From: wlmss@peg.pegasus.oz.au
Newsgroups: aus.general
Date: 03 Jan 93 03:57 EST
Subject: Vegetarian Ethics?????????????????
Nf-ID: #N:peg:993300083:000:4453
Nf-From: peg.UUCP!wlmss    Jan  3 03:57:00 1993


On - Vegetarians ARE weaker - sorry!
 
Looks like this topic got gobbled up by one of those little black holes
theorized to be orbiting inside the Earth.  A couple of minor points
snuck past unchallenged.
 
On the "thin" argument that vegetarians are probably healthier because more
take better care of their bodies than many omnivores:
 
>  "- Studies have shown Seventh Day Adventists' coronary mortality rate is 14
)  percent of the general population's.
 
comment: SDA's also avoid tobacco and alcohol. Major factors!
comment: There is no disputing a moderate balanced diet is better by far
         than a diet with excess fat and not enough fibre and nutrients.
          Moderation, not extremism is the answer.
 
On the light hearted suggestion that 3rd world people eat westerners:
 
)  I hardly think that the developed nations will consent to being fed to the
)  starving masses elsewhere.
 
comment: True. But the typical urban elite in developing nations would do
         anything to their impoverished rural populace if western countries
         made it worth their while. Look at their track record. Eating
         tender canned African and Latin American babies has tremendous
         potential for solving the world's overpopulation problem.
 
question: will this happen if/when the greenhouse effect (see csiro.public)
          destroys the world's rice harvest and the seas run out of fish?
 
AND this Whopper:
 
)  Nothing died to give me my dinner
 
comment:  Wrong! I have watched land being cleared for agriculture. Tonnes
          of creatures large and small are crushed or driven away. Those
          displaced must find a new niche or starve. Those who find a new
          niche displace other creatures who starve.
          Also I have cultivated land with a tractor. It is amazing how many
          creatures are crushed. This is constant and ongoing until the
          land is too enfeebed to support anything, at which stage more land
          is cleared.
          Also consider what cannot live so we can have our dinner. I recently
          persuaded a friend to withdraw agistment from her 5 acre block. Now
          the land next door has been grazed to stubble to make milk, while
          her land carries tonnes of tall grass in seed. This will feed
          countless insects and birds and snakes and reptiles and mammals
          that would otherwise have starved or not existed at all.
          And are there milk products in your ethically pure dinner? To
          make milk calves must be born and then taken from their mothers.
          Their bleating is heartrending. Some are trucked away to be
          used as veal. Many others are put out of their misery by being
          hit on the head with a hammer or the blunt end of an axe and
          then are left to rot. All routine practice in milk production.
          Eggs? The roosters have to be killed. Hens usually die too
          after they lay a few hundred eggs.
          And there's more. Efficient cultivation requires chemicals and
          these all impact on the ecology. "Natural" pyrethrum for just one
          single instance kills immature frogs in ponds, rivers and lakes.
          Fertilizers are hauled to the farm, food is hauled to the markets.
          Roads don't nourish the natural ecology and are in fact killing
          fields for all manner of life forms.
          And so on.......
 
          So nothing died to give you your dinner? Tell us another one!
          Sorry to burst your bubble. Perhaps too many years in rural
          areas has made me too realistic. When all the factors are
          considered meat eating may well involve less death and
          destruction than that required for the extra food vegetarians
          must eat to stay healthy and rational and insightful.
 
          But I admire your sincerity and good intentions. That puts you
          far ahead of many others!
 
                                           Lawrie Williams
 
Some suggestions to mitigate the horrible hurt we are doing to other lifeforms:
 
Burn uranium, not coal as too many radio-isotopes are entering the food chain
Stop all garbage burning urgently as this is releasing too many poisons
Australia MUST stop importing people, the pressure is already too great
Encourage energy-conserving indolence and apathy with cheap drugs (joke.joke.)
Waste less at every meal
Shoot the pope