I will never be a vegi. Ever. And the processed meat you talk about doesn’t go to everyone. I rarely buy my meat from a store or from somewhere where I don’t know where its been. I have my own livestock that we slaughter and harvest our own meat; Beef and goat. And we have a friend that does milk. So I’m safe from any infected meat. 
That as maybe, I’m talking about vegetarians.
for a population of 300 million it in no way shocks me that our food supply is contaminated with chemicals. My family has bought local meat, from local butchers who get their meat from farms not too distant, directly from the farmers. whats more scary than processed meat is Montsanto and their genetic engineering of both crops and livestock. But then again, we are now producing more food than the last 10,000 years combined. we now live longer than any other time in history. this all comes at a price. Let me remind you that their are 6 billion people to feed.
It does.
Fixed.
Factory farming uses orders of magnitude more food and water resources than it creates, FYI. The point when people are honestly concerned about world hunger is the point when we take a hard look at factory farming and meat consumption in general.
yes, but add in the factor of money. food isn’t free.
P.S. in the future, you’ll be eating bugs, not veggies.
sorry.
Actually, both vegetarians AND vegans eat neither meat NOR fish. Vegetarians who eat fish are seldom and are called pesco-vegetarians. They are their own group seperate from the others.
I have quite a few vego friends (most of them are Hindu) and its perfectly fine with me, although it can get a bit annoying when eating out with them as we have to find someplace that serves vegetarian food.
That looks quite repulsive.
I’m a vegetarian on the principle that the production of meat is more energy intensive and taxing on the environment than the production of an equal amount of plant, dairy and egg-based food products. Do you still want me to go to hell?
I can see where you’Re coming from though. Moralist vegetarianism is quite silly. Predators in nature don’t care about animal rights. I don’t see peta preaching to lions and try to stop them from eating gazelle.
I guess that depends on the reasons for being a vegetarian. Fishing isn’t quite as taxing on the environment. And quite frankly, a tuna sammich is quite awesome. If I was really consequent, I should stop eating fish, too.
Uh…
It does.
Meat is tasty.
Food isn’t free, therefore the method of food production which uses more food resources (factory farming of meat) is also more expensive.
I agree.
I’m a semi-vegetarian. That is to say, I’m not a vegetarian, but when I go out to eat or when I cook for myself, I’ll eat vegetarian.
Anyway, moralist vegetarianism isn’t about the killing of animals. It’s about how those animals are treated.
Modern meat industry is absolutely abominable.
Animals are packed together in crowded sheds, they don’t see any daylight in their life and can’t move around at all. They’re fed horribly and are often maimed and slaughtered alive.
There’s no denying that the way animals are treated in the meat industry is absolutely horrid.
Actually, fishing is extremely taxing on the environment. Many species of fish are dying out because of fishing. Coral reefs are being damaged beyond repair because of netting.
Many, many fish are caught in nets and then thrown out because they weren’t the type of fish the fishers were after.
If your reasons for being a vegetarian are environmental, eating fish should definitely be out of the question too.
I think major companies have weighed in the cost of production, and realized that cheap unhealthy meat was more profitable than crunchy carrots for their obese customer base.
did you know there is ammonia in onions. 
I buy free range products. I do this not because i care for animal rights, but because the free range chicken tastes better than the caged chicken. the fact there are so many cattle, chickens and pigs directly reflects that they are our food supply. they are their so we can live, and they can die. they are not humans, they are animals. the only standards put in place should be for the benefit of the consumer, not for the rights of the animal.
Let’s assume all animals incarcerated for our nourishment were happy free range animals. Even then some people would probably wave the moralism banner. I guess I should have been more clear on that.
Of course it is also taxing. Even the so called “fish farms” are damaging. While they keep the wanted fish in a local area and allow great control over what is being caught (they’re basically swimming wire cages), the concentrated feces of the fish are doing great damage to nearby coastal ecosystems. I could rationalize all day about why I still eat fish when I don’t eat meat for enviromental reasons, but at the end of the day it’s just that I’m not there yet to give it up. I guess I owe that much honesty to myself and this discussion.
That doesn’t excuse their treatment at all, though. It’s perfectly possible to supply the world with enough food without treating animals like absolute crap. Food companies are just too set in their ways, as it were, to change anything.
There are some companies that actually do this. They have farms where the animals are treated humanely, and aren’t fed crap that affect the quality of the meat too, and they still manage to output hugely profitable amounts of meat.
I saw a documentary on this (it was focused on the US, though), but I can’t remember the name, unfortunately.
You’re right. Selling ammonia-treated dogfood to consumers is more profitable than lean meat. Selling lean meat from a factory farm is more profitable than selling meat from a sustainable farm. Selling meat in general is more profitable than selling meat alternatives (although many “major companies” also sell meat alternatives). This is all true.
There isn’t, actually
Ammonia is used as a fertilizer for vegetables and fruits. almost all our food contains levels of ammonia in it. In fact, 83% of manufactured ammonia is used as fertilizer. This whole claim that Meat has more additives in it than vegetables and fruit is bullshit. at least in the US, the agricultural and meat giants will all find ways to maximize profits, it’s just a fact. that means, unless you buy 100% organic local food, your ingesting chemicals, anti-biotics and steroids. Its just a fact of life, you don’t have to give up meat to be healthier, just be a more conscious consumer by buying better quality goods. As more people buy better quality, the price will go down.
It’s not “in” onions, or vegetables, or fruits. It’s used as a fertilizer but we don’t eat it.
Cow shit is also used as a fertilizer, I bet you wouldn’t blink an eye if McDonalds started putting it in their hamburgers. I knew this thread was going to turn out to be hilarious when I started it, but you guys still manage to surprise me :3
you wouldn’t be able to reproduce cells without ammonia. it’s not a bad thing, if you downed a bottle of ammonia, it’s considered poison. if you eat a hamburger with .0001% ammonia in it, it’s a good thing. Ammonia is a good source of nitrogen, which is needed to create amino acids. It’s essential for the creation and replication of DNA in living organisms. a little bit of poison isn’t a bad thing. Kind of like how the little bit of radiation we receive in our lifetime may be responsible for evolution.
Ah, you added this facepalmworthy anecdote after I’d already replied the first time. Whole fruits and vegetables have no “additives” whatsoever. Yes, the SOIL is fertilized, but fertilizer != “additives.” Fertilizers are not transferred directly from soil to the fruit, that’s simply not how plants function. And sure, fields are often sprayed with herbicides or pesticides, thats the reason we wash fruits and vegetables before eating them FYI. Try washing all the antibiotics they pump through industrial animals bloodstreams out of your meat.
I get my fruits and vegetables from a local family eco-farm, so I can be pretty sure there are no pesticides nor herbicides on them. And I can be 100 % sure my money goes to farmers who actually deserve it - for providing healthy food to hundreds of households in my area. Yes, even meat (though I don’t buy it from them) - meat from healthy animals who have had a wonderful life, have been treated as sentient beings and had their fair share of good food, without being pumped full of antibiotics - because they don’t need them. The good treatment and nutrition the animals get is what keeps them healthier than than the average industrially raised livestock. And the good nutrition I get is what keeps me healthier than the average German.