America Is Done Pretending About Meat

[Carl in Michigan]

 

[westwall]

Not only that but they grow better, faster, in the presence of certain music. Plants hate rock & roll.

I've also heard tell that plants respond/grow better in the presence of kind, loving, gentle people over people who are harsh, angry and violent. If true, they may be responding to our Kirlian aura.

Correct, if you talk to them and include them like famy they grow exceptionally well. If you scream at them they wither.

 

[Concerned American]

You know you're arguing in a public messageboard where people will express opinions you don't like don't you???

It is the height of arrogance to tell another person what opinions they are NOT ALLOWED to express here, don't you???

When it comes to judgements on me or my lifestyle, yeah, it is my right to express my opinion as well. Have you been indoctrinated to the democrat way of thinking that is "You are free to say anything you want as long as it agrees with me?" Like I told the poster that you have chosen to sock for, I haven't told anyone what they should consume. You and she on the other hand seem to think you don't owe me the same consideration. So take you social justice and run on down the road.

 

[buttercup]

It's funny how whenever the topic of veganism comes up, all of a sudden everyone's a plants rights activist.

 

[dudmuck]

Among other things, I snack on a lot of pumpkin seeds. Because you asked.....
8 oz steak = 45 grams protein
8 oz pumpkin seeds = 80 grams of protein

although pumpkin seeds are a good source of nutrients, the PDCAAS score is low, 0.66, where steak is above 0.9 on PDCAAS

 

[westwall]

It's funny how whenever the topic of veganism comes up, all of a sudden everyone's a plants rights activist.

What's even funnier is how vegans ignore solid evidence of plant sentience.

It's really quite simple, for a living thing to live, it needs to eat other living things.

Vegans have made it a moral position, instead of a scientific/biological one.

 

[buttercup]

What's even funnier is how vegans ignore solid evidence of plant sentience.

It's really quite simple, for a living thing to live, it needs to eat other living things.

Vegans have made it a moral position, instead of a scientific/biological one.

Sigh. Plants don't have a brain or central nervous system. Responding to stimuli is not the same thing as sentience.

Besides, I don't want to repeat myself, but that is an illogical (or disingenuous) "argument" because by eating animals, you're causing more "plant casualties" due to the enormous amount of crops fed to the billions of land animals on a regular basis. And that's in addition to the animals.

I'm pretty sure you've mentioned before that you're not a Christian.... so I don't expect you to agree with the biblical worldview. But God designed and created plants to be food. (Genesis 1:29-30)

Animals, on the other hand, were not created to be food. Anyone who thinks a perfect, good God of love would create beings who can feel pain, have a soul, and emotions and intelligence for the purpose of being "food" must think God is a cruel tyrant. One doesn't even have to be a Christian to see that, since it's just common sense.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Very nice essay..hit quite a few nails on the head. The gist of it is simple...for most of us, the plant-based diet was more about social compulsion and less about actual desire.

I used the Yahoo link to get around the Atlantic paywall.

America Is Done Pretending About Meat

Plant-based eating has lost its appeal.

www.yahoo.com

A few snippets..it's a longish essay:

Making America healthy again, it seems, starts with a double cheeseburger and fries. Earlier this month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited a Steak ’n Shake in Florida and shared a meal with Fox News’s Sean Hannity. The setting was no accident: Kennedy has praised the fast-food chain for switching its cooking oil from seed oil, which he falsely claims causes illness, to beef tallow. “People are raving about these french fries,” Kennedy said after eating one, before commending other restaurants that fry with beef tallow: Popeyes, Buffalo Wild Wings, Outback Steakhouse.

To put it another way, if you order fries at Steak ’n Shake, cauliflower wings at Buffalo Wild Wings, or the Bloomin’ Onion at Outback, your food will be cooked in cow fat. For more than a decade, cutting down on meat and other animal products has been idealized as a healthier, more ethical way to eat. Guidelines such as “Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants” may have disproportionately appealed to liberals in big cities, but the meat backlash has been unavoidable across the United States. The Obama administration passed a law to limit meat in school lunches; more recently, meat alternatives such as Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat have flooded grocery-store shelves, and fast-food giants are even serving them up in burgers and nuggets. It all heralded a future that seemed more tempeh than tomahawk steak: “Could this be the beginning of the end of meat?” wrote The New York Times in 2022.

Now the goal of eating less meat has lost its appeal. A convergence of cultural and nutritional shifts, supercharged by the return of the noted hamburger-lover President Donald Trump, has thrust meat back to the center of the American plate. It’s not just MAGA bros and MAHA moms who resist plant-based eating. A wide swath of the U.S. seems to be sending a clear message: Nobody should feel bad about eating meat.
Many people are relieved to hear it. Despite all of the attention on why people should eat less meat—climate change, health, animal welfare—Americans have kept consuming more and more of it. From 2014 to 2024, annual per capita meat consumption rose by nearly 28 pounds, the equivalent of roughly 100 chicken breasts. One way to make sense of this “meat paradox,” as the ethicist Peter Singer branded it in The Atlantic in 2023, is that there is a misalignment between how people want to eat and the way they actually do. The thought of suffering cows releasing methane bombs into the atmosphere pains me, but I love a medium-rare porterhouse.

Yeah, people who follow "thou shalt not kill" revelling in eating things they killed.... I mean, how typically Republican could you get?

 

[westwall]

Sigh. Plants don't have a brain or central nervous system. Responding to stimuli is not the same thing as sentience.

Besides, I don't want to repeat myself, but that is an illogical (or disingenuous) "argument" because by eating animals, you're causing more "plant casualties" due to the enormous amount of crops fed to the billions of land animals on a regular basis. And that's in addition to the animals.

I'm pretty sure you've mentioned before that you're not a Christian.... so I don't expect you to agree with the biblical worldview. But God designed and created plants to be food. (Genesis 1:29-30)

Animals, on the other hand, were not created to be food. Anyone who thinks a perfect, good God of love would create beings who can feel pain, have a soul, and emotions and intelligence for the purpose of being "food" must think God is a cruel tyrant. One doesn't even have to be a Christian to see that, since it's just common sense.

The simple fact is plants do have a sentience, the question is how much.

You are correct, I am not religious. However I am well read. Your religion says one thing as regards animals, other religions say other things.

However, when we die, we too become some critters meal.

It's a giant circle.

 

[buttercup]

Yeah, people who follow "thou shalt not kill" revelling in eating things they killed.... I mean, how typically Republican could you get?

I don't think this has anything to do with politics.

There have been 3 vegans on this thread so far. And 2 out of the 3 are conservatives and Christian...myself included.

 

[buttercup]

The simple fact is plants do have a sentience, the question is how much.

You are correct, I am not religious. However I am well read. Your religion says one thing as regards animals, other religions say other things.

However, when we die, we too become some critters meal.

It's a giant circle.

Well....from a Christian standpoint, this is a fallen world, and very temporary, in comparison to the grand scheme of things. It won't always be this way, according to the bible. But again, I don't expect you to agree with that. In fact, I don't even need to go solely by Christian ideas. Even from an entirely secular standpoint, there is no need to eat animals. And since it involves so much cruelty and abuse, I don't think one has to be a Christian to see that the status quo is not a good thing (for numerous reasons, including a number of reasons that haven't even been brought up yet.) It's just something that most people don't even think about, because we have all been so deeply indoctrinated to think of it as "normal."

 

[westwall]

Well....from a Christian standpoint, this is a fallen world, and very temporary, in comparison to the grand scheme of things. It won't always be this way, according to the bible. But again, I don't expect you to agree with that. In fact, I don't even need to go solely by Christian ideas. Even from an entirely secular standpoint, there is no need to eat animals. And since it involves so much cruelty and abuse, I don't think one has to be a Christian to see that the status quo is not a good thing (for numerous reasons, including a number of reasons that haven't even been brought up yet.) It's just something that most people don't even think about, because we have all been so deeply indoctrinated to think of it as "normal."

Animals can be killed in a humane way. I certainly detest cruelty to any creature, but I absolutely support your choice to be vegan.

 

[Concerned American]

Yeah, people who follow "thou shalt not kill" revelling in eating things they killed.... I mean, how typically Republican could you get?

The scripture is "Thou shalt not MURDER" If you're going to quote it, at least get it right.

 

[buttercup]

Animals can be killed in a humane way. I certainly detest cruelty to any creature, but I absolutely support your choice to be vegan.

Unfortunately, that just isn't the reality in the overwhelming majority of cases. But even if that was true... to me it's not about HOW an animal is killed. What is inhumane is the act of taking a life from an animal who is no different than a dog or cat in all the ways that matter, when one doesn't have to. The animals people eat want to live and enjoy life just as much as you and I do. In slaughterhouses they literally beg for their lives, you can see it in their eyes. So that's why I think the idea of "humane slaughter" is an oxymoron. Because the inhumane part is not just the manner they are killed... but that that they are killed at all, when it's unnecessary. And when its something that none of us would want done to ourselves. (the Golden Rule)

 

[buttercup]

On the topic of "murder" vs "killing"....

Pigs have been said to be as smart or even smarter than a 3 year old human child. And other animals are also smarter than people give them credit for. In addition to having emotions, individual personalities, and a strong will to live.

So although in the past I definitely agreed with you guys that the word murder should never be applied to animals.... in recent years I'm starting to see that differently.

I think Morissey of The Smiths had it right, when he wrote the lyrics "death for no reason is murder." Especially when it comes to animals we know are intelligent, feeling, just like the dog or cat most people consider precious.

 

[Concerned American]

On the topic of "murder" vs "killing"....

Pigs have been said to be as smart or even smarter than a 3 year old human child. And other animals are also smarter than people give them credit for. In addition to having emotions, individual personalities, and a strong will to live.

So although in the past I definitely agreed with you guys that the word murder should never be applied to animals.... in recent years I'm starting to see that differently.

I think Morissey of The Smiths had it right, when he wrote the lyrics "death for no reason is murder." Especially when it comes to animals we know are intelligent, feeling, just like the dog or cat most people consider precious.

the crime of unlawfully and unjustifiably killing a person

Definition of MURDER

the crime of unlawfully and unjustifiably killing a person; specifically, law : such a crime committed under circumstances defined by statute; something very difficult or dangerous; something outrageous or blameworthy… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

 

[buttercup]

the crime of unlawfully and unjustifiably killing a person

Definition of MURDER

the crime of unlawfully and unjustifiably killing a person; specifically, law : such a crime committed under circumstances defined by statute; something very difficult or dangerous; something outrageous or blameworthy… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

I know what the definition is. I don't think you grasped what I was saying. But that's OK, I'm not interested in arguing with you, sorry.

Here's a song for you, though....

 

[Concerned American]

I know what the definition is.

Apparently you don't if you are trying to conflate it with the killing of animals. As for your attempt at humor from trying to shame people who have different eating habits from you--try again, honey. BTW, just embrace who you are. You are definitely not conservative. Rino at best. Your attitude is definitely political and you have proven yourself to be quite the fascist.

 

[buttercup]

Apparently you don't if you are trying to conflate it with the killing of animals. As for your attempt at humor from trying to shame people who have different eating habits from you--try again, honey. BTW, just embrace who you are. You are definitely not conservative. Rino at best. Your attitude is definitely political and you have proven yourself to be quite the fascist.

Believe what you want, but that is laughably ignorant. I think veganism actually aligns with libertarianism... for example, the Non-Aggression Principle, Liberty (in my view, truly valuing liberty doesn't go along with keeping intelligent beings in a tiny cage their whole life), Peace, Bodily Autonomy, etc.

And it certainly goes along with Christian teachings, like mercy, love, kindness, selflessness, etc.

Once again, you state things that are upside-down. I would say what IS fascist is paying for beings to be abused, tortured, caged, put into gas chambers and brutally killed... because you don't value their lives or dignity.

It is absurd and asinine to claim that compassion and respect for other lives is fascist.

 

[toobfreak]

Agreed. I find that radishes have lost their flavor as well.

Back in the 1980s, I grew these great japanese radishes, they were called White Icicle, and they grew long like a parsnip, and were black on top with intense white meat below. One radish was enough for a whole family meal.

I really miss a great tasting tomato. Conglomerates have engineered the flavor out of tomatoes you find in the stores these days. They are beautiful to look at but totally lacking in flavor. I love fresh tomato sandwiches, but you can't find a flavorful tomato anymore.

They have been engineered for disease resistance and robustness, both attractiveness and durability/survivability in shipping. First thing to go is the flavor.

That is why I grow my own. Some have great flavor but it is even getting tough to grow them too. No flavor.

I was going to say, your best option is to grow your own. It still is. Regardless of the species, we usually plant each year from a new set of random seeds, but the ideal way is to always replant each year from seeds from your /own/ garden as this way, each year, the plants get acclimated to your location, weather and soil, and adapt themselves. Eventually, you'll get a few that are better as the better tasting genes are still there--- any gene that was ever there is still there if dormant, but you'll randomly still get a few that will pop out.

Those are the ones you save the seeds from then replant the next year. After 2-3 iterations of doing this, you'll have a plant which is once again producing flavor like in the "old days."

You have effectively "sped up" the process of natural selection.