Debate: Steak or Salad: Is Vegetarianism foolish?
Side: Steak

It's not an all or nothing deal. Even if you only did it 10 percent of the time, that's still a reduction in fat and cholesterol.Not really a vegetarian diet then, also if you consume oily fish such as Salmon, Mackerel Trout etc you could lower your cholesterol level, not increase it.It takes very little time to learn how to cook vegetables so that you get the most nutrition out of themI beg to differ, I was a Chef for eleven years, and I've seen how most people cook their vegetables, and it isn't very well. Raw is bestRaw can be good, but is not always besthttp://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/12770 http://smj.sma.org.sg/4805/4805a5.pdfhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1286457902015551 Anywho, cooking increases bio-availability, and we are the way we are(i.e. high encephalization quotient), as some believe because of the practice of cooking, due to the human brains exclusive utilization of glucose, the monomer best released via processing. Now that wasn't so difficult, was it?What you have done, is typed out a list, I will assume that, that wasn't too taxing on you.Cooking meat degrades all the same vitamins as it does in vegetables.Meat, retains more than vegetables, but should not be used as a primary energy or strict vitamin source, but is necessary for B12.You seem to be nitpicking trying to find any little thing to make a vegetarian diet look badNo, I am highlighting issues, that are relevant to your average Joe.Most of the arguments you presented apply to omnivores just as much as they do to vegetarians.They apply more to those that exclude meat and fish altogether.What we really should be focusing on is the big question; What can people get from meat that vegetarians can't get from other foodsNo, that is what you are focusing on, if we were to correctly follow the debate, you'd have to strictly stick to salad, but the inference is clearly visible.[Below is a list of the vitamins and nutrients that are in meat.] Also keep in mind that people who are too lazy to eat a balanced diet can simply take a multi-vitamin or other supplement to get anything they are lacking.Vitamins aren't everything, although essential, high vitamin consumption can be dangerous i.e. hypervitaminosis which occurs through high consumption of fat-soluble vitamins (bear that in mind when you mention 300 and 400% intake of Vitamin A and how much Vitamin K you are getting).Also, high emphasis on antioxidants is not all that people believe it to be, recent studies have found that having free radicals in the body actually bolsters the system and can help turn on genes that help protect the immune system as well as the body's regerative capability. http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v308/n2/full/scientificamerican0213-62.html We need only 2.5 to 11% of our calories from proteinWe only use protein as a caloric source if we aren't consuming enough carbs, animal based proteins, including Milk and Eggs, mirror our Amino acid profile quite closely, hence bodybuilders' use of both these proteins that are needed to build the myriad proteins we need.I haven't done any research on the effects of pesticide/herbicide residue, so I don't know if it's even something to be concerned aboutOne does not need to go very far to find the effects of benzene and other organic compounds.If it was a real problem I would think the FDA or EPA would say something.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021967397004640 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0300483X00004522 http://jech.bmj.com/content/56/11/813.short Here is one from Australia http://ajl.sagepub.com/content/6/3/250.refs Need to sign in.Here is one from Oxford University in the UK "vegetarians and fish eaters had intermediate and similar values"The above line tells us that being exclusively vegetarian makes no difference. There is a positive correlation between those that are Vegetarian, and those that actually take care of their health, via many other roots, such as water consumption, reduced reliance on medicines such as antibiotics and anti-depressants, and lack of a sedentary life-style, and zero/little reliance on processed food stuffs, although your study did take into account smoking and BMI (a poor estimation of anything), it did not take into account alcohol or other drug consumption.Simply put, and I think you'll agree with me here, it's not really a Carnivore Vs Herbivore question when it comes down to health, if a particular person is watching their diet, exercising regularly, and not stuffing all manner of reactive molecules into their system, then whether or not their diet contains animals is irrelevant.I agree, but the reason I pointed it out is because "It's been estimated that the average person in this country eats two - six times more protein, usually from animals, than is needed for good nutrition." So, clearly they are getting too much.True, but that is also irrelevant, people's choices are their own, if you eat too much then that's just tough....Just think of how many people could have been fed with 39825 pounds of food if those farms were used to produce crops for people.Herein is the dilemma, the food that ruminants should be eating is grass/hay depending on season, this is nutritiously unusable by non-ruminant animals, it is also an abundant carbon source, requiring very little in the way of human intervention, (spread some silage etc) cows convert the usable energy and proteins in the grass into meat and milk and other things such as leather, and biomolecules used in research and assay analysis. These are unavailable to us in the grass, but readily available in the cow via the beautiful food web that we've engineered for ourselves.At least 50% of our crops are used to feed livestock. Remember that just one cow eats 39825 lbs of food in its lifetime. That's a lot of farmland just for one animalAlso cows are not picky consumers, humans are, vegetable growers frequently reject specimens that do not fit what the consuming masses consider to be the prototype. Foods are grown based on class, class A and B foods are usually sent for direct consumption and processing respectively, anything else is used on livestock and for industrial processes.They found that a non-vegetarian diet consumed 2.9 times more water, 2.5 times more primary energy, 13 times more fertilizer, and 1.4 times more pesticide than a vegetarian diet.That is non-vegetarian, not exclusively carnivorous, that is the difference. Are we taking into account dairy and egg consumption as well? Both of these carry their own carbon footprint (and massive degree of animal suffering) but are consumed by vegetarians, but not vegans are they considered to be part of it as well?Vegetarians are a minority population, whose needs are minimal in comparison to the rest of us, this is why their needs have less environmental impact.Producing the amount of calories needed from vegetable sources alone would increase their carbon footprint massively, as I've pointed out before.Think about it this way, if you need that much vegetable and fruit matter, then you are going to need to import it, this will give big vegetable companies more power, those that are responsible for importing will become powerful because they can far undercut domestic industries (leading to the collapse of such), this will lead to far more dubious practices than are currently being employed.The vegetable processing industry will then become bigger as well, leading to more energy use, from canning and freezing and producing ready to eat products as well as others and the storage and transport of these. When it comes to environmental impact, vegetarianism is not a better alternative as long as it stays a minority practice.Unfortunately, there is no perfect system for food production, but the research clearly shows that the damage done by raising animals for food is much worse than growing plants.No, there is no perfect system, with this I agree. The research can not predict the future though and as I've pointed out it would be just the same if there was a higher reliance on vegetables.You missed the point. I listed those people to show that it is possible to be a vegetarian and be healthy.I totally agree that it's possible to be a vegetarian and healthy, but it does take a lot more planning and work on an individual level, for no real extra benefit.Remember, the topic of this debate is "Is Vegetarianism foolish?" I think I've provided sufficient evidence to show that it is not foolish. It may not be for everyone, but it is certainly not foolish.I do agree, but the debate has two clear cut sides which are designed to pin Vegetarians against the Omnivorious, and your line of reasoning was that it was not foolish because it was healthier/better for the evironment e.t.c. I was merely highlighting that it wasn't as clear cut as you seem to believe it to be.As you have concluded, so will II don't believe that vegetarianism is foolish per se, you used to be able to tag your arguments differently so as to display your stance but we lost that function. There is a lot of sense to looking after your health, and as I've stated above a lot of vegetarians do, but to think that eating meat is that bad is foolish in itself.The production of cheap meat is a despicable practice, and comes with it a heavy price tag via resources and environmental impact, it is more the choice of source rather than the eating of meat itself that is unethical. Relatively cheap vegetables and fruits can be grown domestically, but meat is not so cheap, this is mostly due to demand, were the demand to shift in the other direction, I'm sure that we'd have the same issue with vegetables. If everyone stopped smoking, drinking, taking drugs, getting stressed, and consuming fast foods and actually took up regular exercise then you'd have a far more interesting bunch of data with which argue this stuff.