leonardcohenforum.com

I always find your average vegan much more savvy on nutritional issues than your average Johanna ... in the first world in the 21st century it takes effort to be malnourished as far as vitamin status goes. Just check out study after study on vegans and B12 deficiency ..... (http://www.vegansociety.co.uk for the links) and the risk would seem to be theoretical rather than practical.... Yeast extracts (like Marmite/Vegemite etc.) are all fortified with B12 as are Soya/Rice/Oat milks and many margarines.

Tchocolatl wrote:Of course

But this decision thing has its limit. I can decide that I'll fly like a bird and jump from the window right in the air. It may works for a few seconds or more (it depens of how high is the window). But not much.

I understand what you mean, but scientists found that even vegetation reacts when there is something dangerous around them, like, let say fire. So eat vege does not solve the problem of being a predator in the food chain. (moreover not to kill any living being to be in accordance with buddhism doctrine).
quote]

In relation to the first point, I've been vegan 13 years and vegetarian for 12 years before that. How long do you think I've got left before the big crash to the ground? And will I be able to tell when it happens? Advice on this would be appreciated.

Actually, scientists have never found that plants react in the same way as animals (human and non-human). They don't have nervous systems. What scientists have found was that if you damage living plant tissue then there is a change in the measured electrical potential across the membranes of damaged cells. This is hardly surprising and would also occur in human cells, like skin cells, when detached from the body. The electrical potential changes because damaged cells leak potassium ions... in plants there are no peripheral nerves to transmit pain and no central nervous system to perceive that pain. Now my dear T, if you really believe what you write then you must desist from eating carrots immediately!

The reason I know farmed animals suffer is because they suffer in very similar ways to the way human animals suffer if they were treated in the same ways. When you hear a suffering pig, or a lamb, or cow cry out it is recognisably a cry of pain. How silly it is to say, "this creature has eyes like mine, a nervous system like mine, (and maybe even emotions like mine - dogs certainly do!) I think I'll set up an industrialised system of production and slaughter so we can gorge ourselves on them".

Finally, the arguments for vegetarianism are moral arguments and as such do not depend on matters of fact. For arguments sake lets say I agree that its bad for my health to be vegan (I don't for a minute of course) ... it does not automatically follow that it is wrong to be vegan... I could just as well say that even though it is bad for me its good for animals (or the planet or whatever) and go ahead anyway. As the great philosopher Freddie Ayer wrote., "You cannot get and ought from an is"

Stranger wrote:I think they were normal people, like we are; who slided very fast down a slippery slope, like we can do; and who committed horrible crimes, like we can do when the circumstances are there and we don't realise that we are sliding down. As long as we don't say "I would never do a thing like that", there is a chance that we actually won't.

I second that.

Plus

Steven wrote:By and large, these
people accepted that because things were the way they were,
they were properly as they should be. I suppose it is no
different than generations of oppressed people in India held
down by what was their caste system, or the Church's historical
penchant to enoble and enable hatred of those that were disbelievers...

And more.

As for being vege, JF, it is well admitted that somebody can live healthy and happy being a vegetarian. No doubt.

Were my doubt is, however, is even if they do not have a nervous system, they have another sort of system which makes them sensitive to their environment in their own way.

(reminds me of the pain of the children that was not acknowledged by medical staff, just because they can not verbalize it, like - some -adults are doing, but just cry and "making fuss". So they hurt them again and again "thinking" (did they really, I mean really-really think?? I don't think so) that just because they could not understand that children are not able to make scientific logical discussions about all this? Yes, exactly. Conclusion : all those great scientists did not know enough about the beings they were dealing with - just like us with the carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes - this said we (still) are part of the alimentary chain, so we have to eat something. This should be regarded as a sacred act, not taking for granted. I mean the preservation of the live that we are taking for our life to be, and not act like voracious pigs (I'm sorry, cute little fellow animals to borrow your name for this shame) and stupid monkeys that are not intelligent enough to understand that there is a limit to the ressources.

I'm sorry if I sounds a little cynic this morning. I am.