Slaughterhouses are perhaps the most violent places on the planet. Animals are routinely sent kicking and screaming through the skinning and dismemberment process, every one bleeding and dying exactly like they would if they were human beings.

Farms today treat animals like so many boxes in a warehouse, chopping off beaks and tails and genitals with no painkillers at all, inflicting third degree burns (branding), ripping out teeth, and hunks of flesh.

Animals transported to slaughter routinely die from the heat or the cold, or freeze to the sides of the transport trucks or to the bottom in their own excrement. Dairy cows and egg laying hens endure the same living nightmare as their brethren who are raised for their flesh, except that their time on the "farm" is longer. They are still shipped to the slaughterhouse and killed, at a fraction of their natural life span.

There is simply no excuse for anyone who considers herself or himself to be an ethical human being, let alone an "animal lover," to be supporting these kinds of practices, all of which are routine and universal throughout the industries which turn animals into eggs and meat and dairy products.

If I can't watch it happening, I want no part of it. I enjoy watching fields tilled and love picking apples and tomatoes and carrots and other vegetarian products. If slaughterhouses had glass walls, as Paul McCartney is so fond of saying, we would all be vegetarians.

Every time I sit down to eat, I make a decision about who I am in the world: Do I want to add to the level of violence, misery, and bloodshed in the world? Or, do I want to make a compassionate and merciful choice?

There is so much violence in the world, from war torn regions of Africa and Europe, to our own inner cities. Most of this violence is difficult to understand, let alone influence.

Veganism is one area where each and every one of us can make a difference, every time we sit down to eat. I find it empowering that I can make an option for peace and compassion every time I eat, simply by not encouraging violence and misery against animals.

Visit linked text to see how meat is made.

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I know the Alternet gets some flak for posting these pro-veg pieces, and a lot of the negative comments seem like they're from the O'Reilly nation. Comments in advance:

1) This article backs up its health claims by citing peer-reviewed research and top health bodies. If someone is going to make an alternative claim, they should at least provide some sort of backing for it. The anti-veg side can't actually do that, I don't think, so it will post all kinds of assertions w/o substantiation.

Seriously, this post cites the American Dietetic Association position paper on vegetarian and vegan diets--based on a look at all the science--and they say that the science indicates that the diet is good for everyone.

And Dr. Dean Ornish, the formost heart researcher in the world and the only researcher to help people lose weight and keep it off in peer-reviewed research.

If people are going to debate these things, they're going to have to use hyperbole, anecdote, and unsubstantiated claims. At least that's how it's gone previously when there have been pro-veg articles here.

2) Other animals deserve some compassion, and animal protection deserves to be considered along with other social justice movements, so an article about how to eat a compassionate diet makes a ton of sense here.

The Alternet has tons of articles on the range of progressive causes, so a veg article on occasion fits in nicely. Everyone agrees that cruelty is wrong; shouldn't progressives be on the front lines of defended those who are least able to defend themselves?

Anyway, kudos to the Alternet for posting this piece.

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And correct Data, I must add.

This article provides a lot of Data that supports the viavility of a vegan diet... even for athletes! (wich I am not). To te extent of my knowledge, all the data is true, and I am pretty sure what I cant verify on my own is also sure.

(I would like to make an objection tho: the article mentions lesser rates of certain diseases in vegans when compared to meat-consuming population. That is misleading. Vegans, more often than not, are health conscious people that mind when they eat, but also exercise more often than not. Taken as a whole, non-vegetarian people have all the wrong numbers, but if you compare vegans to health conscious carnivorous exercisers, the differences wont be as dramatic at all.)

The article provides a sensible explanation of the health benefits of a vegan diet. And I still dont buy it.

Because the body is a machine, but is more than that. Because eating os more than refueling.

Food is culture. Food is heritage and art. And it is also the most popular form of art mankind has ever known. Everyone can cook! Recipes are partiures and every dish served a performance. And meat, every meat, is another color in the canvas or an instrument in the orchestra. Would you stop listening to any piece with an oboe in it? refuse to contemplate any paint with blue of it? I know, its corny...

Food is a part of people's culture. Both nations and families. And certain food can be bad (or not-too-good) for you, but to skip it... is'nt it like burying all of Wagner's opera's because he was an anit-semitist? getting Huckelberry Finn out of public libraries because the word "nigger" is written in it? And dont think it can't happen: food get forbidden all the time; some american cities have forbidden (or are in the process of doing it) the foie de canard on animal cruelty charges, refusing to aknowledged the many farmers who fatten duck liver without forced feeding. Forbidding culture on a moral high ground basis. Burning books is the next step.

Because, ultimately, for too many vegans, health is just a side benefit of their option, the main beign a puritanic righteousness. A savior complex. And they need to tell everyone how terribly wrong is to eat meat, dont you see?

Dont take me wrong... I enjoy my veggies more than most. I make a killer lentil-and-pumkin curry, my hummus draw crowds... And you should try my Berza. But when I decide to make chicken breasts in a beer and onion bed, just save your opinion until you have tasted it. Moralistic considerations are offlimits in my kitchen.

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Not only do I eat as much protein as a vegan as I did as a meat-eater years ago, but the quality of the protein is much higher. As an athlete, I'm pretty sensitive to how my body reacts to what I eat. Plant-based proteins such as beans, nuts and soy is much easier to metabolize. I wholeheartedly back what Kathy says, she's right on the money with this.

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By and large I agree, from my own experience. The key to the article, however is in the phrase "well planned" vegan diets provide the protein. By well planned we mean just that: you have to plan your diet completely, or achieve the same end by eating systematically so that you don't have to think about every meal. If you just graze and munch you will wind up with deficiencies, absent animal or fish protein.

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...most vegans and vegetarians eat a healthy (2,000 or less) amount of calories and also walk/ride bikes/etc. on a regular basis due to their "hippy" mantra or lifestyle. Yes, I know vegans well. My cousin and her boyfriend own/operate a vegan eatery in a major city.

You can eat a variety of (even junky) foods and if you keep your calories at less than or equal to what you burn, you're not going to suffer most of the afformentioned health risks in the article (especially if even 20min of cardio are done every day). Like myself for instance.

I eat a fairly repetitive diet for nearly all but two or three "cheat" meals of an entire 7-day period. I eat egg whites, turkey/chicken breast, fish, bacon/ham...yes, BACON, whole grain bread (the bird seed looking stuff), whey protein and veggies, with maybe 1-2 pieces of fruit per week. I keep my calories lower while cutting, normal while maintaining and high while bulking. There is no way I personally could get the required calories (or high quality protein...NOT soy) from a vegan diet.

I would put my medical results against any vegans or vegetarians. See, that's my problem with these pro-Veg articles, they don't cite specifics of who they're comparing to. Sure, every Veg is going to be healthier than the AVERAGE obese American who doesn't exercise and eats out at least one meal per day, and then goes home to eat a may loaded white bread sandwich with a double serving of chips.

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Here's some reasons not to go vegan.

1. You are allergic to wheat gluten
2. You are allergic to peanuts
3. You are allergic to strawberries and related foods.

A lot of vegans seem to dismiss this kind of stuff.

I'm all for environmentally friendlier diets. But there are still a lot of gaps in Ornish's work.

Humans are opportunistic omnivores. So we can eat both meat and plants. You can, as an adult, eat an entirely vegan diet if you make sure your variety of vegetables is wide and deep. And there is way too much meat in the western diet.

But for pregnant women, people with iron deficiencies, and the like it gets dicier.

More to the point, the moralizing gets me. I am not for needless cruelty to animals. but I also am willing to eat cute puppies (for Koreans, Indonesians, some Malays, and some Filipinos, and Cheyennes that's perfectly ok, if seen as poor people's food). I have no qualms about the lobster. If that makes me an awful person. so be it. There's a Chinese proverb: no good wife will cook something she hasn't seen killed herself. I'm all for that.

Really tho, the moralizing gets to me because there's a sense I get that vegans have no fun with food. Most of the recipes I see out there are nasty. I can cook vegan and sometimes do. Peanut soup recipes work well. But dammit, why do vegans seem to see food as penance? So many of the dishes are just plain bad.

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What's next AlterNet? How about a series on abiotic oil? Or a series on the merits of geocentric views of the solar system? We can all use a good dose of quantum-flap-doodle, too. Maybe get Deepak Chopra to write a series about how we can all be eternally healthy and young if we only think hard enough about it. Like your ongoing pro-vegan series, these new articles can follow the same guidelines - make a bunch of baloney statements that contradict established medical and scientific facts without attributing them or backing them up with reputable research (like the statement about how little protein humans need in this article, or about how we can get all the protein we need from plants), equivocate when someone points out that you're spreading dangerous lies (like when you applaud soy meat substitutes, then back-peddle and say we should use mostly lentils when someone points out that soy meat substitutes aren't really that healthy), and ignore real-world evidence that plainly contradicts your points (for example, when the folks on the TV show The Alaska Experiment become sick and weak when they fail to hunt and trap as much protein as the medical authorities say they need, even though they are in fact consuming at least as much protein as what you say we need).

I applaud AlterNet's determination to exceed the Moonbat quotient of other sites (this vegan stuff goes far beyond even the stuff you'll find on CounterPunch.org) and plunge its reputation for factual integrity to new nadirs. I don't know why AlterNet's editors feel the need to become as lunatic as WorldNetDaily (the far-right wing conspiracy theory site that runs articles on abiotic oil and the need to base foreign policy on Tim LaHaye's interpretation of Biblical prophecy), but I congratulate you on your success.

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While I agree in principle with the author, I would like to point out that humans have evolved as omnivores. We are healthier if we eat a diet of varied protein sources. In today's world the way animals are treated is deplorable. If you eat animals, at least know where they come from and how they were treated. And choose animal protein as adjunct to your diet rather than the main component. But beware soy products, especially the new over-processed soy and other health "foods," which are immensely more dangerous than animal fat.

Do some research. Read Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. Go the the Weston Price Foundation Web site. And remember the Middle Road: everything in moderation.

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I noticed a qoute in the article that said vegetarian diets are good for all stages of the life cycle, including infancy. I beg to differ. There have been cases where children died because their parents kept them on a vegan diet. Another issue is that certain things necessary to maintain health are found in meat, particularly some of the B vitamins, and stuff like omega 3. And the nutrition that you get from supplements and "fortified" foods doesnt match the quality and efficacy of the real thing. People also need to look at this from an evolutionary standpoint, in that our body needs nutrition that is primarily found in meat, so as in every other aspect of our modern lives, by refusing meat you are fighting against nature. The of increased risk of diseases in meateaters could probably be explained by the fact that the majority of meat we consumed is pumped full of hormones and chemicals. If people could just REDUCE their meat intake, and be willing to pay higher prices, then maybe the factory farming of animals would stop and we would be given all natural meat. The bottom line is that meat is a good thing, but that doesn't mean you have to eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

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Oh rly?

Is that person really a doctor?

Need I stop trying to melt my body fat then? Nobody wants to be in ketosis!

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....not because of protein, but because I enjoy it.
Immensely. I also enjoy vegetables, fruits, breads, pastas, chocolate, pizza, cheese, milk.......Love milk, especially when it's chasing down a couple of cookies. Anything but "fast" food.....which I find to be horrible.
At 44, I'm thin and probably in better health than people in their 20's and 30's. I pretty much enjoy most food. It's a great part of life....eating.
Good food, good wine, good company. But....with moderation.

I also love animals.....would never hunt for the sake of "the kill". I certainly don't like to see animals suffer......I fully admit that as long as others do the dirty work I'll continue to eat that red stuff that comes neatly packaged and turn a blind eye to how it got there.

Call me a hypocrite.......but is it that much different than a person who chooses to be a vegan for ethical reasons also be pro choice?

I don't mean to stir the pot but.......it's just my two cents.

Allstar Cookie

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Every time a site posts about food..its allways an all out war of posters..funny thing is most all food is sub leathal now..soy/fish/poltery/vegs./fruit/trace amounts of every god forsakin poision is in every thing you breath and eat...now what? fly to mars to git a decent meal...would you drink the water any wild animal drinks?..i think not...git real folks..humans are the pests of the world..breed on my fellow food fighters..so your children can gobble up that last poison soy round up ready burger..if the bees called it quits allready..then were next..solent green for all..yum!

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My wife, whose family is of Indian descent grew up eating a variety of lentils. Sadly, like China, India has become more meat consuming rather than lentil consuming despite the fact that lentils are digestible and don't contain all that disgusting fat. The more I ate lentils over meat, the better my health improved and my near baldling scalp fully recovered.

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if all the vegetarians promise to try hunting and fishing for a week. No cheating either - clean your own fish and dress your own deer. Is shooting a deer in your neighbor's woods or in a nearby state game preserve ethically superior to eating some boca burgers shipped across the country? I would argue that it is. Is the moral high ground occupied by the vegan that eats tofu flown in from Japan or by omnivore that eats steak from his local farmer's market or eggs bought from a neighbor? Once again I would argue that the latter is doing right by his fellow human.

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Never in my life have I met anyone in this country—vegan or otherwise—who had a “protein deficiency.” But I can’t walk across the street without seeing people who are severely obese, and nearly everyone has friends or family members who are suffering from heart disease, diabetes, or cancer—all of which are fueled by eating meat. There are plenty of scientific studies that show why a vegan diet is best, but all the proof I need is in how healthy, light, and energetic I feel—and the fact that I still fit into my jeans from college!

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Any article that says obesity is one of our major health problems does not know what it is talking about! The obesity hype is almost exclusively coming from BigDiet/Pharma (BARFMA) to sell more pills. What is really sad is that these industries themselves cause most of the problems thru yo-yo dieting and risky weight loss practices.

I am SO sick of vegans and vegetarians exploiting my body for their morality. They have made a religion out of their lifestyle. That is their right. But don't evangelize!!! And I have NEVER met a single one of them I would trade packages with. Being plump keeps one youthful looking longer!

Dr Dean Ornish has always disgusted me. I remember once he had a program with some tearful wife whining about how afraid she was her husband would get a heart attack if he didn't go on some ridiculously stringent diet. It disgusted me the program used emotional blackmail instead of debating the facts. I that were my loved one I would tell her to grow up, realize no one is guaranteed tomorrow, and to deal with her own issues instead of projecting them unto my diet and body! Yuck!!!

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Jesse, vegans are as restricted as you think. I have a healthy and very varied diet, yet I am allergic to wheat, don't eat peanuts and rarely eat strawberries. There are so, so many options out there that people can tap into - it really is fun discovering all the food out there!

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I'm a vegan too and I also get this question a lot. Many people are simply looking for an excuse not to change their eating habits. There isn't one. As noted, people can get all the nutrients they need from vegan foods. And better still, no animals have to die for vegans to get their nutrients!

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I have no objection to how another wishes to eat. The television show, "Bizarre Foods", gives such an excellent glimpse of what humans, the World over, do, and have done, in the name of sustenance.

I was told, as a young man, of all the evils of eating meat, how, if I stopped, if we all stopped, that the World could be fed on vegetables and grains alone. That, our desire to fatten cattle, was such a selfish thing.

Farmers.

I cannot say bad things of these men and women. They are the backbone of our current World Culture. Without farming... we could never support these teeming billions of human beings.

I have looked upon my vegetarian brothers and sisters, and listened to their arguments. Their reluctance to "Kill", their desire to feed the World, to spare humans of hunger, and chronic malnutrition, and I have seen the same human centric view as I sometimes see in the meat eaters, only... Many meat eaters are simply unconscious. Either unconscious, or, uncaring. Some vegetarians are fashion conscious, fad driven, that is true. But I disagree that killing a plant is not equitable with killing an animal. Just because animals and humans share emotions, including pain and grief, does not reduce plants to some unimportant corner of the galaxy.

Large scale farms have such an impact on the World. Far, far greater than those who would be nomadic herders, but, the argument arises... "we couldn't all exist as nomads". True. We couldn't support cities teeming with millions of human souls, devoid of life, filled with concrete and steel and glass. We couldn't cover the Earth with rigid grids of ownership, we couldn't have massive populations, who, simply turn up, or turn down the thermostat depending on the season, on the conditions outside.

Farming has such a tremendous impact. Yes, the raising of Beef has that as well, but, Vegetarian, Vegan, or Carnivore... its time to see that, in this culture... Beef is just a crop, no different than avocadoes, no different than corn, or wheat, or cucumbers.

If it makes you feel better, makes you feel like you are actually doing SOMETHING for this Earth, picking up a bushel of organic potatoes at your local CSA, rather than a package of ground beef at your local Wal-Mart... so be it.

But you're not.

Stop driving, stop breeding, stop spreading plastic waste, stop everything our modern culture has US participate in... Then... well...

If we all became Vegans, tomorrow, and wanted to live the same lives we currently live today... Not a damn thing would change, well... maybe we'd have to clear more land, kill more deer, more crows, more of the World's pesky critters which have ALWAYS been a threat to farmers, since farming began.

People forget that farmers have to Protect something. That farming is Purely proprietary. That it is stationary. That it is rigid in both time and space, that it gave rise to walls, and weapons, and standing armies, and city states.

The World is violent, trees are locked in frozen battles with one another, even as they participate in partnership with one another, with the animals, with the fungus, with the Earth and Sky. No one said that Nomadic humans were not just as violent, only that they are different, that, there was a time when humanity was just as much a part of the ecology as the Trees. Farming... Humans become their OWN ecology.

Sister;
You eat plants because you cannot bring yourself to kill. But you Do, kill. It is just different than I, who straddles the back of a goat, raises its chin, looks in its eyes and, cuts its throat.

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Soy Is Making Our Children Gay

But seriously, the Atkin's diet was only ever a way to trick your body into thinking that it was starving. Not a healthy way to lose weight.

I do endocrinology research, and one of the things that I find fascinating is the relationship between stress hormones and the Western-type diet (high sodium, low potassium, high fat). The main human stress hormone- cortisol- actually makes people crave sodium, urinate out potassium, and also crave fat. The Western diet is pretty much exactly what people who were given an injection of stress hormones would crave. And, interestingly, if you were to give a bunch of people a Western-diet type meal (say, a Big Mac or something else high in sodium an low in potassium- in this case the fat part is not as important) that would help to increase the endogenous production of cortisol. What we call a "positive feedback loop" meaning one thing increases the other thing, and the other thing increases the one thing.

My recommendation: eat a banana or any other food high in potassium!

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Nicely written article. One slight comment: as a professor who does muscle-based human coordination research, there is some fiber content in muscle. Interestingly, it's a bit higher in the "tough" meats of athletic animals like deer or flying birds, and very low in the fatty "juicy" meats of sedentary animals upon which the industry is based. Folks who eat meat seem to prefer it from less healthy sedentary (and essentially caged) creatures. Even "lean" meat in supermarkets is quite low on the "lean" continuum of animal muscle tissue.

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Ms. Freston is a former Ford model married to the CEO of MTV and a self-proclaimed "self help guru". Obviously also she thinks she is a a highly trained nutrition "expert".

She is full of vegetarian "certitude" and has taken the vegetarian thing to near religious levels.

Among her articles on Alternet was one claiming that you couldn't be a Progressive AND eat meat.

Using people's diet choices to judge their "political reliability".

This is why the vegetarian movement will never get anywhere or really have influence. It is powered by its own emotions and largely remains ineffective.

Alternet seems to be partial to this lady hack--maybe she's a big contributor. At any rate: Alternet is demeaning it's credibility with a LARGE portion of its readers by giving space to this woman and her "crusade".

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I can not eat beans, nuts, and soy- among many other such "veggie" foods. These trigger migraines. As some of the other comments have stated- a veggie diet does not always work for people, such as myself, with special needs. I've decreased the amount of meat I eat- but I can not eliminate it. If a veg can ever show me how it can be done- without migraine trigger foods- I would surely give it a try!

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Scientific studies have been done with people exercising and then consuming either a dairy drink after or soy drink after.

Both have equal amounts of protein. Those who consumed the dairy drinks gained more muscle during the experiment than those who consumed the soy drink and they lost more fat.

Here is the article:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/79235.php

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I have read that only 3% of men in America are iron deficient, but 20% of women are and 50% of pregnant women are. Low iron levels in pregnancy are dangerous, and can lead to early births and low birth weight babies. I've never read this warning connected with vegetarianism. I've read information from MDs stating that plant iron is simply not available to humans, but vegetarian sites either don't mention this, or state that a small amounts can be used by us. Most, though, will give a list of plants high in iron without mentioning what MDs and nutritionists warn: plant iron cannot be absorbed by humans.

Low levels of B12 in pregnancy, during nursing, or in the first few years of life can be quite serious. Some prominent vegetarians write that there are NO plant sources of B12 (http://www.brucefriedrich.org/Top_Five_Nutrients.html) and that we should supplement B12. If a supplement is needed, the diet simply cannot be natural.

And the truth of the protein comment is surely that omnivores don't want to talk to vegans about diet. It's the standard deflection to avoid a sermon. Concern about protein isn't keeping us from veganism, or vegetarianism. We wouldn't do it anyway. We're politely keeping the conversation at bay. And the very idea that there are certain erroneous ideas that, once addressed, would set us free and we'd then adopt what seems obviously to be a wrong, nonhuman diet shows that we need to keep doing this polite deflecting. Please stop the converting. There is more than ample evidence that most people can't and shouldn't try this rare diet (highest number of vegans I can find googling: .9% of the US population, and I personally don't believe it's that high, and 2.8% of the population is vegetarian; that's the number that comes up the most). If we really all would feel great, most of us would stick with this once we tried it. But I've also read that a high percentage of vegetarians last about 3 years. Which, incidentally, seems to be about the longest time the body stores iron and B12.

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hi, I have attempted to go veggie, vegan twice with advanced advise and food guidance, and I failed, i lost too much weight, i was constantly needing to eat, and was getting colds more often, and I also found if i eat too much animal protein, i get too heavy, sluggish, etc, and not good for environment, so what to do,
balance for me, mostly veggie with some animal protein, esp, in winter months ... a MD who worked with a large " veggie" population belonging to a spiritual community, found many where getting sick, to explain this, he did extensive research

and found about 1/3 of the population could eat purely veg diet and be very well, about 1/3 eating same diet did more or less ok and needed protein supplements, and about 1/3 got weaker and sick ...

a close friend who was a well rounded veg for 20 years and was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, was advised by this doctor to start eating "meat" to his horror, within a week, he was feeling better

same with a friend who suffers from thyroid disease, she went back to some animal protein, after 30 years as a veg and also within a short time felt better

moral of the story, not one diet fits all ...

and yes, the direction is less meat and more animal/fish protein that is earth friendly

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Nutrionists are encouraging us to eat more fruits and vegetables and whole grains to be more healthy. What you eat in addition to your fruits and vegetables and whole grains is your decision. Diet is such a personal thing and people have to decide what works for them in their life situation. I believe that eating locally, eating organic and eating free range and grass fed meat when possible is also important.

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I think that a lot of the ridiculous cult of protein we're in--and I admit I buy it myself, is that musclemen, muscle mags, gym types, etc. live by protein, and the protein that is the most available comes either from whey or micro-fish life. Most of the super high protein combos get their kick from micro-fish protein, which is actually killing some waterways as the micro-fish used to eat aquatic plants and now the plants are choking out the sunlight and causing havoc with the aquatic food chain. But, as long as we have this cult of muscles, this will be the case. Also as an older person who wants to keep his strength up, I've resorted to protein supplements, and despite the fishy undertaste still use them.

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“You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a mineral deficiency.” - Dr. Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel Prize winner

Most of the soil to grow veggies and grow crops to feed our Meat product is way short on minerals to transfer them to us in the right way , and that is in Ionic Trace mineral form.
Here is the answer to that problem. We now have available to us a substance that has all the minerals that our cellular system requires for the optimal health of our cells.Veggy or Meat eater.

It is FrequenSea, as FrequenSea has 72 of the 92 elements known to man in the world.

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Read about Minerals and also Anti-Aging.

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Alternet should post an article saying that 9/11 was perpetrated by a government-hired team of illegal aliens who were financed by the CFR and prepped for the attack by eating nothing but red meat for a month before the attack.

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The author quotes well-known trainer Mike Mahler, and even links to an article by Mahler. She quotes how Mahler got bigger and stronger, yet in the same article says that one needs only 10% of daily nutrients to come from protein. Then, if you read the article by Mahler, he states that a person needs .7 to 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. He says that 100-120 grams a day are adequate to keep your body at it's current composition if you are 180 lbs and 10%. Let's do a little math:

100 grams of protein * 4 calories per gram of protein = 400 calories

2000 calories / 400 calories = 5

So, according to Mahler, the BARE MINUMUM to keep you muscle mass is 20%, assuming a 2000 Calorie diet. This is DOUBLE what the author states is required. 10% would mean a DROP in muscle mass according to the man that he selectively quotes. A drop in muscle mass is NOT healthy. She states that athletes need a "little more." Is DOUBLE considered just a little?

The author seems to be using minimums to further her point. There is also a rule of thumb stating that you can live 3 days without water. Should we only take in water every 3 days? Maybe 2 to play it safe? I mean, you'd LIVE that way right?

Stop selectively quoting others to prove your point, and start telling the WHOLE truth as to what others are saying.

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Eating Vegan has 3 extremely positive outcomes... 1) It is very good for the environment, 2) It is very good for your heath, and 3) It does not contribute to the deplorable treatment of animals for food. If you really want to know what humans are doing to the animal kingdom I highly recommend watching the movie "Earthlings". Google it and watch it for free on line. It will open your eyes and change your life.

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What a tiresome debate. It always brings out the ignorance from both sides of the equation. However, the lion’s share of it emanates from the side that wishes to maintain a lifestyle that has been grotesquely oversold. The polarizing nature of this debate draws from a great deal of misinformation, which not surprisingly has its roots systemically entrenched in meat and dairy interests as well as medical interests. How sad and predictable it is that one is a dumb as the corn-fed mute they subsist on.

The affects of the over consumption of animal products on human health is staggering. Anyone who argues this point has a less than forthright reason for doing so. Compare any viable statistics concerning per capital animal product consumption amongst the nations of this world and you’ll see quite clearly there must be a great deal of fire to all that smoke. The rates for the incidence of ALL degenerative disease are exactly proportional to consumption. There is no wiggle room here for those who think they can successfully argue otherwise. Unless you’ve familiarized yourself with these numbers it’s pointless for you to think there is some greater truth others are missing because you’re the primary culprit and the ignorance behind the debate. A good primer and compilation is “Diet for a New America” by John Robbins.

The affects of moderate consumption of animal products on human health can actually be advantageous. Unfortunately, Americans are completely misinformed about what constitutes normal consumption. Humans are the most supremely adaptable creature on the planet, which gives us flexibility with an aim towards survival that no other creature possesses. However, just because we can survive in the short terms off of almost anything doesn’t mean anything and everything constitutes a staple. We also possess the greatest capacity for intellect and it would behoove us to employ it, yet we don’t. Yet industry and medicine have engineered your mindset, and for good reason. They have learned how to farm and harvest humans with all the same protocols that they use on the very food you feed and poison yourselves with.

The entire animal supply chain has become increasingly contaminated and contributes substantially to disease. First of all it’s not natural for livestock to be grain fed, which produces many harmful chemical reactions in humans and is a problem all its own. Aside from that, however, the substantial quantity of grain consumed by livestock is roughly equivalent to 40 pounds for every pound of consumable beef. The mindless meat eating American male can easily consume a pound of meat each day. Now, to put that in perspective, a pound of grain can sustain a human for a week, which means eating a pound of meat in a single day is roughly equivalent to sustaining one’s self with grain for almost an entire year. This mindless male on the other hand will consume the equivalent 14,600 pounds of grain as opposed to the essential requirement of 52. Look at the imbalance and the mind numbing waste of food in those numbers. Moreover, this simple equation demonstrates the concentrating effects of conventional animal foods. Consider that the grain fed to these animals is the lowest, cheapest most devitalized product that can be produced under the most copious application of all things dirty and nasty from pesticides, to artificial fertilizers and cruelty beyond comprehension. These products are then concentrated by the same kind of ratio and form the molecular and spiritual makeup of what you eat. Guess what, the same holds true for the water these poor animals drink; only it takes 5,000 gallons to raise a single pound of beef.

(continued in part 2)...

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My favorite comment (I'm an ovo-lacto vegetarian) that I get is "Aren't you wasting away/feel energylesss", or "How do you get your protein. Ummm....how do cows and chickens build their muscle mass? They eat---vegetables(obviously not in the case of feeding animals their own dead). If they get protein from plants, why not cut out the middleman? Especially when you could feed so many more people.

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...(Continued from part 1)

Meanwhile, a mindful eater will go out of their way to obtain their organic grain while a mindless eater will eat any old fast food road kill. Is it any wonder that disparity exists on all levels here?

Lastly, while you’re applying your intellect consider that wisdom is capable of pouring forth from the universe if you’ll open your mind to it. Consider that you just need a simple agrarian connection to understand this trumped-up debate for what it’s really worth. You reap as you sow. To put that in terms that every layperson can observe you have to first understand that the single greatest ecological threat to the existence of humans is that which amasses from the overproduction of livestock for human consumption. The average person has no idea how pervasive the trickle down affects from this equation are in terms of energy consumption, land erosion, soil and water contamination, death of species, natural resource depletion, ozone depletion, etc. It accounts to more than a third of the entire ecological disaster that looms before us. The universal adage that if it’s good for you then it’s good for the planet, and if it’s bad for the planet it’s bad for you, and vice versa is a simple equation that everyone can bear out with the application of sanity, diligence and forthrightness.

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Why some of my best friends are vegetables.

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vegans/vegetarians forget that the need for increased farming - if we were all to go the v/v route - will destroy natural habitats...and will kill untold numbers of little critters that live in the soil...so the "if you love animals" argument simply doesn't work...that is unless you place the value of a cow over that of a field mouse.

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If cows weren't supposed to be eaten, they wouldn't be so delicious.

We can expound, but why bother. There is a religion that is called veganism, and there are heathens, just like any other tinpot superstition.

They just don't hold as many seats on local schoolboards.

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Raising all your own meat puts you pretty close to the bottom line which is digestive capacity. Half the body weight of a ruminant is skin and digestive capacity, while the guts of a pig fit comfortably in a bucket. Pigs eat grass too, but need better to thrive and given a choice will always pick meat. Meanwhile my grassy meadows don't produce a heck of a lot with regards to sustaining the massive human breeding program, but they don't wash away in the rains like the neighbour's and they don't take much fertilizing or any pesticides or fungicides even in the garden and there are bees and bandicoots and birds...

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... there has to be a compromise to keep the love alive ;.)
I worked as a treeplanter for years and my body tells me when it needs protein. It really doesn't take much to satisfy that craving though.

My thought is that processed crap = processed crap regardless of content. No one needs to eat meat 2 or 3 times EVERY DAY, given that most of us are not leading that stone age lifestyle anymore and most of us don't have access to clean wild meat anyway ...

But threaten to take the meat away and watch the outcry ( I have a teenage boy too!). But it absolutely does not need to be meat and a veg, night after night. How insipid.

How about:
homemade pizza (not that hard)
chili
spaghetti
stew
stirfry
goulash
waffles and sausage or bacon
quiche
cabbage rolls
lasagna
steak and potato soup

... and all those other yummy yummy recipes that feed a family of 4 with one steak, or a small pack of (locally made) sausages and a good assortment of (hopefully local) veggies.

Viva la casserole!

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1) I'd like to see vegans be as vocal and preachy about human rights violations (e.g., war in Iraq, the disasters in NOLA and Myanmars) as they do about animals being killed for food (not "thrill of the hunt").

2) Vegans seem to think that because they are vegans they are exempt from other "ecologically-friendly" activities (your Morningstar Chicken Nuggets are worse for the environment than locally produced eggs). It's as if they think veganism is a cure-all for all the other crap they spew into the atmosphere. I, for one, and not going to listen to you as reasonable unless you live within 3mi of where you work, buy food, and make recreation while buying locally and sustainably. Other than that, it's a load of crap.

3) Cost. Vegans preach about how wonderful it is, but forget that many people simply cannot afford all the fancy meat substitutes and to buy all kinds of exotic vegetables (probably from Whole Foods, no less). Omnivory is simply cheaper to feed the average person than is Veganism.

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I just have to say that I love being vegan. Over 6 years after making the switch, I've never regretted it, and I've never had to worry about my health. You can quote my doctor on that.

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Should I decide to get today's 2000 calories from a plant or an animal?


Such harrowing decisions...

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It sounds like this article takes the available science and Cuisinarts it into a pro-vegan point of view.

Some people belong to primitive meat-eating cultures. Before the settlers came, they got plenty of exercise, ate fresh meat unadulterated with fattening agents and pesticides, and lived close to forever on that diet. I saw one magazine article where the actor Chief Dan George chased down a wounded bison to kill it, 7 miles on the run, at the spry age of 101.

Vegans have a legacy of occasionally fouling up their bodies. The art and science of eating vegan is apparently none too settled, especially for those of us who have other things to worry about. I'm not saying that the most successful vegans don't eat a low fat, low salt diet with complete nutrition, but those are the experts. What about the average goofball?

Whole Foods gives out samples of odd and tasty stuff, but there's no organized effort to, say, give people one new meatless recipe per month. That effort would involve feeding people the samples, getting them to take home a bag with all the ingredients and a recipe to try it, and a post-mortem where people ask what went wrong with the recipe, e.g. "you're supposed to boil the water?". A positive program like this would go farther than telling people that what they're eating now is all scientifically bad.

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Eating REAL food in moderation is really what it is all about. If one must eat some meat, it must be HALAL/KOSHER. No exceptions!!!! It mustn't be mass-slaughtered meat. I fully support a meat free diet. If you can believe it, kids in America are still being fed mystery meat in the public schools!!!

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Well, here we go again. I've said it before and I'll say it again:

NOT EVERYONE CAN BE A VEGETARIAN.

I know. I was one: first lacto-ovo, twice, each time for a few years. The third time I was a vegan.

DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET was my bible in the beginning.

It just didn't work for me. As the former owner of a natural food store, I will tell you that I met many customers who ran into the same difficulty that I did.

The lack of energy was profound. The tiredness was deep. Carbohydrates were more than sufficient. Protein was lacking.

Yes, I know. You can combine foods to get all the essential amino acids. I did it. I used vegetable-based protein powders. I took protein supplements in the form of food supplements. It doesn't matter. It didn't work.

So, please, save the sermons. I am profoundly envious of ANYONE who can succeed as a vegetarian. But NOT everyone can be a vegetarian. It's a fact of life.

But those who can, should do it.

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It is its own enemy. Vegetarianism seriously degraded my health. I did it for four years, and I was emaciated, cranky, and tired all the time. Heck, I was suicidal for the last year of that stint. Every time I got sicker, I tried to be 'healthier' with my vegetarianism, ending with veganism. I ate whole grains, fresh veggies, more fruit than you could possibly imagine, and a LOT of tofu. Sick and tired is where it got me.

Humans are omnivores. We thrive on a diet with a wide variety. If anything, the diet closest to what we ate prehistorically would probably be the Paleo diet, not veganism. Vegetarianism is what our genetic 'big dumb cousins' ate, and hence we stomped them in the quest for survival.

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I believe that compassion for all beings is in the core of every human heart. How, then, to reconcile the fact that, for food alone, billions of nonhumans (on land, air, and sea) are killed every year?
Dr. Will Tuttle, in his book "The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony," mentions three primary reasons we eat animals, two of them being social pressure and taste. The primary one, which he explores in great depth, speaks to the culture we were all born into -- a culture of domination, exclusion and disconnectedness -- that began with the herding, slaughtering, and eating of animals a few thousand years ago. One main point he makes is that the results of this unspoken indoctrination -- our view of other animals and what we eat -- is NOT something we freely chose, and may explain the often defensive efforts to rationalize and justify the enslavement, mutilation, and slaughter of living, feeling beings. My fondest wish is that each of us is willing to question the origin of our attitudes, concepts, and habits. By so doing may we connect with our deepest, limitless compassion and see the other sentient beings with whom we share this Earth, nonhuman and human, as individuals, deserving life, liberty, equal consideration and respect.

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I applaud the sentiment of the article but I must disagree, it is very possible to consume too little protein as a vegan. I know because I was a member of that club.

I always argued that the amount of nuts and soy products that I consumed each day had enough protein to balance my high fruit and vegetable diet. After doing a food diary, I found that I was missing a good 60% or more of the daily-recommended amount of protein! I am now actively eating more protein, but there are still some days with I am not meeting my goal.

Even eaters with the best intentions can eat poorly.

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Holy Fuck this article brought the mindless meat eating retards out of the woodwork. And they call vegetarians preachy. Somehow I think the meat eaters are just a little over defensive. I wonder why? Could it be that they know they are part of something totally horrific and that a vegetarian just being a vegetarian makes them confront the error of their ways. Oh, and by the way meat eaters.... smoking doesn't cause cancer and the earth is flat. Fucking retards!!!

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Meat Eating, So Easy A Cave Man Could Do It!

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If you are truly concerned about the environment
And therefore don't eat meat.

And/or therefore do eat meat anyway...

don't have children.
THE ONLY MORAL CHOICE.

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If you will actually take the time to ready my comment, I'm calling people stupid who think that you can't survive without meat or are nutritionally diminished in some way. I'm not claiming to be holier than thou or even morally superior. I get annoyed by that too, and I'm "part of them". If I can survive for 29 healthy years without eating meat, doesn't that prove that it is a viable option to be vegetarian?

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I don't watch Faux Noise, opposed the Iraq War months before it started, and think..no, I know Dick and Dub are Fascist scumbags.

And I eat meat! Stop preaching at me or maybe I'll have to try out some Long Pig!

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For years, I ate a macrobiotic type diet. As times changed I shifted to a vege Mediterranean interpretation. During those 30 years, the weight crept up on me at the rate of 2.25 lbs a year (totaling 70 lbs).

On my 65th birthday, I turned over a new leaf and quickly moved through the South Beach diet and on to the meat based paleolithic (no grains or dairy products). I guess I'm well suited to the hunter-gatherer way of living, avoiding processed, "civilized" foods, grains, bread and emphasizing free range chicken and organic fed buffalo. I do eat nuts, fruits, and vegetables, as well.

This emabled me to lose 1.25 lb a week for one year. My appetite shrank and animal protein really is so satisfying.

I did this without counting calories, or even having scales in my home. I'll admit I allow myself a couple of glasses of cabernet savignon every few days.

One thing I don't do is to allow "forbidden foods" in my house, and if I must run out for a little binge, I put together a custom little bag of "trail Mix" with dried cranberries, raisins, and various perferably raw nuts.

My perception of splurging has changed from rushing out for a Sara Lee Strawberry cheesecake to maybe something like organic blueberries mixed with raw pecans. I'm amazed that this has become a bigger deal than the cheesecake ever was.

I do cast my fate to the winds when I'm invited out for a meal at a friend's home, or even in a restaurant. I'm not exactly a celebrity, so this hasn't put any pounds on me yet, though I do feel "iffy" for the next couple of days.

However, I refuse to eat red meat of unknown origin. Now that I'm 66, I must say my cariologist tells me I cardio functions would be the envy of a 26 year old.

Okay, I'll admit I live in Sedona, Arizona. And I ride my mountain bike on the red rock trails every day for a couple of hours. I'm out at the crack of dawn.

Since Sedona is still a fairly small town and I'v lived here for nearly 20 years, my "new" shape is quite novel for most people who know me.

I'm not really interested in this sort of attention. I don't believe anyone else will follow my example, either. So I don't even want to tell anyone how I've done it. I'm more interested in "the decline and fall of the American empire", or some darned-fool thing.

Patrick Hickey

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a 1/4 cup of mushrooms and chickpeas can be creamed with a food processor, add a tablespoon of peanut-butter,2 cloves of garlic & parsley,thyme and dried honey-suckle flower to season a great hybrid "oriental thailandi style
dish"served over whole-grained noodles.Peanuts,mushrooms,chickpeas are high protein plant types.Add a 1/4 cup of hot boiled noodle water to processed vegetables and stir.
Japanese honeysuckle vine flowers are antibacterial and antioxidant&and thyme is good for digestion.

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Thanks to everyone for their civil, intelligent conversation of veganism vs meat-eating.

Carbohydrate cravings even more severe and physically painful than they'd been my whole life were the result of my seven years of a vegan diet. Even realizing how gluten- (wheat, barley, rye, oatmeal) sensitive I am did not deter me from a vegan diet for a few more punishing years.

I was sure veganism was my key to health.

It was not to be. Eating as my grand- and great-grandmothers and grand- and great-grandfathers did seems to be my ticket to healing from a lifetime of a Kool-Aid drinking, high carb, hydrogenated fat-margarine, factory-raised grain-fed meat diet.

Thanks to Sally Fallon, Mary Enig and the Weston A Price Foundation for informing me in my newest journey toward health and healing with food.

Grass fed meat is not easy to find in America. My great ancestors had easier access to grass fed animals for food. Did you know early fall is the season for harvesting beef? Therefore, beef was not, in my great-grandparents' day, available all year? My great-ancestors ate a lot less beef per meal, and not all year round. Maybe that's key to good health?

Chickens and their eggs seem a perpetual mainstay, but not always available to everyone; the Republican National Committee promised "A Chicken in Every Pot" during Herbert Hoover's campaign for the Presidency in 1928.

Varieties of meats and vegetables have shrunk since my great-ancestors' day.

It's quite ironic to find ourselves swimming, sometimes literally, in food and yet have so much angst over eating and food in this great day of the best food distribution system ever devised. The system depends on access to cheap gas; who knows where high gas prices will lead?

Is there a cosmic, karmic lesson to be learned here?

Gratitude for easy food is my take on my journey through chronic illness and physically painful carbohydrate cravings, overweight and an insulin resistant roll of fat around my middle.

I gave up veganism for my health, so I cannot be accused of being unwilling to change. I continue to change my diet, take supplements, find foods that are satisfying enough so I no longer crave carbohydrates at the end of every meal.

So far, the most satisfying meal I've found is a high-fat cheese and meat ravioli (made from home-made pasta) served with cream sauce at a local Italian restaurant.

And I have not been able to reproduce that feeling at home with any other food.

I'm grateful to have found at least one meal on this planet I can eat and feel fully satisfied, leaving me with no cravings for dessert.

If that one satisfying meal is the best I can do the rest of my life, it's the happiest I've ever been with any food, and it's local, so, I'm good.

toni marshall

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