Thai, or Salvadorans who have omnivorous food traditions that go back thousands of years... well they will just have to change their cultures to be more like us, because well, they're morally wrong. I'll send them to your house so you can explain it to them.”

I say, the French, Thai and Salvadorans already eat much less meat, dairy and eggs than most Americans. But even still, I would encourage them to choose suitable plant-based alternatives to their traditional foods just as I would encourage early American slave holders to choose slavery-free alternatives to forced labor practices.

You say: “And when we've run out of oil and can no longer industrially produce grains, rice or soybeans at all, I'll send everyone to your house so you can explain why hunting and fishing and eating animals is akin to eating their children, and give them some vitamin pills.”

I say: when we run out of oil and can no longer produce grains, rice and soybeans then most animal farmers in this country will be out of business. I assume Americans will have already resorted to growing most of their own food and perhaps hunting or even scavenging the carcasses of dead animals to supplement their diets. When you send them to my house, instead of vitamin pills, I’ll teach them how to grow plant-based foods that don’t require needlessly hurting other animals.

You say: “And when people in cold climates can no longer use leather, down, wool and fur to protect themselves from the elements, I'll send them to your house so you can explain how they'll just have to move because they don't have $500 for a North Face vegan parka, and now that it's scarce, all oil and recycled plastic usage has been diverted to more important things than making the gortex and plastic-based faux eather/fur/polyfill needed to keep them truly warm.”

I say, when they get to my house I’ll introduce them all the natural plant-based alternatives to fur, leather and wool, like hemp, bamboo, organic cotton, flax linen etc. I’ll also explain to them that producing synthetic fabrics requires about 20 times less fossil fuels than producing a fur or leather garment and that plastic is much less toxic to the environment then the formaldehyde and other cancer causing chemicals used to keep fur and leather from rotting in your closet like dead animals should.

You say: “And since we can't use animal poop for fertilizer anymore…”

I say, what are you talking about? Wild animals poop all over my garden.

You say: “and there isn't enough biomass around to make compost to feed the soil properly in these areas, we'll just let all those farms and rice paddies go back to nature. I'll send the displaced, starving millions to your house for some vitamins.”

I wonder how you think that a healthy, intact ecosystem can’t sustain itself without domestic animal farmers. You do realize the planet and all its inhabitants were doing just fine before pastoralist humans showed up on the scene, right?

You say: “And all those millions of people who simply can't thrive on a vegan diet for various genetic, climatic and health reasons, we'll just let them suffer and die from painful chronic illnesses resulting from nutritional deficiencies because we're really herbivores after all, not omnivores, and all those people are maladaptive to the herbivore norm anyway.”

I say, you still have not presented any evidence that anyone, let alone millions of people, can’t thrive on a vegan diet. But if some people are unable to thrive on a vegan diet, then as I said a few times before, it would not be immoral for them to eat meat because doing so is necessary for their health. But the current reality is that millions of people in this country suffer and die from chronic and painful illnesses that have been conclusively linked to animal-based diets by various leading health organizations around the world. At the very least, people should cut their meat, dairy and egg intake to less than 10% of their diets and they should choose wild “game” animals over fatty domestic farm animals. And even better, they should choose a completely plant-based diet since it has been shown to be optimal for human health.

You say: ”And besides, catching a fish for dinner is tantamount to putting a hook in your mother's mouth and eating her! And it's so much more sustainable and humane to ship vitamins, soybeans and corn all over the world--even to Siberia--than to let people hunt, farm and fish for their traditional diets.”

I wish you would get off your importing soy and corn kick. We no more need to import soy and corn than we need to import fish from all over the world. While plant based diets can easily sustain more than 10 billion people on this planet, meat based diets can sustain less than 2 billion people. And at the current rate of fish consumption, scientists say that all fish will be extinct by the year 2048. What will traditional fishing societies do then? I know, you can send them to my house so I can show then how to grow their own plant-based foods.

You say: “Healthy, nutritionally-correct, ("carefully planned" to use the words of the ADA), veganism is a luxury of those relative few who have the means to eat that way, and the time to philosophize that  humans are so important that we can and should impose anthropocentric values on a natural world that simply doesn't operate that way.”

I say, the ADA is wise to mention that carefully planned vegan diets are healthy and nutritionally adequate. Technically, someone could eat nothing but potato chips and soda pop and be considered vegan, but they wouldn’t be healthy. Whatever diet one chooses, it should be carefully planned. And again, vegan diets have the potential to feed many more people than meat-based diets, so meat is the luxury, not plants. And I don’t think humans are very important. I actually think that as a species we are rather absurdly arrogant, obnoxious and needlessly cruel. I think we would do much better if we behaved the way other primates do. I know the world would be better off if we did.

You say: “Natures morals say, "eat or be eaten."

I think you have been watching too much Animal Planet. The dramatized predator prey action sequences of most nature documentaries emphasize do not accurately depict the natural world that I have witnessed. There is actually a lot of cooperation and symbiotic relationships in nature. Most animals tend to work together, or at least leave each other alone. When a carnivore must kill to survive, they generally take the weakest members of the prey species, leaving the healthy members to strengthen the herd. And most animals are herbivores, not carnivores and the vast majority of them live long, fruitful and joyous lives. Human hunters, on the other hand, tend to kill the biggest and the strongest animals, which weakens the herds. And human farmers tend to kill every single domestic animal at a very young age because it is more economical than allowing them to live a long and fruitful life.

Civilization, the “biggest insult to other species ever created” is a direct result of animal agriculture. When our hunter/gatherer ancestors realized that they could plant seeds of their favorite plants in a specific area and then return to a lush garden of great vegan food later during their annual migrations, some people decided it wasn’t necessary to move around so much anymore. With a more reliable food supply, why travel hundreds of miles in search of food? But the problem with a sedentary lifestyle for people who are used to killing and eating animals is that “game” animals tend to move around. Some clever people solved this problem by catching and domesticating some animals. That way, instead of hunting free living animals, they could just go out and easily kill a captive animal to eat.

Once people figured out that they could capture and “enslave” animals, they quickly realized they could capture and enslave other people too. So men from one village would raid another village, kill all the men, and then take the animals, women and children back home. The men who were able to acquire the most animals, slaves and wives tended to be the most powerful men in the civilization. These men began to control the distribution of food, land, slaves, animals and wives. Despotism wasn’t far behind.

Unfortunately, as people began to rely on fewer and fewer types of plants for food, and since only the richest men had regular access to animal based foods, the peasant populations in many early civilizations suffered from malnutrition. Living in one place, in their own waste, without plumbing, meant that many people died from infectious diseases. But heart disease, cancer and diabetes were virtually unknown because only the very rich, who could afford to consume animal products regularly, suffered and died from these diseases.

Rather quickly, the warlike pastoralist societies swept across the entire globe, conquering and killing almost all traditional hunter/gatherer societies and pushing the rest to marginalized areas like the arctic or the African savannah. The poor peasants in these civilization were envious of the fine clothes, jewelry and rich foods that the noble classes had and naturally meat became a very desired commodity. But until about 100 years ago, most people simply couldn’t afford to eat meat on a regular basis. They were predominately vegetarian by default.

But then, with the advent of factory farming which applied the concept of mass production to the raising and killing of farm animals, suddenly almost everyone can afford to eat meat at every meal, every day. Consequently, now even poor people are suffering and dying from things like heart disease, cancer, diabetes etc.

So what is the solution? Obviously we need to do away with factory farming because it is destroying the planet, it is harmful to human health and it is cruel to animals. But I don’t think the solution is to go back to small scale, traditional farms that still view animals as commodities, or things to be bought and sold like tables and chairs. It is that mind set that led us to where we are today.

We need a new paradigm. As a society, we’ve very recently moved away from the view that women, children and people of other ethnicities are not things or commodities to be bought and sold. They are free living individuals who have the right to live free from exploitation. I believe that non-human animals are also not things and have a right to live free from exploitation.

I would be delighted if the majority of people would go back to more traditional hunter and gatherer ways. But I feel that is highly unlikely to happen. First, there are far too many people for the planet to support everyone going out and hunting and gathering for food. Secondly, I think I have plenty of scientific evidence to support the idea that people don’t need to eat meat, milk or eggs to be healthy. We can learn to use sustainable farming practices, like veganic farming, to grow healthy plant-based foods for all people.

Do I think that we are likely to become a world of veganic farmers? No. I think we are likely to kill ourselves off along with most of the other species of animals on this planet in the next hundred years or so. I mean, we can't even get someone who is allergic to dairy to say that dairy products are unhealthy and unnecessary. But even though I don’t think we vegans stand a chance in hell of changing the world before its too late, I would rather be on the side of compassion and mercy than on the side of needless cruelty and suffering.

Allen, I see we're both feeling less sarcastic today.

You say: I say, I prefer hunter-gatherer societies to modern Western societies because they tend to eat much less meat, milk and eggs. I prefer sustenance hunters to animal farmers because at least they allow the animals to live free as nature intended.

I would agree completely actually. But they still ate meat, which is my point.

You say, the French, Thai and Salvadorans already eat much less meat, dairy and eggs than most Americans. But even still, I would encourage them to choose suitable plant-based alternatives to their traditional foods just as I would encourage early American slave holders to choose slavery-free alternatives to forced labor practice.

I have never argued that Americans or anyone should live on a diet of meat alone. I've already state that 10-20% of the diet is plenty. Americans should indeed reduce their meat consumption. There is a very real problem with $2 hamburgers on demand. We'll have to disagree about the forced labor part. While there are examples of abuse of animal labor, not everyone would equate riding a horse with slavery.

I've never forced my hen to weed the garden, she does it freely without coaxing. I never forced my bees to pollinate my orchard; they do it freely without coaxing.

You say, But the current reality is that millions of people in this country suffer and die from chronic and painful illnesses that have been conclusively linked to animal-based diets by various leading health organizations around the world.

There is increasing evidence that most of the health problems we face here in the U.S. are due to a radical imbalance of Omega3 to Omega6, as well as systemic autoimmune and inflammation reactions to grains that manifest in multiple ways including autism, diabetes, arthritis, celiac, IBS, and worse. We have such an imbalance because over 40% of the American diet is corn and soy. Corn and soy are in everything from hamburgers to soda to salad dressing. There is almost nothing on the grocery shelves without corn and soy derivatives. And feeding livestock corn and soy means that the meat, milk and eggs are corn derivatives too.

In fact cancer, diabetes and heart disease were unheard of in the U.S. until 10 years after the introduction of yellow seed oils from corn, soy and canola, which are Omega6 oils.

I direct you to this article for example: http://www.prevention.com/cda/article/the-vanishing-youth-nutrient/6dec72fe5deb2210VgnVCM10000030281eac____/news.voices/in.the.magazine/september.2009.issue/0/0/1

No one has yet studied the effect of a true paleolithic diet consisting of grass-fed meats and eggs, with no grains and milk (which most of us are not genetically able to tolerate well.) However, the fact that cancer, diabetes, and heart disease are very rare in many non-American populations that eat grassland meat, fish and other animal foods (daily or even as the majority of their diet) but don't have highly industrialized, corn and soy-based food systems would indicate it's not the meat per se.

The healthiest, longest lived peoples in the world are not vegan. They do eat significantly less corn-fed, sick animals than we do in the U.S., but they do take in some animal foods in the form of fish, eggs and often pork daily.

You say, when they get to my house I’ll introduce them all the natural plant-based alternatives to fur, leather and wool, like hemp, bamboo, organic cotton, flax linen etc. I’ll also explain to them that producing synthetic fabrics requires about 20 times less fossil fuels than producing a fur or leather garment and that plastic is much less toxic to the environment then the formaldehyde and other cancer causing chemicals...

I say, you're assuming I meant people who have access to industrialized goods. I'm talking about rural Ireland, the mountains of Peru and Ecuador, Alaska, Siberia... places where leather is naturally tanned, furs are worn as skins, down is a boon, and wool is abundant and free. You know, the parts of the world that aren't First World. And I'm sorry, cotton, flax, bamboo, etc. do NOT keep you warm in climates like those, nor are they often available.

You say, I wish you would get off your importing soy and corn kick. We no more need to import soy and corn than we need to import fish from all over the world.

I say, I am only countering the argument that all the corn and soy we grow for animals will be used to feed people. To feed everyone a vegan diet presupposes it will be a grain-based diet. I say this is a recipe for disaster nutritionally and agriculturally. Do you know what the number one food sensitivity/allergy in Asia is? Rice. Here? Wheat, corn and soy. Not to mention how nutritionally inferior grains are to vegetables and animal foods. And how incredibly resource intensive they are in a world with diminishing oil, topsoil and water.

But green veggies and animal foods can be very resource intensive too. You have to have enough water and good soil for veggies. Only 20% of the land on the planet is suitable for agriculture (though we force more in to it anyway). And much of New York state is appropriately arable and temperate compared to the 80% of the world that is not suitable for agriculture.

I would rather live somewhere where I could be a true hunter gatherer, but I live in a dryland and even getting a tomato or head of lettuce out of my soil requires massive work and resources. My gardens don't even grow weeds! Because it is so dry, everything living wants to share my juicy vegetable food with me, and I have to compete with many creatures for my food, so I try to do so with the most sustainable methods available to me. The creatures that thrive here (with or without me) are ruminants, small burrowing mammals, and fowl. 

Animal foods, if appropriately grazed on lands inappropriate for agriculture are significantly less intensive than crops in marginal areas because they convert plant matter we cannot eat into food we can. I'm thinking of places like much of dryland Australia, Africa savanna, Indian drylands, high mountains parts of all continents, the Southwest, the Arctic, and most of the Arabian middle east where animals eating scrub have been a crucial part of the nutrition scheme for people for millennia.

You say, Whatever diet one chooses, it should be carefully planned. And again, vegan diets have the potential to feed many more people than meat-based diets, so meat is the luxury, not plants. And I don’t think humans are very important. I actually think that as a species we are rather absurdly arrogant, obnoxious and needlessly cruel. I think we would do much better if we behaved the way other primates do. I know the world would be better off if we did.

I say, your cynicism about humanity is extremely apparent. Let us not forget that all our primate cousins are omnivores that hunt or gather eggs and small mammals, and all of them eat copious amounts of insects. And chimpanzees are warring. Many anthropologists think that it is our consumption of meat that made the difference in us growing the kind of brain necessary to become fully human.

The fossil record clearly shows that human health fell sharply after we gave up an omnivorous paleolithic diet in favor of a largely grain-based agricultural diet. And it has only failed more and more as we industrialize the grain-based diet.

Meat is a luxury in many parts of the world, we agree. In other parts of the world animal foods are part of subsistence. A carefully planned vegan diet that has optimal amounts of preformed Vitamin A, D, K2, Omega3 EPA/DHA, iodine, etc. etc. often requires special foods that will not grow in many places, making it a luxury for those people who do not have access.

Most of the Third world's people are vegan solely because of poverty and climate. And they are facing massive malnutrition as a result. There is no careful planning for these people; just more shipments of U.S. corn and soy, in the form of food aid and/or GMO seeds to be planted. It just disgusts me. So we agree in many ways.

You say, I think you have been watching too much Animal Planet.

I actually don't watch TV. Nevertheless, I agree with you that there is a lot of cooperation in nature. Plants will willingly give their lives to insect predators so as to protect other plants from them. (Eating). Predators will only take what they need, usually culling the sick or weak (eating). Microorganisms will cooperate in all sorts of ways to get their next meal, (eating) including infecting the weakest of a herd. Microorganisms also cooperate with all species via their guts to help both the animal and the bacteria to get their next meal (eating.) The asclepias makes a specific pollen for the monarch butterfly that allows her to create a toxin that makes her unpalatable to birds that might eat her. A beautiful example of symbiotic cooperation. But, the whole partnership is all about eating. And reproducing. And then eating. All of nature is in partnership and cooperation for its next meal. Our ancestors knew this and owned their natural place in this cycle with honor and reverence.

Joyous lives? Again with the anthropormorphizing? Running from predators, being on constant alert for danger, dying slowly from diseases, ahhh joy.

You say a bunch of stuff about the history of civilization.

I say, I agree with you, and would add that it is the recent agricultural revolution and the storage of grains that allowed the human population to grow to the point where we can't help but sh*t where we eat.

And you still haven't shown me how all the "veganic" agriculture going on all over the world is sustainable. History shows a record of net nutrient loss, salinization and desertification again and again. And this is in populations that haven't had vast herds of livestock. It's those grains that have to be irrigated. I still advocate for permaculture and cultivation of polycultural perennial small holdings as our main food system.

I agree about the need for a new paradigm completely. And when I say go back to small holdings I don't mean 100 years ago small holdings, I mean much further back. Plus the addition of today's permaculture best practices.

You say, I would be delighted if the majority of people would go back to more traditional hunter and gatherer ways. But I feel that is highly unlikely to happen. 

I agree completely on all counts. It would be best and it is unfeasible. Which is why I advocate local, climatically appropriate permaculture food systems, as above.

You say, I think I have plenty of scientific evidence to support the idea that people don’t need to eat meat, milk or eggs to be healthy.

And I say, I have plenty of evidence to support the idea that many people can't get enough of certain vitamins with either eating completely unreasonable quantities of specific plant foods that might not be available to them, or getting them from animal foods. I also can give you lots of evidence that we are biologically omnivores--that is to say, neither herbivores nor carnivores. Our teeth are adapted perfectly to both plant and animal foods, our digestive systems are perfect for both plant and animal foods, the position of our eyes, jaws, etc. all indicate a species that is adapted to eating BOTH animals and plants. We have traits in common with other omnivores, like pigs and primates, not cows and tigers. To compare us to either carnivores or herbivores is like comparing apples to lemons and avocados. We are not carnivores nor are we herbivores, we are unique, physiologically speaking.

You say, Do I think that we are likely to become a world of veganic farmers? No. I think we are likely to kill ourselves off along with most of the other species of animals on this planet in the next hundred years or so. I mean, we can't even get someone who is allergic to dairy to say that dairy products are unhealthy and unnecessary.

Nice snark. For those who have adapted the gene for consuming dairy (like many Swiss for one example), dairy can be very healthy. For those Swiss who are rural subsistence farmers, dairy is necessary in their climate. We are opportunists in how we eat, and always will be. I support the right of humans to take care of their need to eat in the ways that best suits their genetics, climate, geography and culture, which in many cases makes eating animal foods a necessary (not needless) endeavor.

It's funny how much I agree with you in this last post you made. I myself am very sympathetic in many ways with humanity returning to nomadic hunting and gathering, making tools and clothes from animal parts, and doing some polycultural gardening, but in this country anyway, that is not possible, and there are many who would argue that going back to the ways of pre-colonial Native Americans is not the way to go.

However our abuse of the planet and the loss of resources may make this inevitable for those of us who survive over the next 100 years.

An extremely cogent and well researched paper showing that comparative anatomy does NOT support humans as herbivores.

In sum: John McArdle, Ph.D., an anatomist and primatologist, a vegetarian, and scientific advisor to the American Anti-Vivisection Society, summarizes the situation clearly [McArdle 1996, p. 174]:

"Humans are classic examples of omnivores in all relevant anatomical traits. There is no basis in anatomy or physiology for the assumption that humans are pre-adapted to the vegetarian diet. For that reason, the best arguments in support of a meat-free diet remain ecological and ethical."

Comparative physiology (metabolism) supporting an omnivorous diet

Intestinal receptors for heme iron. The existence of intestinal receptors for the specific absorption of heme iron is strong evidence of adaptation to animal foods in the diet, as heme iron is found in nutritionally significant amounts only in animal foods (fauna).

B-12 an essential nutrient. Similarly, the requirement for vitamin B-12 in human nutrition, and the lack of reliable (year-round) plant sources suggests evolutionary adaptation to animal foods in the human diet.

Plant foods are poor sources of EFAs. In general, the EFAs in plant foods are in the "wrong" ratio (with the exception of a very few exotic, expensive oils), and the low synthesis rates of EPA, DHA, and other long-chain fatty acids from plant precursors point to plant foods as an "inferior" source of EFAs. This strongly suggests adaptation to foods that include preformed long-chain fatty acids, i.e., fauna.

[Public service announcement to vegans: See this article by a vegan doctor concerning the need for supplemental DHA in vegan diets. http://www.drfuhrman.com/feeds/whatshappening/2009/04/what_vegans_may_be_missing.aspx]

Taurine synthesis rate. The low rate of taurine synthesis in humans, compared to that in herbivorous animals, suggests human adaptation to food sources of taurine (fauna) in the human diet.

Slow conversion of beta-carotene. The sluggish conversion rate of beta-carotene to vitamin A, especially when compared to the conversion rate in herbivorous animals, suggests adaptation to dietary sources of preformed vitamin A (i.e., a diet that includes fauna).

Plant foods available in evolution were poor zinc and iron sources. The plant foods available during evolution (fruits, vegetative plant parts, nuts, but no grains or legumes) generally provide low amounts of zinc and iron, two essential minerals. These minerals are provided by grains, but grains are products of agriculture (i.e., were not available during evolution), and contain many antinutrients that inhibit mineral absorption. This suggests that the nutritional requirements for iron and zinc were primarily met via animal foods during human evolution.

Bitter taste threshold as a trophic marker. An analysis of the human bitter taste threshold, when compared to the threshold of other mammals, suggests that our sensitivity to the bitter taste is comparable to that of carnivores/omnivores.

http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-1b.shtml

The above facts about human nutritional requirements in part explain why many people have failed to thrive on vegan diets. (Anecdotally, the number of ex-vegan websites, support groups, books and other media are growing exponentially, primarily led by former long-time pioneers in the vegan movement.)

While no one has ever done a long term study on a large population of ethnically diverse vegans or a study on those people who have failed to thrive on a vegan diet, or a study on people who are consuming a "paleo style" omnivorous diet of non-industrial, local plant and animal foods, any claims that vegan diets are the healthiest or appropriate for everyone are dubious at best.

So we can debate ecology and ethics forever, partly agreeing and partly disagreeing, as we have been doing. But anatomical and nutritional arguments are not strong legs for veganism to stand on.

Although I take acception to much of what you say, we do agree on some things. But one point I keep forgetting to mention is hemp. Since the United States outlawed hemp production and equated it with marijuana, many people seem to forget that hemp is the oldest and one of the most widely used plants in human history. Hemp requires no pesticides or fertilizers and there are varieties of this weed that will grow without irrigation pretty much anywhere in the world. Hemp seeds offer a complete protein and have the perfect balance of Omega 3 to Omega 6 fatty acids. A diet consisting of a variety of fruits, vegetables and hemp seeds could easily supply all the nutrients humans need to be healthy without legumes or grains and without any animal products. And growing hemp is something that would be easy for almost every human society to do without any fossil fuels, irrigation or plowing - so far fewer insect and small animal deaths due to cultivation. Hemp seed oil also makes a great renewable fuel and the stalks make great fiber for clothing, plastics, building materials, insulation etc. With hemp we could feed the world and have an eco-friendly, renewable source of fuel to transport other food crops and goods to people everywhere.  

Yay hemp!

So, if you really think "Our God did not make animals so that they could be subjected to endless toment by human beings," why aren't you a vegan?

Watching an animal be slaughtered can be very difficult, and watching the way animals are treated in Iowa is truly abhorrent. These are very good reasons why one might choose to be vegetarian.

I wish the CAFOs didn't exist myself, and I wish we didn't have the farm policies and ag subsidies we do that make such environmental and health nightmares economical. I've been to Iowa a few times, and it was tough to see a wasteland of corn, soy and feedlots as far as the eye could see.

Nevertheless, the lipid hypothesis has been thoroughly debunked, despite its persistence in the mainstream: cholesterol and saturated fat in the diet have NOTHING (emphasis, not shouting) to do with heart disease, obesity or diabetes. High cholesterol has been proven again and again as an extremely poor indicator of who will or won't get a heart attack. It is insignificant in fact. I can give you a long list of studies from reputable and peer reviewed scientists and doctors. Or you can google "cholesterol myth" and find a wealth of info yourself. This myth is perpetuated to sell statin drugs to children as young as 8!

Additionally, a ketogenic diet with a high percentage of saturated fat and cholesterol not only has been proven to help you lose weight, but is a well-known and very effective treatment for epilesy. Furthermore, populations who naturally consume such diets all over the world are significantly healthier than the average American, with exceptionally low levels of tooth decay, heart disease, cancer or obesity.

Furthermore, approximately 1% (conservative estimate) of the population, including myself, has a genetic inability to produce enough cholesterol in the liver, and therefore needs to consume foods with cholesterol in order to utilize vitamin D and to manufacture enough hormones and neurotransmitters to be healthy. 1%--thats 67 million people.

I am glad you are in good health. Eating well, having access to a variety of good quality food, and including some eggs or cheese, etc. in your diet probably helps a lot. But just because you are does not mean everyone else is or can be.

I think you need to look up the definition of hypocritical.  

As someone who doesn't believe dairy is cruel, why would you need clarification from someone else who may not (yet?) believe dairy is cruel?

It seems to me, if you'd wondered why she didn't think dairy/animal by-products were cruel, you would have asked plainly, instead of asking "if you really believe what you say, why haven't aren't you vegan?" In essence, you seemed (to me) to be calling Suzanne a hypocrite for not carrying her beliefs further.

If a cosmetic salesman called a heavily made-up woman "vain", I'd think he was a hypocrite (whether he wore make-up or not). If I criticized someone for not (yet) being a Jainist or a fruititarian, I think that'd be hypocritical on my part.

That's just the way your initial comment read to me - as a criticism. Maybe it wasn't your intention to be critical and, if not, I apologize.

And maybe Suzanne can tell us why she believes what she believes. =)

Hi Margaret,

Let me start by saying I think it is great that you rescued some animals from horrible factory farms and now treat them much better. Good for you!

I’m curious though… you say that your goats are like “family” and are treated very well. You say that their utters would pop if they weren’t milked and that it wouldn’t have been a problem when their babies were here but now that they are weaned it is not an option. Where are your goats’ babies? Were they sold for slaughter? If so, that is one of the points of contention here. The only reason your goats need to be milked is because someone took their babies away from them so they could be slaughtered for meat. People don’t usually sell their family member’s babies to be slaughtered.

I’m also curious to know how you feel when you kill a chicken or a duck who was formerly treated like a member of the family? Do you do the killing yourself or do you pay someone else to do it? If you do the killing, do you feel like you are betraying the trust of these animals? I mean, they trusted you to take care of them and to love them and then you betrayed them and either killed them yourself or had them killed, right? How does that make you feel?

If you learned that you could be perfectly healthy without having to betray the trust of your dear animals, what would you say? Would you adopt a healthy vegan lifestyle to save the lives of your beloved goats, chickens and ducks? Why or why not?

I’m not trying to be rude. I am just trying to understand your perspective. I could never bring myself to slit by dogs throat. Once I realized there is no meaningful difference between my dog and the cows, pigs, chickens and other animals I was eating, I was very upset. If I didn’t feel comfortable with someone killing my beloved dog to eat then why was I comfortable with someone killing any other animal for me to eat. I felt guilty and hypocritical. At first I tried to bury my guilt with excuses, as most people do. But once I discovered that people don’t need to eat meat or drink milk to be healthy I was truly relieved. I learned that by adopting a vegan lifestyle I am no longer contributing to the needless suffering and deaths of farm animals anymore.

If you were to adopt a vegan lifestyle you could let your goats nurse their kids for as long as necessary and then allow them to stay together as a family. You could let your chickens and ducks live out their lives with love and care and never have to betray their trust again. It’s really quite easy. I can help you if you want.