^
I have respect for people who made a choice and stand by it and utter disrespect for ones who force their choices upon others.

+1. Here is one of the best explanations I've seen for eating meat.

And this as well.

He don't eat no meat? That's ok....I make lamb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnjWZT3yWWc

^

IMHO, when confronted by proselytizing vegans, the best reply is to order the veal, if it's on the menu.

PETA wants San Francisco to change the name of the Tenderloin, that's what I am talking about, 5% of the population terrorizing the rest and imposing their ideas on us


Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/politics/b...#ixzz1eAna79vC

http://www.sfexaminer.com/politics/b...ame-tenderloin

Probably the Tossed Salad is a more appropriate name anyways.

Mmm this thread is making me hungry.

I have tasty lamb cooking on the slow cooker right now.

http://richardsonfarms.com/Meats.htm

lamb isn't listed here but was available at the farmer's market today.

I am very thankful for great local farms!

I think you should be free to eat whatever you want. And I do eat meat myself. I also think it is wildly inappropriate to lecture people on what they are eating, or for that matter more or less anything else. Minding ones business is a lost art and I would have probably told the person so in no uncertain terms.

Having said that, it is wrong to confuse that freedom with thinking that it is good for you. I suspect a little meat is fine in the diet, but I think it is pretty clear that more fruits and vegetables and less meat is healthier in almost every way from cardiovascular disease risk to cancer risk.

Having gone to grad school in Ann Arbor in the 70s I learned pretty quickly that the best way to shut down aggressive vegan housemates was to boil a pot of hot dogs.

Tolerance flowing both ways would indeed be nice. Haven't eaten meat in over 20 years and I can't count the number rude, harassing, unwelcome comments I've gotten from folks who eat meat, and seem disturbed by the fact that I don't. I've never harassed them or cared what they eat, though. Got better things to do.

Unfortunately, reality has it in for you. The proportion of a person's diet consisting of animal products is directly correlated with mortality and morbidity. It's true that a vegan diet is not the healthiest - as I recall, a mostly vegetarian diet supplemented by modest amounts of fish is - but I am pretty sure a vegan diet is better than a red-meat heavy diet on those same metrics. Also, vegans don't eat "nothing but salads" - just like vegetarians don't eat "just vegetables" - despite what airlines might try to serve to them.

can you site a couple studies that show that correlation.

it drives me crazy when we have a family of house guests and a couple of them declare they are vegans, and expect me and my wife to buy and cook for them.

with all these vegans out there, how does wendies and macdonald's make so much money.

I do not buy that for a minute. I am convinced that this is pure propaganda put together by PETA and the likes. I do not have any qualitative basis to support claim (this is why I originally asked for studies) but I have a few facts that tend to support my claim:
1. Life expectancy is higher in countries with high beef consumption: Japan, France
1 Japan 82.6 79.0 86.1
2 Hong Kong ( China) 82.2 79.4 85.1
3 Iceland 81.8 80.2 83.3
4 Switzerland 81.7 79.0 84.2
5 Israel 81.6 79.7 83.4
6 Australia 81.2 78.9 83.6
7 Spain 80.9 77.7 84.2
8 Sweden 80.9 78.7 83.0
9 Macau ( China) 80.7 78.5 82.8
10 France (metropolitan) 80.7 77.1 84.1

to be compared with meat consumption
Denmark 74.1 69.2 69.2 71.1 73.7 1
Czech Republic 64.6 67.6 64.5 66.2 67.7 2
Spain 54.0 56.3 57.8 60.7 64.0 3
Germany 54.8 54.7 53.2 55.9 58.8 4
Austria 56.3 57.6 55.0 57.2 57.7 5
Hong Kong 54.4 49.9 52.7 54.9 54.3 6
Belgium-Luxembourg 54.4 55.1 43.0 47.0 52.6 7
Netherlands 44.2 44.3 42.9 43.9 43.7 8
Taiwan 40.2 41.7 39.6 44.3 42.5 9
Hungary 39.3 38.5 40.6 36.6 42.1 10
Ireland 37.9 38.4 40.2 40.1 40.5 11
Poland 38.6 41.2 34.2 38.3 39.6 12
Sweden 35.8 35.0 35.8 37.5 38.5 13
France 35.8 34.8 35.3 38.1 38.4 14
http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus..._meat_and.html


So there seems to be a correlation between meat consumption and high life expectancy

Second, the life expectancy increased dramatically in the past 200 years, and so did the individual consumption of meat. Whenever people COULD consume more meat, they WOULD. And they would become stronger and more healthy.

Similarly, while India is at the bottom of meat consumption, it is also at the bottom of life expectancy.

Once again I know correlation is not causation, but I challenge the vegans to produce unbiased stories proving that eating meat is unhealthy. What is probably unhealthy is to overeat and to avoid exercising.