In regards to eating meat

[yossarian]

I was vegan for several years and eating basically took over my life. It took a ton of money, a ton of time, loads of hassle, caused all kinds of inconveniences. It was a major pain in the ass, and in the end I'm not really even sure if it was healthier because

1. there is a lot of scientific controversy

2. it's really easy to eat poorly on a vegetarian diet. Any vegetarian who has overdosed on synthetic soy burgers can attest.

I switched back to meat-eating so I could rejoin normal society. Eating became far less of an issue. Part of this is that I decided that the veggie burger, while being humane, is really not healthy. It's packed full of preservatives and bad carbs and so on. All the synthetic vegan food does not seem healthy to me and a vegan who sticks mainly to that won't be in the best physical shape. It's a bunch of really bad carbs, and in the case of soy products you also get doses of estrogen which is terrible for men at least.

In comparison, it's pretty easy to get high quality organic meat now, and since meat has a higher nutrient density it's easy to get all your nutrition. Less chewing, less food prep, etc.

I gained compassion for veggies because I was one. It's ridiculous the amount of people who want to pick fights with you. Just the simple fact of not eating some product--like leaving it to the side of your plate--will start fights. People will notice. I remember this one guy found out I was a veggie through this method and from then on, for as long as I knew him, he would bring it up constantly whenever I saw him.

He would say stuff like, "So you must think you're so much better than the rest of us huh?"

and I'd be like, "...What?"

and he's like, "cause you're vegetarian."

After like a year of this my response was just, "Oh that again. Yeah pretty much. I guess so."

Anyway I have compassion for the veggies and I also have a lot of sympathy. It's a tough life. It's a huge pain in the ass. It's very easy to do it wrong and to be unhealthy on it. Not because I think it's impossible to do right, but rather because society makes it so very difficult.

The average person who eats an average diet can easily end up more healthy than a vegan who eats a poor diet. There are vegans who eat potato chips and french fries everyday. They are ruining their body.

I really did feel uniquely amazing on my raw food vegan diet mostly consisting of fruit. But it was incredibly expensive, took a hell of a lot of shopping, and I had to swallow massive quantities of smoothie everyday. It also put me out of sync with one of the most fundamental human bonding rituals--dinner.

I eat 2/3rds of my meals with other people now and the smoothie thing would massively interfere with this. In addition, staying on that diet was incredibly challenging because I was up against a lifetime of limbic system programming that told me to crave carbs.

I really hope that society will evolve some collective means of eating healthier. I hope that my next life there will just be fruit smoothies sitting around everywhere for people to eat or something.

Ultimately I found that being normal saved me of a lot of hassles and I had to prioritize this. I also found it takes about 10X less effort to be healthy on a meat diet than on a veggie diet. It's so easy to miss something important on a veggie diet. I need my testosterone and omega-3s and protein. On a vegan diet, getting this is a pain in the ass. On a meat diet society has ensured that I pretty much get all this automatically. Note that I don't live in a fast food town like the Southern USA where there is a fast food shop on every corner. I don't know anyone who considers fast food an OK thing to do, which apparently is different in the states. The meat I eat comes from whole foods and other organic stores.

There's also the factor that these days I often don't cook for myself.

If I had a personal chef who handled all my cooking and did it just as I wanted I might try to go back for the morality of it all. I really do think it sucks that so many animals are killed, even the organic ones. If it is actually possible to reach the same level of health on a veg diet then I will be pleased and happy to adopt it when it becomes the norm. As of right now though I am just deciding to trust medical consensus, trust my family, and not adopt such extreme lifestyles in general. I want to be part of humanity even if humanity is less evolved.

---

I basically would like you to tell the class that you think you are better than everyone because you don't eat meat.

I am better. Better than i was. Better off than many of, if not most of the meat eaters that i know personally. I don't deal with the aches and pains they complain of. I don't get sick. I dont have huge weight fluctuations from spontaneous diet changes thinking that something different will help "change" the current issues.

This does not apply to "all" of course. There are those with "better" templates that deal with damage better and faster. But they are still limited in how long they can go. Atkins is a good example.

There is no shortage of fat, unhealthy vegans. There's nothing good about non-fruit/veg carbs. Your typical person who switches to veggism drops their meat products and eats three times as many unhealthy carbs--this is a backwards step healthwise.

To me it seems obvious that meat is healthier than grains and starches and bad carbs like that. Eating cornmeal and soy for breakfast lunch and dinner is terrible for your body and will make most people fat.