Question for vegetarians

Actually vegetarianism refers to a diet. What you are asking is a question for people who love animals.

Let me just answer your first question cause that is an interesting question allready though it should be answered by non vegetarians. Is indirect killing less bad than direct killing? Would you eat the same amount of meat if you would need to slaughter the animals for your meat consumption yourself? If so props...You are still cruel but you are no hypocrite. Many meat eaters could not slaughter an animal though. Staring into the eyes of a cow while shooting it or turning the neck of a chicken will make them feel bad and guilty. These people will have no problem though when it is killed by others and they just get to eat it. Not sure what they pretend. Its from the factory? It was dead allready? Or somebody else killed it and I am only eating it so that means I killed it indirectly so that is ok?

*50 hypocrits*

wait but you answered my question with a question not an answer heh


i prob wouldnt eat much of anything if i had to get it all myself , but yes i kill animals and eat them, lived on a farm so..

i dont see much difference in killing a chicken raised to eat than killing a tomato raised to eat ? they both would have longer lives if not eaten, both are nice, both are better eaten before they die. Both are raised for the sole purpose of eating.

Would you eat a cow that died of natural causes , like drowning ?

I wonder if a leather company that only made leather from animals that died of natural causes would work ?

Well to be honest I did not get your first question. Care to ask in another way?
What do you see as direct and indirect killing?

I would not eat a cow that died of natural causes. Its not because of the principle though. When I accidentally eat meat nowadays (hidden in a salad for example) I vomit and/or have diarhee. My body can not take it anymore. I think you would also need to eat it within a a limited amount of time for the meat to still be eatable. You are a countryboy so you probably know that better then me.

I would have no problems wearing leather shoes from animals that died a natural way. I wear leather shoes now as well but I would feel better knowing the animal died a natural way. The life has not ended pre-mature.

Not sure if you have a dog but would you eat your dog? Just like tomatoes and chicken they are both nice. They would have longer lives if not eaten. It is eaten better before it dies and in some cultures dogs are raised for the sole purpose of eating....Just trying to make you see here that "raised for the sole purpose of eating" is a human choice and much like your idea here might vary from the chinese idea my idea here might vary from yours

Is that good or bad?

I came into this thread for a few reasons and it was not to "bash" vegetarians. I eat well constantly and have do eat many meals without meat. I also go into body building threads to for instance because they will also bring up diet, even though I have no desire to do any body building but the diet portions interest me.

I know for my own self that if I were to go full vegan I would die, simple as that. I can not find a doctor, dietitian, or anyone in the medical field that I see about myself. Also when I say die, I mean litter ally and not the type of oh I will die if I can not taste it again.

I do see several vegetarians that have very good ideas and such to get more into your body though and that is the part that interests me. Additional ways to add protein and such always interest me.

Empathy is the answer. Sane people do not eat eachother unless they're literally starving, because most of us are capable of identifying with other human beings, at least on the most basic "I don't want to die" level. I extend that courtesy to other species as far as possible.

I have grown to appreciate that I am an animal too, made of the same stuff, evolved under the same conditions, with a similar set of practical emotions based on fulfilling physical and social needs. There's no supernatural line between us, just a lucky combo of slightly superior intelligence and opposable thumbs.

Of course all life isn't equal. A chicken is an infinitely more complex lifeform than a tomato. We all generally agree not to eat chimps and dolphins because we respect their intelligence. Then there are dogs, about as smart as a young human child, and more emotionally mature. Not far below dogs are pigs. Drawing a line there seems completely arbitrary. At what point does a sentient being become too dumb to respect their desire to live? I believe the wisest answer, under ideal conditions, is anything with a fully developed brain is probably self-aware enough that it would prefer not be eaten. That leaves plants, and some very basic shellfish, biologically incapable of individualism or having an opinion about what happens to them. Insects seem like a grey area I'm not going to lose sleep over; I don't worry when they hit my windshield, and protecting crops from them isn't a major moral dilemma for me, but if I see a spider inside I'll catch and release it outside instead of smashing it. Why not? Live and let live.

Now I'm not saying my life is of less value either. If I was lost in the jungle, Darwin's law is in effect. Vegetarianism is a moral luxury afforded by civilization. But when you have a choice, when it's not kill-or-die, then that decision carries a moral burden. As creatures capable of conscience, we can either embrace the nihilistic reality of a universe that doesn't seem to give a shit, or try to live as if life is a test and our decisions matter.

cept dogs aren't raised for eating.
i would eat those ones if i lived in that culture , sure why not , its no different than chicken to them.

good answer , now start a classification system based on it so we know what life are ok to murder and eat and what ones are not ok.

p.s. people who live where there are chimps eat chimps , people who live near dolphins eat them too ( well not everyone but lots of people )
grilled dolphin recipe

It's not a mystery which organisms have higher brain functions; it's simply biology.

I'd eat a monkey or a dolphin if I was starving but, at this point in our technological progress, I can't imagine what kind of epic fail would lead to a situation where that was my only option.

I used to be extremely carnivorous until my 20's. I made fun of my vegetarian friends. I pointed to our canine teeth as proof we are supposed to eat meat, not appreciating the subtlety that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. So I understand all the defensiveness surrounding this issue. Vegetarians are by definition calling meat-eaters immoral, no matter how polite they phrase it. I still miss the taste of meats I grew up eating. But ultimately I couldn't escape the conclusion that the cost is too high for a little selfish preference.

It has to do with your intentions. If you build an amusement park and there is a freak accident where a child is killed, you may feel bad but it is not murder as your intention was to do good and not harm (assuming you were not knowingly negligent). Same with killing animals or any other living creature. Obviously when I walk around I don't intend to kill tiny insects I may step on and I avoid them if I can. But of course some will die. When you choose to eat meat you are directly responsible for the death/mistreatment of an animal and there was no intention of any good coming from it other than the few minutes of satisfaction you get when eating your steak or hamburger.

There is a distinct difference ethically between my killing dustmites when I wash my hair and me killing a chicken to eat it. The natural order of the world allows larger/more advanced species to survive at the cost of lower life forms. What makes humans different and gives us our humanity is the ability to be introspective regarding our own behavior and CHOOSE not to harm other living creatures to survive when it is not necessary. This is what makes humans different from animals. I cannot live without washing my hair once in a while at the expense of some dustmites. I can live a perfectly normal and healthy life without killing animals.

If you have the choice and ignore it then you have crossed an ethical line. If you have no choice, then generally no ethical line has been crossed. If I was trapped in the jungle and had no choice but to capture and kill an animal for food, I would do it and no personal ethical line would have been crossed as I had no choice. And as I said earlier, the natural order of the world is set up so that I can survive at the expense of lower life forms given no other reasonable alternative without compromising my own ethics. But if I have a choice and choose to ignore it, then I have compromised my own ethical boundaries.

At least that's my view.

Here's the deal.

I've gone vegetarian over the past three years, because of one thing...how it makes me feel. That's it. Not because of saving animals, but because i feel better. I didn't just drop red meat all together, it was little steps. Eventually, i just stopped eating red meat all together.

Now, will i eat red meat again? Sure...but, daily or even monthly? Never. I find that i eat red meat about once ever 6 months these days. I do like red meat, but i don't crave it at all.

What I do eat is tons of seafood, tofu, some chicken, etc etc...so i not full blown vegetarian. It's mainly red meat that i cut out. And obviously, we stock up each month on pounds and pounds of veggies which we steam with every meal we make. Everything we cook is fresh and free of anything synthetic.

Now i shit like 40 times a day......
I swear, i might not enjoy that steak, but i'll die with the cleanest colon on the planet....(knock on wood)

I'm noticing a curious correlation in this thread between vegetarian leanings and the amateur niche.

is it GMO free tofu ?

you have a choice to shave your eyebrows and then less dustmites will die , but you choose to ignore it because then you would look silly, isnt that quite vain to murder animals solely so you can look good ?

shame on you purposefull dustmite murderer

that makes total sense..nothing to argue about there

when you shop at a vegetarian store that was built on land once home to thousands of animals/insects who were slaughtered to build it you are no less responsible.

Where vegetables are grown thousanda and thousands of insects are killed to grow them, you are directly responsible for the death and mistreatment of thousands of insects and rodents, you could only eat handpicked vegetables but you choose to ignore it,

No sir, you are very wrong. I firmly believe that "healthy" vegetarians are not the majority. Heck, I know of two vegetarians who after being veggie for many years were told by their doctors to start eating meat again or to visit a dietitian to correct their deficiencies.

Most of the people I know who are veggie are always ill, are fat or worse, skinny fat (girls that's pointed at you, get in the gym!) so they think they are healthy but in reality they haven't an ounce of muscle on their frame... these people are tired all the time yet constantly searching for quick "veggie" food... so essentially anything without meat is fair game - chips, ice cream, chocolate bars, giant starbucks double venti mocha-fatuccino's w/whip and chocolate chips and a giant slice of carrot cake (duh it has carrots in it, it's good for you!) and so on.

Why would you die?

Go back and read my statement, although brief for a topic like this, I did touch upon the fact that a larger/higher lifeform killing a lower/smaller lifeform is not 100% objectionable by my ethical standards. It is in fact the natural order of the planet we live on. I also used the qualifier that I choose what I can do to adhere to my ethical standards while at the same time maintaining a "normal and healthy" life. Obviously, shaving all my body hair so I don't harbor any dustmites would not be normal. Also, eating only handpicked vegetables or food that in no way impacted any other living creature would be impossible.

In your specific example, a store that sells vegetarian products probably was not responsible for any animals being slaughtered on that land before the foundation could be poured. It seems unlikely that the developer showed up and shot any animal on site. Of course, throughout the course of the digging I'm sure insects were killed, but the intention was not to kill the insects and there was an underlying positive intention for building the store in the first place. The example I used in my post involved an amusement park, but it is similar to this example.

This is also why I don't attack people for eating meat in the first place. It is actually the natural order of the planet we live on for one lifeform to feed on another in order to survive and it's a pretty good system. But I also believe you exercise your true humanity and become human when you choose to not needlessly harm other living creatures when their is a simple alternative.

As I said, the death of certain lifeforms are acceptable within my own ethical guidelines. For me, there is an easy alternative for not eating meat products that still allows me to maintain a normal and healthy life, so I choose to do so.

BTW, just so there is no confusion, I don't see this as any kind of argument, just a fun back and forth discussion.

I sit on my ass all day. If I had to kill everything I ate, I'd eat a whole lot more of them I imagine, burning actual calories and all.

Also do people really care who killed the animal they're EATING? I mean like think of that in cannibalistic terms... Reminds of this time I was watching that Sex with Sue show or whatever and a girl called in to ask if having anal sex counted as losing her virginity, because her boyfriend said....

I think most people prefer their life with less ethical boundaries though. Imagine the freedom?

True. I admit there a few people I've wanted to kill. But at least I wouldn't eat them..lol.

I am a healthy individual. I eat a lot of meat. I eat meat or meat products at 6 meals a day.

I also workout. I do light cardio 5 x a week (in the mornings) and I lift weights 3x a week. Heavy ass weights, no silly machines or yoga girl fitness junk. 5'8" 180lbs and I wear 32 jeans. I'm somewhere between 12-15% would be my guess (calipers are only so-so accurate, especially when you use them on yourself). I definitely could be in better shape but I'm pretty happy where I am.

I'm in excellent health, my doctor said my blood profile is awesome, I got the top discount on my life insurance, etc.

I also eat a lot of vegetables. I eat vegetables at every meal. I want to eat more veggies but I just can't cram them down around all the meat. I wish that vegetarian sources of protein powders tasted good. Then I would reduce my meat consumption and drink more protein shakes and eat more veggies. I believe veggies are full of vitamins and anti-oxidants and are generally good for you.

Not to say meat is bad. Not even red meat. Saturated fats in small quantities are actually good for you (at least for healthy males). I order my meat from a farm where the cattle are grass fed, no antibiotics, growth hormones etc. Order by the half cow, get it professionally butchered and delivered to my door. Actually costs less then buying meat at the supermarket too, only downside is I have buy enough to last 6 months. Grass fed beef is supposed to have a vastly improved fat profile over corn & feed fed beef and a very high level of CLA, which is quite healthy for you.

I also eat a lot of wild salmon.

But I don't discriminate much in my meat consumption. I've eaten a wide variety of animals. If it's on the menu, I've likely ordered it.

I don't think it's fair of veggies to say that us meat eaters aren't healthy and have no energy etc. A lot of meat eaters aren't healthy, I agree - but then the vast majority of PEOPLE aren't healthy. The allure of fast food and junk food is strong. The allure of the gym is weak.

It seems like so many people go veggie without really thinking it through. They just want an excuse to feel like part of an elite group and sneer down their noses at all the non-cool people who still eat meat and have 5lbs of undigested meat in their digestive tract (total bs btw). Sorta like mac users....

Shit, I'm posting from a mac.

So healthy veggie people, care to share your meal plans? Might help those of us who are looking for an idea of what it's like to eat enough veg to have a complete diet.

I think effort is a big part of the formula too.. Like not killing anyone? Pretty easy for me. Given the right situation though I'd love to.

Eating nothing but vegetables for the rest of my life? Kill ME. ;)

I recall reading somewhere (probably on a pro meat eating forum!) that the reasoning for the higher colon cancer count in meat eaters was due to consuming more burned food. Burned food = higher carcinogenic compound counts?

You know, the tasty stuff like crispy chicken skin or the charred fat on the edge of a steak or over bbq'd meat, etc.

the soybeans used are gmo free, yes.

But honestly, I've had both. I mean, you can take it as far as you want to go. I'm pretty anal, but not overly anal about it. Some things i let slip, other things i don't. For instance, i live in the avocado state (CA)...but yet, i go to whole foods and i see avocados from other countries. And their stand for "locally grown" is very small which really pisses me off when all this grows right here. I mean for the love of god, give me avocados from own backyard. So when i see the stand of locally grown avocados, i usually buy a ton of them.

To make it simple due to my health conditions which one of is anemia, I need large amounts of protein and technically need to be eating several thousand non empty calories per day (4-5k min.) just to maintain my body mass from the healing I am doing right now. After I finish healing then I can go back down to a high protein, high iron, albeit lower calorie diet.
Now eating that many calories may sound easy but since I can not go with empty or just bad calories it is a royal pain in the ass. In essence I can not just eat a few big macks per day and think I am doing OK since most of that is just fats and some carbs.

It is a lot more complex than that but above just makes it simple.

Just make sandwiches with whole loaves of bread. Easy! I recommend one horizontal cut, and squeeze real hard! ;)

I agree....I'll tell ya a quick story. I started slacking off on eating a balance meal (without realizing). Sure it was incredibly healthy meals, but i wasn't paying attention to what was LACKING in the meals. And i usually do which makes it worse..lol

So one day i woke up extremely depressed. And i mean, serious impending doom. The kind of doom that can't even be explained. I have never experienced anything like this before...and I couldn't figure it out. I didn't want to go to the doctor cause i know they would just put me on some bullshit antidepressant medication and call it a day. And i knew i wasn't depressed. So the doctor was the last course of action for me.

So we stepped back and thought about it....ok, what causes the body to make these kinds of drastic changes? I mean, common sense stuff, right? Stuff like stress, diet, etc etc. After running through it all, we narrowed it down to my diet. I wrote everything down, everything i ate from the past week (to the best of my memory) and it turned out that that week i ate more veggies and carbs and not enough protein to slow the sugar conversion. Basically, I was putting my pancreas on overdrive and making it work harder.

I immediately slammed a protein drink, made some egg whites, etc etc.

I swear to god, within 5 fucking minutes of the protein drink, before even getting to eating the egg whites, the 'impending doom depression' literally melted away. I FELT it leave. I couldn't believe it.

So yes, you can really fuck yourself up. It was a real tough lesson to learn. One that could have had serious consequences if we didn't figure it out.

I blame myself though...like everything else the answer is simple...BALANCE. Unfortunately, it's also one of the most simple rules to forget.

i think its awfully vain to assume you know the order of lifeforms

Not eating meat isn't "normal" . Many people do it , many people shave their eyebrows.



how so ? you could grow potatoes with no pesticides, pick fruit, etc
no they bulldoze it flat and kill squirrels, birds, lizards etc

and the positive intent of me eating a burger is it makes my tummy happy


do you eat all food that hasnt been treated with pesticides ? grown organically ? do you know most of the vegetables you see in the market are grown with animal products ?

There are alternatives , you choose not to take them all for the same reason everyone else doesn't, its "easier" to do it another way..
of course.

I can relate to eating a lot of healthy calories. I was trying to bulk up at one point in time and was attempting to eat 5000 cals a day of meat and veggies. I think it's nearly impossible personally

You know that hemp seed hearts are a good source of iron?

My wife takes SlowFE for her iron deficiency (she's mildly anemic).

It is near impossible.

Loads of people mix up vegans with vegeterians here ...

You're an eternal conversationalist, not usually given to bashing anyone but rather throwing out a few contrary points of view in order to cause others to either strengthen their arguement or realize they perhaps need to concede there's more to the subject than they first realized... definitely not a bad thing.

No one should be getting worked up over anything you've said in this thread.


As for me, I'm an interminable meatetarian, but my diet does include a lot of whole grains, fruits, a high amount of vegetables in addition to LEAN meats that are healthily prepared. Perhaps 'meatetarian' isn't quite accurate. I'm a well-balanced-diet-etarian. Sorry to anyone who finds that intolerable but nothing beats a well-aged medium rare NY striploin or porterhouse steak sizzling right off the barbecue.

Well thank you.

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=grill

omnivore!

the times I've not eaten red meat etc.. I got a real lack of energy. I see no issues with you being a vegan etc.. more power to ya

I'll say it again, Maddox fucking rocks.

His answer to that PETA email is fabulous.

About 12 years ago I was into the whole fitness thing...and went from 135 lbs. to 185 lbs. of pure muscle in 8 months. My diet was a ton of egg whites, chicken, tuna, rice and beans...and pasta. What sucks now is I am not training with weights and it is getting tough getting below 185 lbs. now although I am playing handball a couple times a week...the wife likes to cook.

This was written by a vegetarian. And obviously needs to be quoted

BTW, I have eaten with Kathi in every restaurant imaginable - including Brazilian steakhouses. It can be done.

My sister, OTOH, hasn't eaten meat since she was 5 and she's in her 30's now. She used to be the most outspoken vegetarian imaginable. This included bitching if we went to a restaurant that served meat to celebrate SOMEONE ELSE'S birthday. Then she fell in love with a meat eater. She's still a vegetarian but she realizes she doesn't run other people's lives.

Life's short - eat what you want to eat, don't eat what you don't want to eat.

There is a hierarchy of intelligence. It's not hypocritical to sacrifice insects for higher animals. Pragmatic attempts to live as ethically as is practical under the circumstances should not be dismissed because the harsh reality of nature doesn't offer a perfect solution.

Of course it's all pretend. This "morality" exists only in my mind, and trying to impose it on the chaos of existence is so futile it's funny. Nobody is watching us or grading our behavior, and in the end we're all dead anyway, and then it's as if none of this ever happened. But for a very brief moment, whatever creature you choose not to kill gets to enjoy few more small pleasures, however ultimately pointless. And a cow or pig or deer, because of more advanced brain faculties, is better able to appreciate that than bugs or whatever gets caught in the thrasher.

so we think, many bugs have been around longer than humans , cows, pigs or deer , maybe they are smarter than we think.

We are assuming we are professional painters judging a painting, if it turns out we suck as painters then it could very well be the painting we think suck might be fabulous and the ones we think are great might suck

then by raising animals to eat we are actually giving them a moment of life they would never have experienced if there weren't meat eaters raising them.

Will drop another serious question to non meat eaters or vegetarians, mostly those that do it for ethical reasons foremost - yet anyone can chime in.

Why do you all not consume insects as a primary protein group? Diet wise they are a near perfect food source. Many other cultures eat them with no problems or stigma. They are very easy on the Earth resource wise. Give a great deal of energy out as opposed to what it takes to raise them. They often are a bane to many other food crops. Then naturally they are not highly up on the ethical issues either, aside from perhaps taking a life but at that level it is almost equal to the life of a plant and are often killed for the sake of plants.

This line of argument is resorting to metaphysical BS that I don't have a lot of patience for. I don't believe in souls, or that the sum of a thing is more than it's parts. We are organic machines, and the question of superior intelligence of a pig vs a locust, or a human vs a cow, is not controversial among neurologists.

Now that at least is debatable. I'll answer by posing a similar moral question; would it be ethical for us to raise humans specifically to harvest spare body parts? Afterall, without this program, they would never have been born in the first place. At least they get to enjoy some life first, right? If you do not agree with this proposal, why not? The answer, as I said originally, is empathy. You are extending empathy to those you relate to. I just relate enough to other intelligent lifeforms to extend my empathy to them also. I do not see them as very different from myself.

I'd support replacing our beef-industry with a bug-industry if that was the bargain. Properly processed, they'd probably come up with some tasty products. It's not purely ethical (What is?), but it would be a big improvement, better for the environment, and cheaper too. I propose we should eat only the least sentient life available, starting with plants and working up from there only as far as we must. If you can't commit to being a full vegetarian, give up pork first, because they are almost as smart as dogs and kindergarteners. You wouldn't eat a child, would you? Then give up venison and beef, then chicken, then fish, in that order. If you don't make it all the way down the list, at least you're eating dumber lifeforms than before. As we've established, perfect isn't possible, but it's not an all-or-nothing dilemma.

And again, for any vegetarians or vegi-curious, go try some Quorn. My wife has served her curry "chicken" to people and they couldn't tell the difference. (but she is an amazing chef) It will do until scientists develop Meat-Trees.

Are you asking because you want to quit?

I gave up eating meat one day in my teens, for about 10 years. But then I'm like Sickboy in Trainspotting, being able to give up crack on a whim.

I eat meat now, best to keep it down to a few portions of red meat per month, Aussies have the highest incidence of bowel cancer in the world, and meat is the main cause.

Just be sensible about your consumption, I wouldn't suggest to anyone to totally give up meat, unless they were critically ill. Read books on food science, unless you supplement your dietary intake with lots of B12 etc, your body needs a few serves of meat per month at the very least.

I agree with and have argued previously most of boobzooka's observations as to a continuum of "death acceptability" amongst other life forms. Whilst I don't personally object to killing animals for food, I think arguing in a binary fashion about all living things to the point of comparing a microbe to a dolphin is an intellectually bankrupt endeavour.
The only exception that can be made to this is a case of a particular lower life form's utility to the biosphere. It's hard to disagree that the extinguishment of a non-sentient life form is less of a moral issue than a sentient life form. The exception would be that if the destruction of the microbe, bee colony etc were to threaten the biosphere in a manner that it was to have a significant deleterious effect on the sentient beings attached to it.
Some people won't stop equating a mosquito with a puppy for trolling purposes, but the troll isn't going to cry about a moving story about the sudden death of the fungus causing their athlete's foot. It's facile, argued purely for hollow and ineffectual "gotcha" hits that never seem to land in any one else's mind.

At any rate I accept all that but still don't particularly have that much of an issue with people killing animals for meat.
I can't really comment as to the original poster's question as I'm not a vegetarian. However, I read a long article about mad cow disease about a decade ago. It really disturbed me. I hadn't really ever entertained the notion that the food I ate might not be safe in a fundamental and systemic way, it was a bit of a revelation. Sometime later I was eating a doner kebab when I looked down at the processed meat and saw all the little holes in it, which essentially is what mad cow disease does to your brain matter. I threw up as soon as I reached the nearest toilets..
The idea that your health can be held hostage by ignorant or profit driven farmers incensed me. I couldn't bring myself to eat red meat again even though I was a heavy meat eater. I used to call myself a "meatanarian". When I was 16 I worked in a pizza hut and would make pizza's to take home for myself (back when you could do that and it wasn't an offense) and I'd double the meat on the meat lover's pizza until it was almost unstable heh. Slowly I began to see chicken, not so much in a similar light, but as something unnecessary. I do however still catch, kill, gut and eat fish. I don't have any issue with this. I find salmon to be the most naturally tasty of meats so I don't even feel like I'm missing out on the others (Sure bacon is great, but I mean as a proper meal, as in a steak of salmon). Of course like all carnivores fish does have issues with bio-amplification of toxins (the only reason in my mind not to eat cats and dogs over pigs unless grain fed). And solutions to this (eating little fish) invariably aren't good for the ecology of the oceans. Even farmed fishing isn't good because of this. But short of spending 20 million dollars setting up a grain fed sardine farm it's about as healthy as I think meat can get with it's Omega 3 and proteins.

I have eaten an insect before, a BBQ'd witchetty grub, although I think grasshoppers would be a nicer texture. I think most vegetarians wouldn't eat them quite simply because they're not vegetables ;). One rule I've heard is "nothing with eyes".
I think if they were processed the way most food is processed and re-constituted into little smiley faces or something meat eaters (and probably myself) wouldn't have a problem with them though. Otherwise they're a bit fiddly. Fried grasshoppers probably isn't particularly healthy either. They have large surface to mass ratios and would carry a lot more oil per gram than other fried foods with their uneven body surface.

I think the health of a vegetarian diet probably has something to do with age and culture. America's fast food and portion sizes simply puts other countries to shame. Also if you're young and ignorant, maybe you are stupid enough to eat ice cream instead of a real meal. However I would say it's a lot more to do with carbs. Lots of vegetarians do eat lots of cheesy pasta's, lasagne's and pizza's also chips.. but overall I'd have to say they're a healthier bunch, just the mere act of looking at your diet is something most people don't even do.. So it's not exactly coming off a highly set bar. A vegetarian diet isn't hard at all. The hardest part is probably going out to dinner and dealing with jokes about why you're not eating the steak.

So again, I think it's a fairly tried and true path to vegetarianism to go from beef to chicken and pork to fish and then much less fish, to eventually no meat at all if that is your desire although I don't think there is much of a problem with a small amount of any meat in a diet (although given most people eat it twice a day that "lean meat 2-3 times a week" thing would almost feel like vegetarianism ;)). Personally I think not eating honey is bat shit crazy so I'm not even going to discuss veganism.

Those bacon wrapped filet mignons we had last week were meattastic. Had em with spiced oven fries, steamed mixed veggies and creamed corn.

mmm-mMm.

yeah i can give up red meat easy enough it's the chicken that is killing me!