[MD] vegetarianism

Sat Nov 11 13:00:25 PST 2006

Jos Wrote:
  I was in America recently and everything tastes the same, any food you 
buy
is covered in cheese, meat, sugar and salt in equal measure seemingly
irrespective of what the original dish was meant to be, you order a 
salad
but find that it is a cheese, meat, sugar and salt salad that looks
remarkably similar to the cheese, meat, sugar salt pancakes that you 
can
still taste from breakfast time. 

  Robbie reply:

  Some folks slather on salad dressing like it is a "beverage"...Wow,  Extremely high in calories.

  American Burger chains are killing more folks, than the Big Tobacco industry ever will. 
  Eating in restaurants generally causes people to gain weight. People need to take the time to cook their own food, if they care about their own health.

  The FDA (Food and drug administration) is a Federal Bureaucracy that is totally co-opted by those they regulate.  This model is the norm. No surprise to anyone.

  There is a book I've read called Super Size Me, which documents part of the reason why Americans are so fat, and mentally lazy, or sleepy. Also made into a movie, which I have never seen. Food intake habits impact so many areas of living.  A topic for many hundreds of posts, which will be off-topic for this discussion group.

  Most people get far more Protein than necessary.  I admit the Burger chain's burgers taste all right, they are engineered to taste good.  But I would not eat at a burger chain more than once per month.

  By the way I am only a part time vegetarian.
  Robbie

Jos Laycock <jos5 at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

Hi Gav

Ok my attempt to justify my shaky meat eating position.

I agree that humans are similar in some respects to species adapted
primarily for eating vegitables, but we are also similar to primates who are
almost exclusively carnivorous. We are unable to digest cellulose 
effectively in the way that a ruminant would so perhaps we should give up 
eating veg?
I agree that the average adult westerner is teetering on the brink of heart 
attack, but most of this is the fault of excessive carb ntake especially the 
inordinate amounts of starchy plant products deep
fried in vegitable oils. Stuffing our faces with bits of dead animal doesn't
help but its not accurate to cite as the main factor. IMO Folks have the gut
bulge cos their lazy and have no abdominal muscle tone, but I dont disagree
that undigested meat may be a minor contributory factor.
I was in America recently and everything tastes the same, any food you buy
is covered in cheese, meat, sugar and salt in equal measure seemingly
irrespective of what the original dish was meant to be, you order a salad
but find that it is a cheese, meat, sugar and salt salad that looks
remarkably similar to the cheese, meat, sugar salt pancakes that you can
still taste from breakfast time. I craved all sorts of things like "bitter",
"unusual", "clean", "zingy", "light", "rounded", "complex" all of which are
attributes equally applicable to meat as they are to veg. The first moment
you bite into a McDonalds burger - its sooo good, satisfying all your
juvenile cravings, the second bite is ok but you feel a bit dirty, third
bite you wish you'd gone without, and the final one before you hurl your
fetid husk into the void, you are on the point of vomiting and desperate for
a bleach mouthwash. Its addictive comfort food that your intellect screams
at you to discard once it has successfully subjugated the combined urges of
advertising and it's similarity to breast feeding. But all this is criticism
leveled at horrible cheap poor quality food in general and not part of any
meat vs veg debate. Go and eat a pan fried foe gras and feel the perfect
bitter sweet velvet quality overtake your every sense from the first to the
last mouthfull.
Other health risks accepted though - too much meat gives you bowel cancer
I've read research papers too that make this pretty clear.
Back to philosophy then:
Pirsig's support for vegitarianism is based on avoidance of killing animals
right?, but the MOQ puts animals and plants on the same (biological) level
does it not? So reducing living plants to their inorgainc parent compounds
is also imoral, so we must be saying that within a level it is always moral
for the more highly eveolved to eat the more lowly evolved pattern? Well
move it up the scale a bit and we are saying that animals can eat other
animals. My position then is that I disagree with Bob on this point as his
argumnent seems inconsistent.
Vegetarianism is just one intellectual pattern. Granted it's more moral than
eating meat if that meat eating is done for no reason other than biological
urge (like our thoughtless-childhood-regressed cheese munchers from accross
the pond), but I dont see that the MOQ makes vegitarianism any more moral
than say factory farming, which is also an intellectual pattern.
We have a hunter-gatherer heritage - what about quality, what about harmony?
The cycle of life is embedded in cultural folklore and in the fabric of
society, animal products have significance to us, they live they die, they
eat each other, we are no different, whilst it is moral to evolve
intellectual patterns that improve our cultutral and biological nature, it
is a low quality intellectual pattern that seeks to deny the essence of our
being.

Jos

>From: gav 
>Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>Subject: Re: [MD] vegetarianism
>Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 19:56:24 +1100 (EST)
>
>hey jos,
>we are generally, *biologically speaking*, vegetarian
>animals. our long convoluted guts are the guts of
>vegetarians. carnivores have very short intestines.
>
>we are able to digest animal proteins to an extent but
>not as efficiently as true carnivores. our stomachs
>just don't have the same acidic potency, as cats for
>instance.
>
>since our digestion is not suited to high quantities
>of meat, much is not digested properly, leaving
>residue in the gut which leads to poor nutrient
>assimilation through the intestinal villi. this also
>leads to the familiar abdominal paunch. on average an
>adult westerner has several kilos of undigested meat
>residue lining their guts.
>
>so, getting back to your post, as far as nutrition is
>concerned, the poor state of meat-addled guts is a
>bigger prob than getting requisite vits and minerals
>from a purely vego diet.
>
>i lived in spain on a pure vego diet (live in vego
>chef!) at an eco-centre for about 6 months. i didn't
>crave any meat at all. my digestion was close to
>perfect. as was my general health.
>
>conversely when i was in the states i often found it
>difficult to get good vego food and found myself
>craving meat.
>
>as far as Pirsig is concerned he explicitly states
>that vegetarianism is more moral than a meaty diet.
>so....i just thought it intellectually honest to look
>at ourselves and say:
>1. do i agree with bob here?
>2. if i do then is this reflected in my actions?
>3. if this is not refelcted in my actions then why?
>4. if i don't agree, why not?
>
>having a diet high in animal protein is directly
>related to cancer, as the protease enzymes required to
>digest the outer membrane of cancer cell growths in
>the body are all used up in meat digestion. as long as
>we eat *little or no meat* (little =<15% of diet) and
>get adequate vitamin B17 (aka laetrile) - from the
>seeds of fruit primarily - then cancer is not a
>problem.
>
>cancer was diagnosed as a 'chronic deficiency of
>vitamin B17' back in the 50s!!! the cancer industry
>has buried this info but the scientific papers are
>still there to be found. my ex-phd supervisor in
>biochemistry verified all this info for me last year..
>
>remember there are cancer free societies in the world,
>eg the hunzas in nth pakistan, and they eat meat (but
>not much), smoke, drink, and eat plenty of apricot
>kernels (highest source of B17).
>
>anyway enough of the cancer tangent. primarily i am
>interested in seeing if and how people LIVE THEIR
>PHILOSOPHY. cos if you ain't livin it, i ain't
>interested in talking.
>
>cheers
>gav
>
>
>
>--- Jos Laycock wrote:
>
> > Hi Gav
> >
> > S'not correct, depends on how much you think before
> > you eat.
> >
> > I see it that vegitarianism is a suppression of
> > biological urges by a
> > cultural morality, but any rational decision that is
> > reached concerning a
> > biological function that leads to me curtailing or
> > modifying that biological
> > behaviour is more moral than just unthinkingly
> > biting stuff. If I decide
> > cosciously that for whatever reason I wan't to eat
> > halal meat for example
> > this can be seen as just as moral as consciously
> > deciding not to eat meat at
> > all. Likewise I may come up with a rational
> > justification to butcher
> > hundreds of animals and eat only their eyelids,
> > clearly ridiculous but also
> > clearly a suppression of the biological by a higher
> > "morality".
> >
> > There's nothing wrong with vegitarianism provided
> > that the higher morality
> > doesn't threten to pull the rug out from under its
> > own feet. 1st question
> > then is: Can a diet that excludes meat genuinely
> > sustain nutrient intake in
> > a way that is comparable to one that doesn't? and
> > secondly: What if one
> > becomes so crazed with meat withdrawal that all
> > useful intellectual thought
> > becomes impossible? Have you seen a vegitarian in
> > the prezence of frying
> > bacon?
> >
> > Jos
> >
> >
> > >From: gav 
> > >Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> > >To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> > >Subject: [MD] vegetarianism
> > >Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 08:02:37 +1100 (EST)
> > >
> > >hello.
> > >
> > >interested to know who on the list is vegetarian.
> > >
> > >the MOQ seems to say that vegetarianism is more
> > moral
> > >than eating meat. bob himself says this in Lila of
> > >course.
> > >
> > >is this correct? is vegetarianism more moral?
> > >
> > >is it incorrect? is bob wrong?
> > >
> > >if you are not vegetarian, why? is this an ethical
> > >dilemma for you or do you not give a shit?
> > >
> > >just want see who walks the talk around here.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >Send instant messages to your online friends
> > http://au.messenger.yahoo.com
> > >moq_discuss mailing list
> > >Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> >
> >http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> > >Archives:
> >
> >http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> > >http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
> >
> >
>_________________________________________________________________
> > Windows Live™ Messenger has arrived. Click here to
> > download it for free!
> >
>http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/?locale=en-gb
> >
> > > moq_discuss mailing list
> > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> >
>http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> > Archives:
> >
>http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>
>
>Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com
>moq_discuss mailing list
>Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
>http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
>Archives:
>http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
>http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/

_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™ Messenger has arrived. Click here to download it for free! 
http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/?locale=en-gb

moq_discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/

---------------------------------
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.