Einstein said “Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
I’m a vegetarian, and I agree with Einstein.
In fact, I have a lot of difficulty understanding why most people aren’t vegetarian.
Who has an opinion? Should we be vegetarians or meat eaters? Why?
I tend to eat mostly veggies – tryin’ to decrease my impact and whatnot.
But, I won’t lie, meat tastes damned nice. I view it as a vice, like alcohol or smoking. I enjoy it and, if done in moderation, why not, errrr, enjoy it?
I’m more moderate in my meat eating than I am in my drinking, is that bad?
I don’t know exactly why humans are omnivorous, but there is a reason or we would not be. I’d bet it’s because a consumer with the capability to eat other consumers would be able to survive longer during conditions in which producers (plants) are harder to find (droughts, ice ages). I don’t know, but I suspect that it is also easier, or somehow better, to eat predigested plant matter (meat), than to form all the proteins contained in meat by oneself. If you think of eating as changing food into muscles and other stuff, then it could be easier to make cow muscle in human muscle than plant stuff into human muscle.
There’s a health theory called “metabolic typing” that makes a rather convincing case on this. Different metabolisms require different eating habits.
However, when you look at the process culturing typical animals to be eaten, and stuff like mercury poisoning in fish, vegetarian might be a better route. I do agree that humans eat much more meat than is necessary.
I’m a vegetarian too, but I try not to talk about it. When I ate meat, one of the most annoying things to me was self-important vegetarians so I swore that if I went veg I wouldn’t even tell any of my friends I was doing it. Some of them went as long as a year before they found out.
What’s the basis for Einstein’s statement?
The world will be better when we all embrace the wearing of one red shoe.
Haha same here Creation, I HATE telling people I am vegetarian. For the same reason as you, I don’t want to be associated with the stereotypical vegetarian who puts it out there as their identity (an ego-boosting portion of their self-concept).
A friend of mine had a “I don’t eat anything with a face” bumper sticker on his car; I thought “it’s about time” when he told me he decided to take it off because he no longer saw the point in flaunting the idea.
I also don’t like to mention it because when non-vegetarian finds out you are a vegetarian they tend to ask questions why, and by telling them the truth I am, in a sense, letting them know I think they are behaving negatively.
But I wanted to know if anyone had any opinions in support of meat eating, because for me it doesn’t make much sense (on moral grounds) to eat meat, and of course this is a forum of people who consider things a lot more than the “average” person.
The main thing that I think keeps people eating meat is habit, and the fact that most people do it, so it is just accepted as normal, nothing wrong with it (the fact that the stereoptype of the vegetarian having a whiny, childish, and any other kind of weak/unpatriotic/etc disposition certainly doesn’t help).
Can anyone give some convincing arguments in support of continuing to eat meat now?
Mr. Predictable,
do you have an opinion on whether or not people should be vegetarian? And reasons why?
The definitive answer:
I think that it’s a matter of personal taste (no pun intended)and nothing more.
My real comment was on Einstein’s comment, because I don’t see why it’s important or what it’s based on.
I’m guessing his reasoning, what it is based on, has something to do with the health benefits of avoiding meat (our bodies aren’t specialized for meat consumption) and an idea that humans cannot reach a certain stage of moral development (that could avoid future conflicts) if we can’t face certain uncomfortable insights (such as how people ignore the pain the animals went through so they can continue enjoying the taste of the meat and/or an established pattern in their daily life).
That is one reason why it is important… the readers f this post can take his opinions as a starting point for discussion.
I guess my decision to start off with the opinion of a well known genius, to give a more precise starting point that fits into the frame of my overall question with the post, is just a matter of (my) personal taste.
I’ll preface this by telling you that I am a vegetarian. However, not because I believe it’s really wrong to eat meat.
I think to claim that it’s wrong to eat meat is in certain senses a little silly, and I think the reason is best illustrated by whoever’s friend’s bumper sticker “I don’t eat anything that had a face.” The moral argument that it’s wrong to eat animals is grounded in anthropomorphism - they don’t eat the organisms that they can empathize with.
In the end, we all feed on living things - vegetarians just choose to eat different organisms. We have no idea whether or not plants suffer when we kill them or step on them or anything else. It’s true that they lack a CNS of any sort that we can recognize, but this isn’t really conclusive evidence. Plants still have the ability to react to external stimuli - venus fly traps for example. Or sunflowers that turn to face the sun. It might very well be the case that plants experience excruciating agony that we can never understand.
That being said, I think there are many many good reasons to be a vegetarian.
For one, it’s much more healthy. The average omnivore consumes alot more protein than they really need - so much so that it tends to block the absoprtion of other nutrients, like calcium.
Also, producing vegetables is much more land/resource efficient than producing meat crops. We could feed alot more people if the land that was used to graze beef cattle were used to grow food crops.
Not to mention that most of the methods used for raising and producing meat animals are pretty cruel.
“But I wanted to know if anyone had any opinions in support of meat eating, because for me it doesn’t make much sense (on moral grounds) to eat meat, and of course this is a forum of people who consider things a lot more than the “average” person.”
I would pose the argument as follows:
As a matter of habit, in my culture and most, humans eat meat. Because this is the status quo the onus is on the vegetarian to provide reasons why I should not eat meat.
The argument seems to be generally that animals feel pain, therefore we should seek to avoid causing them pain, or, that animals are reasonably intelligent, and therefore have some sort of right to life like humans.
The vegetarian, in proposing these considerations will, of course, have to show that these objections do not apply to their actions; the eating of plants.
I propose that 3) is impossible without resorting to chauvinism. Pain is a silly argument; that would make it okay to anaethetise an animal and then kill and eat it. The intelligence argument assumes that animals are more ‘sentient’ than plants. I don’t see how. Plants can react to outside stimulus just like animals.
A vego claim ‘animals have brains’ is facile. It is chavinistic and arbitary to argue that having a brain, a peculiar evolutionary manifestation of intelligence, gives one more moral worth. There are babies born without brains, can we eat them? What if an alien spaceship is commandeered by benevolent beings more physiologically similar to earth’s plants than animals? Mmm, tasty!
Many people die from unnatural causes every minute of the day. They get shot, killed in car, and get kicked in the head by donkeys. Does it help them?
Morals:
They are a cultural construct, so they don’t matter unless you buy into the construct.
I agree, we have no way of knowing what plants experience when we will them.
However, as you said, we can empathize with the pain the nerve cells feel, so we can be sure that this is a very unpleasant feeling.
We have to eat something in order to survive, and we do know that the pain an animal feels is very unpleasant, so all we can do is avoid causing what we know ot be a very unpleasant sensation in animals.
I definitely think people should at least consider a vegetarian diet for the health benefits you noted.
And yes, not only do I think that the pain should be avoided, but the killing of the animals for our own (unnecessary) benefit as well.
I don’t agree with the idea of killing yourself in order to prevent the deaths of animals or plants because I believe self preservation has to be every being’s number 1. Ignoring a possible swing into a metaphysics argument, I am just going to say that I think, since we are born and we experience pain, which we all agree is a negative sensation, we have to assume that the avoidance of that pain (and the avoidance of death, since the stimulus of pain warns of the death of particular spots of the body and, in the end, the end of the whole itself) is one of the things in life we can be pretty confident of.
Of course we don’t want others to experience pain, because we know it is a sensation nobody wants, but this is always a degree from our own 1st first experience of pain.
Your thoughts work for your sensations.
One argument so far seems to be “we don’t know what plants experience” but we should be saying " we do know what animals experience".
We know that the animal attempts to preserve its life, and we know the animal feels pain.
We also know that the vegetarian diet is healthy, it doesn’t have any detrimental effects (I may be wrong when it comes to particular individuals who may have unusual dietary needs, but I’m guessing particular vitamins can be taken to solve this, at least for the less extreme cases).
We can live healthy without eating meat, we understand the negative experience of pain, so why eat meat?
We have to attempt to preserve ourselves, a growling stomach signals us to eath, it is the truest message we know. Any abstractions we can make in our brains is merely a tool that’s been exercised to feed that need. We have to fuel ourselves with something, and we have two choices: eat the animals that we know experience what we avoid at all costs, or eat what the animals eat when they are not eating other animals. It’s a decision we have to make, and I think given what we know, it’s a pretty simple decision.
I don’t understand your point here.
It’s easy to just say “it’s a cultural construct” about something and then decide it’s meaningless in the world “out there”.
Yes, it’s a word that describes an idea that humans have about how to act and, in many cases, it can be completely meaningless.
However, we can say that pain is a stimulus animals avoid, and that animals (by avoiding uncomfortable sensations) above all attempt to preserve their lives.
Morals, in my opinion, CAN matter if they are based on this fundamental fact.
The first point has to do with planning for a certain kind of future that may not come. Many want to be healthy up until death, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. While trying for this they live a life of fear and avoidance that may end up getting cut short by some accident. So, doing something just to live longer may not have much benefit.
Animals:
Why should a person care about animals when they solve much human pain when eaten?
this is a bit of a silly argument. It’s identical to saying that since we’re unable to predict the future, we should never make plans as they may not come to fruition.
You might as well do the CBA. The number one (by far) cause of death in the developed world is heart disease, mostly related to un-healthy diet and lifestyle. You’re much more likely to enjoy a long and healthy life as a vegetarian, even if it isn’t guaranteed.
Also, a note on the nutritional aspects of the vegetarian diet:
Vegetarians that eat eggs/milk have absolutely nothing to be concerned with, as they still receive all of the same nutrients as meat eaters.
Vegans have to exercise a little caution, as no vegetables contain complete proteins. However, all vegetables have some of the essential acids, and it’s usually pretty easy to get all the essentials with combinations. For example, a PB&J sandwich is a complete protein.
Also note vegans may have trouble getting vitamin D, as it’s found exclusively in animal products. However, there are vitamins & also enriched products (some companies have started putting it in orange juice), or you can just spend some time in the sun - your body naturally produces vitamin D while exposed to sunlight.
Kerintok
Please provide an argument that makes sound reasons as to why a person should lead a limited life apart from moderate pleasures when they’re simply going to die anyway. On top of that, prove that since life can end at any moment that investing in the moment isn’t the better deal.
Wow! Einstein was a dietician, too? What didn’t he do! 
That’s just like watching (ex-NFL QB) Joe Theisman pitch insurance of Paul Harvey (90+ years old and probably half deaf) pitching Bose speakers. What is the source of the human desire to see someone they admire as an expert on everything? 
Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival on Earth as much as ceasing to rely on celebrities for health, dietary and audio/video advice.