http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/wellness/digestion-question-can-eating-meat-make-vegetarians-ill

http://sciencenordic.com/does-meat-make-vegetarians-ill

These should suffice. A sudden massive change in diet is unhealthy. That means that if a vegetarian wants to go back to eating meat, they have to ween themselves back to it to allow their body to properly adjust the levels of enzymes and such in the stomach and intestinal tract to accept it. A month or two of eating slowly larger portions of animal and animal byproduct should work well enough, but just leaping onto the meat train will cause you to have a bad time.

Quote from Azure Kite

http://www.divinecaroline.com/self/wellness/digestion-question-can-eating-meat-make-vegetarians-ill

http://sciencenordic.com/does-meat-make-vegetarians-ill

These should suffice. A sudden massive change in diet is unhealthy. That means that if a vegetarian wants to go back to eating meat, they have to ween themselves back to it to allow their body to properly adjust the levels of enzymes and such in the stomach and intestinal tract to accept it. A month or two of eating slowly larger portions of animal and animal byproduct should work well enough, but just leaping onto the meat train will cause you to have a bad time.

He has a point, it's kind of like how humans have adapted to mostly cooked meats. It will most likely make you sick or your body will reject it if you randomly go on a raw meat diet, especially from an animal that has just died, probably because of the blood and stuff.

Can't I say that about any type of food though?
Same for going the other way from meat to not.

It's only stating that you need to manage your diet in small changes rather than vegetarians permanently lose the ability. You can choose to go back to meat, you just have to do it responsibly, much in the same way as with alcohol for some people.

Moderation is always the best for anything. That's why I tend to not approve of cutting meat from the diet, especially if it's only "because you feel bad for the animals." They're animals. Get over it. Meat is good for you unless you over eat, vegetables are good (again, unless you overeat), get exercise, the end. If you stick too strictly to one type of diet, breaking out of it immediately is bad, of that you agree. We're agreed that any food can be bad for you, that's no longer an issue. So in the end, managing a balanced diet and exercise ends this entire discussion on health benefits of food.

So we can move back to the topic of morality of the issue, where I say it's moral so long as you don't intentionally try to cause harm to animals. Yes, they suffer in places, but they can suffer both caged and free range depending on the management of the farm. That's just how it is, and I'm not going to feel guilty over it. I care about the quality of my food, and though their quality of life can affect that, I'm not directly responsible. My interests are split on it because unless I take it upon myself to go and try to alter each farm so that all animals are treated with respect and killed in as peaceful a way as possible, my feelings will be entirely pointless, and I'll just be preaching hypocritically.

Quote from Captainalien72

He has a point, it's kind of like how humans have adapted to mostly cooked meats. It will most likely make you sick or your body will reject it if you randomly go on a raw meat diet, especially from an animal that has just died, probably because of the blood and stuff.

Probably? Do you have a source?

As far as I know, raw meat is safest when it's from a freshly killed animal. It's the packaging and distribution process that makes raw meat unsafe to handle and eat.

Quote from Azure Kite

That's why I tend to not approve of cutting meat from the diet, especially if it's only "because you feel bad for the animals." They're animals. Get over it.

Why should they have to get over it? They're allowed to avoid doing something for moral reasons if it's not hurting anyone. Their motivation is purely psychological and you're not going to even remotely change anyone's perspective by being disrespectful towards it.

Quote from Exilement

Why should they have to get over it? They're allowed to avoid doing something for moral reasons if it's not hurting anyone. Their motivation is purely psychological and you're not going to even remotely change anyone's perspective by being disrespectful towards it.

I'll admit, simply saying "get over it" isn't the most respectful. However, I feel that if you're making a major decision that affects your health because you feel bad for animals you have never known aside from articles or possibly seeing a farm (and even then, there's a very small chance you'll just know who you're eating), you should make it for a more justifiable reason. I don't have to change their perspective, and I don't even need them to agree with me on it. All I want is acknowledgement that eating meat is perfectly healthy and doesn't make you a bad person. We've eaten meat for centuries, and I doubt the morality of it was questioned to this length until the most recent one.

What is even slightly not justifiable about putting the lives of many things over your own health? Why should you need to know the 'harm' first hand to object to it? That's never applied to rape or murder or any act.

I doubt many people disagreed that meat can't be perfectly healthy, but I'm yet to see a good reason for why it doesn't make you a bad person unless you're talking about synthetically grown meat or animals looked after in such a good way as to not be cost efficient to sell.

Quote from Azure Kite

I'll admit, simply saying "get over it" isn't the most respectful. However, I feel that if you're making a major decision that affects your health because you feel bad for animals you have never known aside from articles or possibly seeing a farm (and even then, there's a very small chance you'll just know who you're eating), you should make it for a more justifiable reason. I don't have to change their perspective, and I don't even need them to agree with me on it. All I want is acknowledgement that eating meat is perfectly healthy and doesn't make you a bad person. We've eaten meat for centuries, and I doubt the morality of it was questioned to this length until the most recent one.

I agree with Azure, but I think we need a defenition of what is moral and what is immoral.

The evil immoral describes someone who knows the difference (of what is moral and what not (according to the principles established by humans), doesn't care, and says "mwah ha ha" while twirling a mustache.
There is only 1 thing about which I disagree with you, Azure. 'We've eaten meat for centuries, and I doubt the morality of it was questioned to this length until the most recent one.' that's not true, it's actually quite the opposite, at least from the religious point of view. All the patriarchs, popes, bishop, archbishop, priests and nuns have all accepted ferocious way of life: they have to refrain from all kinds of 'Earthy' pleasures, to have no property and to devote themselves entirely to the service of God and as far as my 'history knowledge' goes, they were forbidden to eat meat aswell. Thus eating meat was thought as immoral even in the past (Keep in mind, this is about the Roman Empire around 2nd/3th century A.C)

There has always been this 'bunch' who thought of it as immoral no matter the time they lived in (I even believe there were some ancient Greek myths about how eating meat is bad). Other than that, I agree with Azure. I think it's perfectly fine to eat meat.


@Skeletonxf : I belive we are not arguing 'if it makes us bad persons' , maybe it does make us 'bad' for whatever you call 'bad' , however it's not cruel to kill an animal and eat it. It's nature, that's how the universe works. If it were cruel then the universe would make 'em immortal or mutation would at least give them something to fight back, but it hasn't. That's natural selection, the strongest survive, in this case the humans. Have you ever called a Lion cruel for killing another animal? Because if you did, you have some serious problems.

Meat being a part of my diet isn't a moral dilemma for me. You don't tell other omnivores, like say, a wolf "HEY DON'T EAT THAT, YOU'RE HURTING IT!". If we're discussing animal abuse, I've seen the worst of the worst, but it's important to acknowledge that there's ways of slaughtering life stock to minimize the pain.

Quote from 420Ace Drake

@Skeletonxf : I belive we are not arguing 'if it makes us bad persons' , maybe it does make us 'bad' for whatever you call 'bad' , however it's not cruel to kill an animal and eat it. It's nature, that's how the universe works. If it were cruel then the universe would make 'em immortal or mutation would at least give them something to fight back, but it hasn't. That's natural selection, the strongest survive, in this case the humans. Have you ever called a Lion cruel for killing another animal? Because if you did, you have some serious problems.

False appeal to nature. Just 'cause it's how the universe works doesn't justify it.

The Lion can't reason what it is doing, or appreciate its own situation to understand. Nearly all humans can.
Why would you hold something responsible for something it did not consider? If I completely failed to understand that hugging someone caused them to die, then I can hardly be expected to refrain from hugging them as I simply did not know or think about it. That Lion does not consider the prey's suffering when it is hungry, how can we expect it to behave 'morally'? You can't apply morals to animals in the same way as humans because they don't think or understand what they are doing. So no, the Lion is not cruel for killing another animal, because it can't be cruel on something it can't be held accountable for.

I'd say natural selection can be quite cruel, but I hardly expect natural selection to be nice given that it's a law of nature rather than a person.

Humans are at one of the peaks of the food web. We need to eat, and so we eat animals under us in the food chain.

Well, one may say that humans are a special case as humans have a cognitive ability far beyond that of other creatures. But can other animals not have enough reason to know that they are killing another creature in the process of slaying it for consumption? And besides, aren't humans part of nature and thus have the right to meat even if the means to it involves terminating the life of another sentient being?

#lifeiscruel

Quote from Skeletonxf

False appeal to nature. Just 'cause it's how the universe works doesn't justify it.

The Lion can't reason what it is doing, or appreciate its own situation to understand. Nearly all humans can.
Why would you hold something responsible for something it did not consider? If I completely failed to understand that hugging someone caused them to die, then I can hardly be expected to refrain from hugging them as I simply did not know or think about it. That Lion does not consider the prey's suffering when it is hungry, how can we expect it to behave 'morally'? You can't apply morals to animals in the same way as humans because they don't think or understand what they are doing. So no, the Lion is not cruel for killing another animal, because it can't be cruel on something it can't be held accountable for.

I'd say natural selection can be quite cruel, but I hardly expect natural selection to be nice given that it's a law of nature rather than a person.

Given their social life, I am pretty sure they at least know that they are taking another being's life.

We're omnivores, we can eat meat and plants.

Do I find it morally wrong to kill a cow, harvest its flesh and eat it? No. Animals in the wild, kill each other, then eat. Natural.

Do I think we should be cruel to the animals, or torture them? No. Let the animal live it's life, and when you put it down, put it down quick. I've seen videos of people bashing chickens into the ground, Breaking cows bones before actually killing them, and over all mutilating the animal before killing it. That is not okay. That's torture.

Should animals be injected with hormones to make them taste better and produce finer pieces of meat. VERY IFFY ON THAT ONE. Depending on what it's doing to the animal, If it is similar to taking vitamins every day, that don't harm the animal, just making them stronger, then I see no problem. If it's this awful shit, hurting the animal but making it better to eat, then no.

Do I think animals are aware of what's happening? Very much so. I think animals know what is going on. But I also think animals of prey have some sort of natural instinct letting them know they are just that, prey. A hawk hunts a rabbit, i feel like the rabbit knows that it's prey, so it tries to live, but knows that it is on the bottom of the food chain. We don't have to change that. Cows are eaten in the wild. Chickens are. Fish are. Pigs are. Etc. We're not cruel in that nature, we're eating what's on the bottom of the food chain that gives us nutrients. Humans have morals which animals do not, we made our own morals to keep us from killing each other and keep us in line. We feel sympathy for us killing animals because we're human. But other animals don't feel that. They just kill, eat and survive. We over think it and become blinded by our own "right and wrong" which aren't right and wrong in the animal kingdom.

Conclusion
Us killing and eating animals is normal, and is the same as an animal killing another in the wild and eating it. Humans are just more advanced and use machinery and have ways to make the processed food better. But any cruelty to the animal is awful. Quick deaths and peaceful lives is how i'd like it. (in my head.) We plan to kill the animal, so let it live the life it deserves for as long as possible, and when it's time, do it quick, don't torture it on the way.

Animals are probably aware of what we're doing, but it's not wrong because in nature someone else was going to do it. Some other animal would have killed that species and ate it. It just wouldn't have tortured it first. It would be a quick kill, get the job done and eat.

Quote from Skeletonxf

False appeal to nature. Just 'cause it's how the universe works doesn't justify it.

How can following natural order be false? There is no right or wrong to it, it's just the one and only way things work: creatures eat other creatures to continue their survival and enforce natural selection for the other creatures. There is a sort of balanced mutual benefit to it, really.

Anyway, not everything is a fight for justice. In this case, is the way the world works. Starving and therefore harming yourself to save a few creatures that will likely get killed anyway is the kind of thing that would normally be resolved by natural selection. I may sound "harsh" saying this and the actions I described may seem "noble" to some but that doesn't matter because, at the end of the day a creature that is not receiving the nourishment it needs will starve and be faced with two options. Those are: force itself to kill and eat or if unsuccessful, die. Death is a given; the Carbon Cycle is a given. There are more important things to worry about where morality actually matters, such as the War on Terrorism or Human rights vs control and security.