Talk:Vegetarianism/Archive 3

message: It is very noble to avoid meat as a sign of respect for life. I have been seriously considering becoming a vegetarian for this reason, but my question is: don't vegetables also have life? Don't we kill them as well for food? Does the fact that they don't bleed or cry in pain make their lives inferior? Looks like we indeed need to take life to have life after all. I was going to edit the main article to include this, but I'm not sure what's the best way to do so.
F15x28 01:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  If motivation for vegetarianism is not to kill... 

message: This section is dreadful. There is a lot of unsourced, speculative, pub-argument style stuff about intestine lengths, and it gets worse at the end when the ice age is dragged in. If respectble sources can be used to present this in encyclopedic style, well and good, but I'm tempted to delete most of it. 
There should probably be some discussion of amino acid sources (ie 'complete foods', ones providing all necessary amino acids) and the scarcity of (eg) B12 in strictly plant-based diets. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 16:26, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Physiology section 

message: The term "pesco/pollo vegetarian" is used a few times in the article but never defined.
*Good catch. In the 'Terminology and varieties of vegetarianism' section, there was a link to pesco/pollo, but the displayed text was 'semi-vegetarianism'. I've shuffled the link so that both terms now appear in the text. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 10:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition of pesco/pollo vegetarian. 

message: I reverted changes made to keep the page correct and concordant with veganism. A vegan is one who abstains from (or attempts to) all animal products. Mostlyharmless 04:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition of a Vegan

message: It would be really nice to do a section of "becoming a vegetarian" that has further information on what steps and cautions to take and links to places like "The vegetarians resource group" www.vrg.org. I'm new to the wikipedia editing process, I know there's a special sign for requesting an expansion to the article, but I don't know how to pu it. JunCTionS 22:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Becoming a vegetarian 

message: It seems to me that there were possibly some inconsistent edits in this section:  For example, there are three subsections, but it looks like the opening and summarizing sentence was written when there might have been four?  Anyway, I'll let people who have had a hand in editing this figure out what to do about it... and if for some reason it was intentionally done this way, my apologies.   --Deville 01:20, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  About section entitled criticism 

message: :As far as often cited, the metaphor is not really convincing, the kid has no "instinctive" means to kill the rabbit, whereas the cat does. The example should be something along the lines of: if a kid is given an apple and a dead rabbit he will probably eat the apple. But that's not neccesarily so.
Citation? --Mgreenbe 02:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  OR contention of metaphor 

message: Vegitarian is currently a redirect to this article. Since that does not seem to be the correct spelling, and nothing links there, I wonder whether we should have the link removed. - Samsara contrib talk 21:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: People that misspelt Vegetarian in the Wikipedia search box would not be redirected to the correct article.  However, since this is only one of several potential misspellings of the word, I see no real use for the redirection.  Andkaha(talk) 22:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Andkaha is right as to its purpose, and it really doesn't hurt to have the redirect. moink 22:17, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vegitarian spelling? 

message: Twice now, I have tried to include the following information:
"60% of American vegetarians eat meat ", 
and twice, my edit has been reverted.  It is an important issue that such a large proportion of residents of such a populous English-speaking nation have such a skewed notion of vegetarianism to think that a vegetarian diet includes meat.  Why can this information not be presented here? 
My last edit was reverted with the comment "The article states that subjects were possibly not sure of the definition of "vegetarian"." - but that is the entire point.  How can you come up with poll figures for the number of vegetarians in a country, as presented above, if you can't trust the pollees to answer the question accurately?  You might as well go around the country asking people if they are "quirkafleegs".  
How do my detractors propose that we proceed on this issue?  I wish to record, within the appropriate section on this article, the widespread confusion over the definition of "vegetarian" in the USA.  The article reports that out of a group who self-identify as vegetarians, 23% seem to be pollo-pesco vegetarians, and 37% carno vegetarians (aka idiots). PRB 17:44, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi PRB.  The only conclusion that I can see in that paragraph of the article is that there is considerable confusion amongst some Americans what the term "vegetarian" means.  Nothing more, nothing less.  So, I would not reject  a statement saying In a survey carried out in the US, 6600 people out of 11000 who consider themselves vegetarians answered 'yes' to the question whether they had eaten meat, poultry, or seafood recently.  This shows that the definition of "vegetarian" is not clear with many Americans.  You can not say that 60% of US vegetarians eat meat, because that would be making the same mistake (not knowing what "vegetarian" means).  That's my humble opinion. --- Andkaha(talk) 22:48, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The point is, that this entry states that Vegetarianism in America is "usually synonymous with" lacto-ovo vegetarianism, but if 60%(== a majority) of Americans who self-identify as vegetarians are at least pesco-pollo, and that over half of that 60% are carno-vegetarians, how can vegetarian refer to lacto-ovo in the US? Note that this statistic just includes self-identifying vegetarians, what about those who do not call themselves vegetarian, how widespread is the confusion there? This section gives useful information to vegetarian travellers, such as getting tuna as part of a vegetarian meal in spain. If I go to America, I want to know that vegetarian food is at risk of having meat in it, so that I can take measures to avoid it. Also, the meaning of words is in the hands of the users, not lexicographers, and the meanings of words differ in different varieties of English. I know that in my English-speaking country, vegetarian normally means lacto-ovo. It is important to know that that is not the case in all varieties, and that in the US, vegetarianism is synonymous with quirkafleeg. PRB 11:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hesitate to call 6600 people "the majority of US vegetarians".  I also wonder how many of these people work with food, because it's only by looking at US restaurants and their menus and ingredients that you can answer the travel-related question your're posing.  Since you're pointing out that there might be different interpretations of the word "vegetarian" in different english-speaking countries, you should not say "60% of US vegetarians eat meat".  Why?  Well, let's say it's perfectly ok for a American vegetarian to eat meat, so what's the fuss about?  You're in the wrong frame of reference so to speak.  On the other hand, if this is because of ignorance, then they aren't really vegetarians at all, and so what's the fuss about again?  This is why I said that the only thing you really can say is that there is some confusion amongst the general US population on this subject. --- Andkaha(talk) 13:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I disagree.  It is perfectly normal for an American man to go to work wearing a vest between his shirt and his jacket, suspenders, and a derby on his head.  If an Englishman did it, people would think him rather odd (in fact, the last item would be impossible).  The important part is that if I declare myself a vegetarian to an Englishman, he will assume lacto-ovo. From the article cited, it would appear that my declaration would be most likey interpreted as pesco-pollo (or maybe even carno) by an American.PRB 17:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  US Definition Vegetarian 

message: Vegetarianism is the practice of not eating meat, including beef, poultry, fish, or their by-products, ... 
Please bear in mind that culinarily speaking, meat does not, technically, include fish (please note the lack of fish in the meat article).  Of course, biologically, fish are members of the kingdom Animalia.  Also, I am not saying that vegetarianism includes eating fish (except for pesco-), but rather that, from the culinary point of view, this sentence (or a variation) might be better:
Vegetarianism is the practice of not eating meat or fish, including beef, poultry, or their by-products, ... 
or perhaps
Vegetarianism is the practice of not eating the flesh of animals, including beef, poultry, fish or their by-products, ... 
Or is "flesh" considered a loaded term?
Also, I guess the question comes down to a biologically oriented wording versus a culinarily oriented one.  
Just some thoughts...
-- tilthouse 21:56, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: According to OED, the primary meaning of meat is "the flesh of an animal as food", and the primary meaning of animal is "a living organism which feeds on organic matter, has specialized sense organs and nervous system, and is able to move about and to respond rapidly to stimuli"  so, meat is "the flesh of a living organism which feeds on organic matter, has specialized sense organs and nervous system, and is able to move about and to respond rapidly to stimuli".  I don't really see how this definition "technically" excludes fish.  I have seen fish "feeding on organic matter", "respond rapidly ro stimuli", and seen diagrams of the "specialized sense organs and nervous system" of some fish (although I haven't seen them in real life). PRB 11:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

text: As a vegetarian, I see meat as being that which sticks to the bones of living beings, not as food.  Therefore, I'm quite happy with the current wording. --- Andkaha(talk) 23:01, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fish 

message: I have recently done a major rewrite of the Ethics of eating meat article. I have tried to balance it's POV as well as perform a major reformatting. Since there are few editors on that article I have not gotten any feedback. I was wondering if people here could look at what I have done and comment on it. I have opened a Request for peer review for this article, please post comments there as I will not be watching this talk page. HighInBC 14:22, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding the [[Ethics of eating meat]] article (request for peer review) 

message: Is this actually a reliable source for aurgument? The article is compeling, but also sourceless. The author himself is not an expert. --Mark 2000 02:07, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The Straight Dope

message: I removed this sentence from the Fruitarianism section, as no source was forthcoming. Namely, who makes the 'malnutrition' charge. Pls provide a source before re-including.
It is disputed whether it is possible to avoid malnutrition with a fruitarian diet, which is rarer than other types of vegetarian or vegan diet.
Ashmoo 04:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fruitarianism/malnutrition

message: Lately, I have been avoiding the consumption of pigs and cephalopods, since they seem to be as smart as dogs and cats. Also, I do not eat lobster, since they are usually 30 years old by the time they are ready for the plate. Is there a term for people that do not eat animals that they (admitedly arbitrarily) consider to be intelligent or that have lived too long of a life to be killed for one person's meal?  youngamerican (talk) 15:00, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know of any label for your diet choice, but I'm glad to hear you don't eat cephalopods. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 19:42, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I doubt there is, as I doubt a term could clearly tell what you do or do not eat, since as you said your reasons not to eat certain beings is somewhat arbitrary. Your diet is a bit too specific I think, but then again we have a term for someone who eats chickens or fish but no other meat. --A Sunshade Lust 23:51, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, I'm not sure of the term for one who doesn't eat lobsters, but I don't eat bittergourds and call myself a picky eater. :D -- Dodo bird 16:05, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I might be a stupido-youthivegetarian, as I only eat young and/or dumb animals.  youngamerican (talk) 14:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another label? 

message: Some anonymous IP seems determined to place this under the mainstream veg section although all other sorts of pseudo-vegetarianism such as pollo etc. are listed under the section I moved it to. If you disagree with that assessment please discuss. --Mig77 15:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lacto-ovo-pesco vegetarianism 

message: I thought I should explain myself, as I recently removed some content.
Buddhism was and is based on vegetarianism and originated from that very concept - a quick search of the Buddhism article reveals 0 mention of the word "vegetarian" or any iteration thereof. If indeed this claim is true (the Buddha did abstain from eating meat after his enlightenment, I believe), then it should be sourced. From what I know of Buddhism, I am fairly sure this claim is false; it would be more accurate to say that Buddhism sprang forth from, let's say, Siddhartha's transition into enlightenment.
On to the less controversial (perhaps) revert: (It's like saying I had some vegetables today with my beef, hence I am half vegetarian. Vegetarianism is the EXCLUSION OF MEAT, not the consumption of vegetables) - a cogent point to be sure, but it has been made adequately in other parts of the article, and would need to be written in a more encyclopedic manner in order to meet the standards of the article, at any rate. I hope that this explanation is sufficient, and that all parties involved can at least glean my reasoning for the reversions I made. Burndownthedisco talk 21:53, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recently removed content 

message: I have a problem with this sentence "For example, Inuits whose completely non-vegetable based diet consists of only seal meat and fish have one of the lowest life expectancies on Earth" from the above section.
First of all the traditional diet consisted of seal, fish, caribou and birds (in season) plus depending on where they lived may have included bear, moose, walrus, muskox, plants and berries.
However, the main problem is the assumptions made by both the Atkins people and the EnergyGrid people in the reference given here. They both use the Inuit diet to put forward their claims without taking into account any other factors. Take a look at Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami backgrounder and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami specific. In the second one scroll down to the "Health" section and notice that tuberculosis is 17 times higher than southern Canada. In the first one note the suicide rate, the smoking rate and the overcrowded housing. All these will contribute to the lower life expectancy among Inuit, something that both Atkins and EnergyGrid overlook.
Also both of the groups are talking about the traditional diet and not the current Inuit diet which consists of vast amounts of pop, chocolate and all the junk food that you could imagine. There are very few Inuit (if any) that live totaly on a traditional diet. A fact also pointed out in the backgrounder link near the bottom in the sction called "Prevention and Promotion". 
Please don't take this as an attack on Vegetarianism but just on the one sentence, which is why I didn't add a disputed tag. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 07:18, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Physiological

message: I think the mention of fruitarianism in the opening sentence is a bad idea because it makes it sound like fruitarianism follows on logically from vegetarianism or is strongly associated with it, which isn't really the case. Additionally, fruitarianism is very rare compared to vegetarianism. ----
:Agreed that fruititarianism gets more than its fair share of coverage in the body, the intro is not the place for this. --Mig77 13:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fruitarian mention 

message: Under 'Vegetarians and longetivity' it seems that the article says that there si no correlation between those two factors. Because, studies have proven that vegetarians need to work very hard to maintain healthy, I don't think the article shoudld only cite sources taht say vegetarians are healthier. Mishy dishy 11:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok. Feel free to insert your sources. Ashmoo 03:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

text: The AMA is the American Medical Association, and the article cites independent researchers, feel free to deep link to those specific references. No you may not add a link to your spam site selling books on autointoxication (as you have attempted before), however there is are articles on Toxemia and Natural Hygiene which may interest you. --Mig77(t) 06:47, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Critism section isn't critizing 

message: The Islam section while interesting is just a collection of quotes from a non-notable sources and doesn't represent the vast majority of Muslim thought. I think it should either be removed entirely or pared right down to a summary. Ashmoo 03:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Just add a line stating that it is not a majority view. This article is about vegetarianism, not Islam. Thus arguments that may be used by a Muslim vegetarian deserve space. --Mig77 07:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps this Islam section should be moved into Vegetarianism_and_religion and just a summary paragraph added to the Relegion section? --Mig77 07:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Islam

message: Mdbrownmsw 16:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Don't state beliefs as facts 

message: Mdbrownmsw 18:45, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is very important to mention this as children are more likely to be vegetarian (fussy eaters explaination, sorry no cite). --Mig77 11:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I like this. I'm afraid I was not brave enough to go all that way. Unfortunately we are dealing with very small numbers, and very big variances. It would be great if sombody did a big study with a high n to get the figures more accurate, or the study was replicated more frequently. I agree with you 100% on the stats. However I do believe in this domain (social sciences) the extrapolation of a trend is not as far-fetched as you put forward. These are 4 seperate randomised observations so each one helps to reduce the likelyhood that we are seeing outlier. Unforunately the comparison is across two different data-collection methods and question sets. This could mean that the two methods have wildly different accuracies, or they statistical anomolies, or that the trend could be up (or any combination). Your theoretical roots are excellent, and refreshing. However realise the interpretation of statistics, is still subjective. Can we at least agree that the repeat values across each study add credibility to the reliability of each method, and make your "doomsday" scenarios less likely? And the two pairs do indicate stablility over both periods, although they also indicate possible problems with the measurement tool. Ok, I give up, the two methods are probably too different to be comparable, thus trying to trend the two proxies is probably pointless. People are interested in knowing about the trends, so perhaps we should have a little sentence in there saying that the data is not good enough for this, and a "simple" explanation why you cant just look at the raw numbers. (P.S. "Truman" = bad analogy - counting votes is a tally of a population, it is NOT a sampling.) --Mig77 11:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your comments. The "Dewey Defeats Truman" was meant to refer to the incorrect newspaper headline run based on a survey  that predicted Dewey would win in a landslide. Unfortunatly, it was done by phone, so the results heavily over-represented wealthier voters and predicted an outcome quite contrary to the election. You would think the photo of the victorious Truman holding the morning paper saying he lost would give pause to media reports that make their surveys seem airtight...  Mdbrownmsw 14:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statistics 

message: I'm considering adding a section on food stores that sell exclusively vegetarian items. What does everybody think? --KajuPista 08:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would prefer to see a link to an article list in the appropriate section (such as cuisine or see also); something like List of vegetarian companies.  You want to peruse lists of companies to see similar lists. —Viriditas | Talk 08:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Exclusive vegetarian food stores

message: the 'countries' section looks incomplete and currently in a large part looks uneven and generally half-written. It also includes funny parts like "In Germany raw sources for vegeterian food is easy to be bought" like it's hard in any developed and semi-developed country in the world for that to happen and also the French and Spain sections read like "it's evil there, don't go, elsewhere you can at least buy raw sources from local retailers".
Anyway:p I'm currently translating the whole thing for another wikipedia and thought of saying something. --fs 02:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tourist guide for restaurants 

message: Hello, my name is Shawn and I'm from Wikipedia's Project Beer.  Currently our project group is discussing adding some type of identification to beers that are Vegetarian/Vegan friendly (see our discussion page).  Turns out quite a few brews use an ingredient called "Isinglass," but fail to put any kind of notice/warning on the beer since FDA rules differ for beer than they do for normal food.  We're really looking for a logo or something simple, but any suggestions would be welcomed. --Brownings 15:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Vegetarian/Vegan Logo

message: This section is utterly atrocious.  Badly written and largely uncited, weak arguments based on conjecture and inappropriate analogies (ie you clearly can't compare a human with carnivores/scavengers as we are undeniably neither)... and who cares what Douglas Dunn thinks?  He's a poet for pity's sake!  What authority does his opinion carry?  And as for the counter-arguments - they're just as flimsy and lacking in sources, when not being outright flippant.  This whole section needs a) a rewrite, or if no suitable sources are available b) removing, until such time someone can come up with the goods.  Beeromatic 16:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Psychological Reasons section

message: Removed the following until sources are cited:
Iolakana|T 19:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources