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Tofu Activists Spoof Meat-Based Indie Game
Faulkner39 writes "In response to the recently released independently developed platformer Super Meat Boy, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has released a Flash-based spoof game titled Super Tofu Boy. The spoof attempts to mirror the original by featuring a protagonist made of tofu and an antagonist made of meat in a statement promoting animal rights. Ironically, however, the original game is about a human boy who is vulnerable because he lacks skin (Meat Boy), raising the question: 'is the spoof in reality really about cannibalism?'"
The Super Meat Boy team posted a response on their Twitter feed.
I had never heard of Super Meat Boy.
They offer downloads for PC and Mac. What, no Linux version? You mean I have to play the version on the website to play in Linux?
If they won't give me Linux Tofu Boy, then I have absolutely no incentive to cease my consumption of meat. Clearly, they don't care about me, so I will continue to not care about them.
I should go have a double down or something later....
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
You know, maybe they could have spent some of that development money on outreach for their shelters, so that they wouldn't have to kill 86% of the animals they shelter.
But no, I guess making video games, stockpiling red paint, and placing ads of naked hippies should really come first.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
They'll attempt to demonize any mention of carnivorous behavior, often without a complete grasp of what they are attacking-- as seen here. A boy with no skin must be countered with a lump of tofu? Obviously no one there actually played Super Meat Boy.
PETA can't rightfully preach about animal rights while euthanizing tens of thousands of unwanted pets every year. Hypocrisy at its finest.
From the 'meet the characters' page:
http://features.peta.org/super-meat-boy-parody/meet.aspx
"Meat Boy is a vengeful, bloody cube of rotting animal flesh. And he smells. After a short-lived fling with Bandage Girl (sympathy dates, really), he became enraged when he was dumped for the tasty and satisfying Tofu Boy. Once Bandage Girl slept with Tofu Boy and saw all that he had to offer, it was bye-bye beef, hello bean curd. Enraged by his loss and lack of ability to compete with the badass that is Tofu Boy, Meat Boy snapped and kidnapped Bandage Girl—because if he can't have her, no one will."
Does anyone else think it's a bit wrong if it's aimed at children?
Stop the violator!
Vegetarians are a whole different and sad subspecies of humankind, they try to deny we've been eating meat from animals since many millions of years.
As a matter of fact we've become the creatures we are because we ate animals, for example there is strong evidence of a correlation in humanoids starting to eat seafood and a jump in intelligence that led to the making and use of tools.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
...People for the Eatig Tasty Animals (PETA)....
There, I fixed that for you....
...but Super Tofu Boy seems to lack the polish of the original. The controls feel sticky, the ideas in the levels feel lifted from Super Meat Boy, the difficulties in the levels spike quite aggressively compared to those of Super Meat Boy (I'm not quite sure how to get past Golden Arches 2) and the animation doesn't feel quite so smooth. Is tofu inferior to meat in this case?
...People for the Eating Tasty Animals (PETA).... There, I fixed that for me....
No, not PETA, the developers of Super Meat Boy.
After hearing about this game I was curious as to whether a Linux version was available or in the works. I ended up at http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/10/indiegamescom_podcast_5_super.html, and a commenter put a link to a podcast with the developers here: http://www.levelfortytwo.com/2009/12/talk-is-cheap-12-21-09/
The relevant bit starts at 43:55. Basically, they think that a Linux version would mean it would have to be open source, which obviously it doesn't. To quote one of the developers: "Linux can fuck off as far as I'm concerned." Gee, thanks. I don't mind if you're not going to bother making a port to Linux, but to not even bother to understand what people are asking and instead resorting to profanity shows these guys are a bunch of closed-minded dicks.
To do this, they HAD to look beyond the title.
Super Meat Boy has nothing to fucking do with meat on a dietary level. What the hell went through the minds of those at PETA?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
How can someone relate to an animal in order to sympathise with it and support its "rights"?
Don't get me wrong I'm not some sadistic freak that tortures animals but c'mon here...
I can relate to human torture because I can mentally put myself in the shoes of the tortured person a bit.
But no, I wouldn't/don't care about animal rights and I'll keep devouring them for a long, long time.
Until they take over and make us their pets no...no sympathy from me.
Because their president wants to be cooked at a barbecue when she dies, to disgust people from eating meat. Or something. Honestly, the idea was so nuts, I forgot to take notes on why, and merely listened to the what. Because when you're spoon-out-your-eyeballs crazy like that, it's hard not to be inadvertantly entertaining and terrifying at the same time.
There is no -1 Disagree.
Well, it is a more concentrated form of protein, which leaves you more time from gathering roots and berries, to like, build stuff, like pyramids, dams, hospitals , a civilization and the like.
This guy had a good take at it all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Bronowski
My girlfriend had a veggie book, that claimed that eating meat was against human instinct; "who would ever think of eating a nice, cuddly squirrel?"
I countered with a quote from Benjamin Franklin, "hunger never saw bad bread'.
Veggieism is an ethical, rather than a physiological evolution. If you decide to be a veggie, make sure that you take many vitamin supplements. Otherwise, you will devolve what your hairy assed ancestors discovered . . . eating meat is good for you, and efficient.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Eat! Them! Eat! Them! Eat! Them!
Indeed, I hate PETA as much as any right-minded individual, but these guys pulled a dick-move. They basically trolled the PETA forums with a bunch of sock-puppet accounts in order to goad them into action and to get publicity for their game, which seems, judging by the /. comments, to have not made it onto many peoples' radar. Yet again, PETA have made the world a worse place in which to live. This time by giving these tumbling tumbling dick-weeds the publicity they are so obviously desperate for.
Animals die, you know, so it's mostly a matter of how and at what age. Me, I'd rather have my head clubbed or my neck slit in a farm than be eaten half-alive by a predator that just mauled me enough to keep me still. And while that's not a true dichotomy, the odds of dying peacefully, surrounded and guarded by my peers are small.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Remember that raw meat is instinctualy repugnant; it's only with the technologies of fire and weaponry that we began eating meat at all - environmental conditions positioning it as a good source of protein. All these years later, we have better, and more future proof means of satisifying our caloric and protein needs.
Tell that to the Japanese(sushi), or the Italians(carpacio) or the other multitude of groups that eat raw meat even to this day. We only find eating raw meat repugnant nowadays because we know there is a slightly elevated risk of contracting certain illnesses when consuming raw meat.
Monstar L
Wait... it’s immoral to consume meat because the protagonist of the meat-based indie game is made of meat, and the protagonist of this game is made of tofu, doesn’t that same concept logically extend to the tofu game implying that it’s now unethical to eat tofu?
This is so confusing.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
My Linux box is wrapped in bacon, take that PETA!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
raw meat is instinctualy repugnant
No, it’s culturally repugnant. And even so, plenty of people still consume raw meat on a regular basis.
In addition to the obvious sushi, many forms of smoked or dried meat are not cooked (e.g. jerky and many varieties of ham), any good steak should be raw in the middle (and anyone who prefers their steak turned into shoe leather is an idiot), steak tartare is considered a delicacy, Caesar salad dressing is made with raw egg, etc. etc. etc.
What’s more, cooking meat creates carcinogenic compounds, so if it weren’t for the risk of disease and parasites, meat would be healthiest if it was consumed raw anyway.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
for the same reasons a "vegetarian" eats "vegetables".
Super Tofu Boy is safe from me*!
*No, not really. Tofu can be a fine additional ingredient in numerous recipes based on large amounts of meat. Case in point.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Beef is indeed a horribly inefficient way of producing edible protein. However, both pork and, even better, poultry, are far more efficient.
Next, I can't find a single source that comes anywhere close to your 54:1 ratio. Three different books on Google (meant as practical references for ranchers raising cattle, and therefore having an interest in being accurate instead of propaganda) gave ratios from 6-15%, depending on what was being raised. That's a LONG way from sub-2%.
Also, see those pointy things at the front of your mouth? The ones maladapted to 100% plant consumption? They're called "canines", right next to "incisors." They are designed for tearing meat. Why are they there, in addition to the plant-grinding-things at the back of the mouth? Because you are an OMNIVORE. Mankind has been eating meat long before fire; raw meat is perfectly edible and digestible, even if game meats are a bit chewy.
Oh, and that last link to fao.org said NOTHING about renal/kidney failure (neither word occurs anywhere), and nothing about the hazards of excess protein consumption. (It did refer to excess fat consumption)
The real shame is that they let all those delicious euthanized critters go to waste.
No, it is indeed instinctually repugnant. Eating raw meat is something that is learned, as is eating meat in the first instance. As evidence, young children readily reach for raw fruit but never raw meat: we know that without the killing technology of flame it should be rejected.
The eating of raw mammal meat is a modern fashion enabled through refrigeration, antibiotics and sanitation (80% of all antibiotics sold in the US are fed to cows and pigs): unlike carnivores we do not have teeth or claws for tearing apart the flesh. Weapons and instruments have enabled meat as a dietary option among homonids.
Meat may be 'healthier' if eaten raw, indeed. In any case, it is certainly not an essential part of a human's diet. I haven't eaten parts of animals for most of my life and have friends that have never ever eaten meat or fish. All are fit of body and host very bright minds indeed. Just as it is for them, meat is simply not something I consider edible anymore.
If you're repulsed by raw meat, stick to gnawing on grass and fungus. Personally, I love raw fish and steak. If you don't want yours, pass it over here.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I have my Linux system in a leather backpack... Does that help?
I just had a bowl of wokked soja sprouts - yeah, really - but your post is so inspiring that I may actually stop by the hamburger place later tonight.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
Your "evidence" is a bare assertion. Can you do any better that attempting to tell us your opinion is a fact?
I guess some sort of mom joke would be the maturity-level appropriate reply, but I'm too tired to make one.
Because I was up all night boning your sister.
Because I can. Why are you anonymous?
From http://supermeatboy.com/
"see (as mentioned in countless interviews) Meat Boy isn't made of animal meat, he's simply a boy without skin whos name is Meat Boy.. but sshh don't tell them that."
As evidence, young children readily reach for raw fruit but never raw meat
I take it you’ve actually verified that experimentally?
Yeah, young children like sweet things (and not without good reason: bitter tastes are often correlated with decay or poison, so young children are very sensitive to bitterness). And letting young children eat honey can give them severe, possibly fatal, food poisoning. And young children will also put dirt in their mouths. And a diet consisting entirely of fruit would not be adequately nourishing anyway; young children have to be taught to eat vegetables. So all in all, you really don’t get to use the preferences of young children as an argument that their instincts are best when it comes to what they should eat and not eat.
without the killing technology of flame it should be rejected
Without the killing technology of flame, most vegetables would be rejected too. Unless you’re advocating an all-raw diet (which some people do), you don’t get to use that argument either.
The eating of raw mammal meat is a modern fashion enabled through refrigeration, antibiotics and sanitation
That’s complete bullshit. People ate raw meat fresh and even preserved it for long periods of time before any of those things ever existed (e.g. pemmican and jerky).
I haven't eaten parts of animals for most of my life and have friends that have never ever eaten meat or fish. All are fit of body and host very bright minds indeed.
If you want to talk about modern invention... that is a modern invention. Cultivating soy and legumes for protein, using the “killing technology of flame” to tender them up before consuming them (they almost invariably are cooked first, I might add), and taking a handful of multivitamins and dietary supplements is the quintessence of modern invention. In fact this is very nearly the first generation of humans that could successfully stay healthy and well-nourished while living in such a manner.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
I was expecting this to be about the game Kingdom of Loathing where meat is a currency as well as an item used to build other items.
Hehe, I think you ought to read up on the history of vegetarianism. The Brahamins were vego for a couple of thousand years before Pythagoras discovered them and became vego himself! There are many different cultures which raise their young without meat or fish. I know several very healthy people (one an athlete for a while) that've never eaten meat or fish in their lives. Any vegetarian that needs supplements either has an innate deficiency of their own simply doesn't know how to cook for themselves..
Regarding kids and raw meat, I've seen kids reject raw beef and fish yes - I grew up on a farm. It's often mentioned as indication of our predisposition toward vegetables and fruit, not meat. It is not strong 'evidence', no. Nonetheless, you have to learn to prepare animal parts for eating to avoid sickness. It's a skill dependent on several technologies as meat starts rotting very soon after slaughter (4 hours @ ~40 degrees).
Cheers.
Hehe, I think you ought to read up on the history of vegetarianism [wikipedia.org]. The Brahamins were vego for a couple of thousand years before Pythagoras discovered them
Yeah, yeah, yeah... that’s only possible when you have good sources of nutritious vegetable foodstuffs, and typical mass-produced vegetable foodstuffs are woefully lacking in that respect. “Such a manner” includes living in cities with populations reaching into the millions and most food being grown on factory farms.
I have no argument if you want to say that you can be healthy and well-nourished while adhering to a vegetarian or vegan diet. And I have no diet if you want to say that people could do it in the past, but their lives would have to be much different than ours for such a diet to work. There is absolutely no way that everyone in this modern culture could eat only vegan foods organically grown to actually have some decent nutritional value. Population density wouldn’t permit it. Individuals can do it, but if everyone tried there wouldn’t be enough food for them all.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
What is a "double down"?
From context, I'm guessing something to eat that has meat on/in it?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Remember that raw meat is instinctualy repugnant
To you, maybe. I never tried eating raw meat for obvious reasons of hygiene, but I definitely like the smell of it.
From context, I'm guessing something to eat that has meat on/in it?
Sort of. It’s a bacon and cheese sandwich made with fried chicken instead of a bun.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
Was the purpose of posting this story solely to give /.ers the chance to attack PETA? That's what all comments seem to revolve around.
FWIW, most vegans and/or animal activists I know hate PETA, myself included. They bring a bad name to a good cause.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Old horses that nobody wanted anymore used to be sold in the US for meat, presumably after being slaughtered humanely. But the "cruelty" of eating horse bothered some people, so they shut down all the equine slaughterhouses in the US. Now you can't even give a horse away, every equine rescue operation is full and not accepting any new animals. So what happens to unwanted horses now? They are neglected and starve to death! Yeah, that's sure a lot more humane than killing them and eating them! (or feeding them to your dog)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
if you're a man who wants to grow a nice set of titties and talk in a higher pitched voice. It's estrogenic, I don't know how it got a reputation among hippies as being some kind of health food.
Animal WELFARE = treat animals humanely, co-exist with animals, if animals are killed for food it should be as quick and painless as possible.
Animal RIGHTS = extinction of domestic animals, zero human/animal interaction
(yes, I know humans are animals, by animal I mean non-human animal)
Why is it always brought up "how much grain cows eat"? Buy from local farmers that keep their cows on pasture. Cows are not meant to eat grain!
I just took a few pictures last weekend when I was back visiting my parents: http://abby-eats.blogspot.com/2010/11/northwestern-kansas-pictures-part-i.html
Note that the pasture land would be impossible to farm. And the cattle you find on flat land are just moved onto it to eat crop stubble. And the "wasted land used to feed cattle"? Check out the haybale in the ditch, farmers can sign up for stretches of ditch to bale for animal feed.
As far as soybeans go, they really are not fit for human consumption. The only soy humans should eat is fermented soy (tempeh, miso, etc.). Unfermented soy acts as anti-nutrient. Not to mention the estrogen-like properties it has, and the fact it also contains substances that block the parts of the brain responsible for memory and decision making. A study in Hawaii showed correlation between eating tofu 2+ times a week and increased Alzheimer's risk.
Soy is on my "avoid" list.
livestock production is at the heart of almost every environmental stress confronting the planet: rain forest destruction, growing deserts, loss of fresh water, air and water pollution, acid rain, floods and soil erosion.
Lierre Keith, formerly a vegan for 20 years, and author of the book, "The Vegetarian Myth", would disagree. She would say that about monocrops, such as corn, soybeans, wheat, etc.
Sort of. It's a bacon and cheese sandwich made with fried chicken instead of a bun."
Interesting.
Where do they serve this type thing? Is this inside or outside the US?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Where do they serve this type thing?
Kentucky Fried Chicken
Is this inside or outside the US?
Yes
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
oops, accidentally posted as AC. See below comment.
Where do they serve this type thing? Is this inside or outside the US?
It's served at Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food restaurants in the United States, as well as in some of the KFC restaurants in other countries around the world. Although it has gone nationwide in the United States, the Wikipedia page on the sandwich suggests that it is still an experimental product in the other countries.
It is delicious.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
Or "People Euthanizing Thousands of Animals"
Or "Poorly Educated Teen Activists"
More than 70 % of all corn and 85 % of all oats grown in America are fed to cattle. Researchers Gold and Porrit found that all the grains used in agriculture worldwide are enough to satisfy the caloric needs of 8.7 Billion people, more than all the people on earth.
;)
I think Lierre Keith hasn't done her homework
As a meat eater you indirectly consume vast amounts of soy, far more than a vegan. See for yourself, straight from an agricultural statistics source (end of page especially).
Reading comments like these, generously dissing PETA, you'd think the organization was actually set up by people who hate animals and whose only aim is to get them tortured and killed. Seriously, you guys are way off.
Everytime there's a news item related in some way to PETA, anywhere on the web, you can be sure there's a delegation of haters who are going to make these preposterous posts that get more and more implausible as you read: first PETA is described as inefficient idiots, then as liars inclined to cruelty until they are no more than a bunch of sadists and extremists. You would have people believe they eat pups meat or whatnot.
I find this totally bewildering. It's misinformation at its best; they can't just be disliked or disregarded, lies have to be spread about them in a propaganda fashion. Clearly, none of you know what PETA does for animals. All you have is this deep-rooted prejudice made of hate and ignorance, fueled by things you've read here and there online from other people who knew no better and had a grudge against them. It's just a long chain of slanders without actual knowledge of the facts or the people involved. For starters, PETA is certainly NOT against adoptions. Straight from the mouth of their president, Ingrid Newkirk (source):
"If anyone has a good home, love, and respect to offer, we beg them: Go to a shelter and take one or two animals home. The problem is that few people do that, choosing instead to go to a breeder or a pet shop and not "fixing" their dogs and cats, which contributes to the high euthanasia rate that animal shelters face."
Yes, they have to make tough decisions like euthanizing animals, because there's overpopulation, they explain it. They also explain that no-kill shelters, that someone mentioned, simply don't work (in short, they reject animals they don't find suitable for adoption or store them in cage until further notice; the lucky ones are sent to normal shelters that do perform euthanasia).
Dogs, cats and others pets are sexually mature within a year, have short gestation periods and easily half a dozen babies in one litter. Do you realize how many animals can be born in a few months time? What do you do with them? Release them all in the wild? That's why PETA has many campaigns to raise awareness on the importance of neutering and spaying, among other things.
I know some people who work for PETA. They're brave and kind, have to deal with a lot of foul-mouthed idiots on a daily basis. The only thing you could blame PETA for is to like animals too much. But this is a hardly a fault in their line of work.
As for the way they spend their funds, think of it this way: they have enough money to do both all the stupid things you complained about (ads, parody games, etc) AND all the other important things, for the animals. How did they get so much money ? Through donations and endorsement. How did they get so much support? By being talked about and known by everyone. How did they achieve that? By doing all the stupid things you complained about. Circle closed.
You know why that is? Corn subsidies. The corn grown and fed to livestock and used for fuel isn't corn you would want to eat off the cob. Corn is cheap, hence why it's in EVERYTHING; not just livestock feed but in most produces in the grocery store.
Humans can't survive on grain alone. Try it, you'll end up weak, blind, probably crazy, and eventually dead.
Farming ideally would be done like the Polyface farm does it. Rotating livestock, they actually build topsoil. And provide not only calories, but NUTRITION; you could live solely off what they grow/raise on their farm and no outside food. You could not live solely off a corn.
Why don't you read Lierre Keith's book before you write her off? She had done her homework, and her book cites all the sources she used. Or are you just threatened she might actually confront you with logic?
An animal eating soy doesn't directly mean I am eating soy (getting the estrogen-like affects from it, the blocking of memory and decision making in the brain, etc).. And I don't eat feedlot beef anyway, I buy grass-fed beef, and other livestock usually fed grass/hay (goat, lamb, etc.). Or I eat wild game meat, which yes, sometimes they get into the soybean fields; but that's only a couple months out of the year and not their sole diet.
Asian counties traditionally eat (a) fermented soy, and (b) use soy more as a condiment, not a protein replacement. A study of Chinese diets concluded the average person there eats only 9 grams of soy a day. (Diet, Lifestyle and Mortality in China. A study of the characteristics of 65 counties. Monograph, joint publication of Oxford University Press, Cornell University Press, China People's Medical Publishing House)
Soybeans were grown for ground-cover and to fix the nitrogen in the soil. The only time Asians would eat large amounts of soy was when they were starving.
You are confusing what factory farming has done to meat with what meat actually is. There's a difference. If I were to put a carcinogenic into a glass of water, that doesn't mean the water itself is carcinogenic, it means what I've done to alter it is bad.
I don't know man. We can debate on this forever but all I have to work with is my own experience. I haven't eaten meat or fish parts in almost 22 years yet my doctor tells me year on year I'm in weirdly great shape. I'm very fit and get the flu around once a year, for a couple of days, never more. I'm rarely tired/lazy and am very productive in my chosen career.
I grew up on a farm and have eaten many animals that I myself have killed. So close was my relationship with this process that it seems abstract/unnatural/wrong to pay another to kill on my behalf. I'll only eat what I kill and if hungry enough I'd eat anything (or anyone for that matter!). We're animals like any other. To say otherwise is to reach for mythology.
The reality is sustainable grass-fed meat, satisfying a world population of meat-eaters, is a fantasy given today's consumption habits. 200 years ago, sure. Today -grass fed or not- meat takes around 7 times more land than grain to grow while we, as a species, are breeding like rabbits. Much of the world is starving, hungry for grain stupidly maldistributed into agriculture. 70% of the Amazon has been cleared for grain 90% of which is fed to cattle elsewhere. It is madness. The trick is to eat the bean before it ends up on the cow.
Agriculture is devastating the planet and I choose not to fund this. Read the UN Food and Agricultural Association's report. Conservative estimates place 50% of all tenable land on earth being dedicated to chicken, pig and cow parts by 2050. Once read, sit down for a steak, bought at your local bio-shop.
If there's one thing we need to do now, it's eat less meat. Ideally none other than that feeling creature you kill yourself.
We don't need to eat meat. It's a fetish, and a very environmentally costly one at that, given our number.
By necessity, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuban agriculture went almost completely organic. Also, an amazing percentage of the fresh produce eaten in Havana is grown within the city--urban agriculture. During WWII, Americans were encouraged to plant "Victory Gardens" to help free up resources for the war effort. Some neighbors of mine have a sign up in front of their house that says "Food, Not Lawns".
Nothing interesting to say...MUST...NOT...REPLY...ohtheheckwithit.
I'm not a man, I'm a woman.
I'm glad you are healthy. But not all vegetarians/vegans are healthy on their chosen diet; going veg*n is not "one-size-fits-all". Lierre Keith is one such individual; her health was destroyed by being vegan for 20 years.
Here's the experiences of a couple other women:
http://crunchychewymama.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-im-not-vegetarian-anymore.html
http://voraciouseats.com/2010/11/19/a-vegan-no-more/
I'm not against vegetarian diets, I eat a good number of vegetarian meals myself, I just cook meals that (a) taste good, and (b) are healthy. I believe people can be healthy on a vegetarian or omnivorous diet. However, I don't find the vegan diet to be "healthy".
By reading your posts, it seems you think perhaps you are the only one on slashdot that grew up on a farm. And I grew up on a farm too. My background is very rooted in agrculture. My family grew crops (primarily wheat and milo), raised livestock (primarily cattle and sheep), and ran a grain elavator. My family also hunts. I know very well where my food comes from.
I like meat. It's natural to eat meat. It's not natural to eat grains; and the eating of grains has allowed the human population to explode.
Most pasture land is unfit for crops. Too sandy, rocky, hilly, etc. It would be impossible to get a tractor or combine around this land. A diet that includes some meat is actually a more efficient use of land. http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/534100
As far as feeding the world's hungry, Western societies sending grain to them actually worsens the problem. It ends up hurting the local economy of an already ailing country even more, and makes the farmers there unneeded so there's even more people in need.
Meat is a fetish? Um... whatever floats your boat! I guess Lady Gaga did wear that meat outfit...
I'm curious, what do you eat if you don't eat meat and don't eat monocrops? Do you grow all of your own food?
Maybe PETA could give you a queasy feeling about meat by making a game where disgusting meat, blood and gore splatters everywhere every time you fail. And you can easily fail every few seconds, splattering horror all around the world....
OH WAIT THAT'S WHAT SUPER MEAT BOY ALREADY IS!
I read the article you link to and see it is very location specific indeed. In any case it doesn't have any real statistics and contradicts much of the data in the UN Food and Agriculture Report, at least when generalised to a pan-American or Europe-wide geography (where I live).
Simply put, grass fed cow parts are nutritionally ideal but take much longer to raise (more water and resources over a lifetime) and consume larger amounts of space overall due to the comparative inefficiencies of grain vs grass. At current rates of meat consumption we'd need to raze a hell of a lot more forest to support this ideal form of producing edible animal pieces, even if we did turn those monocrops to grass.
To reiterate, already at today's rates of consumption -continuing with ~80% grain-supplemented feed for the majority of animals eaten- conservative estimates place 50% of all tenable land on earth will be dedicated to chicken, pig and cow parts by 2050. One (luxury) food stuff with a ~54:1 protein inefficiency ratio!
Again, the world agricultural authority, comprised of highly respected scientists, The FAO, says that agriculture is at the heart of both every environmental stress on the planet, floods, acid rain, erosion, pollution of water ways, deforestation..
In the absense of meat-trees (which I fully support) there's only one thing to do to ensure future generations of humans have a breathable, bareable, biologically diverse world to live in: eat less, ideally no, meat. It's not working and solely eating grass fed animals are the inverse of a solution to this effect. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices, disciplining our hedonism and dietary vanities to look after the big picture. Many traditions prove to be stupid when shifted into a contemporary context, meat eating in the 21st century is one of them and will be remembered as such, along-with human slavery, inequality to women and lead pipes. A very smart thing to do to reduce environmental impact of this selfish diet is to raise your kids vegetarian. Kids I've known raised vegetarian think meat is a bizarre hedonism, right into adulthood!
I live in a city with very cheap and high quality markets, Eating out is also easy. I don't have a garden, though I'd love one. I try to eat an entirely raw, dairy-free meal at least once a day, not out of dietary convention but simply because I am a faster thinker and feel physically stronger if I do.
A typical day might start with brown sunflower-seed bread with olive oil, rock salt and a thin slice of Queso de Manchego or porridge and chopped banana with a little soy milk and brown sugar. I'll often have a soy-milk latte or black espresso, made at home. Lunch may include a fresh chopped celery and bulgar salad with walnuts, volcanic salt and olive-oil/honey dressing. I live in an area with excellent turkish food, so if I'm out I might have a falafel with pickles or haloumi and oven baked potato wedges thrown in. Maybe I'll grab some lebanese or whip together a fresh mozzarella ball, cherry tomato and basil salad. For dinner I might have a green curry with coconut milk, sweet courgette, green sprouts and button mushrooms, tempeh or seitan on a bed of black rice; oven baked Parmigiani Aubergine or Setas de la Plancha with white wine marinade. To K.I.S.S I may just put together a whole grain pasta, with chopped almonds, paprika sauce and a little rocket salad on the side. Glass of wine or wheat beer follows.
Cheers,
Humans cannot live on grain alone. And the entire planet cannot be planted to grain; crops need rotated and summer-fallowed. And land used for pasture is not ideal for crops. All the claims I've seen about land use only talk about acreage, not quality of land. And many of your smaller farmers have both crops and livestock, when they harvest the crop, they move the cattle onto the land for a while to eat the stubble. Also, hay for cattle is often grown on "waste land", such as ditches and waterways, it's not using up crop land.
Kids raised vegetarian don't like meat because their parents have told them it's bad. I don't like peas because my mom hates them, I heard my entire childhood that peas were gross. Just like Americans don't eat bugs because that's our culture and we see them as "creepy crawlies", while many other cultures see bugs as food.
You are comparing eating something our bodies have evolved to eat over millions of years to slavery and women's rights?!
Our physiological makeup determines our diet; we are omnivores so we can survive on a vegetarian diet, but not a vegan diet (without supplementation). No traditional culture in history has ever been vegan, they would have died out long ago if they were. The traditional vegetarian groups highly prize eggs and dairy for their nutrition.
Also, I've noticed that most veg*ns I've encountered on the internet have never even been to a farm! (You say you grew up on a farm, I'm going to guess your parents probably did NOT abuse their livestock. And don't you remember what the pasture looked like versus the crop land? Crop land = relatively flat ground; pature land = hills, rocks)
Eating grains is what allowed our population to explode. The continuation of eating grains is just a "band aid", it isn't a solution, it will just be more of the same problem. The solution is sustainable farming.
So in other words: you eat monocrops.
That last sentence was a little unclear. I was referring to grains & legumes in your diet, those are grown as large monocrops.
Please provide a link.
I think you'll find that it's not humans eating grains which has allowed our population to explode but grain production, most of which is fed to livestock. People that eat meat are the bread and butter of the monocrop sector.
To reiterate, In the U.S., animals are fed more than 80 percent of the corn and 95 percent of the oats grown. The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food estimated to be equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people, more than the entire human population on Earth. Agriculture, as it is now is the source of tthe monocrop problem and its impact on bbiodiversity.
I, as a longtime vegetarian, fund the tiniest proportion of monocrop grain compared to meat eaters like yourself. In fact on analysis, the only real crop of that genre that I do dip into is soy, of which I consume around a gram a day when averaged over a week. Most of this is in the form of soymilk (just 2.5g soy protein/litre!). People that eat biscuits, breakfast cereals, chocolate and even non-meat fast-food consume much more than that a day, lest of all all the soy that the animals they eat consume. I think you have weird ideas about where monocrop grain actually ends up.. It's not in vegetarians, for the most part!
I wish you the best in your efforts to find a way to make farming sustainable at today's level of meat consumption. Sadly I think it's an absolute pipe dream, given the research I've read and observing how the non-industrialised farming community I grew up in is collapsing under industrial competition from elsewhere, competition which meets demand.
A sustainable farming mandate == much less meat for everyone. The research is out there..
Yes. In order to morally justify eating another animal one inevitably depends on a spiritual power granting those rights. As a moral atheist, I see no reason why a pig should not be able to live a life despite the interests of man. I cannot see why a bull should have any more rights than a person, or vice versa. To say otherwise depends on some higher order, which, in other words, wanders down the garden path away from science and into hokuspokus. Like any of us, were I truly starving I would find myself caring little for morals, and would likely not hesitate to eat any walking or swimming thing around
Slavery is thousands of years old and has been abolished. Skin colour is no longer a valid basis for discrimination. The institutionalised prejudice of women, once granted by God, is also on the way out, at least in the West. The farming of animals is unnecessary with an abundance of more practical and far less environmentally damaging sources of calories and proteins. Just as with slavery, rampant racism, imperialism and sexism, I find the prejudice against our fellow animals (and their environment)- the mass, organised slaughter of other male and female mammals- to be abject and morally corrupt.
I expect we'll be forced to advance beyond such selfish stupidity, after a planet-wide environmental collapse.
Please provide a link.
Read the book "The Vegetarian Myth", she has an entire section on this topic.
People that eat meat are the bread and butter of the monocrop sector.
Not if they are eating pastured livestock.
To reiterate, In the U.S., animals are fed more than 80 percent of the corn and 95 percent of the oats grown. The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food estimated to be equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people, more than the entire human population on Earth.
Again, not if they are pastured livestock.
And you cannot say that grain used for animal feed could be used to feed humans, eating solely corn would kill people of malnutrition. Calories != nutrition.
I, as a longtime vegetarian, fund the tiniest proportion of monocrop grain compared to meat eaters like yourself. People that eat biscuits, breakfast cereals, chocolate and even non-meat fast-food consume much more than that a day, lest of all all the soy that the animals they eat consume. I think you have weird ideas about where monocrop grain actually ends up.. It's not in vegetarians, for the most part!
You sure make a lot of assumptions. You have no idea what type of food I eat.
For your information: I try to follow the Paleo diet for the most part. I eat very little bread and virtually zero fast-food. And the meat I do eat is pastured domestic livestock or wild game meat.
I wish you the best in your efforts to find a way to make farming sustainable at today's level of meat consumption.
I never said people should eat at today's levels of consumption. The Standard American Diet is pathetic; I'm just saying that everyone going veg*n isn't the answer.
In order to morally justify eating another animal one inevitably depends on a spiritual power granting those rights. As a moral atheist, I see no reason why a pig should not be able to live a life despite the interests of man. I cannot see why a bull should have any more rights than a person, or vice versa.
Your individual morals do not make things right on wrong. Some people think premaritial intercourse is immoral, some do not.
I do not find eating animals to be immoral. It's the food chain. For one to live, another must die.
1. herbivore or omnivore eats grass
2. omnivore or carnivore eats animal in step 1
3. grass (plants/soil) eats the animals in step 1 and 2 when they die (essentially soil is omnivorous)
Are you opposed to a lion eating an antelope? If humans and non-human animals are "equal", why do you expect humans to deprive themselves of their natural diet?
As I said earlier, I have no problems eating what I kill, I have done this extensively in the past, just as your lion eats an antelope rather than going to the local lion supermarket. I've killed and eaten animals with the technological advantage of a gun, a knife or a trap in the absense of an actual predatorial body capable of killing 'game' alone. Unlike the lion, we're rubbish at hunting without prostheses.
All said, if you think 'farming', with or without antibiotics, corn-fed-cows, trucks and transport, growth hormones and selective breeding has anything to do with this romantic 'food chain', I'm afraid we're on vastly different pages. Farming represents the antithesis of a food chain, a gross and inhumane abstraction away from the complex biodiversity that seeded our species in the first place. Farming, it is widely understood, is the greatest threat to biodiversity worldwide, 'grass fed' or not. You still need a lot of cleared land, land with grass, and thousands of litres of water for every kg of meat yielded pumped in from elsewhere. Farming continues to be a very environmentally selfish thing to fund.
Nice chatting. I'm signing out on this thread.