Comments | earthminor: why would someone who loves meat stop eating it?

earthminor

why would someone who loves meat stop eating it?

Oct 15, 2009 21:28

You may be interested to read an article I wrote explaining why a Christian would consider vegetarianism, published in an online student blogazine.
Serving the Lord at SupperIn other news I am doing a development course at work to help work out what I want from my job and how to improve my personal life and so on. It sounded a bit dumb when I first ( Read more... )

writing, food

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tibbycat October 15 2009, 12:05:33 UTC

Cool article ( ... )

earthminor October 15 2009, 12:13:36 UTC

Interesting idea but I'd need to hear more arguement for domesticated dogs being more 'as intended' than wild dogs... I mean, by whose definition of domesticated? And what about animals that are never domesticated, like penguins or sparrows? Seems a bit odd to me...

On the food topic, it doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing! There are just people out there who eat meat twice a day who could definitely cut back. Maybe you could eat meat three or four times a week rather than daily (I don't know your eating habits so maybe this is more than you do eat!). That can be easier to manage nutrition-wise. :)

tibbycat October 15 2009, 12:24:32 UTC

I'll see if I can find later on where it is specifically.
He does admit that he's merely speculating with it.

I do look at things in nature such as the cannibalism of some spiders who eat their own mother after they're born and shudder.

Foodwise, yeah, I don't eat meat every day :)
We usually have at least one vegetarian day. But it'll probably be easier when I leave home and am cooking entirely for myself.

lordlucless October 21 2009, 08:29:11 UTC

I'm a bit dubious about the notion that a closer association with man brings about a closer association with God (who caused the fall again?), but I can sort of see what it means.

Man's original commission was to "subdue the earth". Domesticating animals would seem to be a part of that. And there's also the whole "lion will lie down with the lamb" bit, which would seem to indicate a more pacific nature will exist in the new creation.

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lordlucless October 21 2009, 08:25:55 UTC

I always find those facts and figures about the environmental cost of food (or anything biological, but food is the major contender) to be a bit disingenuous. Like the measurements you quoted in your article: it compares the water required to produce a kilo of various types of food.

But why are we measuring in weight? Wouldn't a more accurate measure be the nutritional value of the food (i.e. kilojoules)? Animals are essentially "vegetable concentrators": they consume a large volumn of low-energy vegetables, and produce a smaller of volumne of high-energy meat. This has knock-on effects further down the chain, like a lowering of energy required in transport. This is not to say that the calorific value of meat is the sum of the calories the animal has consumed, but it's a lot closer than it would appear to be if you were measuring it based on weight.

Even then, you're measuring water usage. Water is not really a finite resource. It's cyclic. You feed it to cows, and they're going to excrete it out, where it evaporated, precipitates, ( ... )

earthminor November 2 2009, 11:54:12 UTC

Firstly I would point to Jesus' tale of the good Samaritan. The parable wasn't about how wrong it was that the man was robbed; Jesus focuses the responsibility on those who walked past and did nothing. When someone is hurting we are told to do something (see also the parable of the sheep and the goats). Walking past on the other side of the road is not the Christian response. I think the Bible's perspective is the first one we should consider ( ... )

lordlucless November 11 2009, 08:40:33 UTC

Firstly I would point to Jesus' tale of the good Samaritan...

That's largely a straw-man. I'm not advocating doing nothing. I'm questioning whether what is being done is necessarily helpful. If you want to use the Good Samaritan as an anology, then you might insert a passerby who stopped, wiped some of the blood off the victim's face, then continued on their way. Did they do something? Yes. Was it helpful? Well, somewhat. But it scarcely addressed the root of the problem.

On the calorie issue...

Yes, there's more to food than energy. But energy is the one thing all foods have in common, and, in comparison to every other nutrient, it's what we need the most of out of our food. We need to have some benchmark when comparing foods, and energy, while not perfect, is probably the simplest, most accurate.

Anywho, by plugging a kilo of fresh legumes vs a kilo of raw beef in calorieking.com.auI couldn't duplicate your results - the only legumes I could find on there were "Vegetables, canned: Legumes, Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce, canned", ( ... )

lordlucless November 11 2009, 08:41:25 UTC

Basically you're saying that it's their own fault they're hungry, and our response should be agitating for political changeFor certain definitions of "their", yes, it is "their" fault. Not on an individual level - a starving subsistence farmer is unlikely to have many options to improve their lot - but at a national level, that changes ( ... )

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