Humans became human by eating meat. We aren't nearly as good as we think we are at creating fake replacement foods (see the number of people who have health problems clear up after going Paleo). Some day, we may be able to replace real animal protein, but we aren't there yet. In the meantime, I think we owe it to the animals and the environment to give the animals that will sacrifice their lives to propagate our own a happy existence. My goal for the past year has been to convert to sustainably raised, pastured meats exclusively. I'm not perfect, but I try. And I am grateful for the sacrifice these animals make.
On the specific topic of Cephalopods, I think our highest moral imperative is to ensure the survival and continued evolution of the species. If that requires farming some, fine, but we may find the intelligent life on earth in the next two million years belongs to them. Breaking that branch of, either trough ignorance or gluttony, is intolerable.
You can entirely replace animal protein with a combination of plant-based proteins. Ethical or humane methods of killing animals is a step forward, but it absolutely is not required.
I don't think that's even close to universally true. I know quite a few vegetarians (and vegans) who were "doing it right", but were later advised by their doctors (even after getting 2nd and sometimes 3rd opinions) to eat meat as a means of curing their systemic health problems. And guess what? Eating meat made them healthy.
I'm not saying that there aren't tons of people who are very healthy vegetarians and vegans (some of them healthier than they would be eating meat), but I'd just like to point out that it's not universally true that you can replace animal protein with plant-based protein and be healthy. Nutrition is a complex topic, and not all bodies behave the same when it comes to food.
Some people can. Some people find that the phytochemicals associated with those plant proteins, when consumed in quantities, cause significant gut and hormonal problems (phytoestrogens impacting androgen production, for example). And that says nothing about the current questions about whether soy increases breast cancer risk.
Soy is obviously not the only plant protein. My current favorite is mushroom-based, but it is new, and industrial food doesn't have a good track record.
We can live perfectly healthy lives without meat. That said, I have no problem killing an animal that lived a full non-tortured life for food. I do think we owe more than buying the expensive whole foods meat. I think we should all go through the experience of killing a cow, pig, lamb, and chicken. Killing animals shouldn't be completely abstracted away from society - we need to understand what we are doing in a hands on way.
>>We can live perfectly healthy lives without meat.
Perhaps and with great care a diligence. Ask anyone who has tried to body build vegan, getting complete ammino acids takes planing. All the reverted vegans I know say they feel much better now. And being a vegan can be more unhealthy if you replaced the meat that was in your diet with carbs/sugars.
It is far more healthy to eat a diet without grain/carbs IMHO if you are choosing one thing to improve health.
Want to be in fat burning mode (ketonic)? Done.
Want to cure your type II diabetes? Done.
Want to lower your blood pressure? Done.
Want to raise your HDL and lower your triglycerides? Done.
Want to lower your cancer risk (est. 60-90% of tumors can't run off ketone bodies, but require sugars)? Done.
Want to have better dental health? Done.
Want to have consistent energy all day? Done.
Based on everything I have read and learned it is my strong (but open to change) opinion that the natural human diet was consistent daily consumption of vegetables/leafy greens (esp. low starch ones), occasional fruit and occasional gluttonous consumption of animal products as community members made kills.
That is to say, I think humans evolved for a ketogenic diet (< 20 grams of carbs/day) and that is why it makes so many people healthier, independent of choosing to have a caloric deficit.
>Killing animals shouldn't be completely abstracted away from society - we need to understand what we are doing in a hands on way.
I agree, but I think its worth pointing out that in many parts of the country (esp. the non-costal areas), much of the population has shot and cleaned a deer, turkey, etc.
So to assume in modern America that this kind of intimacy with death is universally abstracted would be a mistake. After all an estimated 43.7 million Americans hunted last year [1].
I want to second my agreement, but expand it to all aspects of the diet. I think having gardens and chickens (mostly for eggs, but in the pot when no longer producing) would do more for the health and mental well-being of our society than just about anything else we could do. Many kids don't know what kind of fruit/veggie something is without looking at the label. My high school daughter has a friend who just had her first banana; she's never eaten spinach.
>That said, I have no problem killing an animal that lived a full non-tortured life for food.
How does this logic work though? If you knew perhaps that an animal would see a natural death in a few hours, then killing it and eating it before it died its natural death would be ethical. But those conditions are very rare.
So how can you possibly know if an animal lived a "full" life before killing it?
The other option is only eating animals that have died of natural causes or were euthanized during the course of a terminal illness, but obviously this is not practical for health and flavor reasons.
> We aren't nearly as good as we think we are at creating fake replacement foods (see the number of people who have health problems clear up after going Paleo).
True, in many studies, vegetarian diets, defined as diets with minimal, but some kind of animal sourced protein, have shown to have numerous health benefits over pure vegan diets. In fact the treatment for most common vegan dietary deficiencies if trivially treated by simply providing some omnivorous animal protein source.
Vegetarians tend to manage their diets better as a population and have far fewer of the kind of nutritional deficiencies and subsequent health problems Vegan populations tend to suffer from.
You might not be "there" yet, but nearly 8 million people in the US are[1]. It's likely that most of them are healthy[2].
On the point of "sacrifice," animals aren't making one. To sacrifice something, you must willingly trade it for something else. (Though plenty of BBQ joints will suggest otherwise[3].)
It's easy to compare a vegetarian diet against the standard Anerican diet (SAD) and shout how great vegetarianism is. that doesn't imply vegetarianism is optimally healthy, just that the SAD is a horrible diet.
If people are able to thrive on a vegetarian diet, I have nothing but respect for that. My reading of the science and concerns over getting proper proteins without the negative consequences of phytochemicals evolved to poison me has me preferring to nourish my body well with real foods.
I have one life; I'm not going to gamble away my long-term health.
On the specific topic of Cephalopods, I think our highest moral imperative is to ensure the survival and continued evolution of the species. If that requires farming some, fine, but we may find the intelligent life on earth in the next two million years belongs to them. Breaking that branch of, either trough ignorance or gluttony, is intolerable.