World Vegan Month

Shel, if you point it out that you have had a drink, it takes away the fun in correcting any mistakes.

Mission accomplished

Why must you torture me like this!!!!

Gosh darnit, now I won't be able to eat meat without thinking of "If you eat meat, please don't call yourself an animal lover." Why can't I just live my life in peace? ;-;

On the other hand, this is what I have to say to vegans who consider themselves superior to others who eat meat, due to an enhanced sense of caring for animals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(paranormal)

TL;DR: Some people believe that, due to the fact that some plants, especially cucumbers, seem to have a nervous system, they can feel pain when we cut them up or eat them.

I personally have no problems with genetic modification in plants for poor countries in Africa, Asia and maybe some of the South Americas where they can't produce enough food for everyone, but for *most* countries in Europe it makes little to no sense to do introduce them there, hence why I love Scotland and Germany for recently banning their use. There are a ton of risks attached to them, such as if they escape out of a field (which will happen) and grow in the wild, they would be invasive and damaging to an already well-established ecosystem.

And like most people in this thread: I'm not a vegan. I love my English breakfasts and hate Quorn too much to give it up :c

I wrote a paper a while back about how not eating meat was unhealthy. Interviewed a few vegans and vegetarians and they all had the same problems. Most notably: dry and saggy skin, thinning hair, problems sleeping, lethargic episodes, varied severity of difficulty concentrating, brittle finger nails and easy bruising. I did my interviews on people that were 25-40 years old-ish and those that I did interview were people that had been on that diet for at least three years. Of course these things won't become obvious as soon as you decide you want to have a dietary change.

Of course eating a ton of meat doesn't prevent these things, in moderation would prevent it. Well, as with anything I suppose. Meat is hard on your digestive system and in the US we love our cheeseburgers. Meat+dairy is just terrible on your stomach as both are difficult to digest and when consumed together it's just that much worse. Processed meat (processed anything) of course is terrible for you as well

/health stuff

Not true for me. The pig is my favourite animal. I love it for its looks, its sounds, its personality and its meat.

Thanks for your "weekend rant", by the way, Shel.

Is it bad that it's hard for me to go a day without some sort of meat?

Cheers! Besides the problem with animal treatment, there are several others: Meat is environmentally very expensive to produce: 1) It needs tons and tons of water to raise a cow, 2) they need lots of space which is mainly retrieved by cutting down rain forest (s. Brazil) and 3) the methan emission of cows is considerable and contributes to a change of CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
Additionally, industrialization of meat production (pig, chicken and other birds) lead to a unproportional use of antibiotics, which causes resistance of germs to these previously effective medication.

The unseen consumption of meat mainly in the western world (several times daily) contributes massively to these problems, while in other cultures at least the whole animal is eaten (intestines, heads, feat, tails, sometimes even balls )I won't even start with fishing, fisheries and the state of the oceans.

And before somebody gets the wrong idea: Yes, I am omnivore myself.

Interestingly, there is a very cheap, easy to maintain and easy to reproduce source of protein, that foremost Dutch social and nutrition scientists explore: Bugs!

Dutch supermarket:

I agree, that there are several ecological and ethical problems associated with GMOs, but these are not restricted to the industrialized world.
In developing countries a specific economic problem comes on top of that: In hundreds of cases small farmers went bankrupt after the purchase of GMOs patented by multinational corporations.
The farmers where lured into buying these seeds by the promise of large crops. From the money they made, they had to buy new seeds, because GMOs are generally infertile, as you mention above, to prevent spread into the environment.
The traditional cycle of planting, harvesting and replanting was replaced by a new cycle of buying seeds, harvesting, selling crops and buying new seeds. The new cycle potentially can go on and on.
But, GMOs aren't resistent to everything. One bad season can break this "artificial" cycle, eg when a drought or flood hit. Then the farmers have nothing left: No crop, no seeds and no money to buy new seeds.

I like food made of blood (black pudding, and I really want to make Blood Pancakes, which the Swedes and Finns eat )... does that count? (I'm also completely unopposed to eating intestines )

Also, from what I can tell, Americans don't eat blood. Can someone confirm this to me?

P.S I know the brackets above are all over the place. Don't hate me for it >.>

P.S.S I also eat liver and kidneys and other stuff pretty much on a weekly-monthly basis. I'm hungry now ;-;

I tried to become a vegan/vegetarian once but failed miserably. I couldn't go a day without eating a porkpie - yes, a porkpie.

In actual fact though, I do enjoy artificial meat (Quorn). However, I like real meat just not the idea of killing animals. In my opinion, artificial meat is nicer but is soft/smooth and doesn't have that satisfying texture that normal meat does.

I have nothing against vegans until they start saying things like this. Just because I like the taste of meat (totally natural to humans) it doesn't, in any circumstance, mean I dislike animals.

I ignore that kind of nonsense. I love tigers, but I'd never eat one.

Just because I like vegans, doesn't mean I eat them.

Non-Americans, probably

Pfft. Everyone knows 'Murica is the only country that matters. WE ARE THE WORLD!
Oh god this is a joke, please don't lynch me!

I'm just going to leave these here....