No more meat?

[Pope Joan]

What about insect meat, locusts are low effort, high in protain and tasty.

Supposedly termites taste like litchi nuts.

http://drdons.net/how-do-termites-taste

[The Realm of God]

What about insect meat, locusts are low effort, high in protain and tasty.

Have you ever had fried bamboo caterpillars? They're delicious. Like french fries.

Honestly, bugs could be a viable replacement so long as we focus on those with a low amount of chitin. We don't digest large quantities of chitin very well, do we? (Yes I know it's a complex carbohydrate. Try eating crab shells, those are chitin.)

EDIT: We could even make bug factories! Get a large enough amount of them and use a very easily obtainable carbohydrate with a small amount of protein for them in a closed environment (factory) and as they grow, which is fairly quickly, they would then be taken and roasted! Or baked, or fried... Endless possibilities! Although I think a bug steak might be a little too far.

I have not had the pleasure. Most insect is delicious as Long as it's not too large. I chose locusts and crickets because they taste the best.

[Poorisolation]

Hum but what about the trade off that humans uniquely endow their prey of protection from other predators, protection from parasites, protection from dioceses?

Uh? Their lives aren't elongated at all. Their lives are cut short by the simply fact they are slaughtered rather quickly. We only give them antibiotics so the meat doesn't become infected and dangerous for us. Ultimately though, the overuse of antibiotics is harming us.

Carcases of animals in the wild that have been autopsied demonstrate evidence of long term exposure to high levels of stress. This evidence is to be found in the development of their bones and their muscular and endocrine systems. It has been noted by numerous gastronomes that meat from stressed animals does not taste as good as meat from ones that have lived calmer lives.

Okay? Not seeing the relevance at all.

Note I do not use terms like happy or unhappy to describe the differences between a life of high stress and low stress but given that almost all animals and in particular those human prey species that have been domesticated are subject to predation then is that human predation in your eyes morally wrong and/or would the release of domesticated prey animals such as for example sheep and cattle into the wild be justified?

Yes.

The point is and here we disagree, I assume that the humans do provide a unique trade off to their prey species, more animals are born and survive than would do so in the wild and while many of of these animals are killed within their first year this is no different from the kind of mortality incidence to be expected in the wild. In addition to this the manner of death is at worse no more distressing than would be experienced by said animal in the wild and as methods of slaughter progress and humane best practice spreads increasingly the deaths are a lot more painless and less stressful than would have been experienced by a wild animal.

Humans are at worse no crueller predators than any other kind and unlike other kinds they provide a unique symbiotic trade off to most of their prey species. Thus my contention is that eating meat is not of itself made morally flawed by any contention that the meat animal 'suffers' as it would certainly have suffered without human intervention. The human part of the experience can of course be improved by reducing the suffering of the animal in question but that does not preclude the eating of it.

[Stroznia]

No, you're justifying your actions by saying pain will limit our actions anyway, so there is no need to actively do anything. You're saying that pain is success because it creates compassion and makes us better as humans.

Have you seen the designs floating around the internet for a "matrix-style" chicken farm where the animals have their frontal cortexes and eyes removed so they can't feel pain, their legs removed to save space, and they are linked together in vertical frames by a network of tubes?
Here's the article if you think you can stomach it: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/02/ ... -solution/

This so-called "painless" solution, in my opinion, is way worse than anything that exists in the real world.

In an attempt to avoid feeling bad, we can diminish pain, we can get it all over-with at once, we can throw science and money at the pain to make it "somebody else's problem" elsewhere in the economic web of life. But it can't be gotten rid of.

So do we run from it or do we take responsibility for it?

Contrast the above system to indigenous peoples like the bushmen in the Kalahari desert. They very rarely eat meat, but occasionally need to. When they do hunt, they use poison-tipped arrows that, when they pierce the skin of the animal, cause the animal to drift off to sleep and die. The hunter remains with the animal, talks to it, and tells it everything is going to be okay. If that butchering style is one thing, it's compassionate. Matrix-style chicken farms are not.

Com-passion means together-suffering. It's saying, "Your pain is my pain. I'd rather you live, but if you must die, I'll at least suffer with you."

My two cents, at least.

[Stroznia]

What about insect meat, locusts are low effort, high in protain and tasty.

Yeah! I like to tell people, "if you eat shrimp, you already eat bugs."
Every seafood lover knows Arthropods are tasty and locusts used to be a big cuisine.
BBB!
Bring Back Bugs!

[Mavorpen]

The point is and here we disagree, I assume that the humans do provide a unique trade off to their prey species, more animals are born and survive than would do so in the wild and while many of of these animals are killed within their first year this is no different from the kind of mortality incidence to be expected in the wild. In addition to this the manner of death is at worse no more distressing than would be experienced by said animal in the wild and as methods of slaughter progress and humane best practice spreads increasingly the deaths are a lot more painless and less stressful than would have been experienced by a wild animal.

This is a completely false dichotomy for several reasons. First of all, more of these animals are born, however significantly less actually live long lives than they would in the wild. Second of all, I feel like I'm going in circles. It would help if you actually read previous posts of mine. How they die in the wild compared to how we kill them means absolutely nothing. Third, (this is the big reason why this point is wholly silly in the first place), this logic would not fly concerning humans. Let's use your logic.

In Africa, tribes were constantly in conflict. Africans were being killed and sold into slavery by their fellow Africans from different tribes. However, we gave them an escape. Good, moral, Christian Americans gave them shelter, food, and protection. All they had to do was a little manual labor and be treated like objects. But nevermind that. They were sold by their own fellow Africans anyway! Chances are they would have been enslaved anyway. However, if they were enslaved in Africa, their conditions would have been significantly more worse. Thus, it's more moral for America to have slaves than for us to not have slaves. We get labor, and they have better lives. Everyone wins!

Humans are at worse no crueller predators than any other kind and unlike other kinds they provide a unique symbiotic trade off to most of their prey species. Thus my contention is that eating meat is not of itself made morally flawed by any contention that the meat animal 'suffers' as it would certainly have suffered without human intervention. The human part of the experience can of course be improved by reducing the suffering of the animal in question but that does not preclude the eating of it.

Um, no. We are crueler. We can empathize better than pretty much any other species. We have the choice to eat meat or not, while other predatory species do not have that luxury. We do have a symbiotic relationship, however it is a commensal relationship, perhaps even parasitic.

Your argument that eating meat isn't immoral because they would have suffered anyway is vehemently refuted by the fact that this argument does not hold water concerning humans, as I already explained. Since when is reducing suffering an ample replacement for eradicating it in the first place? That's utterly asinine.

[The Realm of God]

What about insect meat, locusts are low effort, high in protain and tasty.

Yeah! I like to tell people, "if you eat shrimp, you already eat bugs."
Every seafood lover knows Arthropods are tasty and locusts used to be a big cuisine.
BBB!
Bring Back Bugs!

I'll agree with you there.

[Trotskylvania]

No, no and thrice no.

Part of the reason is this stuff cellulose which humans cannot digest but cows and other animals with long guts can. Another part of the reason is that while all cereals are grasses not all grasses are cereals. Cows in particular but other animals too can eat and digest grasses inedible to humans and so can be sustained in regions unsuitable for cereal agriculture.

Thus the resource gap is nowhere near ten times.

I was being conservative actually. If you're just looking at fresh water, which is the most likely bottlegap, it's ten times as much, even if you're just dealing with grass-fed animals. It is even higher with grain fed animals, which is a huge portion of our production. As fresh water stocks are brought to full exploitation, something is going to have to give. It will be meat production.

That said meat production in America in particular is very inefficient with many cattle being fed on corn (maize) which is extremely silly as farmers are essentially feeding their bullocks (steers) the part of the plant that humans could eat while not feeding them the part of the plant that cattle could digest and humans cannot but the cows would not suffer a huge loss in calorific intake. Worse this practice at this time appears to be spreading.

They're feeding them the indigestible parts as well. That is the problem. Sustaining the level of meat consumption in the united states is only possible thanks to the inefficient use of cereal grains to feed livestock.

So yes you ought to expect an upward trend on your McDouble but by how much is hard to quantify, $100 seems a bit high (in today's prices) but anywhere from $5-25 would not make me blink if cited as a prediction, the wide value range being due to the wide range of variables. Still even so much as $5 would price it out of many people's pockets globally.

Edit note: mashed up the links take 3: oh and incoherence

Well, to be honest, even if a McDouble is 5 dollars, all things being equal, even Americans are going be eating a lot less meat. If meat prices were that high, I'd have to become a de facto vegetarian based on my budget.

[Gauthier]

What I don't get are vegans who don't bat an eye at lions, tigers, and bears (oh my) making a meal out of some four-legged creature, but the second a human touches so much as a slice of bacon there's a diatribe on immorality and barbarism.

[Mavorpen]

What I don't get are vegans who don't bat an eye at lions, tigers, and bears (oh my) making a meal out of some four-legged creature, but the second a human touches so much as a slice of bacon there's a diatribe on immorality and barbarism.

So if you see a lion raping another lion, you don't bat an eye at it, therefore we shouldn't bat an eye at people raping other people.

Seriously, did you just make this argument?

[Big Jim P]

What I don't get are vegans who don't bat an eye at lions, tigers, and bears (oh my) making a meal out of some four-legged creature, but the second a human touches so much as a slice of bacon there's a diatribe on immorality and barbarism.

Hypocrisy, thy name is human.

[Big Jim P]

What I don't get are vegans who don't bat an eye at lions, tigers, and bears (oh my) making a meal out of some four-legged creature, but the second a human touches so much as a slice of bacon there's a diatribe on immorality and barbarism.

So if you see a lion raping another lion, you don't bat an eye at it, therefore we shouldn't bat an eye at people raping other people.

Seriously, did you just make this argument?

Lions don't rape other lions.

[Gauthier]

What I don't get are vegans who don't bat an eye at lions, tigers, and bears (oh my) making a meal out of some four-legged creature, but the second a human touches so much as a slice of bacon there's a diatribe on immorality and barbarism.

So if you see a lion raping another lion, you don't bat an eye at it, therefore we shouldn't bat an eye at people raping other people.

Seriously, did you just make this argument?

No, you did. If human beings weren't supposed to eat meat then meat would pretty much be indigestible by the human anatomy.

[Mavorpen]

So if you see a lion raping another lion, you don't bat an eye at it, therefore we shouldn't bat an eye at people raping other people.

Seriously, did you just make this argument?

Lions don't rape other lions.

They sometimes do.

[Gauthier]

What about insect meat, locusts are low effort, high in protain and tasty.

Have you ever had fried bamboo caterpillars? They're delicious. Like french fries.

Honestly, bugs could be a viable replacement so long as we focus on those with a low amount of chitin. We don't digest large quantities of chitin very well, do we? (Yes I know it's a complex carbohydrate. Try eating crab shells, those are chitin.)

EDIT: We could even make bug factories! Get a large enough amount of them and use a very easily obtainable carbohydrate with a small amount of protein for them in a closed environment (factory) and as they grow, which is fairly quickly, they would then be taken and roasted! Or baked, or fried... Endless possibilities! Although I think a bug steak might be a little too far.

Aside from insects probably being similar to shellfish in terms of allergy, quite a bit of insects have parasites that take careful cooking to kill off.

[Mavorpen]

No, you did. If human beings weren't supposed to eat meat then meat would pretty much be indigestible by the human anatomy.

If human beings weren't supposed to be raped, then the female body wouldn't produce offspring after being raped.

Your argument is painfully silly. Moreover, some herbivores can, and do digest meat. Additionally, humans can digest cardboard. I suppose we should include cardboard in our main diets.

[Gauthier]

Lions don't rape other lions.

They sometimes do.

Eating is innate to a creature's survival. Rape is not.

[Mavorpen]

They sometimes do.

Eating is innate to a creature's survival. Rape is not.

Your argument was that other creatures do it, thus it's morally okay. Now you're changing the parameters to how important it is? Here we go again with you guys shifting the focus to avoid the fact your argument is laughable. But fine, I'll play your game. Eating is innate to a creature's survival, yes. But, we have the choice of whether to eat meat or not and live healthy lives.

[Gauthier]

Eating is innate to a creature's survival. Rape is not.

Your argument was that other creatures do it, thus it's morally okay. Now you're changing the parameters to how important it is? Here we go again with you guys shifting the focus to avoid the fact your argument is laughable. But fine, I'll play your game. Eating is innate to a creature's survival, yes. But, we have the choice of whether to eat meat or not and live healthy lives.

Other creatures eat meat because that's how they stay alive. Show me a creature that has to rape in order to stay alive and you might have a point. And you had a valid point about choosing what to eat, how come there aren't any carnivores eating vegetation?

[Trotskylvania]

So if you see a lion raping another lion, you don't bat an eye at it, therefore we shouldn't bat an eye at people raping other people.

Seriously, did you just make this argument?

No, you did. If human beings weren't supposed to eat meat then meat would pretty much be indigestible by the human anatomy.

Incorrect. It's quite easy for herbivores to digest animal proteins, even if it is suboptimal for them.

[Bromeliadia]

Solution 1)In 2050 you dont need food you swallow pills.

Solution 2)
Also we will have a athist world leader who stops religous wack jobs from interfering with cloning.

Therefor you have a cow

(*Pew Pew*) (Clone Ray)

You have two cows

(Bang!!!!)

You have one cow and a pile of bacon and one less bullet

[Gauthier]

No, you did. If human beings weren't supposed to eat meat then meat would pretty much be indigestible by the human anatomy.

Incorrect. It's quite easy for herbivores to digest animal proteins, even if it is suboptimal for them.

Humans are omnivores, not herbivores.

[Mavorpen]

Your argument was that other creatures do it, thus it's morally okay. Now you're changing the parameters to how important it is? Here we go again with you guys shifting the focus to avoid the fact your argument is laughable. But fine, I'll play your game. Eating is innate to a creature's survival, yes. But, we have the choice of whether to eat meat or not and live healthy lives.

Other creatures eat meat because that's how they stay alive. Show me a creature that has to rape in order to stay alive and you might have a point.

Did you ignore everything I typed in the post you replied to? Here, I'll highlight the more important part.

Your argument was that other creatures do it, thus it's morally okay. Now you're changing the parameters to how important it is? Here we go again with you guys shifting the focus to avoid the fact your argument is laughable. But fine, I'll play your game. Eating is innate to a creature's survival, yes. But, we have the choice of whether to eat meat or not and live healthy lives.

Again, your argument was that one creature does it and isn't demonized, thus it is morally defensible for us to do it, lest we be hypocrites. I used this argument against you and applied it to rape. You then move the parameters to the importance of said action, making no mention of this in the beginning. Regardless, I already addressed your point in the first place. I NEVER said that species need rape to survive. NEVER. Yet you insist that I have even hinted at such a thing. Stop dodging my points.

[Sardine World]

i can live off of rice beans and oranges forever

[Mavorpen]

Incorrect. It's quite easy for herbivores to digest animal proteins, even if it is suboptimal for them.

Humans are omnivores, not herbivores.

Biologically, no we are not. We resemble herbivores more than carnivores in almost every factor. Regardless, Trotsky did not even say humans are omnivores, nor did he hint at it really. You dodged his point, which is that herbivores can digest animal protein, which you claimed they can't by stating that it is indigestible to herbivores.