The Ethics of Food

[Zach]

Upcoming Discussion: Is it moral to eat animals?

 

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[hereticzero]

Hell yeah. Nothing like a good steak and roast. I make a great turtle soup for xmas every year. I have very good recipes I can share with anyone, if I have one they want. I like sewing hides together too and making my own clothes. I can even make knives out of anything.

 

Neo-Neanderthalism (my religion I invented it, you heard it here first), I love it.

[Grandpa Harley]

Moral isn't the issue for me... you feed me on leaves and my metabolism stops... whole nine yards - IQ drops, exhausted, scaling skin, anal fissuring, and less nice things... I think bowel statis is the worst part... peristalsis stops and then it just ferments until it runs out... I can stop it withthe right proteins and aminos buit they most readily bioavailable version needs to be meat source... so things have to die anyway.

 

Since I dislike killing things unnecessarily, I tend to be a nose to tail carnivore - only things I won't ear are nervous tissue (vCJD risk) endocrine glands (they always have an ear wax egde I don't like - i think it's the squaelene (SP)) and Balut...

 

Look up Balut if you don't know what it is...

[Alice]

you feed me on leaves and my metabolism stops... whole nine yards - IQ drops, exhausted, scaling skin, anal fissuring, and less nice things... I think bowel statis is the worst part... peristalsis stops and then it just ferments until it runs out... I can stop it with the right proteins and aminos but they most readily bioavailable version needs to be meat source... so things have to die anyway.

 

Do you know why this is? Is it to do with a particular metabolic enzymes or enteric hormones? It sounds like an absorption thing - almost the oppostite to the PKU conditions, when protein is the problem. Usually one solution where peristalsis action is slow is to cut out meat and there is quite a lot of documentation to suggest that the human gut is just not engineered for large amounts of meat. The intestines of a carnivore are much shorter.

 

Spot the vegan speaking here but what does 'most readily bioavailable version needs to be' - mean? Does that mean that there is another version available? 'most readily available source' sounds different to 'only available source' - the former being a convenience choice, whilst 'needs to be' sounds like there isn't actually an alternative source ...

 

 

Look up Balut if you don't know what it is...

 

Eeeeewwwww uck uck ewwww .....

 

(I just read some blog called 'Deep end dining' which is much more graphic than wiki)

 

As to the opening question ...

 

I do wonder if one day meat eating will go out of vogue, I am not an ethiical vegan so I really don't mind people eating meat if that is their choice. I do hate intensive farming though' and I would prefer people to eat a lot less meat so this wasn't such an issue.

 

I think the level of meat & dairy consumption, along with hydrogenated oils and numerous additives are the main cause of disease in the west. Digging our our own graves with our knives and forks ... I have sympathies with those who think meat eating is wrong. If 'rights' are a human invention then we give ourselves the 'right' to kill and eat other animals. I'm really not comfortable with this on many levels ....

 

I'd sacrifice a cow or two for you though' gramps ... so I'm a 'weak vegan'.

[Vigile]

Digging our our own graves with our knives and forks

 

How can that be true though Alice? One of my grandfathers grew up as a cattle rancher and was spoonfed red meat from childhood. He had some heart related problems as he aged, but he lived to 87. My other grandfather ate scraple (mixed up bacon product) for breakfast every day as long as I can remember. He had one of the worst diets I have ever seen. He used to mix soda and sugary koolaid and drink it by the gallons in lieu of water. After my grandmother died, he survived eating frozen dinners and food out of cans. He died at 93 a couple of years ago healthy as a horse until his last days. In general the average age that people live in develped countries has grown dramatically over the past 100 years or so yet with the growth in technology and infrastructure, meat products have become much more available and cheaper to the consumer during this same period.

 

While it's true that there is a correlation between saturated fat and heart disease, et al, but we all have to go sometime. Isn't "digging our own graves" then a bit of hyperbole?

[Grandpa Harley]

Spot the vegan speaking here but what does 'most readily bioavailable version needs to be[...]' - mean? Does that mean that there is another version available? 'most readily available source' sounds different to 'only available source' - the former being a convenience choice, whilst 'needs to be' sounds like there isn't actually an alternative source ...

 

It means that there are other sources, but they involve a lot more processing and volume to get anything like the levels you need. Spinning the 'convenience' angle is specious. It's like Calcium Carbonate provides Calcium, but the more bioavailable calcium comes in chelate form... you can eat chalk till you die and it's cheap and what they prescribe for OP, but you only get 1 to 2 % of the chelated equiv, even with a magnesium/manganese chaser. So, it's not 'convenience' since not having to raise animals would be preferable, but to be given a food that contains the material you need in a form you can't efficiently convert to biological/metabolic needs is meaningless... I may as well try and live on refined sugar and modified vergtable fat... and I have no real idea to the 'why'... I'm type O blood, which apparently has an impact on the need (physical requirement) for animal proteins... It would appear I'm an extreme case, but it's not uncommon. Chances are I don't produce some enzyme or amino acid (hazarding a guess cellulase on the enzyme front)

[Ouroboros]

Strange topic, since humans are animals too... or?

[Grandpa Harley]

Eating humans gives you worms and CJD...

[Ouroboros]

You can get disease from eating undercooked chicken and pork, that doesn't make it immoral. So I fail to see that a fact how it can harm us is the foundation for a moral statement.

 

I think the question shouldn't be "is it moral to eat animals", but rather "is it moral to eat other animals than humans." Just to avoid the confusion.

 

Also, I don't think it can be an universal moral rule, but perhaps at the best it could be a moral ideal to not eat animals. No one is to be condemned for doing it, but if someone don't we can perhaps give them a little pat on the shoulder and say "good for you."

[Vigile]

I'm type O blood, which apparently has an impact on the need (physical requirement) for animal proteins

 

That's interesting. I'm O- and I always feel the need for meat fat. If I don't get a certain amount of fat in my diet I feel hungry no matter how much I eat. My wife, OTH, gets dizzy if she has too much fat in her diet.

[Vigile]

Also, I don't think it can be an universal moral rule, but perhaps at the best it could be a moral ideal to not eat animals.

 

My wife has a moral rule that she won't eat any meat from animals that aren't raised to be eaten. She will eat beef, pork, chicken, fish, but she won't eat deer, elk, bear, etc...

 

She know's it's not a rule she can win a logical debate over.

[Alice]

Digging our our own graves with our knives and forks

 

How can that be true though Alice? One of my grandfathers grew up as a cattle rancher and was spoonfed red meat from childhood. He had some heart related problems as he aged, but he lived to 87. My other grandfather ate scraple (mixed up bacon product) for breakfast every day as long as I can remember. He had one of the worst diets I have ever seen. He used to mix soda and sugary koolaid and drink it by the gallons in lieu of water. After my grandmother died, he survived eating frozen dinners and food out of cans. He died at 93 a couple of years ago healthy as a horse until his last days. In general the average age that people live in develped countries has grown dramatically over the past 100 years or so yet with the growth in technology and infrastructure, meat products have become much more available and cheaper to the consumer during this same period.

 

While it's true that there is a correlation between saturated fat and heart disease, et al, but we all have to go sometime. Isn't "digging our own graves" then a bit of hyperbole?

 

Digging our graves with our knives and forks is a 'saying' - not unlike 'we are what we eat'. This is not something that I would apply to meat eating per se but to the western diet as a whole. Of course there will be individuals with genetic advantages that mean they survive despite a poor diet - just as anecdotally there are uncles who drop dead jogging at 38ys having lived on a diet rich in nutrients and free from excess fat and additives, and Grandmother's who have smoked sixty cigarettes since the day she was eleven and who then lives to be 105. Don't you think one needs to look at overall trends when deciding on such matters - not individual aberations?

 

(Although on a personal level as you are talking about your own grandparents this bodes well for you, genetic predisposition is a major factor in determining the likelihood that one will develop one of the 'diseases of affluence'. For myself, although my paternal grandparents made it to their 80's, this was preceeded by twenty years of diabetes and arthritis, and my maternal grandmother died of bowel cancer in her fifties. My Mother has diabetes, hypothyroidism and rhuematoid arthritis, My Father died from cancer at 52yrs and had his first tumour at 45yrs. I think anyone with a family history anything like mine has to take much much greater care over the food on their plate)

 

The apparent increase in the average age of life expectancy is a statistic that has very little to do with diet and a lot to do with advances in treatment of childhood illnesses that wiped out a good percentage of the population before the tender age of seven yrs at the start of the 100year period you mention.

 

When I say 'digging our graves with our knives and forks' I'm talking about the western diet as a whole. From a nutritional point of view I see the value of meat in the diet for some people. I am deeply concerned about the quality of that meat and what's pumped into it and I think most people in the west who eat meat now eat way to much of it. From a nutritional/health point of view, if I had to eat meat, I'd go for the cuts your wife chooses not to eat, if I could get over the eewww factor (I can relate to where she is coming from on that) because I see farming methods as a big part of the problem with meat. (The one remaining meat eater in my immediate family sticks to free range chicken from known sources and beef and bacon from a local organic farm, it's damn expensive, so he eats much less of it than he used to but seems to be doing fine on this. He's 'A' blood type and claims this as the reason he needs meat - the rest of us are 'O' and feel much better without it.)

 

The current problem with diet goes way beyond heart diesase and includes all the so called diseases of affluence - that's some forms of diabetes, some cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, numerous autoimmune conditions, crohns disease ... statistical projections suggest that a generation is being raised that will not outlast the one that preceeds it ... NO I don't think 'digging our graves with our knives and forks' is hyperbole.

 

The best book out there is the 'China Study' - IMO.

 

 

*everything you said *

 

that's fascinating gramps - thank's for the detail - I asked about the convenience thing because I was aware that there was likely to be something more to it than the way it 'sounded'.

 

 

I think the question shouldn't be "is it moral to eat animals", but rather "is it moral to eat other animals than humans." Just to avoid the confusion.

 

Also, I don't think it can be an universal moral rule, but perhaps at the best it could be a moral ideal to not eat animals. No one is to be condemned for doing it, but if someone don't we can perhaps give them a little pat on the shoulder and say "good for you."

 

Eating human flesh would involve murder - a morality issues or a choice between diseased flesh or a certain toughness that comes with old age ...

 

But back to 'animals other than humans' - to me the only 'morality' involved seems to come from ensuring that the animal had some kind of quality of life and a swift death.

[Vigile]

Don't you think one needs to look at overall trends when deciding on such matters - not individual aberations?

 

Absolutely. That was my point. Overall trends are that humans are living longer now than they ever before despite the fact that their diets have probably worsened. I'll give you that obesity and heart disease are on the rise, but is the death rate on the decline? Maybe over the past 10 years or so, but over the past century it has been on a dramatic rise.

 

For myself, although my paternal grandparents made it to their 80's, this was preceeded by twenty years of diabetes and arthritis, and my maternal grandmother died of bowel cancer in her fifties. My Mother has diabetes, hypothyroidism and rhuematoid arthritis, My Father died from cancer at 52yrs and had his first tumour at 45yrs. I think anyone with a family history anything like mine has to take much much greater care over the food on their plate)

 

Yeah, that's the thing. While for some reason diet doesn't seem to be killing society as a whole off earlier, it is certainly making their old ages miserable. One of my grandfathers had multiple heart attacks from age 60 and diabetes from his 70s.

 

My only question for you here was the eating ourselves to death issue. Eating ourselves sick, yes, to be sure.

[Alice]

My only question for you here was the eating ourselves to death issue. Eating ourselves sick, yes, to be sure.

 

I see your point. Although I do think our diet is propelling us towards earlier graves than we should now expect.

 

The 'average' life expectancy stats are seriously impacted by the successes in combating childhood illness, that used to wipe out a significant percentage of babies and young children, keeping the 'average' low. Today, children no longer die from the illnesses that used to take them out and medical advances are 'keeping people alive' at the other end, but with reduced quality of life in many instances.

 

But maybe 'carving our name on the hospital patient list with our knives and forks' would have been more accurate

[Grandpa Harley]

You can get disease from eating undercooked chicken and pork, that doesn't make it immoral. So I fail to see that a fact how it can harm us is the foundation for a moral statement.

 

I think the question shouldn't be "is it moral to eat animals", but rather "is it moral to eat other animals than humans." Just to avoid the confusion.

 

Also, I don't think it can be an universal moral rule, but perhaps at the best it could be a moral ideal to not eat animals. No one is to be condemned for doing it, but if someone don't we can perhaps give them a little pat on the shoulder and say "good for you."

 

Until recently, CJD was ONLY a cannibal issue... thus 'a judgement from God' - also I don't know of a single culture where murder is an accepted past time (although there was that group of islanders, who name escapes me, that the French wiped out to man since they bred some of their own babies for meat...)

[Grandpa Harley]

One fo the biggest limiters of health I can see is less about the basic form of the food, and more how it's treated and the synthetic crap we add.

 

There are increasingly strong links between obesity and Type II diabetes being seen in ever younger populations (some as young as 11) by the introduction of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as a patented food additive in lieu of sugar, as just one smoking gun.

[Vigile]

I see your point. Although I do think our diet is propelling us towards earlier graves than we should now expect.

 

Ha ha, you said should. I'm going to turn LR loose on you.

 

I think you make a very convincing argument though.

[Vigile]

One fo the biggest limiters of health I can see is less about the basic form of the food, and more how it's treated and the synthetic crap we add.

 

I think this is spot on. As I've anecdotally pointed out in similar threads, my health has improved in spades since moving to Russia where the food is still for the most part natural and the meat doesn't come from assembly lines.

[Grandpa Harley]

BTW, one of the best methods of increasing the bio-availability of Calcuim Carbonate is to chew the tablet and ingest with full fat milk... he action of the stomach with the fat and the Ca-C-O₃ make the Calcium chelate and become absorbable in the bowel. Taking it with any rich source of animal fat works, but short of liquidising dripping, the most palatable way would be milk (I favour goat, unless I've been taking a lactase mix)

[Ouroboros]

I think the question shouldn't be "is it moral to eat animals", but rather "is it moral to eat other animals than humans." Just to avoid the confusion.

 

Eating human flesh would involve murder - a morality issues or a choice between diseased flesh or a certain toughness that comes with old age ...

 

But back to 'animals other than humans' - to me the only 'morality' involved seems to come from ensuring that the animal had some kind of quality of life and a swift death.

And I agree. That is part of the moral issue of cannibalism. But it also makes my point, which isn't about if there is a morality or not about cannibalism, but if this topic would be convoluted if that particular part of the question gets intermixed with the question if it is moral to eat other animals than humans.

 

Now, the thing is, some argue that eating 'animals' require that you 'murder' animals. Hence, they argue, it is immoral to eat any kind of meat.

 

And secondly (remember, I'm no vegan - I'm a meat eater ), how can a swift death be more moral than a slow death? Doesn't that imply there is a consideration for the pain the animal feels? Isn't causing pain, short or long, swift or not, always in the case of humans always immoral, unless the pain is temporary and for the future good?

[Ouroboros]

Until recently, CJD was ONLY a cannibal issue... thus 'a judgement from God' - also I don't know of a single culture where murder is an accepted past time (although there was that group of islanders, who name escapes me, that the French wiped out to man since they bred some of their own babies for meat...)

I'm still failing to see that even if CJD is ONLY a cannibal issue that this is something that is related to morality. Was cannibalism immoral 20,000 years ago? If it was, was it because of CJD or because of some other reasons? Or if CJD isn't an issue 20,000 years from now, does that mean that cannibalism suddenly can be considered moral? However, murder is a valid pillar for the argument of the immorality of cannibalism, but as I said in my other post, the challenge there is that some people think that killing animals is murder too, so what is the different between 'murder of a human animal vs 'murder' of some other animal?

[Grandpa Harley]

ah you're off on one of your philosophical flights of fancy... I'll leave you to it, since it's like trying to run in water when you do this...

[Ouroboros]

The topic is 'ethics of food'. Ethics, morality are exactly those questions that philosophy deal with. You don't have any other faculty in society that talk about "ethics". Hence you have to take the philosophical route. If you don't talk about ethics in philosophical terms, then how do you talk about it? In gibberish?

[Grandpa Harley]

Much of philosophy works on reductio ad absurda type argument... which is frequently gibberish. Introducing the 'meat is murder' idea of a small protion of the population of non meat eaters and then mapping into it the idea of killing humans is just that... thus it's pointless discussing it... it's a non issue... and there is more to 'ethics' than simply a philosophical construct, since usually there is an anthropological reason for any taboo, something based on survival or advantage - even if the underlying reason is to cement the power of the alpha ape in controlling the larger group.

 

As I say, it's treading water to introduce it so I concede the point, you're I right, I was wrong and move on from here while others mud wrestle it...

[Ouroboros]

Much of philosophy works on reductio ad absurda type argument... which is frequently gibberish. Introducing the 'meat is murder' idea of a small protion of the population of non meat eaters and then mapping into it the idea of killing humans is just that... thus it's pointless discussing it... it's a non issue... and there is more to 'ethics' than simply a philosophical construct, since usually there is an anthropological reason for any taboo, something based on survival or advantage - even if the underlying reason is to cement the power of the alpha ape in controlling the larger group.

Okay. Ethics as a result of evolution, I think I can accept that. We have learned and innate behavior that has grown over time.

 

This (I heard someone argue once) is the real reason behind the outlawing of pork in Judaism. The "law" against pork grew out of that people died eating the undercooked meat, and this resulted in declaring it "bad", and also "sinful".

 

What are the ethical reasons for vegans to not eat meat? They didn't evolve into this, but is basing it on an idealism of some form, and it's not to get slimmer and look sexy on the beach. So what is it that drives vegans to even go so far to give death threats to meat producers?

 

...from here while others mud wrestle it...

Well, we either wrestle through the mud or we sling it at each other... I'm not sure which method is more efficient.

 

Much of philosophy works on reductio ad absurda type argument... which is frequently gibberish...

Sometimes it sure sound like it... but philosophy did result in theory of logic and language. So it's not all that useless.

 

And back to the top, I was thinking, ethics from evolution is just another way of saying natural ethics. Ethics is innate, and we just have to discover it, and there's nothing more to it?