Transcript Vegetarianism - Fine Folks Forum

Diet for Humanity’s Long-Term Survival on
Earth
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International Vegetarian Union Definition:
“Someone who lives on a diet of grains, pulses, nuts, vegetables and
fruits with, or without, the use of dairy products and eggs. A vegetarian
does not eat meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or by-products of
slaughter.”
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Origin of Term:
Coined by the British Vegetarian Society in the mid-1800’s. Derived from
Latin “vegetus” – vegetable as reference to “source of life”
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Types:
Lacto-ovo-vegetarian
 Lacto-vegetarian
 Vegan – no food derived from animals; use/wear no products derived
from animals
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Early Times
 Pre-history:
- early humans mostly gatherers than hunters; digestive system
resembling that of other plant-eating animals.
 Antiquity:
- Babylon, Egypt: Animals treated as kindred; Practised among religious
groups related to karmic beliefs;
- Greece: Pythagoras (580 BCE) – against cruelty to animals; health
advantages; key factor for peaceful human co-existence; Plato,
Socrates, Plutarch.
- Asia: Hinduism and Buddhism: “Ahimsa” – total non-violence and
respect of all life forms.
 Christianity: Human supremacy over all living things (influenced by
Aristotle); break-away unorthodox groups, such as Manicheanism (3 –
10 century AD), Bogomils (Bulgaria); persecution of heretics.
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Renaissance and Enlightenment
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Revival of Pythagorian and Neo-Platonic thought: animal sentiency;
Leonardo Da Vinci: denounced meat eating repulsed by slaughter;
John Locke: animals as intelligent creatures;
Voltaire, Rousseau: questioned man’s inhumanity to animals.
Romantics and Reformers (19th century)
 Mary and Percy Shelley, Byron, Jeremy Bentham;
 British Vegetarian Society (1809), American Vegetarian Society (1850).
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The Twentieth Century
 Mahatma Gandhi – vegetarianism and non-violence;
 Peter Singer – Animal Liberation (1975) experimentation, factory farms;
 PETA – Animal rights movement.
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Health benefits/Nutrition
Environmental concerns
Ethical/moral considerations
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Cancer – lower risk of breast, colon, ovarian,
prostate and other cancers;
Heart disease – low risk as a result of low saturated
fat, and cholesterol;
Blood pressure – reduced blood viscosity;
Diabetes – prevents and reverses the disease;
Gallstones, kidney stones, osteoporosis – low
risks;
Asthma – reduces severity;
Obesity – lower BMI.
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Protein – Beans, lentils, tofu, nuts, seeds, tempeh,
chickpeas, peas etc.;
Iron – Tofu, tempeh, spinach, baked potatoes,
cashews, dried fruits, bulgur etc.;
Calcium – Broccoli, collard greens, kale, mustard
greens, tofu, etc.
Vitamin B12 – Fortified foods: cereals, nutritional
yeast, soymilk, veggie “meats”;
Children - Meets all nutrient needs for infants and
children.
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Carbon footprint – livestock farming: 20% of total
greenhouse gas emissions;
Water – livestock farming 8% of global water use;
Agriculture: 73%; 1 kg beef = 13,000 to 100,000 l;
1 kg wheat = 1,000 to 2,000 l;
Land – 30% of earth’s entire land surface or 70% of all
agricultural land used to rear animals; meat-eater – 2.5 times
more land than a vegetarian (5 times vegan);
Oceans – in 2011, 154 million tonnes of fish (90 million
from catch, 64 million from aquaculture); 300,000 whales,
dolphins and porpoises killed every year as “by-catch”.
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Status: entity vs commodity;
Sentiency: criterion for compassion;
Human supremacy: by what decree of authority?
 Religion: Christianity’s dualism;
 Enslavement: human and animal;
 Racism, Sexism, Xenophobia, Speciesism.
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Animal rights movement: “Animals are NOT ours
to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or
abuse in any other way.”
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Pythagoras: “Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul”; “For as
long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.” “Indeed, he who
sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.”
Plato: “The gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies… they
are the trees and the plants and the seeds.”
Gautama Buddha: “The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great
compassion.”
Leonardo Da Vinci: “My body is not a tomb for animals.” “I have from an early
age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will
look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.”
Voltaire: “Men fed upon carnage, and drinking strong drinks, have all an
empoisoned and arid blood which drives them mad in a hundred different
ways.”
Mary Shelley: “my food is not that of man, I do not destroy the lamb and kid
to glut my appetite, acorns and berries afford my sufficient nourishment.”
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Leo Tolstoy: “Flesh eating is simply immoral, as it involves the
performance of an act, which is contrary to moral feeling: killing.”;
“For as long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.”
Mohandas Ghandi: “I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some
stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction
of our bodily wants.”
Albert Einstein: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances
for survival of life on earth as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
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Abraham Lincoln: “I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights.
This is the way of a whole human being.”
Alice Walker: The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They
were not made for humans any more than black people were made for
white, or women created for men.”
Dr. Albert Schweitzer: “The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs
no matter how deeply rooted in tradition or surrounded by a halo… We
need a boundless ethic which will include the animals also.”
“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will
not himself find peace.”
Charles Darwin: “The love for all living creatures is the most noble of
attribute of man.”
Ingrid Newkirk: “When it comes to having a central nervous system, and
the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.”
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Michael Pollan: “A growing and increasingly influential movement of
philosophers, ethicists, law professors and activists are convinced that the
great moral struggle of our time will be for the rights of animals.”
Jeremy Bentham: “The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they
talk?, but rather, Can they suffer?”
Isaac Bashevis Singer: “To be a vegetarian is to disagree – to disagree with
the course of things today. Starvation, world hunger, cruelty, waste, wars –
we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my
statement. And I think it’s a strong one.”
Albert Einstein: “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those
who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”
Questions?/Comments!