In Reply to: Too many errors all around. No one knows for sure. posted by Hawkinson M.D. on December 01, 1996 at 11:09:49:
> > * Cows (of the variety purely bred for slaughter) would indeed
> > become useless, and could not survive on their own in the 'wild',
> > they would be wiped out by other creatures.
> > Solution: we just let them die out naturally and without cruelty
> > by preventing them from reproducing. This wouldn't take long,
> > I mean a cow's lifespan isn't exactly centuries is it ?> 1) Most cattle breeds are breed for meat and dairy. Preventing
> them from breeding and causing them to become extinct sounds
> horrible and definitely inhumane.Er, alright, point conceded. Perhaps McSpotlight's assessment is more realistic.
> > * You seem to be unaware of the fact that energy transfer from plants
> > to humans via beef (cows eat grass, people eat cows) is very inefficient.
> > This means that the amount of land required to feed one person eating
> > a meat-based diet could feed at least SIX people eating a vegetarian diet.
> > So humans would actually have MORE room to live if we all ate vegetables.> 2) YOu err somewhat, but it could turn into semantics. While the USA does
> have obesity, heart, digestive health problems .. these are much more commonly
> caused by abusing high fat snacks (potato & corn chips, nuts, cheese puffs) and
> large consumptions of process sugars (candy, pastries, soda, etc, alcohol (beer
> and wine). tobacco consumption.. etc.... The majority of athletes, laborers,
> medical professionals eat meat wisely and avoid nasty snacks. It is the countries
> where vegetarianism is a majority where we find large numbers of malnutrition cases
> which I volunteer my time to get out vitamin and mineral supplements to prevent
> related illnesses.AAARGH! How can you be so simplistic?! The fact that many people are malnourished in countries where there is a high level of vegetarianism (India etc.) is completely uncocnnected! They're malnourished because they're poor, not because they eat vegetables! If they ate meat they'd probably be _poorer_, because meat costs so much due to its high-input, low-output energy transfer.
None.